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#for anita's sake mainly
shxtdisturber · 1 year
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Rules and About || Mobile Friendly
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Hi, I’m Skull!
I haven’t touched an rp blog in about 4 years, so I’m a little rusty. But Jan was always a favorite muse of mine, and, lately, I just haven’t been able to shake him. So, I figured I'd try my hand at RPing once more. But some things to know about me;
I’m currently 25 years old
Pronouns: They/Them 
I was an active RPer from 2013 to 2018, my character of choice mainly being Jan Valentine.
The main reason I stopped rping originally? I kept getting deployed on the ocean (can't maintain an account on a boat), and then I got stationed at a hospital where I aided in the treatment of Covid-19 patients. I still love writing, I always have; I just got really busy.
Rules and Boundaries
No Nazi shit - Yes, I’m aware of Hellsing canon. No, I don't want to write about the Nazis, WWII, or the Holocaust. I don't have any intention of making light of those subjects by using them as a plot point for our silly thread.
Triggers - I don’t have any. This, first and foremost, is a Hellsing RP Blog, and, if I’m being honest, there’s very little I’m not willing to write (those exceptions being nazism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and pedophilia). With that being said, I tag basic triggers as #cw, #[trigger], and #tw [trigger]. If there's a certain type of post that you want to be tagged, please let me know.
Have Patience - Unmedicated ADHD is my greatest weakness, and I have a relatively busy home life. I promise I’m not ignoring you or our thread. I’m doing my best to stay on task, and that proves to be difficult more often than not. This isn’t, in any way, a reflection of how I feel about you or how excited I am to write with you; I just have a hyperactive squirrel on crack for a brain.
Shipping - I’m open to shipping with chemistry. If you’re feeling our characters might have some kind of chemistry going, let me know because, more than likely, I do too! I don't ship with underage characters and never will; no exceptions.
NSFW Content - I’ll be honest, I’m all for violence, but as far as smut goes? I’m not sure. Jan is a maybe, but Anita is the only character where NSFW is a hard no. All NSFW Content will be tagged as #NSFW.
Canon - As far as Hellsing Canon goes, I’m not that concerned with it. Anita is completely independent of the Hellsing Canon (or any canon for that matter) anyways.
Personalities - For everyone's sake, I toned down Jan's personality by... a lot because, let's be honest, interacting with an abusive jackass is about as fun as gouging your eyes out with a plastic spoon; it gets stale after a while, and it's likely to piss someone off one way or another. This doesn't mean he's a big softie- he's still predominantly evil, still an asshole/shit disturber, but less... like his canon counterpart.
A Hard No - Please do not write a scene where either one of my characters is sexually harassing/assaulting one of yours. The first time, I’ll politely decline the thread and we can work on something else, but the second time will result in a hard block. 
No Tolerance - I don't care what we're writing, I absolutely won't tolerate slurs in or out of character. I don't care if you've reclaimed it, I don't care if your friend said it's okay, I don't care if you're personally okay with them- I don't want them in my inbox, DM's, threads, or anywhere near me. Same as before, I'll only tell you once and the next offense is going to result in a hard block.
Mind Reading - Unfortunately, I was not blessed with the gift of telepathy, and probably never will… probably. But, in the meantime, if there are any issues: you don’t like a reply I gave, I said something off-color or problematic, posted something untagged that squicks or triggers you, etc - Just let me know. I’ll apologize and do my best to correct the behavior. 
18+ Only - Regardless of what I’m writing, I’ll only interact with muns who are 18 and older. I don’t have anything against teens who want to rp (I mean, I started rping when I was 15), but, as someone who’s 8 years older than someone who’s 17 on top of the fact that I’ve worked with kids/teens in the past… I don’t feel comfortable with that. There are no exceptions to this rule. If I find out that you’ve lied about your age, that will result in an immediate block.
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daisycalhoun · 1 year
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excuse me did you see CARTIA MALLAN hanging around palmwood studios? oh no, that was DAISY CALHOUN, the TWENTY FOUR year old ACTRESS who plays JANE HOLLY on RUMOR WOMAN. yeah, you know rumour has it they're - IMPRUDENT and - VENGEFUL, but their fans all say they’re + CHARMING and + RESILLIENT. around palmwood studios they’re known as THE SIREN. ( FEMALE, SHE/HER)
filmography; jennifer’s body (2019) - anita “needy” lesnicky, coyote ugly (2021) - violet sanford, aquamarine (2023) - aquamarine, rumor women - jane holly
the golden girl with a point to prove. the youngest of four children and the only girl to a single dad, daisy blue calhoun was the apple of her daddy’s eye. she was a good kid, that’s what all her teachers said, but she had bigger ideas than she was prepared for. headstrong and stubborn, daisy argued blank from a young age that all she would ever do was act and be famous. community theatre was her best friend growing up, in between shitty waitressing jobs to bring home her share of the money.  the problem with daisy was that she was stubborn, and when she decided to something, she’d do it no matter how badly it hurt. after finishing high school, daisy took her dads pickup and whatever money he’d saved for her college fund and high tailed it to LA, desperate to make something work.  don’t be fooled, it wasn’t easy, and after renting an apartment, paying for headshots and an agent, daisy quickly had to pick up more shitty waitressing jobs. her first three years of auditions came back unsuccessful, and her restaurant job wasn’t paying any better. twenty years old and stuck in LA, daisy prepared to pack up and go back to georgia with her tail between her legs. daisy was charming, however, and had been able to get whatever she wanted from her dad and brothers with some clever words and doe eyes. she could do this. she quit her job at a diner for a higher class, more expensive restaurant, and her plan quickly worked. from chatting away and flirting, she secured herself an audition for jennifer’s body, and to her surprise, she made the cut.  riding on the success of her first role, daisy decided to try steering away from horror, knocking her comfort zone in her audition for coyote ugly, her first lead role. to her surprise, the movie skyrocketed and suddenly, she was thrust into the limelight, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks a household name, especially after signing her contract with palmwood.
personality; daisy is basking in the feeling of hollywood, a fun loving and bubbly girl. she’s kind and down to earth, not that far removed from a life she only dreams of now. she’s charming and witty, captivating her audiences. she knows she’s good looking, has her whole adulthood and has used it to her advantage too. she can be manipulative and selfish, but only because of her desperation to hold onto what she has. she’s promiscuous and provocative and completely not shy about her flirtations, pretending she’s a tough nut to crack and never falling in love. she’s irrational and stubborn, no regard for her safety at times. she’s vengeful and spiteful and petty, holding a grudge against those who’ve wronged her and enacting petty revenges, mainly for the sake of her pride.
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thebiasrekkers · 2 years
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Star of Fate [Vampire!VIXX]
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Plot: The longer you stare into darkness, the more  you realize that something could be staring back. Even more so when that  darkness doesn’t want to be brought into the light and will do anything  to stay that way.
Rating: NC-17 // NSFW
Genre: Series | Vampire!AU | Angst | Romance/Fluff | Smut
Pairings: OT6 VIXX x OC(s)
Warnings: Graphic Violence (bloody violence), Heavy Language, Angst, Slow Burn, Smut
Additional Warnings: Alcohol | Stranger Danger
Previous Chapters: Prologue, 2, 3
Links: FAQ || VIXX Masterlist || Admin L’s AO3 || Admin L’s WP || [ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ]
Word Count: 2044
AO3 | WP
Tag List: If you would like to be added to this list, just drop us an ask!
AN: Since I’ve been gone a while, I’m gonna try to post once a week with this!
Chapter 4- Hands Up
Don't stop, let's enjoy tonight And forget all the thoughts That come to mind
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Laoise shook her head at the scene before her. One of her best friends had been sitting on the floor in just a large tee and underwear as she stubbornly tried to fix the mess she had made. She knew that with her being home so much now, it was going to drive her crazy without something productive to do. So she watched as Lucky spiraled into unfinished projects and hair pulling as she sent out mass emails about jobs. Eventually, the detective decided to put matters into her own hands. 
“Leonora Anita Grant. I want you to take a shower, do your hair and put on some clothes because I’m taking your ass out.”
She gaped up at the taller woman, paint all over her face as she tried for a rebuttal but Laoise wouldn’t have it. It was one thing to try and stay busy while playing the waiting game but another entirely when the whole thing stressed everyone out. 
“I don’t want to hear it. You get your lucky little ass in there or I’m going to throw you into the shower.”
“At least take me to a place where I can get a decent burger!” Lucky relented, laying out her terms of the outing. 
Laoise smiled, dark eyes twinkling as she thought of the perfect counteroffer. Lucky looked up at her with her light colored eyes wide and the most expressive pout on her face. She leaned over to whisper to the woman on the floor as if she was divulging some sort of secret that would get her killed.
“I’ve got one better, sug. There’s a street food vendor near the bar where I wanna take you and they have the best tacos.”
She’d never seen Lucky move that fast in the years that she’d known her. That thought did lead her to reminisce about how long they’d known each other. They met some time ago at a bookstore where she witnessed Lucky nearly kill herself by trying to get some of the top shelf books. When she stepped in to help, she realized what books she was trying to get. They chatted for quite a while about practicing magic and how it related to their world. Of course, she never quite told her why she was so interested in that subject--only that she had experience. 
From there, they got along fairly well. They both came from similar regions, missing their hometowns and even helping each other get settled in their places. Granted, they worked too damn much sometimes but they at least made time to get together every once in a while. Her job as a detective had definitely taken up the majority of her time while Lucky’s had just been demanding for fuck’s sake. However, they both needed the outing more than anyone and as a way to recharge, they were going to get drunk and get tacos. 
Laoise sat on the couch, listening to the shower as she waited. It wouldn’t take too long for her to get ready but it was long enough for her to pull out her phone and answer some late-night emails that were sent out. Mainly things that they needed to touch base on and leads that some of them had for different cases. Her own personal case was something of a challenge for a number of reasons. She was a woman and a person of color in the police force. Some of the gangs that had taken root in the city even laughed at her--until she knocked some out of them. She just wanted answers and those answers led her to that city.
