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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months ago

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Microsoft pinky swears that THIS TIME they’ll make security a priority

One June 20, I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. On June 21, I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On June 22, I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel and a keynote at the LOCUS AWARDS.

As the old saying goes, "When someone tells you who they are and you get fooled again, shame on you." That goes double for Microsoft, especially when it comes to security promises.

Microsoft is, was, always has been, and always will be a rotten company. At every turn, throughout their history, they have learned the wrong lessons, over and over again.

That starts from the very earliest days, when the company was still called "Micro-Soft." Young Bill Gates was given a sweetheart deal to supply the operating system for IBM's PC, thanks to his mother's connection. The nepo-baby enlisted his pal, Paul Allen (whom he'd later rip off for billions) and together, they bought someone else's OS (and took credit for creating it – AKA, the "Musk gambit").

Microsoft then proceeded to make a fortune by monopolizing the OS market through illegal, collusive arrangements with the PC clone industry – an industry that only existed because they could source third-party PC ROMs from Phoenix:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/ibm-pc-compatible-how-adversarial-interoperability-saved-pcs-monopolization

Bill Gates didn't become one of the richest people on earth simply by emerging from a lucky orifice; he also owed his success to vigorous antitrust enforcement. The IBM PC was the company's first major initiative after it was targeted by the DOJ for a 12-year antitrust enforcement action. IBM tapped its vast monopoly profits to fight the DOJ, spending more on outside counsel to fight the DOJ antitrust division than the DOJ spent on all its antitrust lawyers, every year, for 12 years.

IBM's delaying tactic paid off. When Reagan took the White House, he let IBM off the hook. But the company was still seriously scarred by its ordeal, and when the PC project kicked off, the company kept the OS separate from the hardware (one of the DOJ's major issues with IBM's previous behavior was its vertical monopoly on hardware and software). IBM didn't hire Gates and Allen to provide it with DOS because it was incapable of writing a PC operating system: they did it to keep the DOJ from kicking down their door again.

The post-antitrust, gunshy IBM kept delivering dividends for Microsoft. When IBM turned a blind eye to the cloned PC-ROM and allowed companies like Compaq, Dell and Gateway to compete directly with Big Blue, this produced a whole cohort of customers for Microsoft – customers Microsoft could play off on each other, ensuring that every PC sold generated income for Microsoft, creating a wide moat around the OS business that kept other OS vendors out of the market. Why invest in making an OS when every hardware company already had an exclusive arrangement with Microsoft?

The IBM PC story teaches us two things: stronger antitrust enforcement spurs innovation and opens markets for scrappy startups to grow to big, important firms; as do weaker IP protections.

Microsoft learned the opposite: monopolies are wildly profitable; expansive IP protects monopolies; you can violate antitrust laws so long as you have enough monopoly profits rolling in to outspend the government until a Republican bootlicker takes the White House (Microsoft's antitrust ordeal ended after GW Bush stole the 2000 election and dropped the charges against them). Microsoft embodies the idea that you either die a rebel hero or live long enough to become the evil emperor you dethroned.

From the first, Microsoft has pursued three goals:

Get too big to fail;

Get too big to jail;

Get too big to care.

It has succeeded on all three counts. Much of Microsoft's enduring power comes from succeeded IBM as the company that mediocre IT managers can safely buy from without being blamed for the poor quality of Microsoft's products: "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft" is 2024's answer to "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."

Microsoft's secret sauce is impunity. The PC companies that bundle Windows with their hardware are held blameless for the glaring defects in Windows. The IT managers who buy company-wide Windows licenses are likewise insulated from the rage of the workers who have to use Windows and other Microsoft products.

Microsoft doesn't have to care if you hate it because, for the most part, it's not selling to you. It's selling to a few decision-makers who can be wined and dined and flattered. And since we all have to use its products, developers have to target its platform if they want to sell us their software.

This rarified position has afforded Microsoft enormous freedom to roll out harebrained "features" that made things briefly attractive for some group of developers it was hoping to tempt into its sticky-trap. Remember when it put a Turing-complete scripting environment into Microsoft Office and unleashed a plague of macro viruses that wiped out years worth of work for entire businesses?

https://web.archive.org/web/20060325224147/http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/newsinfo/collateral.aspx?cid=33338

It wasn't just Office; Microsoft's operating systems have harbored festering swamps of godawful defects that were weaponized by trolls, script kiddies, and nation-states:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EternalBlue

Microsoft blamed everyone except themselves for these defects, claiming that their poor code quality was no worse than others, insisting that the bulging arsenal of Windows-specific malware was the result of being the juiciest target and thus the subject of the most malicious attention.

Even if you take them at their word here, that's still no excuse. Microsoft didn't slip and accidentally become an operating system monopolist. They relentlessly, deliberately, illegally pursued the goal of extinguishing every OS except their own. It's completely foreseeable that this dominance would make their products the subject of continuous attacks.

There's an implicit bargain that every monopolist makes: allow me to dominate my market and I will be a benevolent dictator who spends his windfall profits on maintaining product quality and security. Indeed, if we permit "wasteful competition" to erode the margins of operating system vendors, who will have a surplus sufficient to meet the security investment demands of the digital world?

But monopolists always violate this bargain. When faced with the decision to either invest in quality and security, or hand billions of dollars to their shareholders, they'll always take the latter. Why wouldn't they? Once they have a monopoly, they don't have to worry about losing customers to a competitor, so why invest in customer satisfaction? That's how Google can piss away $80b on a stock buyback and fire 12,000 technical employees at the same time as its flagship search product (with a 90% market-share) is turning into an unusable pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Microsoft reneged on this bargain from day one, and they never stopped. When the company moved Office to the cloud, it added an "analytics" suite that lets bosses spy on and stack-rank their employees ("Sorry, fella, Office365 says you're the slowest typist in the company, so you're fired"). Microsoft will also sell you internal data on the Office365 usage of your industry competitors (they'll sell your data to your competitors, too, natch). But most of all, Microsoft harvest, analyzes and sells this data for its own purposes:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

Leave aside how creepy, gross and exploitative this is – it's also incredibly reckless. Microsoft is creating a two-way conduit into the majority of the world's businesses that insider threats, security services and hackers can exploit to spy on and wreck Microsoft's customers' business. You don't get more "too big to care" than this.

Or at least, not until now. Microsoft recently announced a product called "Recall" that would record every keystroke, click and screen element, nominally in the name of helping you figure out what you've done and either do it again, or go back and fix it. The problem here is that anyone who gains access to your system – your boss, a spy, a cop, a Microsoft insider, a stalker, an abusive partner or a hacker – now has access to everything, on a platter. Naturally, this system – which Microsoft billed as ultra-secure – was wildly insecure and after a series of blockbuster exploits, the company was forced to hit pause on the rollout:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/microsoft-delays-data-scraping-recall-feature-again-commits-to-public-beta-test/

For years, Microsoft waged a war on the single most important security practice in software development: transparency. This is the company that branded the GPL Free Software license a "virus" and called open source "a cancer." The company argued that allowing public scrutiny of code would be a disaster because bad guys would spot and weaponize defects.

