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spookyboywhump · 5 years ago

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Previous Parts

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Okay so. I’m sorry for the lack of whump these couple of parts, but since I have a story going here story stuff is necessary. Not tagging this one as whump either, instead we get a look at what’s up with Wren’s coworkers, and why Zander is in this hell. So, three new characters and some backstory, which I didn’t go too into detail with specifically because I want to write some detailed whumpy stuff for Zander’s early years here. I promise things will pick up next part UwU

***

Cara stared tiredly at the screen in front of her, eyes focused on the blinking red dot that they had been watching for days now. Someone always had to be watching, in case anything changed, and thus far his location had only changed a few times, always coming back to the same place though.

The tracker on his phone had died at the first location, they already had people sent to look into that place. From there they figured out he was being kept at the Whitaker estate, none of them even knew people still lived there until now. It would be impossible to get into that place- they’d already checked the security on it- so they focused on the third location. Today marked the third time he’d gone there and back and it was driving her crazy that they didn’t know what was happening. She had tried going there but couldn’t find anything worthwhile, that part of the city was near abandoned so there wasn’t a whole lot to see.

She wasn’t just watching his location though, the microchip in his arm was giving more information than that. It was a bit of experimental tech, something new from their technology department. Elias had been the perfect guinea pig for it since he was going on this assignment, and he didn’t seem to mind the risks too much. It gave his location like any decent tracker would, but it also monitored his heart rate and other important vitals. They’d been making notes every time his heart rate seemed to jump. They’d made a lot of notes.

She’d been worried about him since he volunteered for this mission, they all thought it was a bad idea. Elias wasn’t weak or helpless, but he was more sensitive than other volunteers, he’d be more at risk than the other volunteers. He was adamant about doing it though, insisted he had to “know for himself” what happened. He didn’t go into detail, but she had a feeling it was somehow personal to him. She’d never admit it to him but she had desperately hoped and prayed he wouldn’t be chosen, but ultimately their boss decided it was best. Unlike other volunteers, Elias didn’t have a family at home to worry about, they wouldn’t have to explain anything away if he went missing, and Cara and the others were just supposed to be okay with it.

Needless to say, they weren’t. In between monitoring him, doing their own jobs, and pleading with their boss to give permission to do something, they’d been worrying themselves sick just thinking about what he was going through. They’d all heard horror stories, it had been a rumor forever now, and it was hard not to get lost thinking about all the horrible possibilities.

“Want me to take over?” She jumped when she heard his voice, looking up to see Alec standing beside the desk. “You’ve been here all day, isn’t Lila worried?” He asked. He looked just as tired as she felt but she was ready to take up his offer.

“She’s probably too busy sleeping to be worried.” She sighed, getting up from her chair and stretching her arms above her head. She couldn’t help but be jealous, thinking of her girlfriend at home getting some well needed sleep. She’d taken over for her early that morning, insisting she get some rest. She’d monitor while Alec looked into the other victims they were finding, and eventually Lila would come back to fill one of their places so the other could rest. They needed more people on this assignment, but everyone else was completely booked with their own assignments, so they’d just have to work on little sleep a lot of coffee.

“Anything new?” He asked as he sat down, taking a look at her notes.

“He went back to the third location earlier this morning, was there for almost an hour. His pulse and blood pressure jumped again, calmed down for a little bit, and went back up again.” She groaned, pushing her hair back with her hands. “It’s killing me! Something horrible is definitely happening and what are we doing here?! Nothing!”

“We’re doing what we’re told.” He sighed. “Of course, what we’re told is be useless and sit here until shit gets serious, but it’s going to be hard to tell how serious until he’s, you know, bleeding out or something.”

“You’re not good at all at being comforting, you know that?”

“You’ve told me everyday since he left.” He said, turning to face her. “We don’t need to worry too much, I mean, he’s alive, we’ll know if something happens.”

“I don’t want to wait until something happens though. I want to at least see him, just get an idea of how he’s doing. Especially if he isn’t doing well, that should give us enough reason to be able to get him out of there!” She was pacing in front of the desk now, Alec watching her tiredly. He glanced towards their boss’ empty office before looking back at her.

“Well… we were given very, very specific instructions not to interfere-”

“I know that!”

“But,” He continued as if she hadn’t said anything, “Just going to a location isn’t interfering. We’ve already done that. Staying at a location for a prolonged amount of time isn’t interfering, and just getting lucky enough to catch sight of him isn’t interfering. In fact, it would be the best course of action, especially if you just happen to get some sort of proof that his situation is getting worse.” She had stopped pacing while he spoke, taking a moment to consider what he said before a big grin crossed her face.

They couldn’t get into Whitaker’s place, they knew that much, but there was one other place he kept returning to, one odd and seemingly abandoned place. Three times was too much to be a coincidence, and if they left the moment they knew he was heading there, they absolutely could be there long before he was. They weren’t allowed to interfere, but that didn’t mean they had to stay completely out of the way.

***

“I… can… can I ask what happened…?” Wren asked hesitantly, watching Zander with wide eyes as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “I mean, you can’t just leave it there…”

“I can and I should.” He sighed heavily. “You don’t want to hear the sob story of Daniel Alexander King.”

“Daniel? That’s your name…?” He tilted his head slightly, he was so used to calling him Zander that he could hardly picture him as anything else.

“It was. Cain changed it, and if you try and call me Daniel around him he’ll probably beat us both. We’re sticking to Zander and Wren, agreed?” He gave him a look, and Wren nodded quickly. It was best they didn’t let his real name slip around Cain anyway.

“I do want to hear the story though, actually, I need to hear the story. We know a lot about people volunteering for this, but someone in your situation is entirely different, and there’s no way you’re the only one!” Zander looked hesitant, making a face as he glanced away from him, but finally, he relented.

“I’ll give you the short version for now, I don’t know when Cain will get back and once he does I think I’ll be… busy.” He frowned.

“I… sorry about that… if I’d known he’d be upset I wouldn’t have wanted you to tell me…” He couldn’t help but feel guilty, wondering what terrible punishment Cain would have for him now.

“Don’t worry about it, he’s always looking for a reason to harass me. It’s not your fault.” He said. Wren watched as he came over and knelt down beside the bed, bending over and pulling something out from underneath.

“What’s that?” He asked, leaning over to see the small box.

“Some of the stuff I’m allowed to keep. Not much but, it’s best to keep it hidden.” He shrugged, taking the top off. There were a few things placed in there, some papers, a couple of photographs, what looked like an earring, and… a couple of teeth? He tried to hide the disgust on his face, looking up at Zander.

“Why are you keeping teeth in a box under your bed?”

“Look kid, I don’t get a lot of personal things around here, if my teeth get knocked out of my mouth I’m going to keep them.” He said, looking through some of the papers, old newspaper clippings it looked like, even though by now most people got their news in one of many digital formats.