Where she was fortunate to meet her best friend. 
“That must be an important piece of work.”
Laoise blinked and realized that Lucky was standing before her, dressed and ready to go. She had opted for something simple and stylish, braiding her hair back to create one lethal thick whip. When she did her hair like that, Laoise almost cringed as she remembered being hit with it by accident. Since then, she made strides to not have that happen again. She never really did pry into the reasoning why Lucky kept her hair so long but the longer their friendship went on, she found herself wondering more and more. 
“So, are we heading out or can I just get tacos?”
“Get out of the door, missy.” She pointed at the door, laughing along with her. 
The ride wasn’t too far, even on the hog that she owned. The hog was a Can Am Spyder F3, large and in charge just like her. The beast she had saved up for was well worth the price and she treated it just like her baby. Everyone at her precinct knew when she was there because the bike would just barely fit into the motorcycle parking but would be shocked at how quiet the motor was. Plus she also had a look for anyone who would try and rib her about the beast. She ran circles around the cops on cycles and there were no shortage of people who wanted to test her on that. Everyone turned to look at them both when they dismounted, hardly believing that two women just blazed right in there on a motorcycle. Laoise loved that feeling, the disbelief of a tall black woman getting off the bike. It stroked her ego just ever so slightly. 
The Tipsy Dog had some good reviews, even from her Sergent so she decided to give the place a try. She stalked up to the bar while Lucky found them a place to sit. The large building had a lot of seating but the majority of the people were moving around to the beat of the music. She moved around easily around the bodies to deliver the brightly colored drinks to her friend who had chosen to get out of the way of the people. 
Lucky gave her a confused look when she set the drink down in front of her. Laoise laughed at her and gestured for her to take the drink while she tipped her own up to her lips. The fruity flavor exploded in her mouth, washing out the taste of alcohol as it went down. They both laughed when they looked at each other a few sips in. They sat back and talked for the majority of their first drink, preferring to relax. The drinks started to flow and they grew more hyped up as the night went along. By the third drink of equally bright colors, they were starting to feel the buzz from the liquor. 
“Get tired of dancing, ladies?”
Both of their heads whipped up to see a couple of guys smiling at them. Laoise would have laughed along with them if it wasn’t for the fact that the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up. They had just sat down from a round of dancing and refreshments when the voice was heard. She could feel her buzz being killed with each syllable that was spoken.
Plus, there was something about them that she didn’t quite trust and she always trusted her instincts. 
“Yeah, it’s gettin’ kind of busy out there anyways.” She responded, hoping that they would just lose interest with her short response. 
However, their grins got even wider as Lucky piped up with her small talk as well. She frowned when they offered to get them more drinks, knowing that she didn’t trust anyone else with bringing her a drink in a crowded nightclub like that. There were too many variables in that situation and she wasn’t about to risk a doping incident--not when there were reports of people going missing in the city. 
“Sorry fellas, but we gotta get going. Early morning shift and all.” She announced, grabbing Lucky and hauling her away. When she looked back, however, she saw that the two guys were standing still where they had left them--the grin etched on their faces but their eyes oddly glowing in the light. Whether or not it was the lighting of the club, Laoise wasn’t having it that night. 
Plus she had promised Lucky tacos.
Leaving her motorcycle parked where it was, they headed down to the taco truck. Like she had said, it wasn’t far from where the club was located and it offered a great riverside view for everyone there. They talked animatedly as they stood in line, waiting for their turn to order a scandalous amount of food. Though the edge from meeting the two strangers had mostly worn off, Laoise couldn’t help but to think back at their eyes. She hoped, since moving there, she had left a part of that life behind her but now her suspicions were rising. Reminders of her own personal case started to make more sense the more she thought about it.
Laoise wasn’t quite sure, but going to the club that night seemed more like providence than anything. Even if it was to relax and unwind from all the crap that had been going on. Or possibly, she was still unnerved by what happened. 
“So, you got any positions there at the Station? I’m a hard worker and awesome at clerical or administrative duties.” Lucky grinned at her once they sat down at one of the tables that had been set up for the evening. 
Laoise pursed her lips and didn’t respond to her, making her friend laugh. If only she could hire her to do all that paperwork that she was constantly saddled with.
The wind started to pick up a bit, blowing over the river that they sat next to as it created a semblance of calm. The twinkling lights from the city and the stars reflected all around them;  people passing by were growing fewer and fewer. They sat there, eating and talking until the taco truck’s lights went out. It was a signal that they were closing up shop for the night. Laoise was sober by that time while Lucky still had a couple more hours to go.
“You know, I think I did have some fun tonight.” Lucky commented as they walked back to Laoise’s motorcycle. 
“Well good. That was the point of the night.” She looked down at Lucky who had her hands on her head as she walked. 
The beast in question was in view and it gave Laoise a moment of relief seeing it. She always worried about someone stealing it but not enough to where she couldn’t track them down. She was, after all, a detective at a precinct. 
“You know what would be more exciting?” She gave Lucky the side eye as they approached the bike, knowing that her friend was about to say something off the wall. “If a handsome man came swooping in and was like I’m here to save you.”
“The fuck? Are we in danger?” Laoise laughed as they reached the bike, bending over to pull out a helmet for Lucky. “I don’t have to flash my badge to scare anyone because I am a 6’1” black woman. Who is going to mess with us?”
“Well…only us, I suppose,” came a voice from behind them. 
Both girls turned around to see the two strangers from earlier, eyes still glowing despite the lack of fluorescent lights around them. Laoise immediately walked in front of Lucky and stared them down but before she could say anything, they spoke again. 
“Yes, we know what business you are in and that doesn’t affect us at all. We have a different set of rules than someone of your caliber, Witch.”
“Lucky, run as far and fast as you can and call my station.” 
She started to protest but saw that Laoise was taking off some of the bandages on her hands. The tone in her voice brooked no argument, a stark contrast to earlier. She wasn’t playing any games and knew how she was going to deal with them while Lucky got away. All she heard was the sharp huff and the sound of her friend running away. She grinned at the pair, drawing herself up to her full height. 
“Now that she’s out of the way, how about we have some real fun, boys?”
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violetwolfraven · 3 years
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Fix You
((Part 2 of Already Home! It’s written to Fix You by Coldplay! Btw it won’t really make sense unless you read Already Home first, so it might be in your best interest to read that before starting this. Enjoy, y’all!))
Tw: non-graphic injuries, the word wh*re, mentioned anti-semitism, implied period-typical homophobia, implied racism—mostly all by one guy but don’t worry they beat him up
...
“Jack?”
“What?”
Sophia looked worried, and Jack sighed, realizing she’d probably said his name multiple times already.
That happened sometimes. He spaced out and lost himself, thinking of home.
Of Crutchie, of Race, of Romeo and Elmer and Specs and Smalls and all the other newsies. Of Katherine and Sarah, Medda and Denton and Kloppman. Even of Spot and the other leaders of other boroughs, for Christ’s sake.
But especially of Davey. Mostly of Davey.
All he’d wanted was to come to Santa Fe to say goodbye to his grandfather. Instead, he’d gotten stuck here for months.
When you try your best but you don’t succeed
It was funny, wasn’t it? How he’d spent his entire childhood dreaming of Santa Fe—being obsessed with it, really, and now wanted nothing more than to get the hell out.
That was what he got for not listening to Davey. For holding on when he shouldn’t have.
Sophia was the one good thing that had come out of this. If Jack hadn’t come out west, he would never have found out he even had an aunt.
And he loved her dearly. She was the kind of good aunt that was okay with her nephew loving another boy and supportive of him wanting to leave her to go back to the city her sister had died in.
But she wasn’t home.
When you get what you want but not what you need
“Dinner’s ready,” she said, “I made your favorite.”
Jack smiled, standing up from where he was sitting on the porch, “Thanks, Aunt Sophia.”
“Well, we have to do something special for tonight, don’t we?” she asked as they went inside, “It’s your last night here.”
Jack nodded. He hoped his smile didn’t look as fake as it felt.
He’d been in Santa Fe for a year.
When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep
It really all felt like a dream, bittersweet and terrible, heartbreaking and lovely. It felt like coming home, to where his roots were, and simultaneously letting his highest branches, the parts that really saw the sun, die.
There was no shortage of sun or moon in Santa Fe. They just weren’t the ones Jack wanted to see.
He wanted to wake up on the rooftop of the Lodging House, where there were fewer stars, a colder sun, and a fainter moon.
After all, if he was on the roof in New York, it would mean that the brightest stars were all downstairs from him, safe in their beds in the forms of a unique, strange family of boys and girls. It would mean the sun was sleeping across from him, his smile below the horizon for the night. It would mean that the moon was either just across the borough, shining over his own brother and sister, or curled up safe in Jack’s arms, his light burning away even the worst of his nightmares.
He hoped they were all still there when he got home.
“I’m going to miss you, Jack,” Sophia admitted.
“I’m going to miss you, too.”
It wasn’t a lie. But Jack’s place was in Manhattan and Sophia’s was in Santa Fe. He didn’t know if he would ever see her again after tomorrow, but he had to believe that she would be alright here by herself.
“Tell that boy of yours ‘hello’ for me,” she said with a smile, “And your mama’s friend, Medda, tell her ‘thank you.’ For being there for Anita when I couldn’t be.”
“I will,” Jack promised.
Stuck in reverse
He would miss his Aunt Sophia, but knowing that he would be going home tomorrow morning, Jack was happy. He felt like he was finally waking up.
He guessed it wasn’t surprising that he couldn’t sleep that night.
Jack was excited to be going home, yes. He was going to miss Sophia, so that was bittersweet. But what he was really worried about was...