This is "security through obscurity" and it's an idea that was discredited nearly 500 years ago with the advent of the scientific method. The crux of that method: we are so good at bullshiting ourselves into thinking that our experiment was successful that the only way to make sure we know anything is to tell our enemies what we think we've proved so they can try to tear us down.

Or, as Bruce Schneier puts it: "Anyone can design a security system that you yourself can't think of a way of breaking. That doesn't mean it works, it just means that it works against people stupider than you."

And yet, Microsoft – whose made more widely and consequentially exploited software than anyone else in the history of the human race – claimed that free and open code was insecure, and spent millions on deceptive PR campaigns intended to discredit the scientific method in favor of a kind of software alchemy, in which every coder toils in secret, assuring themselves that drinking mercury is the secret to eternal life.

Access to source code isn't sufficient to make software secure – nothing about access to code guarantees that anyone will review that code and repair its defects. Indeed, there've been some high profile examples of "supply chain attacks" in the free/open source software world:

https://www.securityweek.com/supply-chain-attack-major-linux-distributions-impacted-by-xz-utils-backdoor/

But there's no good argument that this code would have been more secure if it had been harder for the good guys to spot its bugs. When it comes to secure code, transparency is an essential, but it's not a sufficency.

The architects of that campaign are genuinely awful people, and yet they're revered as heroes by Microsoft's current leadership. There's Steve "Linux Is Cancer" Ballmer, star of Propublica's IRS Files, where he is shown to be the king of "tax loss harvesting":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/24/tax-loss-harvesting/#mego

And also the most prominent example of the disgusting tax cheats practiced by rich sports-team owners:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#economic-substance-doctrine

Microsoft may give lip service to open source these days (mostly through buying, stripmining and enclosing Github) but Ballmer's legacy lives on within the company, through its wildly illegal tax-evasion tactics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/13/pour-encoragez-les-autres/#micros-tilde-one

But Ballmer is an angel compared to his boss, Bill Gates, last seen some paragraphs above, stealing the credit for MS DOS from Tim Paterson and billions of dollars from his co-founder Paul Allen. Gates is an odious creep who made billions through corrupt tech industry practices, then used them to wield influence over the world's politics and policy. The Gates Foundation (and Gates personally) invented vaccine apartheid, helped kill access to AIDS vaccines in Sub-Saharan Africa, then repeated the trick to keep covid vaccines out of reach of the Global South:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation

The Gates Foundation wants us to think of it as malaria-fighting heroes, but they're also the leaders of the war against public education, and have been key to the replacement of public schools with charter schools, where the poorest kids in America serve as experimental subjects for the failed pet theories of billionaire dilettantes:

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/millionaire-driven-education-reform-has-failed-heres-what-works

(On a personal level, Gates is also a serial sexual abuser who harassed multiple subordinates into having sexual affairs with him:)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/technology/microsoft-sexual-harassment-policy-review.html

The management culture of Microsoft started rotten and never improved. It's a company with corruption and monopoly in its blood, a firm that would always rather build market power to insulate itself from the consequences of making defective products than actually make good products. This is true of every division, from cloud computing:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/28/other-peoples-computers/#clouded-over

To gaming:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/27/convicted-monopolist/#microsquish

No one should ever trust Microsoft to do anything that benefits anyone except Microsoft. One of the low points in the otherwise wonderful surge of tech worker labor organizing was when the Communications Workers of America endorsed Microsoft's acquisition of Activision because Microsoft promised not to union-bust Activision employees. They lied:

https://80.lv/articles/qa-workers-contracted-by-microsoft-say-they-were-fired-for-trying-to-unionize/

Repeatedly:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/activision-fired-staff-using-strong-language-about-remote-work-policy-union-2023-03-01/

Why wouldn't they lie? They've never faced any consequences for lying in the past. Remember: the secret to Microsoft's billions is impunity.

Which brings me to Solarwinds. Solarwinds is an enterprise management tool that allows IT managers to see, patch and control the computers they oversee. Foreign spies hacked Solarwinds and accessed a variety of US federal agencies, including National Nuclear Security Administration (who oversee nuclear weapons stockpiles), the NIH, and the Treasury Department.

When the Solarwinds story broke, Microsoft strenuously denied that the Solarwinds hack relied on exploiting defects in Microsoft software. They said this to everyone: the press, the Pentagon, and Congress.

This was a lie. As Renee Dudley and Doris Burke reported for Propublica, the Solarwinds attack relied on defects in the SAML authentication system that Microsoft's own senior security staff had identified and repeatedly warned management about. Microsoft's leadership ignored these warnings, buried the research, prohibited anyone from warning Microsoft customers, and sidelined Andrew Harris, the researcher who discovered the defect:

https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-solarwinds-golden-saml-data-breach-russian-hackers

The single most consequential cyberattack on the US government was only possible because Microsoft decided not to fix a profound and dangerous bug in its code, and declined to warn anyone who relied on this defective software.

Yesterday, Microsoft president Brad Smith testified about this to Congress, and promised that the company would henceforth prioritize security over gimmicks like AI:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/microsoft-in-damage-control-mode-says-it-will-prioritize-security-over-ai/

Despite all the reasons to mistrust this promise, the company is hoping Congress will believe it. More importantly, it's hoping that the Pentagon will believe it, because the Pentagon is about to award billions in free no-bid military contract profits to Microsoft:

https://www.axios.com/2024/05/17/pentagon-weighs-microsoft-licensing-upgrades

You know what? I bet they'll sell this lie. It won't be the first time they've convinced Serious People in charge of billions of dollars and/or lives to ignore that all-important maxim, "When someone tells you who they are and you get fooled again, shame on you."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again

#pluralistic #microsoft #infosec #visual basic #ai #corruption #too big to care #patch tuesday #solar winds #monopolists bargain #eternal blue #transparency #open source #floss #oss #apts

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bigevilhunter · 1 year ago

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North

Vivyenne Rose-Mary Gold, a rich white woman with a trendy bob, has moved to Iceland and lived there for over 5 years after her flophusband, Royy, destroyed their shared juicer-sized cement mixer startup business empire, and the happy family she had been trying to build for years.

Royy was a cheater, a bad businessman, and was driving a red electrical minivan around his neighbourhood. He was only listening to G-Eazy in his car, and whenever he did, it was full-volume only. Why? Because daddy needed his "me time".

The divorce was painful. Or at least that's what lawyers said.

She couldn't stand living in her giant ass mansion with aquarium windows that looked over Los Angeles, as everything was reminding her of the tragedy of her failed marriage and her stupid ex-husband, who always had this weird homoerotic tension with his racially-ambiguous trainer named Gaylob.