“Okay…” He decided to ignore that, looking at one of the photographs he’d left in the box. For a moment, he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. He could tell it was taken at a high school graduation, but it took him a second to realize the grinning boy in the photo was Zander, standing between what must’ve been his parents. It was almost odd to see him without a scratch or bruise in sight, no leather collar, no signature scowl, his hair was shorter and neater and he looked so happy.

“I asked for some pictures once, as a reward, whatever Cain was willing to get me.” He said when he noticed Wren staring at it. “I figured they’d be easy to find, I… I had started to forget their faces.” He frowned. “It had been a while…”

“Oh… I’m sorry…” Zander just shrugged, handing him some of the papers and changing the subject.

“Here’s what everyone else knows of the situation. Cain kept me updated on it for a while, at least, until I was presumed dead. Of course, none of that is important since it’s all lies but it’s part of the story.” He shrugged. Wren quickly scanned the papers, stories about a missing boy who disappeared after his father “killed himself”. How convenient, he thought, scowling at what he saw.

“So what actually happened? How did you end up here?” He asked.

“Cain’s father wanted me out of the way. I don’t know if they thought I knew something or if they didn’t want me asking questions, but he decided the best way to get rid of me was to give me to Cain. If the situation wasn’t so fucked up I’d say it’s funny, the bastard didn’t even know what to do with me at first.” He laughed, but Wren just stared at him. “They tried to “train” me first, but Whitaker got impatient and just gave me to Cain as is.”

“What did your dad know that warranted all this?” He knew that Charles Whitaker had been a very well known man, and it shouldn’t have surprised him to know he was kind of shady, but he couldn’t imagine all the horrible things that would get someone killed because they uncovered it, and were potentially going to expose it.

“It sounds like he knew everything. Cain’s dad owned half the city, and nobody gets that kind of power while doing completely normal ethical things. I know he had a hand in all this business with the dogs, but it sounds like there were other things too. I don’t know for sure because, to prevent this exact scenario, I was never told anything.” He sighed. “I kind of wish I knew more, since it seems I was going to end up like this anyway.”

Wren stared at the papers in his hands, news stories about his “disappearance” about his suspected suicide following his father’s, it was all so fake and suspicious that he couldn’t picture anyone actually believing it.

“Your dad was killed, you’re here, what about your mom?” He asked. He saw her mentioned a few times in these articles, he couldn’t help but wonder what happened to her in connection to all this.

“Oh, she got lucky. They weren’t together, hadn’t been for a while, long before he started his investigation. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were keeping an eye on her, but I guess they didn’t see reason to kill her. Instead she gets to just, live her life, thinking I ran away or killed myself, and I… honestly I feel like shit thinking about that, so I’d rather not.” He said, glancing away from Wren. “Cain used to show me the news on tv sometimes, it was hard to watch but… I guess that’s why he was willing to show me. Rub salt in the wounds, you know?”

He looked back at Zander, studying his face. For once he didn’t look angry, just, tired, defeated even. This man had been here six years, and no matter how strong and defiant he was, he could see that it had thoroughly ruined him. He couldn’t imagine him smiling like the boy in that picture, he was scarred, physically and no doubt mentally. He wondered how he survived six years at all, how he hadn’t gone crazy living like this, how Cain’s abuse hadn’t killed him.

He had to get him out of there.

#my writing #my oc's #Wren #Zander #Cara #Alec #Lila mentioned #Hhhhh I'm not sure about this one #it all makes sense to me but I'm worried it sounds stupid to someone Not Me #but yeah #some backstory and an outside look at stuff #Wren's friends are worried #more whump will come next part #and its 9 pm I have work at 6 am and I havent eaten goodnight and goodbye

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prorevenge · 6 years ago

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Girl I had a crush on in middle school bullied and mocked me for SIX YEARS. A decade later, VENGEANCE.

TL;DR at the end!

When I was in seventh grade, I moved to a new town. My father was killed in a military accident, and my mom wanted to start fresh in a new place. We came from a small town and our new apartment was in a huge city. My mom grieved my dad for over two years, but after that got back into dating and eventually married my now-stepdad, with whom she is still happily married. He's always treated us well, and I love and respect him. They have their own daughter together, my half-sister.

I didn't adjust very well. I was active and happy in my old town, but in my new town I was depressed and a loner. I entered school in the middle of the year when all the friend groups were already formed. I missed my dad a lot so just stayed home and ate and played video games.

I got fat.

Never obese, but I was chunky and out of shape compared to how I used to be.

I liked this one girl who was in a few of my classes. I'll call her "Lindsay." Lindsay was pretty and popular and she was the first girl I really had a crush on. Being shy, I never tried to talk to her.

As time went on, I made what I thought were friends with these two boys, who I will call Allan and Joey. All of us, including Lindsay, were in the seventh grade. I didn't hang out with Allan and Joey outside of school, but they'd let me hang out with them on campus. At least I didn't have to sit alone anymore.

Allan and Joey were talking about which girls were cute, and who they had a crush on. I eventually admitted that I liked Lindsay, but told them not to tell her.

Later that day, in math class which I shared with Lindsay, a note was passed to me.

It was from Lindsay!

My heart leapt, although I was nervous: did Allan and Joey tell her I liked her?

When I opened the note, my heart fell to my feet.

I get red when I'm nervous or sad.

I was never more red than that day.

Inside the note, Lindsay had written in block capital letters:

I DON'T LIKE YOU, OP

There was a little bit of giggling in the room.

I was so embarrassed I asked the teacher if I could go to the nurse.

There was loud laughter as I left.

The nurse let me stay in her office until the end of the day, which was good since my mom couldn't leave work unless I was dying, and I wasn't allowed at that point to walk home the three quarters mile to our apartment, due to a recent spate of kidnapping stories in the news. I took the school bus home as usual.

Kids laughed at me on the bus, too.

Not two days later I get called into the principal's office and get lectured by the principal how a student complained that I was stalking her.

I of course had no idea what happened but eventually I figured out that Allan and Joey told Lindsay, and Lindsay decided to make a big production about getting me into trouble.

Soon everyone on campus started to call me the creepy stalker, the hillbilly, the White trash redneck, things like that. Lindsay got all sorts of positive attention for being brave enough to tell adults about kids who harassed her.

Thing was, I was never officially reprimanded and my mom was never actually called in to talk to any adults about what I supposedly did. The principal just told me that stalking was bad and to leave Lindsay alone. I didn't really know what more I could do to leave her alone. I never even said one thing to her or tried to send any notes to her or stare at her. All I did was tell someone I thought was a friend that I liked her, and please don't tell her.

I didn't tell my mom about it.

But after Allan and Joey's betrayal, it was back to sitting by myself.

In eighth grade I still went to the same school and it was more of the same. I was still known as the uneducated redneck creeper. Lindsay was still really popular and went out with the cool guys from our class. Allan and Joey were never in the cool kid group and I suspect that they both liked Lindsay too, and were trying to suck up to her.