What he was really worried about was if his home was going to be there when he got back.
Jack choked on a sob, trying to keep quiet as his thoughts ran rampant.
When the tears come streaming down your face
What if somebody had died over the winter? They’d lost kids to sickness or starvation or cold before. Hell, they’d lost Jack’s mentor—the previous leader of Manhattan—that way.
Jack remembered that terrible day, sobbing so hard that he could barely hear Waffles’s goodbye. He was 14. They’d lost more than a few kids that year, and a good half of them had been under Jack’s watch. Since then, he’d lost a few more across two more winters, and it never got easier.
The only thing worse than watching someone he loved die would be them dying, and Jack not even knowing. Jack not being there for them.
When you lose something you can’t replace
He’d lost a year in Santa Fe. Besides just the fact that he had no idea what terrible things might have happened while he was gone, he had to have missed a lot of little things.
He wondered how much Smalls, Romeo, and the other younger ones had grown. He wondered if Puddles, the latest Little when he left, had started losing baby teeth yet. He wondered if Kath and Sarah had finally sucked it the hell up and admitted their feelings.
Oh, God, and Specs was only a little younger than Jack was. They were the oldests, and they were getting a bit old to be newsies. What if one of Jack’s oldest friends had moved on and he wasn’t there to see it?
Most of all, he was terrified to know, but he wondered if Davey was still waiting for him.
A year was a long time. He wouldn’t blame him for moving on if he had. After a year of nothing, what if Davey had assumed he was dead or never coming home and found someone else?
He’d come to Santa Fe out of love for his mother, because it was something she’d never gotten to do.
And he might have lost everyone he loved because of it.
When you love someone but it goes to waste
He hoped they’d held up alright without him. He just knew Davey would be too dumb to stay away if sickness came through. He would be right in the thick of it.
Sickness could kill you whether you had parents or not.
God, Jack was going to have a panic attack, just thinking about the possibilities of what might be happening without him.
Could it be worse?
He really hoped they were all okay.
...
Lights will guide you home
Jack hugged Sophia on the train platform, the feeling bittersweet but happy.
“I love you, Auntie.”
“I love you, too, Jack,” she responded, “Remember...”
“I’ll tell my friends you said hello,” he agreed, “Davey, too.”
“And Medda,” she reminded him.
“Yeah.”
“Tell her hello and thank you for me.”
The train whistle blew. Jack startled, knowing he had to go now.
“Go,” Sophia said quickly, “I love you. Go home to your family, Jack.”
Jack hugged her one last time, kissing his aunt on the cheek real quick, “Love you, too.”
With that, he ran off, lightning thrumming through his veins.
He was excited and terrified as he boarded that train, but the important thing was that he was going home.
And ignite your bones
The entire train ride was spent trying not to panic.
With nothing to do but think, Jack could just try to redirect his fears to more positive thoughts.
And I will try
Albert hadn’t finally antagonized the wrong person. Even if he had, the others had protected him.
Sniper’s father hadn’t killed her. Maybe she’d finally moved into the Lodging House for good.
Mush and Blink hadn’t gotten caught. They’d probably been warned by Davey and Race and Crutchie to be more careful in public.
Race hadn’t gotten his heart broken by Spot. In fact, Spot had probably saved his ass from at least one fight he couldn’t handle.
Crutchie hadn’t gotten sick too bad this winter. He’d stayed strong, and the others had helped him pull through.
Davey hadn’t moved on.
As much as Jack hated the idea of him hurting, he knew that Davey Jacobs was the last person he was ever going to love, and he was pretty sure that Davey felt the same.
Everyone he loved was still waiting for him in New York.
They probably missed him, but he could pick up the pieces when he got home.
To fix you
Hopefully.
...
And high up above or down below
“So, you’re sure we can’t avoid it?”
Race nodded grimly, “I ain’t one to rumble if we don’t have to, but Midtown’s been pushin’ since Hound aged out. If we don’t let ‘em know we won’t stand for it, they’ll move on our territory.”
Davey sighed. He’d liked Hound. He was a good kid, and now he was a good man. Under him, Manhattan and Midtown had been allies for years, but the new leader, Trumpet, wasn’t like him. And Davey knew that they couldn’t afford to lose territory on his watch.
Being acting leader of Manhattan was exhausting. He’d learned that the hard way over the last... a little over a year, now.
He’d been leading mainly by asking himself what Jack would do. He didn’t always do whatever that was, but now... he didn’t know what to do, here, truthfully.
When you’re too in love to let it go
He still asked himself what Jack would do.
“Dave, I don’t like it either,” Crutchie said from where he was sitting on the other side of the room, “But Trumpet ain’t gonna stop ‘less we make him. And besides, that ain’t even takin’ into account how he’s morally askin’ for it.”
“I get that you don’t like him,” Davey reasoned, “I don’t like him, either, but I’m still looking for a peaceful way to—“
“No, Davey,” Race interrupted, “Ya don’t know what he’s been sayin’. What I’s heard him say ‘bout you.”
“Why? What’s he been sayin’?” Davey asked, immediately on-guard. He didn’t like the idea of that certain newsie knowing certain things about him. And he definitely didn’t like the idea of him possibly knowing things about damn near all the Manhattan kids over the age of 14 by extension.
“Don’t worry,” Race said absentmindedly, “He don’t know nothin’ ‘bout queer stuff. But it’s damn near as bad. He deserves to get soaked on what he said ‘bout Kath alone, and—“
“Race, slow down,” Davey said, getting in front of him to stop his pacing, “What’s he been sayin’? Start with Kath.”
“He-he said...” Race growled under his breath, looking at the ground.
It must be bad if Race couldn’t say it.
Crutchie sighed, “He called Kath a whore.”
Davey felt anger flash through him, red hot, “Oh.”
“He used a lot of unsavory names,” Race growled, “Comments I ain’t gonna repeat ‘bout Mush and Specs for bein’ black, Sniper and Romeo for bein’ Asian, Crutchie for needin’ the crutch—he’s gotta go down.”
“He said things ‘bout me being Jewish, didn’t he?” Davey asked slowly.
Crutchie nodded, “About Sarah and Les, too, but mostly ‘bout you.”
Davey didn’t like the idea of a full-fledged rumble, but the way he was feeling right now, he wanted to pound Trumpet into the ground.
But if you never try, you never know
“I’d rumble just for what he said about Kath,” he said truthfully, “Go meet with Midtown’s second—pick a time and place.”
Race grinned and ran out the door.
Crutchie sighed, “He didn’t say it, but Trumpet said things ‘bout him, too, for bein’ Italian. He made a few comments ‘bout the others, but most of it was ‘bout you, me, and him.”
“Cause we’s the leaders,” Davey muttered.
He wondered if Jack had had to deal with this shit.
He probably had, though his Mexican heritage wasn’t immediately obvious in his face.
Davey knew he wasn’t as much of a fighter as his lover was. He didn’t know if he could lead Manhattan to win this rumble, but he had to try.
Just what you’re worth
“Come on,” he told Crutchie, “We need to get the others ready.”
They hadn’t talked about Jack in months, but he knew they were both thinking about him as they went to get Manhattan’s kids ready for battle.
...
Lights will guide you home
Davey stared across the road, the fading daylight of sunset over the two groups of newsies.
He didn’t know if he could be as strong as Jack would be, but he knew he would fight as hard as he damn could to defend the other Manhattan kids.
His kids. His and Jack’s, even if Jack wasn’t here right now.
He was realizing now, standing in front of them, preparing to defend their territory, that they were his family, as much as Sarah and Les and his parents were.
He was sure as hell going to fight for his family.
“If Manhattan wins, stay the hell off our turf!” he called to Trumpet, “If Midtown wins, you can have some of the territory you want!”
Trumpet laughed, “Yeah, whatever!”
Then he yelled something that made Davey see red, and before he knew it, he was feeling his knuckles bruise as his fist connected with Trumpet’s stupid nose.
And ignite your bones
He heard a crack, and the kid was on the ground, but Davey didn’t have time to feel good about that because he was already fending off another, taking a punch in the jaw as he fought.
He hadn’t felt so alive since the strike, the adrenaline of the battle toxic and exhilarating.
He wished he could enjoy it more.
But he kept looking for hazel eyes and a sarcastic smile, checking where one person was in all this, hoping to see that he was alright.
That one person wasn’t, because he wasn’t there.
And I will try
Davey forced himself to think of something else, to focus just on fighting instead.
He had to take care of Manhattan. His chosen family, and he couldn’t do that if he wasn’t in one piece, too.
To fix you
“It’s over,” Davey spat as the rumble ended, Manhattan having kicked Midtown’s ass.
Trumpet, on the ground, looked angry but picked himself up, calling to his kids and limping back towards his borough.
They were still kids, and normally, Davey would feel bad that he’d assisted in soaking them, but tonight, he couldn’t afford to care. He needed to get his own kids home.
“Alright!” he called, spotting one of his seconds and a few others who weren’t hurt too bad, “Specs, I need a headcount! Race, on the way home, I need ya to catalogue everybody’s injuries! Smalls, go run ahead and tell Crutchie to get a lot of first aid equipment ready! Let’s go, Manhattan! We’re going home!”
...
Tears stream
Jack was waiting by the door when the train stopped, practically bouncing around as it slowed down.
He hadn’t slept or ate the whole train ride.
Another passenger by the door smiled at him, “Excited, huh?”
“Oh, yeah,” Jack said immediately, “I’s been away a long time, but New York’ll always be my home.”
The guy looked surprised, and Jack realized that a year in New Mexico had made the slight Spanish accent he’d already been hiding stronger. He spoke like his Aunt Sophia now.
Like his mom.
As comforting as the familiarity of it was, a foreign accent wasn’t really a good thing for a newsie. Jack would have to get back into his thick New York accent, and fast.