To this day, Vivs (short for Vivyenne) is haunted by her past, as lately she has been getting weird emails from an unknown source - [email protected].

Dive into the cold waters of Iceland as Vivs (short for Vivyenne) is trying to uncover the mysterious emails on her latest iMac.

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dimartinolaw · 6 months ago

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Di Martino Law Group

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dalepartridge · 8 months ago

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Dale Partrdige

Dale, born to a blue-collar worker and a homemaker in Southern California, spent his childhood engaged in outdoor activities like sports, skateboarding, and boxing. His family, culturally Christian, attended church sporadically. While their home featured Christian-themed decorations and prayers were said at meals, there was no deep engagement with biblical teachings such as repentance, regeneration, or sanctification.

Dale's natural athletic abilities and compelling personality stood out from an early age. His persuasive nature during childhood debates with his father led his dad to predict he might become a lawyer one day. At 20, after several sleepless nights, Dale experienced what he felt was an encounter with God. This didn't immediately lead to his conversion; instead, Dale became what he describes as a “religious moralist,” embodying the prevalent culture of large Southern Californian churches.

His entrepreneurial spirit emerged early as well. By 24, he had launched several businesses, each generating six figures in revenue. After marrying Veronica in 2010, Dale founded an e-commerce business that expanded to nearly fifty employees and propelled him into recognition—speaking at events for companies like Adobe and Facebook and being featured in Entrepreneur magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Forbes.

The birth of his first child in 2014 coincided with the publication of his book "People over Profit," which included a foreword by Blake Mycoskie of Toms Shoes. Subsequently, Dale moved his family to Bend, Oregon. It was here that he felt a spiritual awakening that perhaps marked his true conversion through deeper interactions with other Christians who grasped the Gospel.

In Oregon, Dale continued with startups and authorship until 2016 when he started preaching at his local church. The following year saw him leave the business sector for full-time ministry work—he founded Relearn.org and established a home-based church. He pursued theological education at Western Seminary and delved into the writings of the Puritans and Reformers.

By late 2019 or early 2020, Dale's understanding of Christianity deepened significantly—he embraced key theologies, including God's sovereignty and the Doctrines of Grace—and felt, as he says, “born again, again.” This newfound conviction led him to co-found a small seminary offering a one-year, graduate-level pastoral program with Dr. Jason Barker.

However, within that year's span, Dale fell seriously ill with what was later identified as mold-related sickness that greatly compromised his immune system and nearly took his life in 2021. In need of a dry climate for recovery, he relocated his now five-member family to Northern Arizona, where he gradually regained health through God's grace.

By 2022, Dale wrote several additional books, including his bestselling children’s book “Jesus and My Gender” and “The Manliness of Christ.” Later that year, he had planted another small house church, which evolved into what is now King’s Way Church in Prescott by 2023. That same year saw the arrival of their fourth child who has been an emblem of restored hope for their family. Now, with a thriving community around them, Dale and Veronica cherish the journey they believe has been divinely authored for their ultimate good.

Website: Dale Partrdige

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thehollywoodlawyerca · 9 months ago

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Business Attorney

Our team offers strategic advice, assists with fundraising efforts, and ensures compliance with regulatory requirements. Let us navigate the legal complexities while you focus on growing your startup. For more information - https://thehollywoodlawyer.com/los-angeles-business-lawyer/

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datascraping001 · 11 months ago

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UK Solicitors Email List

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henrylous1 · 1 year ago

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The Marathon Running Entrepreneur - Henry Lo Shares Tips For Entrepreneurhip & Running

Launching a startup often requires weathering storms before finding sunny success. But preparation, perseverance and perspective can help entrepreneurs navigate inevitable challenges.

Creating an innovative product doesn't guarantee an audience. Extensive market validation is essential. Research competitors, identify gaps and test demand. Be ready to pivot based on user feedback. Build a minimum viable product, then refine and improve.

Henry Lo

Undercapitalization also derails many startups. Seek advice from score.org and the SBA on crafting a realistic budget and funding strategy. Get creative with bootstrapping tactics to conserve cash. Build revenue early through pre-orders, crowdfunding or freelancing.

Pitch competitions, angel investors and accelerators provide potential funding streams. Consider convertible notes to defer valuation. Weigh term sheets carefully and communicate your vision. Savvy spending enables startups to squeeze more impact from every investor dollar.

SAN FRANCISCO– Henry Lo

Pitch competitions offer invaluable exposure even without investment prizes. Hone your narrative before knowledgeable judges and audiences. Gain visibility and make connections. Use feedback to strengthen your presentation skills and value proposition.

Do thorough prep to maximize brief pitch time. Lead with your strongest differentiators and traction. Focus on customer impact and market potential. Refine your script but avoid sounding robotic. Let authentic passion shine.

In preliminary rounds, keep it simple and engaging. Judges see hundreds of pitches. Nail the basics like problem/solution fit before adding complexity. Use visuals sparingly to underscore key points. Leave time for Q&A.

In the final rounds with more pitching time, add drama and context. Share origin stories and founder journeys. Outline milestones. Provide juicy details like traction stats and user testimonials. Build rapport with the judges.

Approach pitch competitions as learning opportunities, not just funding sources. The experience, exposure and connections can pay dividends. And with compelling content and delivery, your startup could pitch its way to the capital.

Staffing can provide another pain point. Skill gaps emerge as startups scale. Budget constraints may preclude top talent salaries. Equity and passion attract some team members but avoid over-promising. Move quickly to address performance issues. Outsource to fill short-term needs.

Marketing and sales are often slow after launch. Don't just build it and hope customers will come. Analyze web traffic, engagement metrics and conversions continuously. Keep marketing innovative on a startup budget. Turn early adopters into evangelists.

Legal and regulatory hassles also confront startups. Seek lawyer referrals through your local Chamber of Commerce. Stay vigilant on insurance needs, trademark filings, permits, data security compliance and other issues to avoid missteps.

With long hours and tight budgets, founder burnout looms. Daily exercise like running provides stress relief and energy. Proper rest and nutrition boosts productivity. Make time for family and fun to maintain perspective and motivation.

Rather than obstacles, view startup challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. Adapt products based on user input. Seek creative funding streams and talent resources. Pivot marketing based on data. Remain agile and optimistic. With grit and ingenuity, startups can succeed.

Meet Henry Lo, the marathon-running entrepreneur. Let’s share how Henry balances both running and entrepreneurship and what this translates to in his businesses. Henry Lo demonstrates grit and versatility as an entrepreneur that has evolved thanks to his foray into Marathon running. His design startup was featured everywhere before pivoting into manufacturing. He embraces calculated risks and learning from failures. Henry evolves his expertise across varied industries. This agility serves startups well in dynamic markets.

Persistence has also paved Henry's path to success. His first startup took years to gain traction. Yet he stuck to his vision and iterated products using customer insights. Today his company thrives through recession resilience and purposeful pivots. Henry knows entrepreneurship is a marathon requiring stamina.