On Valentine's Day, I got one of those candygrams that students send to one another that they buy from student leadership at their school during holidays. Like, two dollars will get you a card and a candy bar, and a student aide will deliver it to the intended recipient, along with a sealed message.

I at least got a candy bar out of it.

The message wasn't so nice. It said,

STOP STALKING ME, FREAK

Thanks, Lindsay.

By high school, I really hit my growth spurt and eventually grew to be 6'5." I eventually got quite skinny so I began pumping a lot of iron starting in tenth grade. I became really ripped.

Allan grew up to be a b*tchy little runt and he never messed with me again. Especially after Allan, the one who asked me who I had a crush on in seventh grade, was whispering something to someone in a class we had together in eleventh grade, and looking at me and laughing.

I said really loud, "Yo, Allan you little ****, you have something to say you say it to my face like a man, don't go whispering like a little ****."

Everyone laughed and even the teacher didn't call me out or send me to the office. I think she was sick of the little punk, too.

I didn't really care to date in high school because, even though I was big and strong now, I was still awkward around girls.

Joey actually came around, though.

In eleventh grade he approached me and apologized for how he treated me in middle school. He said that Allan was the one who told Lindsay that I liked her. He told me that Allan had a crush on Lindsay, too, and was trying to score points with her. I thanked him, and although we were never really friends after that in school, I wasn't mean to him, and he wasn't mean to me.

We were "fist bump" acquaintances.

Lindsay was still really popular in high school. Not quite as popular as in middle school, because in high school there was more "hot girl" competition. But she still held her own.

I didn't lack for attention from other girls, but more often than not the girl would tell me that Lindsay told them I was a stalker, and harassed her in middle school.

Lots of girl accused me of that in high school, especially the ones I rejected.

Eventually, since I was rejecting a lot of girls, some of whom were in the popular group (and Lindsay was still in the cool kid group at this time) people spread rumors saying I was homosexual.

I don't happen to be gay.

Nothing wrong with being gay, but the way these people were throwing it around, it was as if being gay was an insult. Really disappointing, considering this was a huge, progressive city. I might have thought such attitudes were common in my old home town, but it was surprising, here.

I'd sometimes find notes in my locker calling me [homophobic expletive]. Of course, no one, especially any guys would own up to it, because by this time I was huge, not just in height but I was also really jacked. Side note about that. I asked the custodian, a really chill dude especially if you slip him a twenty, if I could look at the surveillance videos of the halls that he had on his office computer. It actually pinpointed who was putting notes in my locker.

It wasn't Allan.

I would have loved if it was Allan because I would cave his face in.

It was actually this wannabe gangbanger who walked around in sunglasses and baggy pants and flannel shirts buttoned to the top. Looked like a total toolbag.

So I caught him in the parking lot one day with his girlfriend and said he forgot something.

Then I showed him six or seven notes that he had put in my locker.

He tried to act like he didn't know what I was talking about but I slapped him in front of his girlfriend and said next time I find a note in my locker I'm going to make you look like a weak **** in front of the whole school, not just your ****.

I never got a note from him after that.

But before he drove off like a deflated White cholo balloon, he admitted that Lindsay and her crew were behind it.

Nowadays, and especially if my kid were the victim, I'd want him or her to tell an adult, but back then I had this "snitches get stiches" mentality, and decided to just suck it up.

Right around this time, social media was really starting to take off, especially that website where you had your own personal space, and could have a "top five friend" row, could use HTLM to switch out music, and have personalized wallpaper. Looking back, I think I preferred this space of mine to that boring book of faces.

Most of my online friends were older than me and from all over the place. I liked having online friends because at least you could delete them, just like that, if you decided they suck.

Unlike high school, where people you've mentally cancelled were still on campus every day.

Joey was my online friend (still is) and he pointed me to a page he found on that website.

It was a bogus one, that had stolen pictures from my real account, and was using my whole name.

It was full of hateful, homophobic slurs and accusing me of being a stalker.

By tracing this fake profile's "friends," I could tell it had originated from the Lindsay group.

I flagged the account and it was soon taken down.

To this day, I don't get why Lindsay found it so necessary to hate me so much that she had to try to ruin my middle and high school years, just because I happened to like her a little bit in seventh grade.

Anyway, in high school, I wasn't a loner anymore. I was on the basketball team and track team and swim team, so I had friends, but I was never in the very top-tier popularity group. Lindsay was in that top group, though she was mostly one of the hangers-on of the most popular girls in school. Like, she was in that group, but was never Beyonce.

And though I had my share of fun with girls in high school (never dated, just hooked up), I could never shake the reputation that I had "stalked" Lindsay.

Well, I graduated and moved on.

I went to college for accounting, and eventually became a CPA. I still work out every day, and so I stayed in really good shape. I also continued to play sports in college, though I never had the desire (or talent, really) to make it my profession. With the help of my awesome stepdad, who's an accountant, too, we opened our own small financial service with a dozen employees.

We're doing alright!

Eventually, a man comes in, looking for a job as an accountant.

Lo and behold, it's Joey!

Haven't seen him in years. Still looks the same, maybe a little balder but otherwise pretty good. We catch up, and since he's gone to school for accounting himself and has a good resume, we hire him.

He does fine for a couple of years, and we've actually become good friends. We've put the past behind us. I went to his wedding. He went to mine. I went to his son's baptism, and he went to my daughter's.

We're friends on social media, and neither of us keep in touch with people from middle and high school.

Bygones are bygones.

And time passes.

One day Joey asks me if I got a letter in the mail inviting us to our ten year high school reunion. I tell him no, and remember that the school doesn't have any of my updated addresses, since my mom and stepdad moved a couple of times since I graduated, and anyway I don't live with them anymore. Joey is taking care of his sick mother, so his wife and child moved in with his mom in his childhood home.

He shows me the letter. Typical stuff, except hey now! Lindsay is on the reunion committee.

It has her email address and everything.

I haven't thought about her in years.

Since I'm in front of my computer, I look up her email address on Face-libro, and it leads right to her since her privacy settings are minimal.

Her current photos don't do her any favors.

She's aged badly.

It looks like she had a couple of kids and was married once, but is now a single mom, and sharing custody with her ex husband.

She gained a lot of weight and doesn't look like she used to.

Really, I wonder if it's even her. But the name matches up, and the school history matches up.

I was thinking how LOL it would be if her ex husband was Allan, but it wasn't.

Allan WAS on her friends list, though.

Clicking on him, it doesn't look like he amounted to anything. Never attended college, but that's okay if he does other productive things. But he doesn't. It seems he washed out of the army, and has worked a series of menial jobs and now lives in another state far away. Seems like he's obsessed with just smoking weed and trying to date teenagers these days.