He cleared his throat and managed to sound a bit more like his old self, “It’s good to be back.”
The other passenger nodded, still kind of baffled, and Jack jumped off the train before it was even fully stopped.
Down your face
He took a second to just breathe on the platform.
Jack hadn’t fully realized that New York had a smell before, but he was realizing it now, getting reaquainted with it.
He was happy to be home.
It was late enough that no newsies were out selling, and Jack adjusted his bag on his shoulder as he started walking, one step at a time, towards the Lodging House. He had to force himself not to run, because nothing looked more suspicious than a young man sprinting and Jack really didn’t want to waste time dealing with the bulls tonight.
A year was a long time, and Jack knew he could never get that time back, but he had to believe that nothing had changed too much.
When you lose something you cannot replace
Then he was standing in front of the Duane Street Lodging House and suddenly, he couldn’t breathe.
Taking a deep breath as he walked in the door, he was surprised to see one of the few adults he trusted still up at the front desk, writing something in one of his books.
Kloppman dropped his pencil out of shock when he looked up.
“Jack?”
“Hey, Kloppman,” Jack said awkwardly. He was staying quiet, knowing the others were all probably asleep upstairs with only a few possible exceptions.
The old man moved around the desk to wrap him in a tight hug, and Jack realized that he’d been so worried about missing his kids that he’d barely thought to miss Kloppman, but he definitely knew how much he’d missed him, now.
“It’s good to see ya, kid,” he said, pulling back to thump Jack on the shoulder, “Everyone’s missed ya.”
“And they’s okay?” Jack asked, “They all—“
“You worry too much for someone your age,” Kloppman interrupted, grumbling, “They’s fine. They’s all fine. There’s a few new Littles ya ain’t met, but we didn’t lose nobody. Even Specs ain’t found anywhere to move out to yet.”
Jack breathed a sigh of relief, “Good. Winter don’t get cold in Santa Fe and I was pretty worried—“
“Are you cryin, kid?”
Tears stream
Jack shook his head, “No!”
He wasn’t. He was not crying because the fact that it was so good to be home wasn’t enough to make someone as strong as Jack Kelly cry.
“Jack?”
If Jack wasn’t crying before, he definitely was when Crutchie nearly tackled him to the ground with a bone-crushing hug.
Down your face and I...
“You’s...” Crutchie stared at his face as he pulled back, like he couldn’t believe Jack was actually there, “You’s here? Ya came home?”
Jack nodded, smiling through his tears, “I’m home.”
He decided to ignore the fact that tears were soaking into the shoulder of his shirt as Crutchie hugged him again.
Kloppman smiled at Jack over his brother’s shoulder, patted them both on the back, and went back to his work.
“So, how is everyone?” Jack asked, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, “‘Sides how nobody’s dead.”
Tears stream
He couldn’t bring himself to ask directly about Davey. Not in front of Kloppman, at least. And he did want to know how the others were, too.
“We almost lost a few to the flu, but we didn’t,” Crutchie reported, “‘Course, right now, everybody’s a bit banged up ‘cause we had a rumble with Midtown, but—“
“We rumbled with Midtown?” Jack asked, shocked, “But Hound’s an ally!”
“Hound retired. Trumpet became leader and y’know what an ass he is.”
“Right,” Jack said.
Truth be told, he didn’t remember Trumpet. But if he was enough of an ass that he’d provoked a rumble between two long-standing allies, he must be bad.
“Who won?”
“We did,” Crutchie reported, “Davey lead us to victory.”
Down your face
It was like the air had gotten sucked out of the room. Jack couldn’t respond.
“He’s been leadin’ since ya left,” Kloppman said, like it was simple, “I had my doubts ‘bout him, what with how he started the strike, but he really stepped up, that boy of yours.”
Jack’s mind zeroed in on the tail end of that, “What do ya mean by ‘that boy of—“
“I’m old, kid, not blind. If I could figure out Race was seein’ that short kid from Brooklyn, I could figure out you. Long as you’s happy and don’t get caught, it don’t matter to me.”
Jack really should have expected that Kloppman would know.
He was still frozen. He didn’t know what to do.
Crutchie put a comforting hand on his shoulder, “He’s been stayin’ here most nights, takin’ care of everyone. Les stays over some, too, but... well, we planned the rumble tonight, so not tonight.”
“And...” Jack cleared his throat, “And Davey?”
“Ya ain’t gonna run off and leave him again, are ya?” Kloppman asked.
That question stunned Jack to silence, though he wasn’t sure if it was from offense, guilt, or shock.
I promise you
Crutchie sighed, “He took it pretty hard, Jack. He ain’t been the same since we got that letter.”
As much as that information hurt and made it hard to think, Jack knew his answer.
“I’m stayin’ right here in New York,” he said firmly, “I came back ‘cause I missed all of ya so much it hurt, but Davey most of all. I kept workin’ even when it seemed like I’d never make enough because I love him and I am never leavin’ again.”
Crutchie squeezed his shoulder, smiling.
“He’s up in the washroom. If you’s quiet, ya won’t wake anyone.”
I will learn from my mistakes
Jack tried to climb the stairs silently, only sneaking one peek into the bunk room to confirm that, yes, all the others were there.
Tears stream
They were safe. Seeing that for himself meant more than hearing it from Kloppman and Crutchie.
The washroom was empty except for one boy, standing at the sink with his back to the door.
He was washing out old bandages, the slump in his shoulders the only thing that betrayed the exhaustion which no one who didn’t know him as well as Jack did would recognize.
“I told ya, Kloppman, I don’t need help,” he called quietly over his shoulder, without looking back, “I can manage this by myself.”
Down your face and I...
Jack took a deep breath, “Don’t mean ya have to.”
Davey dropped the bandage he was holding, seeming frozen to the spot.
He took a couple seconds before he turned around, his shocked eyes instantly landing on Jack’s.
God, Jack had missed those eyes.
Lights will guide you home
“...Jack.”
“Davey.”
Jack crossed the room, but stopped a few feet short of his lover.
He didn’t know if this was still okay. He had been gone for a year.
“Is this...” Davey took a shaky breath, and Jack realized that he looked like he was going to cry, “Is this real?”
“It’s real,” Jack promised, “I’m home.”
Davey gasped as he reached out to touch Jack’s arm, like he hadn’t expected it to be true.
He looked terrible. He had bruises all over his hands and face, and Jack was sure there would be more under his shirt. And besides that, the dark circles under his eyes said quite clearly that he hadn’t slept in a while.
“Dave,” Jack whispered, reaching up to touch the shiner he must have gotten in that rumble Crutchie mentioned.
“I’m fine, Jack,” Davey said, grabbing his hand and tugging him closer, “You should see the other guy.”
They weren’t quite hugging, but Jack’s chuckle still shook both of them, “I ain’t worried ‘bout the other guy. I’m worried ‘bout you.”
And ignite your bones
He sighed, “I don’t know how you did it, all these years by yourself. I’ve been barely keeping everyone alive for just one.”
“You did,” Jack reminded him, wiping a tear off the other boy’s face, “You did. You kept my family alive, Davey. Thank you.”
Davey rolled his eyes, “Our family, Jackie.”
“Our family.”
Jack didn’t really know what there was left to say. What could possibly convey how much it had hurt to be away, how much of a relief it was to be here along the skyline of New York again, the stars safely in the next room and the sun downstairs.
And the moon right there in his arms.
“I missed you,” Jack whispered, “I’m never leavin’ ya again.”
Davey studied his face, then sighed deeply as he leaned their foreheads together, “You’d better not.”
Then they were kissing as if the last year hadn’t happened.
Jack knew that it had, and they would have a lot to talk about, preferably in the morning.
But for now, everything was fine. Jack was home.
And I will try... to fix you
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sparrowmoth · 4 years
Note
Okay, let me hit you with a concept that I thought of while in the shower and thinking about how one of the lyrics to Cruella's song is "this vampire bat" - vampire!Carlos.
Excellent shower thought! ♥ Sorry for the late reply, but I was thinking this over and I believe I have some potential headcanons for the jury’s consideration...
Mainly, I was thinking about how Carlos might have ended up a vampire, and well, one interesting possibility is that vampire!Carlos wouldn’t be Cruella’s biological son. I could see her having stolen him from Roger and Anita, for example, but so long ago that he isn’t aware of it. And I think he’d be raised human for a while because it’s convenient to have someone to do all the errands that she can’t do if the usual vamp rules are applied (need to avoid sunlight, etc), BUT Cruella is possessive of him and (*gasp*)... okay, idea...
(BUCKLE UP. This is about to turn into a FULLY-FLESHED OUT AU jkljdafjjka)
No, seriously, I accidentally wrote out an entire novel’s worth of vampire!Carlos plot, so I’ve added a cut AND I’m going to make a second post to follow-up because this is literally a fanfiction-length “summary” of a vampire!Carlos AU.
Here’s a vampiric twist on the “Carlos gets left behind on the Isle” trope: Cruella refuses to let Carlos go to Auradon when King Ben extends the invitation to the Core Four. And to ensure that he won’t be able to, she turns him, because vampires are considered irredeemable villains in Auradon society. Their dietary requirements mark them as innately terrifying and untrustworthy. So Cruella knows that by turning Carlos, he’s stuck on the Isle, and that makes him dependent on her. He’s scared of himself because, like, if anyone tries to hug him, he’s gonna bite down on their neck. And he can’t risk hurting anyone he cares about, let alone inflicting this hell on them.
For plot’s sake, let’s assume that the Core Four are given a little time to get ready before they go to Auradon, and thus, there’s a couple weeks in which Jay, Mal, and Evie are trying to convince Carlos that they can help him, that they can find a way to hide his nature in Auradon, etc. But Carlos refuses their help. He pushes them away, then wanders off into the Forbidden Forest to get away from people (only to realize it’s just as bad to be around animals, because Cruella’s backstory in this AU is that she used to feed on exotic animal blood in Auradon, then wear the furs of her victims; sneaking in was easy, since she could shift into a bat, but she had to use her human form to smuggle out the furs, and that’s what eventually got her caught).