Community fuels Henry's entrepreneurial energy. He draws inspiration from the Bay Area's vibrant startup scene. Henry gives back by mentoring student entrepreneurs. He also makes time for networking events and leadership forums. Surrounding yourself with motivated peers provides accountability.

Work-life integration contributes to Henry's sustained success. He prioritizes family time with his three kids. Running allows Henry to destress and hit mental reset buttons. Staying active together instills similar values in his children. Entrepreneurs need outlets beyond work.

Creativity and design thinking influence Henry's approach. His self-taught prowess in design informs his innovations. User-centric products and top-notch aesthetics give his startups an edge. He lets form follow function for customer-focused solutions.

Henry Lo appreciates the iterative nature of entrepreneurship. Launching, testing, pivoting and perfecting is the startup rollercoaster. Rapid iteration allows startups to maximize minimal resources. Henry embraces this agile process.

Calculated risk-taking is another startup must, as Henry models. Not every idea will succeed. But failing fast and cheap offers valuable learnings. Henry quickly cuts ineffective initiatives and doubles down on what clicks. Know when to stay the course or shift gears.

Henry also demonstrates the merits of bootstrapping. He self-funded his first venture which instilled fiscal discipline. Stretching limited capital fostered efficiency. Today he strategically reinvests revenue to fuel organic growth. With the right mindset, scarcity breeds creativity.

Finally, Henry Lo recognizes entrepreneurship as a journey. Ups and downs are inevitable. But small daily progress compounds. Passion, people and perseverance propel startups forward. Embrace both struggles and successes to grow. The path itself brings purpose.

#Henry Lo

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thehollywoodlawyers · 1 year ago

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theventurelawyer · 2 years ago

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Startup Lawyer in Los Angeles

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authorsebooks · 2 years ago

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TIP TOP STARTUPS ACADEMY

youtube

If you're an entrepreneur looking to gain an edge in today's fast-paced startup market, you'll want to check out the "Tip-Top Startups. Legal and Business Playbook Optimized for Innovation" guidebook. Authored by David Nima, Esq., a renowned business, entertainment, and technology lawyer based in Los Angeles, this groundbreaking legal and business guidebook offers valuable insights and best practices on how early-stage technology ventures can reduce legal, market, and financial risks, and drive success. In fact, it's a must-read for anyone looking to gain a competitive advantage in the startup world. To ensure you're fully equipped with the latest tools and strategies, you might also consider enrolling in the Tip-Top Startups Academy. Order your copy today! https://mybook.to/TipTopStartups

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lawadvocategroup · 1 year ago

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Benefits Of Working With A Los Angeles Startup Lawyer

Starting a new business can be an exciting endeavor, especially in the vibrant and competitive landscape of Los Angeles. However, navigating the complex legal aspects of establishing and running a startup can be overwhelming and risky without proper guidance. This is where a Los Angeles Startup Lawyer from a reputable law firm, like Law Advocate Group, LLP, can make a significant difference. Whether you are launching a tech startup in Los Angeles or a creative venture in Beverly Hills, having the right legal support can offer invaluable benefits to your startup's success.

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Establishing a relationship with a startup lawyers early on can be beneficial in the long term. As your startup evolves and faces new legal challenges, having an attorney who already knows your business can provide continuity and consistency in legal counsel. This partnership can prove invaluable as your startup grows and expands its operations.

In conclusion, collaborating with a Los Angeles Startup Lawyer from a reputable law firm like Law Advocate Group, offers numerous advantages for entrepreneurs in the bustling startup scene of Los Angeles. From tailored legal advice to risk mitigation and fundraising support, these attorneys can be instrumental in helping startups thrive in a competitive business environment. So, if you are launching a startup in Los Angeles, consider seeking the guidance of experienced Beverly Hills attorneys to ensure a strong legal foundation for your venture's success.

For more information about Law Advocate Group, and their services, please visit their website at https://lawadvocategroup.com/.

#Los Angeles Startup Lawyer #Beverly Hills Attorneys #Los Angeles Law Firm

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criticalbennifer · 2 years ago

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Inside Jennifer Lopez’s Pop Culture Empire

After an acclaimed role in ‘Hustlers’ and a showstopping performance at this year’s Super Bowl, the star is back with new music and a new movie, ‘Marry Me.’ Next up, a beauty line and a plan to build her brand into a global business.

By: Jonathan Van Meter

Nov. 18, 2020

Jennifer Lopez is sitting at the table in her kitchen in Los Angeles, palm trees soaring outside the picture window behind her, and I’m in my kitchen in New York, and it only takes a second of getting the angles just so before it feels like we’re both sitting in the same kitchen, across from each other, having a normal conversation. Once we’re settled, I notice that Lopez is shuffling a stack of papers, like a lawyer who doesn’t want to forget her talking points during a hearing.

It’s a Sunday afternoon in early October and because Lopez has just finished working out, she’s wearing a black sports bra. “Let me put a sweatshirt on so my boobs don’t assault you,” she says as she reaches out of the Zoom frame. The hoodie she grabs is emblazoned with a smoldering photograph of Lopez and Maluma, the Colombian pop star with whom she’s recently made a movie and an album. Originally scheduled to come out this fall, because of the pandemic the release was pushed to February—just in time for Valentine’s Day, a spot on the winter calendar that actually means something to an unreconstructed romantic like Lopez—and then got bumped again, to May.

At 51, Lopez has built one of the sturdiest careers in show business as one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars (global box office receipts estimated at $4.3 billion) and one of the most successful pop singers on the planet (roughly 70 million records sold worldwide). Although the new music (the first two videos with Maluma, sung mostly in Spanish, dropped in late September) and new movie are what her fans will be buzzing about in the coming months, there is other big news in J. Lo’s world—and the reason she’s got talking points in hand: a new beauty line launching any day now (details of which are being kept under wraps); a pending IPO for a startup in which she’s a key investor; and perhaps most tantalizing, persistent rumors that she and A-Rod, to whom she is A-ffianced, have been in a bidding war to become the next owners of the New York Mets.

Lopez has never been afraid to show off her boss moves—and has always evinced the aura of la jefa, a woman who thinks strategically, especially when it comes to her career—but get her talking about how she’s juggling the intersecting parts of her portfolio and she goes full C to the E-O. “There’s the entertainment silo,” she says. “There’s the investment silo. There’s the building businesses silo. And in the entertainment silo, there’s a producing silo, an acting silo, a performing silo and the music silo. And everything needs to be managed and looked after properly, right?”