Per Lindsay, from her updates it looks like she is big on the dating scene, but hasn't found Mr. Right, and it's frustrating her because she has "so much to offer."

Like her crushing student debt that she complains about in one post, for her super cool and useful almost-degree in fashion design, that she never quite earned because she "fell in love" and got married with some loser from high school.

Or how her children don't respect her in another post.

Or how she has several go-gimme-funds just to raise the rent on her crap studio apartment.

Or her amazing, exciting career as a junior shift supervisor at that popular coffee shop, Galacticbucks.

Holy cow.

I think life got my revenge on her, for me.

But I think this b*tch needs a little nudge.

I tell Joey no, I'm not going to the reunion, are you?

He says he will, because he wants to see if any of his favorite teachers are still around.

And he tells me, "don't you want to show off to people how successful you are now?"

LoL. We're boring accountants, not Navy SEALS or hedgefunders over here.

So, I tell him no, but if you're going, say hi to people for me.

Will do!

The reunion is still a couple of months away.

For what I'm going to do, I need my wife's permission.

After I explain how Lindsay treated me in middle and high school, about all the stalker and anti-gay stuff, my wife tells me, mid breast-feed, to destroy, with prejudice, and in detail.

Thanks, dear.

I look completely different in the face compared to high school.

Still, I don't want to use my own photos.

So, instead, I gather lots of stock photos of a particular male model.

Sorry dude, I hope you don't mind! Anyway I'm sure lots of catfish use you as their hook, Mr. Inoffensive, Conventionally Handsome Buff German Guy.

And then I make a profile on that awesome dating site, AcceptableCupid, after I learn on the Libro de Face that Lindsay is on there.

The idiot actually doxes her own username, she's that thirsty for attention.

Right when I launch my profile I get a few spam emails and desperate cat calls from lonely women.

I ignore those and go right for the kill.

I send a message to Lindsay telling her how amazing and interesting she is.

Since she's such an unattractive person in every way, I don't think there's a long line of suitors vying for her attention, and I'm right.

Within minutes, I get her reply.

We begin a message-exchange on the site, and I gradually gain her confidence, mostly by flattering her.

She doesn't tell me she's a mom, even after several days of messaging, which is odd. She implies strongly that she's a career person and artist. Haha okay, relax there, Lindsay.

Eventually I share a pic with her, and she fawns over how gorgeous I am (thanks, innocent German model!)

I am glad she can't hear me laughing when I type that she is beautiful.

As days pass, she begs me to give her permission to share my photos to her book of the face, where she is bragging about me.

I tell her that there is a time for that. Soon she can share my pic and I will share hers.

I lull her into thinking I'm respectful and want to take time in figuring out "us."

Throughout this whole time, I keep giving her opportunities to tell me she's a mom.

I get her to say that "for the right guy, I'll make my existence only about him and me. Everything else is second place."

I also get her to say that she "can't stand" kids.

This is already a long story, so I'll try to at least shorten it a little here.

Eventually, she invites me to her high school reunion.

I tell her how much I'd love to go, but that I live in another state and can't get time off from my highly paid executive job (LOL) until a date a few days after. But I promise her that we will have a date at a VERY expensive restaurant.

She's bragging all over her social media that she has a new hot guy online, and has a date with him. Of course her friends are begging her to share his pics, but she doesn't, to her credit.

She does brag about how this will teach her ex a lesson, that she can still pull the hottest dudes.

Everyone online in her friend group (I was not shocked to see that most of her friends were other losers from school, and how she never seemed to grow up) was cheerleading her, telling her how much she deserved this.

You sure do, Lindsay!

I don't tell Joey what I'm doing a few desks away from him at work. Every spare moment I have from my job, I devote to messing with Lindsay. Sending her messages about how beautiful she is, how I will take her on trips. Eventually I learn her phone number.

I hit the convenience store, let's call it "seven hundred and eleven," and buy a cheap cellphone with minutes-card. I begin texting Lindsay about how I think she's so amazing, refreshing, so real.

Just to see if she's still a hateful B-word, I tell her about how during my online dating, sometimes guys will try to chat with me. She immediately laments how [homophobic expletives] need to stay away from straights.

Okay, Lindsay, you're trash.

I text her back that I don't mind when guys message me because I have my acceptable cupid account set for "friends" in addition to romantic partners.

She immediately backpedals when she sees that gay guys don't offend me.

Whatever, Lindsay, I know what you are.

Anyway Joey goes to the reunion with his wife. His mother is ill, but well enough to watch his son for a few hours.

The high school is about twenty miles from our place of business.

Joey tells me that all the expected people were there.

He was sad to learn that one of the popular teachers had passed away, but most of the others were still working there.

He saw a lot of the former popular kids.

He texted me some of their selfies together.

Too bad Allan didn't make it. Probably still chasing a statutory charge in his new home state.

With few exceptions, most of our former classmates looked like they peaked in high school.

Sad, considering we're all still under thirty.

I didn't ask him about her or try to coach him on anything to say, but Joey told me that Lindsay, one of the officers in charge of the reunion committee, was bragging to everyone about this hot guy she was messaging online, and how she had a date with him.

According to Joey, people were marveling about how unbelievably handsome the guy was, "like a model!"

I'm glad that Lindsay was never the sharpest tool in the shed, otherwise a simple reverse image search would reveal that the photos were of a very famous European model.

Joey told me that Lindsay was bragging about how the guy online was in love with her, and how they had a date next week, and how he was a rich CEO of some mysterious, never named company.

Joey told me that a lot of the girls were encouraging Lindsay to "marry him and his money!"

Although I appreciated Joey's updates, they weren't actually necessary since Lindsay flooded her book of the face with tons of photos from that night, as did her crappy friends.

Eventually I spoke to Lindsay on the phone.

Amazing.

In middle school and high school, I never once really talked to her.

I only told one d*ckbag in seventh grade that I liked Lindsay, and after that, it was all just gossip and rumors that she started.

This was the first time I really heard her voice, and I wasn't even me, I was "Herr Deutsche Model."

She told me how "sexy" my voice was.

Really, Lindsay? Because I was pinching my nose and trying to sound different, not that she knew what I sounded like for real anyway.

I told her I couldn't wait for our date, and told her which restaurant it would be. I also told her I was staying at a certain five star hotel. I said that we could go there after dinner, which is of course polite talk for "we will f*ck on date number one."

I made sure this particular exchange was on the acceptable cupid site.

I could tell she was falling hard for me, especially the way she plastered her social media with updates on her dreamboat.

Hey, Lindsay, you've got two kids and you never post ANYTHING about them on social media.

Are you ashamed of your children?

Meanwhile she's telling the world she's going to f*ck some stranger she's never met.

Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay...

A truly trash human.