Eventually, Carlos is weak from starvation, and feels more or less compelled by his biological need to survive to just... show up on his mother’s doorstep and ask for her help. She agrees to “help” him, but with unreasonable strings attached. He’s too tired to argue, so he goes along with it. And then he’s permitted to feed on her personal supply of human minions (primarily Jasper and Horace, who are generally happy to feed Cruella, but considerably less enthusiastic about letting Carlos feed on them; they only do it to stay on Cruella’s good side).
Note: I think Cruella would actually prefer animal blood over human in this AU; however, the only animals on the Isle are things she considers “vermin,” so she makes due with humans (rather than being reduced to feeding on raccoons and the like).
Meanwhile, Jay, Mal, and Evie make the very difficult decision to leave to Auradon without Carlos because they figure they can do more good over there, being in a position where they can fight for his right to exist in Auradon, etc. And Ben is definitely open to hearing Carlos’ case, especially considering that he didn’t choose to be turned. He tells them that he can’t do anything right away, but that when he’s crowned king at the end of the year, he’ll find a way to change the law (if not the hearts of his people) and get Carlos off the Isle.
Carlos doesn’t believe in any such hopeful future, so he works on making his peace with his lot in life. Once his strength is regained, he decides that he’ll find his own feeding source. That idea sparks in him when he just happens to see some shady stuff going down in an alley one night. He’s small in stature, but he’s faster and stronger as a vampire, so he takes out a large villain who was about to beat down on one of the Isle kids. He tells the kid to run, then feeds on the other guy (just enough to leave him unconscious).
Over time, Carlos starts to get a reputation for protecting the Isle’s vulnerable population. He shifts into a bat to better spy on the situations that draw his attention, then shifts back to human to intervene and feed on his targets. But he doesn’t kill anyone, so... a few of them start to feel pretty resentful about the fact that this vamp kid is holding power over them. They know he’s a force to be reckoned with, of course, but they also know he’s not invulnerable. And thus, they begin to plot against him...
Well, gossip passes through to Auradon via the barge goblins. Jay, Mal, and Evie hear whispers of what’s going down on the Isle and they realize that they can’t wait for Ben’s coronation. They have to get Carlos out now. And though they’re hesitant to share their intentions with Ben, he catches on pretty quick and insists that he’s coming with them (and they agree, since it’s easier than having to go behind his back and steal the limo with the barrier remote, etc).
Jay, Mal, Evie, and Ben sneak into the Isle in the middle of the night to avoid any curious eyes in Auradon. The first thing they notice is that a fire is starting to become noticeable at the more out-of-town end of the Isle, where Hell Hall and Castle-Across-The-Way are located. They don’t bother hiding the limo. They drive that thing at breakneck speed right through town, consequences be damned, because they have a very bad feeling they’re too late...
And it kind of looks that way when they get there. Because Hell Hall is on fire, and the arsonists are still lingering to watch the show. Jay’s bounding into the flames before anyone can even blink, and Mal only hesitates to tell Ben and Evie that they need to stay with the limo, since it would be very bad if that barrier remote got into the wrong hands. She then runs in after Jay.
Somewhere inside Hell Hall, they can hear Cruella screaming for Horace and Jasper, who are yelling back apologies that effectively amount to “sorry not sorry, we’re saving ourselves, good luck babe.” Jay actually catches a very scary glimpse of her at one point, where she’s... actively on fire, eyes blazing, looking super hateful, and when she sees him... she starts walking toward him, but the floorboards give out, catching her leg, and she starts to crumble into ash while screeching like a banshee. (Jay nopes out of that room real fast.)
Mal, meanwhile, finds Carlos in a part of the manor that’s very smoky, but not completely ablaze yet. He’s in a weird half-shifted state with fresh wounds that haven’t started healing because he’s too weak to even finish the shift, let alone heal himself.
(Later, he explains how he was attacked earlier in the night, and shifted into a bat to escape. He hadn’t counted on his attackers following him home with a Plan B. He was looking for an exit, but managed to smack into a window in his panic, which left him rather dazed. He’d been trying to shift back to human form, but shifts require a lot of energy, and he just didn’t have it in him.)
Anyway, Mal picks up the objectively odd looking, smaller-than-usual creature that is half-shifted Carlos, basically cradling him inside her jacket, and starts yelling at the top of her lungs for Jay as she starts looking for a viable exit.
Outside, Evie’s been trying to, very patiently (in spite of her nerves), explain to a horrified Ben that, no, there is not in fact a fire department on the Isle, and no, the leaky garden hose is probably not going to help anything at this point.
A few of the lingering arsonists notice Jay, Mal, and Carlos coming out of the manor. They start to make a ruckus about it, getting rather menacing about the fact that their plan has failed. Carlos is rushed into the limo amid flying rocks and such. They don’t pose much threat to the car itself, since it’s been designed to keep the king and any royal guests safe inside; however, the guy coming at them with a can of hairspray and a lighter is a little more iffy...
Ben doesn’t like the idea of turning his back on the manor fire, lest it get out of control, but the circumstances don’t leave them with much of a choice. Mal pretty much shoves Ben into the passenger seat, hops into the driver’s side (with absolutely zero practical qualifications), and gets them the hell out of there.
In the back of the limo, Evie and Jay are fussing over Carlos, who pretty much just wants to nap at this point. He doesn’t have the energy to process what just went down, let alone to feel self-conscious about the fact that he looks a little weird with his little bat ears and half-formed wings attaching his arms to his torso. He somehow falls asleep despite Mal’s erratic driving. The others are too wired to sleep, but they don’t really talk much until they’ve crossed back into Auradon.
They stop almost immediately when they’re off the bridge, because Ben is still worried about the fire. He steps out of the car to make a call (something about organizing a delivery of emergency supplies, such as fire extinguishers, through the goblins). Mal wants to point out that the supplies will probably end up hoarded or wasted, but she bites her tongue. He’s doing his best and all.
It’s getting close to dawn when Carlos suddenly wakes up on the drive back to Auradon City, disoriented as hell. He was pretty sure he dreamt most of last night, but apparently not. He shifts back into his human form, only to realize that Mal’s coat (which she shrugged off to keep him warm as soon as they got in the car) is the only thing he’s “wearing.” Awkward. Jay offers his pants without even thinking, and Evie just facepalms because, “Then, you won’t have pants on, Jay...”
It’s a cute moment that, for a moment, makes it feel like the past year never happened. Except that it did. And that sinks in, rather grim and sobering...
It hits Carlos that he’s in Auradon. He immediately insists that he can’t be, that he needs to go back, that there’s people on the Isle who need him, etc. Mal almost crashes the damn limo trying to be an active part of that conversation while driving, so Ben makes her pull over again.
Well, Carlos is stressed and that makes him a little impulsive, so he throws the limo door open to leave, because he doesn’t need anybody’s permission, thank you very much. But the sun has just come up, and while it’s early yet (so pretty dark inside the limo, with its tinted windows), there’s enough light to leave a vampire with a nasty burn. He promptly shuts the door and very grumpily informs everyone that they will be taking him back... after the horrid, murderous sun retreats to whence it came.
They reluctantly agree, and come up with a quick plan for how they can hide Carlos for (and from) the day. The unspoken plan is that they’re going to spend the entire day convincing him to stay in Auradon, so hopefully he had a good nap, because he’s not getting a wink of sleep until he agrees to let them help.
TO BE CONTINUED in a second post because I have approximately zero chill.
Update: Click here to read Part Two of the Vampire!Carlos AU. :)
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sweetwriting · 6 years
Text
Category: Gen
Genre: Angst/Family/Fluff
Fandoms: DC Comics, Batverse
Continuity: Post-Crisis/Pre-Flashpoint
Summary: In Hindsight, Tim realizes he used to be both extremely naïve and aware of the world. He wasn't sure whether he had “grown” or just changed. But too much had happened for him to be the same.
Word Count: 1 970
AN: Hello everyone. I'm sorry for not posting this sooner but, while most of my works are somewhat finished, I write on paper and rewriting on the computer takes time (and then comparing the first draft to the rewriting, and then trying to edit it a little because of mistakes...it takes more time than I'd like to admit...though the rewriting part is what takes the longest because sometimes it takes me like 3 days to do one sentence because I remember I have homework or I have to go to work...). I won't be posting day 5 (favorite relationship) because...I couldn't choose between Dick and Kon and tried to use both and it ended up becoming sorta TimKon and I didn't want Dick to feel left out...or Bart and it's a mess I have to try to rework. If I can't manage to rework it I'll post the best version. As for day 6, I just thought I had rewritten it on my computer and posted it when I started rewriting day 7 but I haven't yet and I'm currently rewriting others (TimKon Week and the Batfam Halloween event) so... it'll come, one day ^^'.ANYWAY. This piece, while a standalone can be seen as a sequel to that piece. I hope you enjoy it :)
To read it on AO3
In hindsight, Tim realizes he used to be both extremely naïve and aware of the world.
In the words of the internet, his naïveté mainly came from his privilege.
He knew a lot of things from reading newspapers (well…what had been about Batman and other heroes as well as what he could gather about Art History which, depending on the journalist, could open a window on the world) but it was “from afar”, he was never really confronted with their concrete application until he met Bruce and was transferred to a non-private (and non-boarding) school. Meeting Ives and Ariana was kind of a wake-up call and so was meeting Steph and, really, the many others who followed. There was also his constant denial of the state of his birth family and how it had impacted the way he took the death of Dick’s parents by projecting on Batman and Robin…that….took some time to deal with (hint: he had never truly dealt with it) and was the root of many of his issues. And then, then there was all he saw of the world as Robin.