The biggest piece in the entertainment silo right now—her new film, Marry Me—is, on its face, a romantic comedy, because Lopez is an incorrigible lover and maker of romantic comedies. Long since women like Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock and Reese Witherspoon have aged out of the genre, Lopez soldiers on as one of the art form’s last great practitioners. Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas has been Lopez’s producing partner these past eight years; she co-wrote Lopez’s 2018 romantic comedy, Second Act, and was both her and Julia Roberts’s agent during the golden age of the genre. Those films remain a sweet spot for Lopez, she says, because she is a girl’s girl. “There’s an authenticity about her that is deeply touching,” says Goldsmith-Thomas. “She doesn’t root against anyone. She sees the good in people. She doesn’t judge. For all of the glitter, gloss and sparkle, what’s underneath is an authentic, honest, good friend.”

“We love these movies,” Lopez says. “These movies are necessary. Elaine and I have kind of built a career on, you know, incorporating romantic comedies into our lives in a very real way. You can watch people find their way and figure it out and fall in love over and over and over. It never gets old.”

Lopez seems to never get old either—and not just in that she looks younger than her years. There has always been an endearingly naive, almost immature aspect to Lopez, most obviously exemplified in her chaotic romantic life. She still has a girlishness that for most women might be hard to pull off once you’re the mother of 12-year-old twins (a daughter, Emme, and a son, Max, from her relationship with ex-husband Marc Anthony) and on the cusp of your fourth marriage. But in a nod to reality—a capitulation to the fact that, despite all physical evidence to the contrary, J. Lo is indeed in her 50s—in Marry Me she plays a pop star approaching middle age.

The script is based on a graphic novel of the same name by Bobby Crosby and was initially in development as a television show at Lopez’s production company, Nuyorican, before they decided to turn it into a movie. “The character Jennifer plays has been married many times,” says the film’s director, Kat Coiro. “She’s had ups and downs in the press. There’s a mention of a sex tape. She’s been in the public eye in a very vulnerable way.” When Coiro talks about the film, the line between the character and the star gets blurry. “I think that if people can persevere through that kind of scrutiny and, you know, manage to stay on top and stay positive and keep working, it eventually fosters a lot of good will, because there’s a realness to that. They end up being very beloved.”

Sound familiar? “It was very meta,” says Lopez of playing a character so close to herself, shooting footage at Madison Square Garden and the Hammerstein Ballroom, her Bronx-to–Manhattan superstar stomping grounds. “It was a cathartic experience, and I had to constantly remind myself: Put everything that you’ve lived here. I play a pop star who has her own brand and has been around for a while and has been in and out of bad relationships. I would say to myself, You don’t have to act here. You just have to show your pure essence and it’s gonna work. It’ll be right.”

Marry Me is a musical in the way that A Star Is Born is a musical: a movie about a pop star who sings and dances her way through several scenes of live concert performance, many of the songs playing out in their entirety. In A Star Is Born, Lady Gaga brought her enormous gifts of singing and songwriting to a character that wasn’t Lady Gaga, but she was also playing an ingenue, a woman at the outset of a journey. Lopez’s Kat Valdez is world-weary from getting it all wrong—A Star Has Been There, Done That. Lopez sings most of the songs on the album—a bilingual soundtrack, with Maluma recording a few of his own. “I’m really proud of the music,” says Lopez. “It’s super-authentic. At the same time, I had to perform music that I loved and responded to, but it wouldn’t be a J. Lo album.”

But this is a J. Lo movie, which means if it’s a comedy centered on a romance, it must have a happy ending. Enter Owen Wilson, who plays the Brooklyn math teacher whom Lopez meets cute. Because of his all-around normal-guy decency, the superstar winds up humbled and humanized and, presumably, happy ever after. Wilson’s big takeaway from working with Lopez (aside from what a “formidable person she is”) is not so much about Lopez as the fuss she inspires. “I don’t know if I’ve ever worked with anyone where there is that much curiosity from my friends, wanting to visit the set so they could see Jennifer Lopez,” he tells me. “Part of it is that she looks so great, and I think women really admire how she’s so strong and beautiful. I was surprised by, you know, my mom, but also almost all of the women I’m friends with—they really want to see her with their own two eyes.”

Marry Me fires all of J. Lo’s cylinders at once and serves as a reminder that she has always been both ahead of her time and a quadruple-threat who cycles through various phases of surprising her audience, being underestimated by them and then surprising everyone once again. Right out of the gate, her Golden Globe–nominated performance in Selena in 1997 was followed three weeks later by Anaconda (which has a 38 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and also co-starred Wilson). If historians were asked to pinpoint the precise moment of the J. Lo Event Horizon—when her nova went super—it would be January 2001, a month when she had both the No. 1 movie (The Wedding Planner) and No. 1 album (J.Lo) in America at the same time—the only woman to do so.

As the Harvard Crimson pointed out last year in an earnest/hilarious pitch-perfect essay, “This Year in J-Lo History: 2001,” it was also when—after breaking the internet with a green Versace dress that she wore to the 2000 Grammys, the incident that became an impetus for Google’s invention of Google Images—Lopez founded her hugely successful clothing line, J.Lo by Jennifer Lopez. At the press conference for the launch she said, in an early burst of prescient confidence: “It’s time for the world to wear my look.” As Amelia F. Roth-Dishy wrote in the Crimson, the sporty chic clothing line “cemented Lopez’s status as the aughts’ supreme arbiter of mass culture in nearly every conceivable realm—the stage, the screen, the radio, and the all-important closet.” It gets harder every day to keep the history of this sort of pop culture effluvium straight—with a firehose of celebrity news on social media—but women like Kim Kardashian West, Rihanna and Beyoncé have clearly taken a page out of the original J. Lo playbook.

Yes, we watched Lopez make her way through the Puffy phase (rapper and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs), the Bennifer spectacle (actor Ben Affleck), the “Get Right” Marc Anthony cool-down period. Sure, she was sublime in Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight, but there was also the spectacularly awful Gigli. We were treated to the delightful Judge Jennifer era of American Idol, when at long last America got to really be with her, to finally see that she’s a lover, not a fighter. Then she seemed to disappear for a few years: into a Vegas residency and the concomitant Shades of Blue, a forgettable, two-star cop show on NBC that you probably didn’t watch.

And then came 2019. Lopez began the year working out like a madwoman so she could believably, comfortably shoot the thrilling stripper-pole opener (her idea) for Hustlers last spring. As soon as they wrapped she began rehearsals for a tour, which lasted most of the summer. Once that ended, she flew to the Toronto International Film Festival in early September, after the studio, based on wildfire word-of-mouth that movie producers dream of, decided to fast-track Hustlers. It opened to raves for Lopez as Ramona, the stripper with a heart of a gold brick.

Lopez was born to play Ramona, the man-eater in a big fur, partly because it’s a character she’s toyed with over the years in her public persona, but also because she is Jenny from the Block, that gum-snapping tough girl with the door-knocker earrings whom you might not want to cross. I was once in a nightclub in Manhattan in the late ’90s when Puff and J. Lo (both in big furs) made their entrance—as if Bonnie and Clyde themselves had arrived to part the sweaty masses.