Over the following few days she never did own up to having kids, but she did admit she worked at Spacebucks Coffee as a "side thing," for fun in addition to all of the art she said she did, and having her own business. I assume she's talking about her online store at 3tsy that she brags about on the book of mugshots where she sells really crappy beaded jewelry that only drunk ravers might find appealing.

By this time she's given me her full name and I've given her my made up name.

She says that her job at LunarBucks is a total joke, her coworkers are idiots, her manager is mentally deficient, and that she often takes home pastries at the end of the night, supposedly to give to the poor (nah, Lindsay. I've seen your pics. You clearly be eating them scones personally). According to Lindsay, she's supposed to "mark out" expired pastries and dispose of them for various city code reasons.

But she goes all SJW with me and tells me that "why should all that perfectly good food go to waste? It's truly an evil company."

Yeah, whatever Lindsay, you racist, elitist homophobe.

Anyway, fast forward to our date.

The restaurant is only a couple of miles from my business, and I scheduled our date for shortly after we closed for the evening.

I scheduled everything in such a way that I wouldn't miss my wife's famous lasagna later for dinner.

I parked not far from the window, in a parking lot adjacent from the restaurant. I couldn't park at the restaurant itself, as it was an extremely expensive place that had valet parking only.

As scheduled, I see Lindsay waddle into the front door, coming out of her rideshare. I had instructed her to give her name to the host, and be seated at a specific table.

I happen to know, because she said so on the libro of the face, that she was ashamed of her beat up 2001 Chevy Cavalier.

I assume she expected her hot date to drive her home after an amazing night of what I can only assume is--with her--vomit-inducing, and malodorous love-making. I told her I would be arriving in a Maserati.

I see her sit at the table I arranged earlier. I see her playing with her phone. Probably bragging about our date to whoever.

After twenty minutes of stringing her along, I see my courrier arrive on a red Vespa, just as he told me he would. The courrier I scheduled to arrive at a certain time, twenty minutes after Lindsay's arrival. He wouldn't bring the item unless I texted the go-ahead, which I did. He texted me, "here!"

And I saw him take the bear out of his backpack.

His task was to ride to a certain gift store I never really frequented, and pick up a small, stuffed bear whose arms could surround anything from a bouquet of roses to a box of candy to an envelope with a million dollar check in it. The courrier was then supposed to bring the bear to the restaurant host. The host would then of course bring the bear to Lindsay.

The courrier handed the bear to the host. I didn't see the handoff because that part of the restaurant was out of my vision, but I did see the courrier ride away after I received a text saying "done!"

I DID see the host give the bear to Lindsay, which was the important part.

I was parked close enough to see her face as she read the note I had typed and placed inside the envelope I had the bear holding, next to a fancy chocolate bar.

I DON'T LIKE YOU, LINDSAY

Her face.

HER FACE!

OMG.

She looked like she was going to die, right there.

I received a WTF? Text from her.

I started driving home.

Text after confused text.

Twenty or more.

She never knows when to drop it.

Finally, I pull into my driveway.

Wife and daughter at home.

I hear their laughter.

The good kind.

I smell the lasagna, and my wife kisses me.

She asks me if I had a good day.

I tell her yes, most definitely!

And then, before I take the phone's battery out and break the cellphone into a hundred pieces before throwing it in the garbage, I send Lindsay one more text:

STOP STALKING ME, FREAK

The next day, I couldn't help it.

I looked at Lindsay's social media.

Set to private!

I'm wondering if her narcissistic ass knew that it was ME that played her. Especially since the mascot for our middle and high schools was a bear, that didn't look too different from the stuffed one I had given her.

I don't really care.

All I know, is that now I have closure.

Especially after I sent the screen captures of our alrighty-cupid messages (my own user name and fake photo blocked out) to CPS, where Lindsay bragged about hating kids and told me what she thought about being a mom. And said she was going to be screwing a strange man on the first day meeting him.

Maybe ex-hubby will get full custody, and give those children the attention they deserve.

Her boss at Galaxybucks was certainly interested in my recording of her calling him "a retard" and that she stole pastries that she was supposed to mark out at the end of the night and that her company was an evil corporation and that they were a "joke."

Random call to her store a few weeks later.

"Is Lindsay there?"

"Oh, she no longer works here."

Damn right she doesn't, LMAO!

Go to Hell, Lindsay.

Hey, at least you got a candy bar out of it.

Thanks for reading!

PS: A few days ago, my wife asked me whatever happened to that revenge I had planned on that mean girl from middle school. I told her I've moved on, that it was too long ago, and that I needn't be petty. She told me how much she admired me for my restraint. "If it were me, I would have cut a b*tch."

One day, I think I'll confess. Maybe one of those deathbed things. About how I kicked a loser when she was already down and laughed while doing so. Oh well.

TL;DR: Girl wrongfully accused me of stalking when we were in middle school, and bullied me in middle and high school. Years later, fat, alone, and defeated by life, time had given me revenge. Still, I felt like beating a dead horse.

(source) story by (/u/OpenFaceClubSammich)

#prorevenge #by /u/OpenFaceClubSammich #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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hollowedsammy · 5 years ago

Text

Hello, hello, everyone! My name is Susie, I am 21-soon-to-be-22, I live in the EST timezone, and this is the first of my two characters, Sam! If you’d like to plot, like this or IM me! This contains his basic info, backstory, info about what he’s currently up to, some misc. information, a small playlist, tropes that apply to him, and wanted connections. Yeah... I went a little hard.

☾ ↪ cillian murphy, male, forty, he/him. ／ ❛ have you heard from samuel marx lately ？ yeah, the forty year old mechanic / drug dealer. pretty sure they’ve been here twenty years, and from what i’ve heard, sam can be kind of cynical & self-serving, but i caught them on a good day once, and they were pretty funny & clever. i’m probably overthinking it, but given all the crazy shit around here, i hope they’re okay. maybe they’re watching their favorite scary movie, i heard it’s child’s play.

trigger warnings: homophobia, parental/domestic abuse, self-harm, depression

BASIC INFORMATION

Full name: Samuel Joseph Marx

Nickname(s): Sam (everyone), Sammy (his mother, close friends, or significant others only)

Age: 40

Gender: male

Sexual orientation: bisexual

Birthday: January 12, 1956

Zodiac: Capricorn

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Personality type: ISFJ

Family: Joseph Marx (father, deceased), Serafine Marx (mother, deceased)

Criminal record: shoplifting (3 counts), underage drinking (2 counts), auto theft (1 count), fraud (2 counts), possession with the intent to distribute (2 counts)

TROPES

Beware the Quiet Ones

Cornered Rattlesnake

The Cynic

Deadpan Snarker

Don’t You Dare Pity Me!

Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas

I Just Want to be Loved

I Need a Freaking Drink

Lower-Class Lout

Not Good With People

Perpetual Frowner

The Runaway

Smarter Than You Look

The Snark Knight

Sour Outside, Sad Inside

When He Smiles

FIVE-SONG PLAYLIST

“The Mute” by Radical Face

“Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant

“Run Boy Run” by Woodkid

“The Kids Aren’t Alright” by Fall Out Boy

“Emperor’s New Clothes” by Panic! at the Disco

BACKGROUND

Sam was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He had a small family -- just him, and his parents. His father was a police officer, and his mother was a housewife.

Sam never got along with his father. Never. He can’t remember a single time that he didn’t entirely despise the man.

Joseph Marx was a corrupt cop, as well as an abusive husband and father. The Marx household was frequently filled with the sounds of slamming doors, screamed profanity, and glass breaking. While he frequently took his anger out on his wife, Sam quickly became Joseph’s favorite target.

Sam was also a favored target of other kids. An incident during which two older boys held him under the water instilled an unshakable case of hydrophobia in him, and he was often beat up when teachers weren’t around. Many said he brought it on himself -- what did he expect, when he was so obviously queer, dressed in such ratty clothes, acted so strangely?

Unsurprisingly, he developed delinquent behavior early on, and was frequently in trouble for cheating on tests, stealing other students’ possessions, skipping class, smoking, drinking, and stealing cars for joyrides.

Bullied at school and abused at home, Sam had few friends, and spent as much time as possible out of the house. He’d wander the swamps and streets alone, only occasionally having a companion with him.

Finally, when he was sixteen, Sam hit a breaking point. A terrible fight with his father led to Sam being thrown into the kitchen window. The glass shattered, cutting into Sam’s skin. His mother tried to help him get cleaned up, but Sam had had enough. That very night, he packed a small bag and snuck out the back door. He stole a truck from one of his neighbors, and hit the road, never to return to Baton Rouge.

Lacking any sort of plan, Sam wandered from town to town, making money via odd jobs, shoplifting, pickpocketing, purse-snatching, and selling dime bags of weed. He had his fair share of scrapes with the law -- even spending six months in a correctional facility when he was eighteen -- but always managed to worm his way out any long-term consequences.

While in jail, Sam finally wrote to his mother -- now that he was eighteen, he couldn’t be forced to return to his family’s home, so he could assure her that he was alive. While he kept in contact with his mother from then on, Sam never spoke to his father again, and refused to ever return to Baton Rouge, even after his father was shot and killed in the line of duty.

ARRIVAL IN HOLLOWAY

Sam got to Holloway at the age of twenty. He only intended to stay for a couple weeks, long enough to make enough money to make a cross-country trip. The girl he was dating at the time went to school in Maine, and he wanted to go visit her.

When the first Hollow Man murder happened, a couple weeks after Sam’s arrival, he was nervous. When it became evident that there was a serial killer in Holloway, he started thinking maybe he should just say “fuck the money” and skip town altogether. However, before he could, the police were asking to talk to him.

It had been discovered that a couple of the deceased had bought drugs off of Sam a few times. While they hadn’t thought much about Sam at first, this caused the cops to look closer at him. Upon further digging, the investigators found that Sam was a drifter who had dropped out of school and run away from home, had a history of behavior issues, an ever-growing rap sheet, a brief stint in jail to his name, a skittish and antisocial air about him, and an obvious hatred of cops.

Yeah. It did not look good.

Sam was interrogated many times. His story never changed. He did sell weed to two of the deceased. No, he didn’t hurt them. He never even interacted with them beyond the sales. He was asleep at the time of the murders. No, no one can confirm that, he was alone. No, he doesn’t have a hotel room, he’s been sleeping in his truck.

Despite a lack of solid evidence or a motive, Sam was still a prime suspect for the first few murders, and he was told not to leave town. Knowing it’d look much worse if he ran, Sam decided to get a job -- partially because he was stuck in Halloway for the foreseeable future, and partially because he knew he might have to hire a lawyer soon. He eventually persuaded the local auto shop to hire him as a mechanic. (Accused of murder or not, Sam is damn good with cars.)

No official charges were ever brought, and eventually, another murder took place while Sam had a clear alibi, having been drinking in a local bar in full view of at least a dozen people all night. He got busted for having a fake ID, but at least he wasn’t an official murder suspect anymore.

Key word being official. Some suspected that Sam had an accomplice, and that the whole thing was a set-up to clear his name. Despite rumors, whispers, stares, and even a few people accusing him of the crime to his face, he always maintained that he never hurt anybody.

After being cleared, Sam intended to get out of town as soon as he could. But then, the girlfriend in Maine he’d been planning to go see dumped him... via postcard. It was the cherry on top of what had been a shitty few weeks.

Sam decided to stay for a little while until he figured out where to go next. He was rather enjoying having a steady paycheck for once, and it wasn’t like he had a plan. “A little while” eventually turned to twenty years.

NOWADAYS

Sam has now lived in a half-double in town for many, many years. It’s small, but he makes it work.

While most have probably abandoned the idea that Sam killed anybody, he’s still not exactly Mr. Popular in town. He’s known to be a sarcastic, self-centered dick, who has no respect for authority. (Some things never change.)

He still works at the auto shop. The original owner’s son runs it now, but Sam is the longest-standing employee, as well as the best mechanic.

Sam still hates cops. If he could refuse service to them, he would.

He’s still selling weed on the side (his boss looks the other way -- so long as Sam doesn’t get busted while at work, he doesn’t really care), and can be bribed into purchasing alcohol for underage students. However, he refuses to get mixed up in anything harder than that.

He mostly keeps to himself, and isn’t known to be particularly violent. If someone else attacks him, he’ll defend himself, but he rarely throws the first punch.

He’s been in an even more melancholy mood than normal lately, because his mother died last month.

He honestly thought the Hollow Man business was behind him. But now that a new victim has been found, he can feel people looking at him sideways again.

And, no matter how much he says he doesn’t care what other people think... he doesn’t like it at all.

MISC.

Sam’s sexuality is not public knowledge. He’s not ashamed of it, but he also wants to avoid harassment, so he’s only ever openly dated women. The only people who know are men he’s been with in the past, and maybe, maybe a very close friend.

Despite his dislike of people, Sam is quite fond of animals, and even adopted a stray cat he found a couple years ago. He’s named him Hecate, and he is quite possibly the ugliest cat in existence -- he has one eye, crooked fangs, and scratches everything that isn’t Sam.

Sam suffers clinical depression, but is in denial about how serious it actually is. It’s driven him to make some pretty damaging decisions, and he’s had a habit of burning himself with cigarettes since high school. The scars are all over his shoulders, arms, and stomach.

Sam was -- and still is -- a frequent target of classism. Due to his lack of education and working-class background, many assume the worst in him, and many underestimate his intelligence. While he uses it to his advantage, he is irked by it.

It surprises people to learn that Sam is actually very well-read, and a talented actor. In another life, he could’ve joined a Shakespeare company. In this one, he reads passages aloud to himself when he’s alone.

