fandomhigh | How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, April 1, 2014]

How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, April 1, 2014]

A distinctly soggy Anakin squelched into the Danger Shop in time to meet his class. "I don't actually expect you to be ready to do real work yet," he said, waving his hands toward the variety of exercise equipment he'd placed around the room--most in the "things to hit" range--"and I'm certainly not going to make you talk about anything you're not ready to yet. So hit something or run a lot--I promise it'll make you feel better."

He sighed at the tiny stage that was also in the corner. "Or have a puppet show. One of our visitors left sockpuppets that look like all of the citizens of this island."

The Pinkie Pie one was especially adorable.

"I didn't ask why," Anakin added, "but if you want to be ridiculous as a way to repress, well, here's your chance, and it'll only come around once. Try not to get everything too wet, but that seems to be a pretty lost cause today."

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Anakin's face turned sympathetic. "I know that feeling too," he said. "I spent much of my young adulthood being told that emotions weren't something to be felt. It doesn't really work that way."

"Yeah," Victor said in a long exhale. "I know that. Just ... sometimes it'd be nice if it did."

He pursed his lips curiously. "How come you weren't supposed to feel emotions?"

"I am a Jedi," Anakin said. "The training at the time taught that in order to be effective as being an unbiased mediators, we should learn to be personally detached from the rest of the galaxy." He reached down and played with the wedding band on his left hand. "I never really got the knack for it."

Victor's eyes scanned down to the ring. "I was designed to be a supervillain," he admitted. "Guess sometimes other people really don't know what's right for you."

"You make your own choices," Anakin said, nodding. "No one else can make them for you."

He paused. "A supervillain? You don't seem the type."

He'd taught DOOM, so he knew the type.

"I'm not," Victor told him vigorously. "And I'm going to make sure I never am. Making my own choices, like you said."

Anakin nodded. "Doesn't mean it's going to be easy all the time."

"Most things worth doing aren't easy," Victor offered. "Or so people tell me."

Anakin frowned thoughtfully. "I'm not so sure. If it's too hard, it's also a sign you shouldn't be doing it. Relationships shouldn't be constant hardship, and neither should your job."

Victor took a moment to assimilate that. "Okay, so maybe it just means you shouldn't give up the first time things get hard," he offered.

Anakin grinned. "Better interpretation. Sometimes destiny is throwing roadblocks up to tell you to just stop."

Anakin, naturally, had ignored all of those.

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How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, April 1, 2014]

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