“When I read the script for Hustlers, I knew that there was a character there that was a f—ing badass that I hadn’t really done,” says Lopez. “I understood Ramona. Being a mom and being the mother-bear figure and stuff like that. But there were parts of her that I had to delve into and, you know, figure out. She’s a ruthless character. She really doesn’t give a shit about anybody or anything—except money. And I know people like that. They seem kind, and you’re drawn to them; they’re like, the center of attention, the life of the party. But they’re also like, Don’t f— with my money!”

Award nominations rained down on Lopez (though not the expected Oscar, a big letdown, she admits). “I was really taken aback by the reaction,” she says. “Not that I didn’t think it was good. I was proud of my performance. But that hadn’t happened to me since Selena. It’d been more than 20 years since I’d gotten those kinds of accolades.”

If Lopez’s stripper-pole voodoo bolstered her status as an avatar of a kind of timeless, ageless, all-around Latina moxie, her Super Bowl performance a few months later burned it more deeply into the cultural consciousness. It was more than just how she looked: It’s that she suddenly seemed to stand for something. When I put the question to her longtime manager, Benny Medina, he says, “She has just started to get a sense of who she is and what she represents: the limitless potential of women and how they can work hard, stay focused, multitask and not accept a shelf life—even if they get knocked down or ridiculed or fail. I think she became a bit of a poster girl for that resilience combined with her own cultural and ethnic pride combined with being a mother.” Or as Goldsmith-Thomas puts it, “I think she’s become the symbol for Why not? If you want more, do more.”

It is a truism that female entertainers are quietly indoctrinated to believe an expiration date applies to them that does not exist for their male counterparts. Which is why some can seem almost in a panic to stay relevant. There is an impatience that can tip over into trying too hard, a kind of brittleness that exhausts audiences. The one-two punch of Hustlers into her triumphant Super Bowl performance has delivered Lopez from this fate. She seems to have relaxed into herself. As Owen Wilson says, “I think if you sort of stay around long enough and continue to produce the way she has, you sometimes enter into—I almost hesitate to say it—national treasure territory, and I think she is a woman who has entered into that realm. You know how you put things in a time capsule and send it off to Mars or something? She would be one of those people.”

“There is something in me that wants to endure,” says Lopez. “I feel youthful and I feel powerful and I want to show women how to be powerful. There was a lot of symbolism in the performance at the Super Bowl. I wanted to be at the top of the Empire State Building, like King Kong, beating my chest: ‘I’m here!’ You know? It’s a very powerful thing to use your femininity and your sensuality. We are here and we matter. We deserve to be equal. You have to count us.”

At one point, Lopez tells me a story about a meeting she had with her fragrance company several years ago. “I had been challenging Benny for a while on our business stuff. Because I just felt like we weren’t doing it right. I realized this when I sat down with my perfume company and they showed me all these numbers. And they said to me, ‘We’ve made a billion dollars.’ ”

She stared at me and blinked a couple of times. “A billion. Dollars.” She let out a mordant chuckle. “And then they said, ‘We have a plan to get to $2 billion and this is how we’re going to do it and we want to re-sign you.’ I’m sitting there going, ‘You made a billion dollars? I came up with the perfume. I came up with the name. I’m marketing it. It’s my face in the ads. I didn’t make that kind of money. Where is the billion dollars?”

Early in her career, she says, Lopez intuited that “people want to smell like their favorite pop star or they want to look like their favorite actress or they want to wear what their favorite models wear. There are brands to be made here from these people. But we were in a licensing model. And the licensing model doesn’t really make you any money.”

In the past year she’s done deals with everyone from Versace and Coach to DSW and Guess, a high-low mix that has always been her signature. But it was in that fragrance meeting a decade ago when the seeds of discontent were planted, which ultimately led to a wholesale re-engineering of Lopez’s business ventures, what Medina describes as “ramping up of our investment profile with the idea that we’re going to start to not just be an endorser of things, but more a partner in all of our businesses. That is the pivot: She is no longer just putting her name on things and then going out there and singing and dancing.” Now, he says, “a lot of people come to us initially for endorsement; some come to us for investment; but in all cases, if we decide to endorse, we’re usually going to invest.”

This new approach puts her in a league with other celebrities who have leveraged their image and lifestyle—notably, the Kardashians—into astonishingly lucrative empires. Indeed, her hope is to try to capture a slice of the estimated $100 billion beauty market in the U.S. with her own line of cosmetics, JLo Beauty. It’s all part of a master plan: to be that wiser, older (but still youthful) role model for women who want to take control of their bodies, their beauty and their sexual health. “The whole inspiration of: If I can do it, you can do it,” says Medina.

The biggest move Lopez has made since she’s committed to this new strategy, with Alex Rodriguez as her co-investor, is with the health and wellness brand Hims & Hers. The couple are not just the face of it; they stand to see a windfall as investors (they would not disclose the size of their stake). Among other things, Hims & Hers facilitates telehealth and offers subscriptions to dermatological, sexual-health and hair-loss remedies. “It’s really about bringing health care to everybody online at an affordable price,” says Lopez, “which for me and Alex is very on-brand because we grew up in those neighborhoods where you didn’t always have access to everything and certain prescriptions were too expensive.” (Hims & Hers filed to go public through a merger with Oaktree Aquisition Corp. , a special-purpose acquisition company; the deal could be valued at $1.6 billion, according to the two companies.)

Lopez has also made investments in energy drinks (Super Coffee), sports (NRG Esports) and virtual entertainment/social media (Wave; Community). The larger goal of this flurry of investing is that she and Rodriguez have had something much bigger in mind: buying the Mets. “We have a plan for the Mets and the city and the fans,” says Lopez, “but we’re still waiting in the wings. They’ve chosen who their first bid is, and that person still has to be approved, so we’re kind of hopeful.” Part of what makes the possibility of Lopez in the owner’s box potentially game-changing is that most of the individuals who currently own teams are white men, with relatively few minorities or women. “We would be honored to be the first Latino couple.” A big smile spreads across her face. “We’re not giving up!” (An agreement to move forward with a rival bid, from billionaire hedge-fund manager Steven A. Cohen, was announced by the team in September and expected to close in November.)

Medina tells me that at first Lopez was taken aback to discover that many of the boardrooms where she’s been spending time recently are filled mostly with men. “She said to me, ‘They’re thinking about how to sell us, they’re thinking about how to buy us, but they’re not thinking like us,’ ” says Medina.

It’s been yet another life lesson for Lopez leading to her late-blooming maturity. “I’ll be sitting there with 20 people,” she says. “Men! From the ages of 30 to 70 sometimes. You know what I mean? Men who have been doing it for the longest are not used to having a girl in the room. You see them test you with, like, the first time they throw the boy talk in there to see how you react. You know?” Medina, who often accompanies Lopez to these meetings, says that you can tell a lot from who’s the most surprised. “ ‘Oh, we’re just blown away with your business acumen and your savvy and your focus,’ and we’re like, ‘Dude, how do you think she f—ing stayed on top for 25 years? What did you think was going on all this time?”