Now, however, he had become almost completely cynical. There was a reason why he knew the Anti-Life Equation after all. Sort of. Because at the same time, even if it made sense, he refused it and there was a very simple reason for that. The naïve part of his being never truly left and, in a way, was heavily encouraged by his training with Batman. There is something to say after all, about a man dressed as a bat who tries to prevent others from being hurt the way he had been during the night and who tries to help redeem the crimes of others by giving them constant second chances as well as tries to prevent them by making affordable healthcare or rehabilitation programs through various of his own associations and giving money to others. Because that belief that people could change, that you should trust that they would try and deserve those new chances? It was all Bruce’s.
Of course, Bruce had also had to learn paranoia so some of his lessons went against this faith in people, yet, despite all the paranoia he had tried to create in his protégé, a part of Bruce always seemed to be burning with the trust he put in others (or maybe it was just a hope that he could trust them?). And Tim had been at the best place to see it worsen over the years. As such he ended up developing a paranoia-trust dichotomy similar to Bruce’s but… He never quite managed to take his paranoia as far as Bruce’s - or Dick's- because he couldn’t help himself and almost always trusted people he had just met despite himself. He had learned, however, not to be surprised if he was betrayed and to sometimes prepare for it even if a tiny bit - and even then,  he never completely managed to if his surprise that no one would give him the benefit of the doubt after Bruce's death was anything to go by. Because being trusting didn’t mean being an idiot.  
It was amazing how he had both changed and stayed the same over the years.
He had gone through a lot to learn to balance awareness turned paranoia and naïveté, cynicism and trust and there were periods of time when he couldn’t help the cynicism and paranoia overcoming him. It was especially bad after Conner’s death as it was probably the first time they had truly made themselves known (instead of simply just being him channeling his inner Bruce and Dick in order to appear professional) and then Bruce’s death. Though… It was mostly true after Bruce’s death. The truth is that after Conner’s he wasn’t really functioning enough of a person for anything besides crushing depression and overall numbness for those to overcome him (maybe he should consider Bart’s death as a threshold too?). And retrospectively, Bruce’s method of “repressing it until it no longer bothers you” hadn’t worked. on him. If anything it had made things worse. Because for Bruce, even for Dick really, repressing actually fueled them. Of course, their level of angst and depression went up too but it still helped their vigilante life. On a side note it seemed like the Batfam was blessed with overall good friendships with outsiders who often did what they could to help them out of their funk when repressing became too much for them, and maybe that was Tim’s issues. His friends were either dead or… “out of the way” …Though unlike most of his family Tim didn’t really have any issue with asking for help.
So for Tim, that technique just…blocked him. Blocked him until his level of empathy seemed to start lowering and he just did what he had to do to help.
He honestly doesn’t know what would have happened to him if Bruce…No. If Conner hadn’t come back. Because realizing Conner was really alive, that he could have his best friend back? It felt as if he could be happy again (that night he had smiled one of his first honest smiles of happiness, of contentedness in over two years and finding actual clues about Bruce’s survival was important but not for the obvious reasons). After that -and he hated saying it- but getting Bruce back wasn’t as important. Not because he didn’t care, of course, after all, he’d have given his life to bring him back if it had been needed. The thing is though, had Conner been with him in the first place when Bruce had died, he would have mourned him. He wouldn’t have been desperate to have him be alive to the point of noticing something was wrong. And this belief (no, this knowledge) mattered because having Bruce and Dick hadn’t helped him mourn Conner. Bruce being alive was more important for the family, or even Gotham at that point more than for Tim’s sake. Well except for his sanity (and that’s why he could finally digest the idea that his best friends were back, Paris hadn’t been a hallucination). Learning that Bruce was indeed alive and that he hadn’t “gone insane with grief” was pretty great.
So having both back? That was the best feeling and it was also key in turning two years of hell into fuel for growth instead of just stagnating at an all-time low.
The sole fact that he still needed a crutch to help him deal said a lot about the state of his mental health but he had come a long way from the time when denial and projecting were his main coping mechanisms. Kon had helped a great deal in reminding Tim that he was allowed to deal while Bruce was probably one of the first people to actually listen and respond to Tim’s babbling (whether it was about his days, his missions, and Tim had even started talking about some of his issues. For all intent and purposes, Bruce had acted like his father very early on. He had been a better father than his biological father had been. And Tim couldn’t help but feel bitter at the fact that Bruce had been a relatively better father for him before he adopted him than after…not on all matters seeing as he had been more openly affectionate with Tim but it didn’t prevent Tim from feeling like he always had to prove he was worthy of it. ....Damian hadn’t helped). It was the same with Dick who was his brother long before either were adopted by Bruce, who had become his brother when he had been his Batman, which is why losing him after Bruce (and Conner) died destroyed the small amount of stability Tim had left. But again, had Conner been alive, had tim still noticed something was wrong, he could have dealt with this.
It wasn’t so much because Tim was dependent on Conner more than he was on Bruce and Dick. Though he kinda was, it’s more that Conner had helped him realize that he didn’t need Bruce and Dick as much as he used to because he had actual relationships like Cassie, Bart or Cass (even Cissie and Anita had they not somewhat lost touch). But Conner died barely more than a year after they founded Young Justice and due to their own complicated history, the development of their friendship and their help with each other’s issues had happened too close to Conner’s death for Tim to be able to apply what he had learned in dealing healthily (or as healthily as possible). He had time to get attached to his best friend in the five months that followed the reveal of his identity but he hadn’t had enough time to adapt to this attachment in a relatively healthy way. Still, Cassie had helped him a little after they made up -after she discovered how terribly he was dealing with Conner’s death- and so did Dick (after all he was the one Tim called when he felt suicidal enough to be tempted to jump or take one too many pills).
Mostly though, Tim was never as content as when he was with Conner. He’d love to say as happy but sadly, while it was a bit true, before Conner’s death, he and Tim’s friendship had truly started at a time when their environment prevented either of them from actually being happy and the fact that so much happened in such a short lapse of time didn’t help. Between Bruce being accused of murder, Tim’s father losing his money and going back to forgetting he had a son to take care of, then finding about his night life and his death following Steph’s, Conner having to deal with his non-existent life outside of heroics and trying to adapt to having a relatively stable family, having to get used to a new name, a new identity , learning that he was half megalomaniac instead of 9/10th Apple Pie as well as what seemed to be like feelings for Cassie to deal with -which, retrospectively weren’t even especially romantic,….It had been a lot.
But now, now that Tim had started processing everything that happened to him? Conner was the person who made him the happiest and the most content. He was even getting ready to talk to Bruce after having recently talked with Dick.
He was truly amazed at how so many terrible things had allowed him to get so much better than how he had started out when it came to trust and love. How putting his trust in others had been so rewarding and how even the harshest betrayals had helped him.
How despite everything, while he had become fairly cynical he could still be so utterly trusting. How, while he had shed some of his naïveté it hadn’t completely disappeared so much as evolved into a belief in people despite his knowledge that they could and might betray him.
And as he was sitting in the kitchen beside the picnic Alfred had prepared for him and Bruce to eat after their Tennis matches (which is when they would talk. There was to better way to unwind before a meeting you knew was gonna be tense).
He was eating freshly made cookies and couldn’t help feeling apprehensive of how their talk was going to go through. Yet, unlike what a lot of people would believe, Bruce was a good listener when he realized the subject at hand was something important for the person he was communicating with (unless very specific circumstances). So if things had gone well with Dick? And if he had a shot at repairing his relationship with all his loved ones? He would take it.
Author’s end note :   When I rewrote this on word the first thing I thought was "damn this is so messy" then I stopped and realized "you wrote this from Tim's Point of Vue, of course it's messy"... if I start forgetting how I'm writing my stories I'm not gonna go far...
 By the way, one @Chonaku-Things told me recently that it was impressive how I almost always manage to bring everything back to my ships (especially true for TimKon and SpideyTorch) and I would like to defend myself. It's not that I do it because I ship them, it's quite the opposite as I simply ended up shipping them because that's how they're written (whether on purpose or not). It's their fault, I just notice the patterns and end up shipping it because it's almost always there.
 Here's a post that explains how I see the timeline between the first Young Justice issue and Infinite Crisis (though it technically starts at the beginning of Robin v4). Well...Sort of.  I didn't detail it because for this all you need is an overview and I didn't have the faith to do it event by event (I have a relatively complete chart in my mind but I'm not an encyclopedia so there are some things that're missing or might be wrong for the detailed version that I'd have to look up. Which is why I keep this chart short and clear, it helps recenter the timeline and reduces the issues I have to go through when I need something a bit more complete, it's weird to have it done instead of just staying in my head).
Anyway, I'm a bit tired of people who talk about Tim's paranoia being on par with Bruce's as a way to show how extremely paranoid he is when: 
Bruce in Pre-New 52 wasn't actually that paranoïd (unlike New 52 or Nolan's movies, most of his choices come from his experience yet "paranoia" usually means it's not warranted).
Tim is like...one of the most trusting members of the Batfam. The end of his Robin run and his Red Robin series are his most distrustful periods and the kid still keeps on trusting people. (he told pretty much everyone he thought there might be a chance Bruce was alive. He told Cassie he had freaking heard the Anti-Life Equation, he trusted Lynx even if he knows it might not be true and I doubt it's just because she's pretty (even if Tim does have a weakness for pretty girls he still does these kinds of things everyone?...just not the making out part)).
I've also actually read A Lonely Place of Living and it was terrible. Like, I didn't expect to like it and I knew that if they tried to pretend N52/Rebirth Tim was the same as pre New 52 Tim it was going to get messy (different to the point of almost opposition personalities will do that to you), but I didn't expect it to be that bad. If you want my more complete opinion on ALPoL here's my liveblog of it.