Sam claims to hate... well, everyone, but he holds a special contempt for bullies and abusers. One of the only times Sam’s been known to instigate a fight is when he got sick of listening to a drunk guy catcall a woman walking by, and just decked him.

Sam still hates water, and refuses to go swimming -- on the rare occasions he has to go near the water, he won’t put his head under.

Sam has a pitch-black sense of humor. The Hollow Man murders are one of the few things he won’t joke about.

SUGGESTED CONNECTIONS

Someone who still believes Sam was or is the Hollow Man.

Related to the above, some of the younger characters have probably been told by their parents to stay away from Sam. Whether or not they listened is up to you.

Friend with benefits.

Exes.

Someone who has become aware of Sam’s depression and is trying to help him -- whether he likes it or not.

Unrequited crush (from either party).

And anything else you can think of!

#hollowfm.intro

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atargetedindividual101 · 6 years ago

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My True Story of Being Targeted

Some people won’t be happy until they’ve pushed you to the ground. What you have to do is have the courage to stand your ground and not give them the time of day. Hold on to your power and never give it away.” ― Donna Schoenrock

As an adult I became a victim of an Organize Stalking Campaign. Organize Stalking also called group stalking, community mobbing, gang stalking, Multi stalking, mobbing, is when a group of people bann together to destroy their targets life & they conn others into believing lies about you.

I started to become aware that there was a huge problem in 2014, when odd comments started popping up about me online. Before I became aware that I was being I started being gang stalked, I was well liked & very successful. I served on a Speakers Bureau, advocating for those with Mental Health disabilities. I was a professional Jewelry maker. I helped out at many Mental Health events and was very happy to do so.

Then came the storm, a small yet powerful emotional Hurricane,

That struck like a mass of confusion.

Leaving a path of.devastation in my life & pain was all I had left.

Little did I know that there was a enemy trying to take over my life. .One of the first things I became aware of was that they showed up on several forums & an anonymous message board with false information and lies about me. Then she started a mobbing campaign against me unlike any other to destroy me and everything that I had worked so hard for, . In the same way that hurricanes and tornadoes ruin lives. Little by little, Lies & slander shattered my life, so I started feeling nothing but Anger &Pain…at the world that was acting as if I am the cause of their misery. The mobbers tried to ruin my life-not once, but many times as they made accusations that didn’t even exist.

I could not believe it as I read their lies and slander about me all over anonymous websites and forums “She’s a Scammer, a hacker, a troll, a stalker, crazy, fat, ugly, a faker, and other labels that didn’t even exist.

I tried so desperately to hide my true feelings, as they had my online shops closed down for no reason. .As they tried to stop me from going to a church summer camp.. As they contacted all my supports and; brought them into the mobbing. As my accounts were hacked over and over again. As they tried to get me evicted many times. As they filed false complaints about me, everywhere. As they got fake victims. As they fabricated evidence against me. As people’s treatment changed towards me. I couldn’t understand what I did to make people hate me so much. they encouraged everyone I came in contact with to destroy me, and spread lies about me. A smear campaign was started against me. It almost seemed as if there was one person doing it behind the scenes. They were like the wicked witch from the wizard of oz, sitting in their castle, ordering their flying monkeys to do their dirty work,

At first everyone did not believe tbe lies of the stalkers.

Then everything changed. They blamed me for it all, even though it’s not me. If only they saw what this person does behind the scenes, behind closed doors, how she minipulates other people, how she’s like a professional victim, how she professionally lies about me, trying to “link” me to all sorts of stuff that I had nothing to do with, stuff that I didn’t even know about, how she is very obsessed about me, how they gets fake witnesses or “witnesses” how they play victim how they try &; “link”; me to stuff, How they gas lights others about me & how naive “flying monkeys” believe their lies. She they keeps trying to “prove my guilt”, of stuff I would never do. And no one looks out for me anymore & it’s all because of that person. She made me think that the world was a dark and dismal place filled with bad people, who did not have my best interest at heart, and so I trusted no one as she kept finding very sneaky ways to try & falsely “connect” me to her crimes. Using my likes, dislikes, disabilities, fears & what makes me human against me. I grew more paronoid everyday as she literally had a whole community of people stalking me,

Because they have been conned into believing her lies.

People expressed their opinion of me by baiting me in whatever way they can way-by intentionally creating noise, digging up dirt on me, letting me know that I am being watched, following me, trying to isolate me, singling me out, slandering me, discrediting me, & trying to control me in many other ways too. And then when I try & voice what is happening, I get accused of being crazy. I lost my voice because of this. It saddens me that people think I am the enemy cause I am not. My life had never been easy.I had dealt with being bullied my whole life, But nothing could have ever prepared me for this. .

Yes I do have a Mental illness but there was a healthy & well side to me & someone took that side of me & filled it with abnormal experiences, altering my reality. At times it seems as if I am not in reality but what is really happening is this person is stalking me in very strange ways & I’m not even sure what all she is doing

& it is so frightening that it impairs my perception of the world around me.

If only people saw what really went on if only….. If only they could see the constant harassment that I face by passive Agressive people. .People are so busy living out their lives that they are not seeing my side of the story.

If only people saw all the anxiety I saw because of this. Because of what has happened, I felt alone, anxious, ashamed, guilty, hopeless, overwhelmed, ugly, and unworthy.Almost every night I had dreams of being chased and or losing everything. I had panic & anxiety attacks. I had strange happenings That I can’t even explain. I lost interest in things that I love…

I stopped smiling as much. I second guessed everything in my life. I felt isolated and alone.

I am very determined to get my life back and to make this all go away so I can have days that are filled with more joy and less anxiety.

What will help me are:

People stopping this campaign against me, people giving me my voice back, & people having faith in me& them disbelieving their lies,

People can change and grow,

I don’t need to be brought down by a person who wants to ruin me,

Why let her win! I am not connected to anything she has said I did! I am a law abiding citizen! I will say that Loud & clear.

Hi, my name is Andrea and I am an advocate for people with disabilities. I started doing research on Organize Stalking and I am writing about my experience.

What I see happening is this:

Victims of mobbing & Organize Stalking being driven crazy.

people are zeroing in and making false accusations on one individual Soon lots of people start being dragged in and soon lots of people are stalking them. After I started being mobbed, I simply researched everything that was happening, and was totally misjudged because of that too.

As Dr Janice Harper says, Humans are reasonable people, but when acting collectively, they don’t always think about what’s right or wrong. All they can think about is how “angry” they are at the target, that it never occurs to them that they are going after an innocent person, and their emotions replaces reasoning and any logical thinking they may have and they follow a path that enables them to act on their emotions out of fear and anxiety and even peer pressure.

and we justify our actions as being OK, And we tell ourselves whatever lies we have to about the target that we once loved and respected, even though we may know deep inside ourselves that the rumors may be false.