Medina also points out that Rodriguez has been “a major influence on Jennifer’s business thinking,” and that eventually, as a team, they both completely (edited) embraced it. “When Alex came into my life,” says Lopez, “he was like, ‘Let’s build your skin-care company. This is a dream of yours. Let’s do it together. Let’s own it.’ It’s like when somebody opens up your eyes to something new—it’s like a broadened horizon.”

The couple started dating three years ago “and realized we could help each other really grow to another level,” says Lopez. “I think where we’re twin souls, or whatever term you want to use, is in the way that there are no limits. That we’re limitless. That’s my thing, but he helped me realize how true that is. We can do anything. We both have that DNA—like, why not? Why can’t we build not one multibillion-dollar business, but three or four? Why can’t we own the Mets?”

Toward the end of our Zoom call, I hear a dog bark. “That’s Lady,” says Lopez. “A white Lab. She’s a little bit older now. But she is everything her name implies: She is beautiful and she is the sweetest—the perfect lady. And then we have a brand-new dog, Tyson. He’s our pandemic puppy. I call him a menace to society. He eats garbage.” When one of the twins comes into the kitchen with some kind of electronic device blaring, Lopez shouts. “Max! I can’t hear, baby. Thank you.” Later, she tells me, “The twins are 12 now. It’s crazy. I’ve got to get them off those electronics for the rest of the day. I let them have them in the morning on the weekends but then I’ve gotta snatch ’em.”

It was one year ago when the shoot for Marry Me wrapped in New York City during the week of Thanksgiving and Lopez flew to Los Angeles and went straight into two months of rehearsals for the Super Bowl on February 2. “I filmed another season of World of Dance right after the Super Bowl,” says Lopez, “and on our last day, I flew to Miami and stayed there for the quarantine.” Like several other stars, Lopez and Rodriguez were dragged on social media for the tone-deaf celebration of blended family life inside their luxurious bubble. I ask Lopez what she’s learned from quarantine.

“I actually loved being home and having dinner with the kids every night, which I hadn’t done in probably—ever. And the kids kind of expressed to me, like, the parts that they were fine with about our lives and the parts they weren’t fine with. It was just a real eye-opener and a reassessment, to really take a look at what was working and what wasn’t working. You thought you were doing OK, but you’re rushing around and you’re working and they’re going to school and we’re all on our devices. We’re providing this awesome life for them, but at the same time, they need us. They need us in a different way. We have to slow down and we have to connect more. And, you know, I don’t want to miss things. And I realized, ‘God. I would have missed that if I wasn’t here today.’ I feel like everybody aged, like, three years during this pandemic. I watched them go from kind of young and naive to really, like, grown-ups to me now. When did this happen? They’re not our babies anymore. They’ve been given a dose of the real world, with the knowledge that things can be taken away from you and life is going to happen no matter what. They had to grow up.” She gets distracted for a second by something off-screen but then refocuses. “So did we.”

#jennifer lopez #jlo #wall streeet journal #press/article #2020 #marry me

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emmaperriy-blog · 4 years ago

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kafka-ish · 4 years ago

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brother | r.t.

can boys and girls be friends without attached feelings?

word count: 2.1k

warnings/included: angst(?), college AU, fem!reader

a/n: based off of this song

Richie Tozier sat in the parking lot of USC’s Law Department. Become a Lawyer his mom said. You’ll make a lot of money his dad said. It only took two weeks into his freshman year of college for Richie to figure out that he actually hated the judicial system and to hell with it. He was about to light a cigarette even though he pledged to quit months ago: the last day of senior year.

He and the rest of the Losers were hanging by the quarry. Beverly was sitting on the hood of Bill’s car, slathering sunscreen on her sensitive skin because she burns easily. Ben sat with her, his arm itching to wrap itself around her pale shoulder. Bill, Eddie, and Stan were playing cards and Mike had to monitor them for cheating. Richie would’ve joined, but he didn’t want to get up from his position that overlooked the quarry’s water hole. He was laying down on the rocks, eyes closed and shades on, in place of his usual glasses.

“I think I’m gonna quit smokin’,” he announced with a certain proudness that his voice normally did not hold.

“O-oh yeah? How l-long’s that gonna luh-last?” Bill looked up from his cards, giving Eddie a chance to sneak a peak.

“I saw that, Eddie!” Mike Hanlon called from above and Eddie flinched.

“Cripes. Warn a guy before you yell first.”

Four months. It lasted four months, Big Bill, as Richie took out his BIC. He had to mess with it a few times to get the flame to startup. He always preferred matches, but the black lighter with flame stickers he kept in his shirt pocker was cooler.

A yellow-orange heat finally flicked the contraption to life when, at the same time, his Nokia 232 buzzed against the gearshift.

Four months and one day.

The small flame died in Richie’s hand that was now pressing his phone to his ear with no hesitation.

“Rich the Dick Tozier speaking, how can I help you?” Sure, it wasn’t the most professional way to answer a phone call, but who was anyone to call Richie Tozier a professional guy?”

“Hey, Richie!” It was y/n. y/n the girl who sat in front of him in his English class. y/n the girl who wore parkas in fucking California because it’s for the fashion and you wouldn’t understand. y/n the girl who got drunk off her ass at the first party of the year—which, ironically, was where they met.

The parties in college were spectacularly different from the parties Richie would go to in high school. More so, the parties in California were more… insane. Wild. The booze was exponentially more expensive—nothing that Bill would ever think of getting at his own. And the girls could closely be mistaken for a Hollywood child star.

Nothing like the parties in Derry Richie thought to himself as he drunkenly swept through the halls of a fucking Mansion. He didn’t realize his feet were working properly until he looked down, seeing as he was standing on all fours—all twos. How he was still standing up remained a mystery to him because he must’ve had ten shots of vodka that was worth more than his entire being and future.

Before him, when he entered the billiard room, stood a girl even drunker than him (somehow). She stood on the pool table, laughing above the crowd of frat boys who were yelling to take your damn shirt off already! And c’mon don’t be a prude. They surrounded her like dogs fighting for the last strip of steak until Richie stepped in.

“A little drunk to be standing on the edge like that.” He took a swig from his red solo cup. “Here, sweetheart, lemme help you down.” He offered her an unsteady hand only to be brushed away like a speck of dust on a grandfather clock.

“I can help myself,” y/n said. She got down from the pool table by sitting on the ledge first, then letting each foot touch the ground one at a time. “See?” She steadied herself using his shoulder and looked up at him with a smirk that let him know they were going to be friends.

And they were friends.

y/n was overjoyed when she found out Richie was in one out of her five classes and Richie was just happy to be able to talk someone’s ear off without them rolling their eyes or giving him the side-eye.

“Hey, y/n/n,” Richie said, mimicking the same enthusiasm from across the speaker. “What’re you up to?”