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unixcommerce · 4 years
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Sridhar Vembu of Zoho: The Only Durable Capital We Have Comes from Our Corporate Culture, Not on Corporate Valuation
Last week I attended Zoho’s Developer Conference in their Pleasanton CA office and had a chance to sit down with co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu for a wide-ranging conversation. The value of corporate culture was among the topics we discussed.  SBT publisher Anita Campbell and I did an “ask me anything” session with Vembu earlier this year at the company’s user conference Zoholics, which was very insightful, but this time around I was able to go a bit deeper on some issues.
We tackled a variety of subjects, including what he feels is the most misunderstood thing about the company, why he continues to watch and model some of Zoho’s practices after companies like Amazon and Facebook, and the role their AI technology (Zia) has played in the accelerated adoption of their Zoho One platform – which in just over two years has gone from zero to 29,000 business customers; even how using Zoho Creator allowed a non-techie farmer to become a developer.  But maybe the most intriguing thought he shares with us is why he’s interested in the capital generated by the company’s culture, more than financial valuations put on corporations.
Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.  To see the whole conversation watch the video here or click on the embedded SoundCloud player below.
The Value of Corporate Culture
Brent Leary: Okay, so I told you that I had to ask you about this saying that you came up with while we were in a meeting earlier today. You said that the only durable capital we have is our culture. It just caught my attention. I tweeted it out. People started liking it. Talk about what exactly does that mean?
Sridhar Vembu: I mentioned it in the context of how so much of what we think of as capital has now come to mean financial capital. The value you place on real capital. Meaning that we are confusing two things here. The value we place on capital with the capital itself. And in fact, as a software engineer, this confusion is really real for me because in C-language for example, they’re all pointed to an object versus the object itself.
Brent Leary: Right.
Sridhar Vembu: And you don’t want to confuse the two because you’re going to crash the program if you confuse the two. So the thing pointed to a thing is not the thing itself. You can speak as though they were interchangeable but it’s not, that’s a linguistic slate advantage. It’s not really true.
What is Capital?
The financial value issue placed on capital is substituted from the capital. But you don’t have a real sense of what is the capital? Underneath, what is the capital? Where does it come from? I’ve even built this company from 0 to now, 8000, almost 8000 employees.
I can say that there is only one gift that keeps on giving, the most durable capital. There’s a whole culture that builds these things, and the culture of wanting to excel, wanting to build new stuff and wanting to … The know-how, how do we acquire the knowledge, because before we acquired the knowledge that has to be wanting to acquire the knowledge.
Brent Leary: Right.
Sridhar Vembu: Why does somebody want to do this? And those are forms of capital. We don’t, we cannot really place a value on it, but all value, financial value, comes from it. And yet, most of the time now we have kind of missed that whole thing, all this process, starts up, how does it arise? And instead we’re focused on the financial values.
More About Valuation
Brent Leary: Not on the durable value, but on the valuation.
Sridhar Vembu: Exactly. So in that sense I call myself the real capitalist.  I focus on the real capital, and I ignore the questions of valuation, financial valuation because that’s not interesting to me.
Brent Leary: Zoho is a fast growing company, but you are very mindful of making sure it’s not growing too fast.  Is that because you don’t want it to impact that durable capital (culture).
Sridhar Vembu: So, I am actually always mindful of that. I know, I try to keep a lid on or growth too so that we grow at a comfortable pace that we can maintain what makes us good in the first place.  What makes us good, our customers and our employees. And I also believe that if you only, if we keep our employees happy, can we keep, they keep our customers happy.
Brent Leary: Right.
The Value of Corporate Culture to Growth
Sridhar Vembu: So, that’s the whole cycle. That and all that can happen only if you’re going at a pace that is manageable. A lot of me fears growth for its own sake, and that leads to, again, an obsessive focus on the financial valuation, not on real capital, and a lot of the problems in the economies, we have degraded real capital in chasing the financial catheter.
Brent Leary: Wow.
Sridhar Vembu: That’s how I see it.
Brent Leary: What do you think is the most misunderstood thing about Zoho from the outside world?
Becoming More than a CRM Player
Sridhar Vembu: For a while people thought we were only a CRM player, and then many people thought mainly we’re a small business software company, but our software suite is very powerful. In fact, we run entirely on Zoho, which is 8000 employees within our 20 plus locations around the world. And we are really a multinational, but we don’t think that great. I don’t like to think that way. But we are.
Brent Leary: Right.
Sridhar Vembu: Actually, there’s a customer I met who has 350 million records on CRM.
Brent Leary: Wow.
Sridhar Vembu: That’s not a small business.
Brent Leary: Not at all.
A Focus on Culture and Customer Satisfaction
Sridhar Vembu:  So, that’s an example. One of the things that is not widely understood partly because, no, we are not big on marketing. I mean we actually focus on real, again, real capital, building up that durable capital, durable culture and satisfying customers, word of mouth. Those are all a lot of what we do.
We do marketing, but not as much as what is commonly practiced in the industry today. And that has still allowed us to grow at a very steady, very fast clip for a long period.
Brent Leary: Facebook and  Amazon. Are they still kind of models for you?
Sridhar Vembu: Yeah, it’s, I look at them in this way. I said Facebook is able to handle a billion plus, don’t know 2 billion users. Right? And if you look at the amount of money they spend on the, what we would call, IT operations, meaning the data centers, all of that, it’s got to be a very small number.
It’s approximately every 20 30 40 50 cents somewhere per daily active users for a month, which is a really good metric to focus on because they’re able to do this and that scale with, because they only, they make maybe $10 per daily active user in terms of their ad revenue. This is not about their business model, this is about their operational efficiency in terms of the data centers and the whole infrastructure, how they are able to sell all this traffic, this huge load, on under maybe a dollar per active user.
Finding Something Worth Leaning From
That’s something definitely worth learning from. And I mentioned it also as how this has significant implications for cloud economics. So, that’s one example. Amazon in a similar way, I’ve said that, again the AWS shows you how they’ve scaled this business to $40 billion from zero base in what twelve years ago.
And it’s basically this, that it is, all of this is done, they start with customers who pay them, maybe zero, $10, $20, that some of those customers started there are paying them $1 million a month now, but more.
And that the fact that they started, they could start there, there was not an enterprise sales contract in the beginning, all of that. And they smoothly scale. That’s just too many did their business acumen, right? That’s what learning from. And we’ve modeled a lot of our own, for example Zoho One, this influence of Amazon prime there, a lot of people comprehend that.
Seeking a Predictable Price
And we definitely see there is a similarity here, we want a predictable price. We want to provide you extreme value for the customer. So that Zoho One comes this inspiration from AWS.
Brent Leary: So talk about Zoho One, a little bit, because it’s only been around a little over two years. But you have over 29,000 companies actually, using it.
Sridhar Vembu: Yes, already yes. It’s the fastest growing part of the business now.
Brent Leary: Why are companies coming to you for Zoho One? What are they coming to you looking for? Is it the, just the sheer number of apps? Is it the inexpensive nature of it? Is it something else in between?
Sridhar Vembu: It’s all of it.  2019 the cloud is more and more mature. Most businesses know what the cloud is, what cloud apps can do for them. In fact, they are using many of the cloud apps.
The problem is that there’s too many apps. How do you make all this work together?
And in fact some cloud software CEOs themselves admit, my company is using all these apps and I don’t know what to do. How to solve this problem? And they are trying to patch it together. So this problem is real.
The Value of Corporate Culture When Creating a Vision
We anticipated this for 15 years. We know a thing on this vision to bring all this together, but it does of course take a lot of ongoing investment to do this, so now we finally got to it. Two years ago we launched. It’s now just growing up like a rocket, it’s fastest growing. It’s all of these, it’s of course the access to all of the applications.
There’s the predictability of the pricing and the business model. And the affordability. And the fact that all of these apps are built on a common platform and the integrations are, more and more, getting deeper and deeper and deeper.
And if some integration is not there, you will ask us, and we will do it, we’ll turn it off for you. That’s how we are doing it… and the fact that, see, in two years we have added five new apps to this. All the customers automatically got that.  They do not do anything. So you’re deepening the value of the thing that they already are on. It’s unheard of in the software industry as you typically get a call from a sales guy trying to up-sell you to something.
You only just tell them, “Hey, here’s a new product, you already have it”. That’s something that customer’s love.
The Role of Zia in Zoho One’s Success
Brent Leary: What role has Zia played in the success of Zoho One? 
Sridhar Vembu: Zia’s now the layer that is looking at the whole cross-product, cross-database, all of the perspective on bringing, extracting the intelligence out of it.  And we are deepening this further and further.
It started out with first indexing all of that information, building the kind of a graph, connected graph, of that information and now of course running that neural network type of algorithms on it, from a CRM or Desk and all of this sentiment analysis, scoring,  all of these are coming together, more and more.
Building Everything from the Same Foundation
Everything from our grammar checking in Writer, to email spam classification, fraud detection. All this is now powered by the whole Zia foundation now, and we are also exposing all that to the developers. Part of it now is the Zia framework, now built into Creator, and the Deluge frameworks.
So we are exposing this functionality to developers. The Zoho Creator product itself, but there’s more. Orchestly is our business process orchestration engine. Flow is our integration platform, for integrating both Zoho apps and third party apps.  And then we have Sigma, that we launch today for building the extensions on the Zoho platform. Catalyst, which is basically if you want all of these tools, plus you want your custom code, you want to bring any one host on our [platform], alongside your apps, we offer you that.
This article, “Sridhar Vembu of Zoho: The Only Durable Capital We Have Comes from Our Corporate Culture, Not on Corporate Valuation” was first published on Small Business Trends
https://smallbiztrends.com/
The post Sridhar Vembu of Zoho: The Only Durable Capital We Have Comes from Our Corporate Culture, Not on Corporate Valuation appeared first on Unix Commerce.