“Besides calling you?” Richie felt himself beginning to laugh but it felt wrong to do so. As cheery as y/n sounded, there was something off.

“Are you okay?” Richie blurted out, but he couldn’t help himself. It was in his nature; always looking out for y/n; always taking care of her.

“I’m fine, Tozier.” She laughed but he could tell it was fake. The way her voice was still summer in the crisp of fall was fake. The whole call was fake. “You just love checking in on me don’t ya.” Another giggle left the speaker—covering the cracks in her voice, or a sob.

“No, really.” His hand left the phone—his shoulder and cheek propping the device up against his ear—and reached for the gearshift. “How are you?”

Static. But Richie had been over at her place thousands of times before—not needing to ask for her address or pull out a map for directions. And Richie was right (he was always right) when he burst through the wooden door of y/n’s small, but somehow spacious, Los Angeles apartment.

“y/n, I know you’re in there,” Richie said, followed by three curt knocks. His shoulder slumped against the door and he sighed. “y/n, don’t make me go all big bad wolf on your little ol’ door.” He looked down to see the welcoming mat where guests were supposed to wipe their shoes off.

There’s No Place Like Home

A short laugh bounced off the walls from inside and Richie took that as his queue. His hand had a firm grasp around the bronze doorknob, refreshing from the California air. He jangled it, only for the structure to not budge, like it didn’t give a damn that he had to get inside.

“Dammit, y/n/n, get off your goddamned high horse and open the door.”

Richie was never one for words, but at these, the lock broke in and in slipped Richie. It was as if the door had heard his cries and complied—feeling sorry for the boy. But the mysteriousness of y/n’s apartment door didn’t matter when Richie’s eyes caught y/n’s figure—or lack of one. She sat on the leather couch which was a moving present from her parents (“We know how expensive it can be; being a young adult with college expenses. Wow, to think, my baby’s all grown up.”), wrapped in a blanket, burrito style. Even fro six feet away (approximately), Richie could see the tears welling in her eyes and the snot spilling from her nose.

“Richie Tozier, can you ever learn to take a goddamn hint?” y/n’s voice was far too weak to show any sign of malicious intent. He stood in front of her, tentative but also caring. He wanted to help. He just didn’t know how.

“I am taking the hint.” Richie sat down next to the bundle of blankets. He sat close, so close that if y/n’s feet were on the floor, his knees would’ve touched hers. She could smell his mint deodorant and cheap cologne; or maybe she was just so used to having him next to her, that was what she knew he smelled like. y/n smelled like this month’s body wash. Orange blossom. She must’ve taken an extra-long soak today. She always did when something was wrong. “I know you want me here, toots. Otherwise, you wouldn’t’ve called.”

Richie was right and at the moment y/n hated him for being able to read her mind.

She was about to tell him off but a strangled cry left her lips instead. Richie didn’t need to ask what was wrong to know what was wrong. Besides, it would be cruel—condescending—to put a filter over his voice the way you’d talk to a terrier or a baby and ask what’s wrong?

It was clear what was wrong. Judging by the two-hour-long bath she had taken beforehand and off-brand, empty Ben & Jerry’s container on her coffee table: her piece of shit boyfriend had just dumped her. Richie never liked Brandon, y/n’s so-called (now ex) boyfriend. But it could’ve been the other way around, too. His over-gelled head was always stuck in his Levi 512’s and the only time Richie saw that pompous smirk leave his lips was when he walked in on him and y/n kissing. Gag. But y/n had the right to be upset about getting dumped—even if it was by a perpetual twerp who never passed up the chance to brag about his perfect SAT score (wake up, buddy, we all got into the same college).

Richie sat waiting for a reply he was never going to get because y/n was too busy blowing her nose into the sleeve of her robe.

“C’mon, sweetheart.” Carefully, Richie unwrapped y/n from the cocoon, similarly to how a cautious child unwraps their presents. “You don’t need Brandon. You don’t need anyone.” It was true. She didn’t need anyone, and if anything people needed her. “You’re y/n.” He spoke the two words with such sureness—confidence. She was y/n, and if that’s not enough for them to see, then they’re delusional.

“How do you know?” She asked. Even if it was just a college boyfriend—her first college boyfriend—it still hurt like hell. The thought of being not wanted. Knowing it was her; that she couldn’t just fix whatever her lover didn’t like that ended up pushing him off the edge. He just didn’t like her.

Of course, she didn’t love Brandon. She didn’t love the way his hair was always stiff and she couldn’t comb her fingers through it the way she did Richie’s. She didn’t love him finding an excuse to say hello to the next blonde he saw whenever they went to parties together. She didn’t love Brandon, and Brandon apparently didn’t love her. But if Brandon didn’t love her, then who would?

Maybe the answer was staring her down right in front of her, or pressing against her shoulder as Richie bent down to pick up the empty ice cream carton. “You are y/n, right?” Richie asked in attempts to bring her spirits up.

And he did.

y/n’s eyes crinkled as she smiled and she chocked on her breath at the laugh she tried to hold in. “Do you think I’m an impostor?”

“Who knows?” Richie sat back down. His shoulder brushed her covered one and his head fell back to look at the ceiling. “Plastic surgery is pretty popular these days. Especially in La City of Angels.” He turned to face her now—a tear-free y/n that stared back at him. Her eyes were much lighter than before and her skin looked like it had just been kissed. By who?

“You’re an angel,” y/n said unexpectedly. Well, this was a turn of events. Richie managed to suppress his cough—a usual reaction that’d take place when he was surprised.

He pulled on the collar of his band-tee (Rock On, AC/DC!) because it was all of the sudden hard to breathe in this small LA apartment of y/n’s. He felt his pulse quicken under the skin of his wrist and neck. A line of sweat was forming beneath his browbone. Oftentimes, it was hard to differentiate if California was undergoing an unforeseen heatwave or if Richie was just drawing a fever. But summer had passed and Richie hand’t gotten sick in years, even if it was just a head cold.

Richie sat there, speechless, and wondered. He wondered why, out of all the nicknames in the world, he hasn’t called y/n baby yet. It was always babe or honey, but never baby. Why was that? Hypothetically, he could call her that. He could call her a lot of things—like his. So why didn’t he? Why had he never asked y/n out?

But it occurred to him, as y/n tucked a loose strand of his hair behind his ear, that y/n was hurting. She needed a friend and nothing more. A brother, per se. He could sense her lean in. For a kiss, perhaps? But Richie was quick to dodge and cup her face in his large palm. An intimate action, sure, but their relationship was far from it.

“Look, y/n/n.” His breath hit her face. It was warm and felt like home. “You’re hurting right now.” His thumb rubbed along her jawline. “We’re just friends, right?”

“Friends,” y/n echoed back to him. And while she wasn’t completely convinced with the words coming from Richie Tozier’s mouth, she’d agree with him for his sake.

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