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unixcommerce · 4 years
Text
Sridhar Vembu of Zoho: The Only Durable Capital We Have Comes from Our Corporate Culture, Not on Corporate Valuation
Last week I attended Zoho’s Developer Conference in their Pleasanton CA office and had a chance to sit down with co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu for a wide-ranging conversation. The value of corporate culture was among the topics we discussed.  SBT publisher Anita Campbell and I did an “ask me anything” session with Vembu earlier this year at the company’s user conference Zoholics, which was very insightful, but this time around I was able to go a bit deeper on some issues.
We tackled a variety of subjects, including what he feels is the most misunderstood thing about the company, why he continues to watch and model some of Zoho’s practices after companies like Amazon and Facebook, and the role their AI technology (Zia) has played in the accelerated adoption of their Zoho One platform – which in just over two years has gone from zero to 29,000 business customers; even how using Zoho Creator allowed a non-techie farmer to become a developer.  But maybe the most intriguing thought he shares with us is why he’s interested in the capital generated by the company’s culture, more than financial valuations put on corporations.
Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.  To see the whole conversation watch the video here or click on the embedded SoundCloud player below.
The Value of Corporate Culture
Brent Leary: Okay, so I told you that I had to ask you about this saying that you came up with while we were in a meeting earlier today. You said that the only durable capital we have is our culture. It just caught my attention. I tweeted it out. People started liking it. Talk about what exactly does that mean?
Sridhar Vembu: I mentioned it in the context of how so much of what we think of as capital has now come to mean financial capital. The value you place on real capital. Meaning that we are confusing two things here. The value we place on capital with the capital itself. And in fact, as a software engineer, this confusion is really real for me because in C-language for example, they’re all pointed to an object versus the object itself.
Brent Leary: Right.
Sridhar Vembu: And you don’t want to confuse the two because you’re going to crash the program if you confuse the two. So the thing pointed to a thing is not the thing itself. You can speak as though they were interchangeable but it’s not, that’s a linguistic slate advantage. It’s not really true.
What is Capital?
The financial value issue placed on capital is substituted from the capital. But you don’t have a real sense of what is the capital? Underneath, what is the capital? Where does it come from? I’ve even built this company from 0 to now, 8000, almost 8000 employees.
I can say that there is only one gift that keeps on giving, the most durable capital. There’s a whole culture that builds these things, and the culture of wanting to excel, wanting to build new stuff and wanting to … The know-how, how do we acquire the knowledge, because before we acquired the knowledge that has to be wanting to acquire the knowledge.
Brent Leary: Right.
Sridhar Vembu: Why does somebody want to do this? And those are forms of capital. We don’t, we cannot really place a value on it, but all value, financial value, comes from it. And yet, most of the time now we have kind of missed that whole thing, all this process, starts up, how does it arise? And instead we’re focused on the financial values.
More About Valuation
Brent Leary: Not on the durable value, but on the valuation.
Sridhar Vembu: Exactly. So in that sense I call myself the real capitalist.  I focus on the real capital, and I ignore the questions of valuation, financial valuation because that’s not interesting to me.
Brent Leary: Zoho is a fast growing company, but you are very mindful of making sure it’s not growing too fast.  Is that because you don’t want it to impact that durable capital (culture).
Sridhar Vembu: So, I am actually always mindful of that. I know, I try to keep a lid on or growth too so that we grow at a comfortable pace that we can maintain what makes us good in the first place.  What makes us good, our customers and our employees. And I also believe that if you only, if we keep our employees happy, can we keep, they keep our customers happy.
Brent Leary: Right.
The Value of Corporate Culture to Growth
Sridhar Vembu: So, that’s the whole cycle. That and all that can happen only if you’re going at a pace that is manageable. A lot of me fears growth for its own sake, and that leads to, again, an obsessive focus on the financial valuation, not on real capital, and a lot of the problems in the economies, we have degraded real capital in chasing the financial catheter.
Brent Leary: Wow.
Sridhar Vembu: That’s how I see it.
Brent Leary: What do you think is the most misunderstood thing about Zoho from the outside world?
Becoming More than a CRM Player
Sridhar Vembu: For a while people thought we were only a CRM player, and then many people thought mainly we’re a small business software company, but our software suite is very powerful. In fact, we run entirely on Zoho, which is 8000 employees within our 20 plus locations around the world. And we are really a multinational, but we don’t think that great. I don’t like to think that way. But we are.
Brent Leary: Right.
Sridhar Vembu: Actually, there’s a customer I met who has 350 million records on CRM.
Brent Leary: Wow.
Sridhar Vembu: That’s not a small business.
Brent Leary: Not at all.
A Focus on Culture and Customer Satisfaction
Sridhar Vembu:  So, that’s an example. One of the things that is not widely understood partly because, no, we are not big on marketing. I mean we actually focus on real, again, real capital, building up that durable capital, durable culture and satisfying customers, word of mouth. Those are all a lot of what we do.
We do marketing, but not as much as what is commonly practiced in the industry today. And that has still allowed us to grow at a very steady, very fast clip for a long period.
Brent Leary: Facebook and  Amazon. Are they still kind of models for you?
Sridhar Vembu: Yeah, it’s, I look at them in this way. I said Facebook is able to handle a billion plus, don’t know 2 billion users. Right? And if you look at the amount of money they spend on the, what we would call, IT operations, meaning the data centers, all of that, it’s got to be a very small number.
It’s approximately every 20 30 40 50 cents somewhere per daily active users for a month, which is a really good metric to focus on because they’re able to do this and that scale with, because they only, they make maybe $10 per daily active user in terms of their ad revenue. This is not about their business model, this is about their operational efficiency in terms of the data centers and the whole infrastructure, how they are able to sell all this traffic, this huge load, on under maybe a dollar per active user.
Finding Something Worth Leaning From
That’s something definitely worth learning from. And I mentioned it also as how this has significant implications for cloud economics. So, that’s one example. Amazon in a similar way, I’ve said that, again the AWS shows you how they’ve scaled this business to $40 billion from zero base in what twelve years ago.
And it’s basically this, that it is, all of this is done, they start with customers who pay them, maybe zero, $10, $20, that some of those customers started there are paying them $1 million a month now, but more.
And that the fact that they started, they could start there, there was not an enterprise sales contract in the beginning, all of that. And they smoothly scale. That’s just too many did their business acumen, right? That’s what learning from. And we’ve modeled a lot of our own, for example Zoho One, this influence of Amazon prime there, a lot of people comprehend that.
Seeking a Predictable Price
And we definitely see there is a similarity here, we want a predictable price. We want to provide you extreme value for the customer. So that Zoho One comes this inspiration from AWS.
Brent Leary: So talk about Zoho One, a little bit, because it’s only been around a little over two years. But you have over 29,000 companies actually, using it.
Sridhar Vembu: Yes, already yes. It’s the fastest growing part of the business now.
Brent Leary: Why are companies coming to you for Zoho One? What are they coming to you looking for? Is it the, just the sheer number of apps? Is it the inexpensive nature of it? Is it something else in between?
Sridhar Vembu: It’s all of it.  2019 the cloud is more and more mature. Most businesses know what the cloud is, what cloud apps can do for them. In fact, they are using many of the cloud apps.
The problem is that there’s too many apps. How do you make all this work together?
And in fact some cloud software CEOs themselves admit, my company is using all these apps and I don’t know what to do. How to solve this problem? And they are trying to patch it together. So this problem is real.
The Value of Corporate Culture When Creating a Vision
We anticipated this for 15 years. We know a thing on this vision to bring all this together, but it does of course take a lot of ongoing investment to do this, so now we finally got to it. Two years ago we launched. It’s now just growing up like a rocket, it’s fastest growing. It’s all of these, it’s of course the access to all of the applications.
There’s the predictability of the pricing and the business model. And the affordability. And the fact that all of these apps are built on a common platform and the integrations are, more and more, getting deeper and deeper and deeper.
And if some integration is not there, you will ask us, and we will do it, we’ll turn it off for you. That’s how we are doing it… and the fact that, see, in two years we have added five new apps to this. All the customers automatically got that.  They do not do anything. So you’re deepening the value of the thing that they already are on. It’s unheard of in the software industry as you typically get a call from a sales guy trying to up-sell you to something.
You only just tell them, “Hey, here’s a new product, you already have it”. That’s something that customer’s love.
The Role of Zia in Zoho One’s Success
Brent Leary: What role has Zia played in the success of Zoho One? 
Sridhar Vembu: Zia’s now the layer that is looking at the whole cross-product, cross-database, all of the perspective on bringing, extracting the intelligence out of it.  And we are deepening this further and further.
It started out with first indexing all of that information, building the kind of a graph, connected graph, of that information and now of course running that neural network type of algorithms on it, from a CRM or Desk and all of this sentiment analysis, scoring,  all of these are coming together, more and more.
Building Everything from the Same Foundation
Everything from our grammar checking in Writer, to email spam classification, fraud detection. All this is now powered by the whole Zia foundation now, and we are also exposing all that to the developers. Part of it now is the Zia framework, now built into Creator, and the Deluge frameworks.
So we are exposing this functionality to developers. The Zoho Creator product itself, but there’s more. Orchestly is our business process orchestration engine. Flow is our integration platform, for integrating both Zoho apps and third party apps.  And then we have Sigma, that we launch today for building the extensions on the Zoho platform. Catalyst, which is basically if you want all of these tools, plus you want your custom code, you want to bring any one host on our [platform], alongside your apps, we offer you that.
This article, “Sridhar Vembu of Zoho: The Only Durable Capital We Have Comes from Our Corporate Culture, Not on Corporate Valuation” was first published on Small Business Trends
https://smallbiztrends.com/
The post Sridhar Vembu of Zoho: The Only Durable Capital We Have Comes from Our Corporate Culture, Not on Corporate Valuation appeared first on Unix Commerce.
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