Anne Frank once said that she believes that all people are good at heart, but even good people do bad things. Its important to remember that MOST mobbers‬ are not evil people. They’re just normal people that do inhumane things to others. .But what you can do is say no when others want you to join in and help educate others. Mobbing someone & gang stalking & digging up dirt on a person is never OK. You can make the choice not to join in. We all have our own skeletons somewhere in our past. We all have made mistakes and have done wrong. We all have dirt. putting someone else’s “dirt” up on thedirty .com or pastebin or any other website is never ok, when everyone has our own dirt. And when we do wrong, we suffer the consequences of our actions. We shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences twice.

It’s so wrong to put a Mentally ill person through this or anyone at all.

My message is to be kind and when you see someone being mobbed do not JOIN IN. In fact, if you know those accusations aren’t true, you can even advocate for them and help them prove their innocence. We need to look out for each other more. We need to teach everyone to speak up when we see that others are being hurt and that silence is not acceptable. If we don’t allow Mobbers & organize stalkers

to destroy others, it’ll quickly stop.

#mobbing #mobbed #organize stalking #gang stalking #targeted individuals #tumblr blog

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heartsunholy-a · 6 years ago

Note

☪ five times our muses almost hold hands, and the one time they do. (MORRIS/BETTY ENJOY)

Five Times Drabbles // Selectively Accepting // @tomorrcwsnews

Aka: Morris yanks Betty around by her wrist a lot and they end up protecting each other a lot more than either of them will ever admit

She can barely see where she’s going - which, admittedly, makes everything worse since she’s only lived in Manhattan for a week or two. But she knows the way to the butcher’s, at least. Problem is, she’s carrying too many packages. Chic said he would take them when he finished his shift but the butcher was close enough to her school that Betty figured she’d lighten her brother’s load - as much as a 12-year-old girl could. But the stack of groceries in her arms makes it difficult to navigate the busy Manhattan sidewalks.

It’s all a blur. The noise of a trolley car rings in her ears as an unseen hand reaches for Betty’s wrist and yanks her backwards, away from the curb. Her groceries fly everywhere but she’s safe. Still a little dazed, she moves to gather her belongings, sparring a look up at her savior. A boy, roughly her age. He makes no move to help gather her things and perhaps Betty’s confusion looks like something more ungrateful to him.

“I saved ya from being tomorrow’s headline. ‘Girl Crushed By Trolley.’ Yer welcome, by the way.”

Betty huffs in annoyance and brushes the dirt from her skirts as she stands with the stack of groceries back in her arms. Just as precariously stacked as before. She’s mostly annoyed he didn’t give her a chance to thank him in her own time - she would’ve. He was right, she very nearly could’ve been hurt. Instead, not appreciating his attitude, the Brooklyn-born blonde peeks around her belongings to shoot the boy a sugary sweet smile. “My hero,” she coos, insincerity dripping from her words. He scoffs and turns on his heel, clearly no longer interested in her thanks.

She misses Brooklyn.

ii.

Hiram Lodge is kind to them but Betty wonders if it’s only because of her friendship with Veronica. She had been friends with the heiress practically since moving to Manhattan and she sometimes forgets how powerful and wealthy the Lodges truly are. With Hal Cooper laid up with a leg injury he got at his construction job, Betty’s connection to the Lodges has been invaluable. She and Chic need jobs of their own and Hiram will ensure they find decent work.

He’s offering Chic a distribution job, showing him around the World’s distribution center, introducing him to Mr. Wiesel. Betty’s left to her own devices. Hiram’s already promised to introduce her to THE William Randolph Hearst, to be a secretary or maybe a columnist herself! So the blonde thumbs through a stack of papers, bound and ready to distribute. Well…if she tied them back up, what was the harm in taking just one to read for now?

She unties a bundle and moves to grab the paper on top when a warm, rough hand slams atop her own and Betty glances up. There’s…something familiar about this boy.

“And whaddya think you’re doin’, Blonde?”

…Oh god.

“Baking a cake, what does it look like I’m doing?” She’s not winning herself or Chic any favors with her sarcastic retort, but Betty swears she can hear her brother, Hiram, and Mr. Wiesel laughing in the background, so she doubts anyone else has heard her.

“It looks like you’re tryina steal from us,” he presses, hand still warm atop Betty’s but his gaze icy cold.

“Steal a paper, are you kidding? Do I look like I can’t afford a dime for a paper?” She’s no heiress like Veronica but her family is doing okay. Or at least had been but with Betty and her brother joining their sister in the workforce, they’d be fine again soon enough.

“Then cough it up. Put ya money where ya mouth is.”

“Ah! Betty dear, I see you’ve already met one of Chic’s potential work mates!” There’s something sly in Hiram Lodge’s smile and Betty’s cheeks burn at the implication. “Chic, my boy! This young man is Morris Delancy. He and his brother Oscar run most of the day to day operations here. And Wiesel, good man, this is Miss Betty Cooper, Chic’s youngest sister and my Veronica’s best friend.”

Betty uses the distraction to slip her hand out from Morris’s hold - with her paper clutched victoriously in her grasp. She turns back to Morris, that same sweet smile in place from years before. “Thank you for the paper, Morris. It was really very sweet of you to offer.” Her smile grows smug as Hiram escorts the Coopers to the New York Journal’s offices, away from the seething Morris.

iii.

Chic doesn’t take the job at the distribution center, instead opting for a security officer position at City Hall. But Betty finds herself back at the distribution center before she knows it. She’s chasing a story, with dreams of writing something other than a vaudeville review. The trolley workers are striking and she’s trying to get a quote from the Delancys, about rumors that they were paid to harass the strikers. As per usual, there are raised voices and arguing - Betty’s never seen eye to eye with the Delancey brothers - but Morris cuts himself off when his attention is stolen by a more pressing matter.

Rough fingers curl around Betty’s wrist, tugging her into the nearest alley. His other hand clamps against her mouth when she starts to protest. Only then does the blonde hear the noises from further down the block. She tries to plead with her eyes, assuring him that she’ll stay silent. Morris seems to get the message as he lifts his hand from her mouth. Betty peers around the corner, taking in the shadows. She’s only heard whispers and rumors like he’s some sort of boogeyman but she knows what’s going on. Snyder the Spider taking in an unsuspecting victim to the Refuge.

It’s sometime later when the sounds die down and Snyder doesn’t appear to be nearing their location. Morris’s grip on her wrist is loose, calloused fingertips barely brushing against her skin. He doesn’t protest when she pulls her hand out of his hold entirely.

“Um…Thanks. For that,” she murmurs, gaze flickering back to the street just in case Snyder was about to show up again.

Morris nods and it’s the most civilly they’ve spoken since they’ve met. “Yeah, well. Shoulda been home anyway, Blondie. Next time, I might not be here t’ save ya.”

Maybe it’s because she’s seen someone far scarier tonight, but there’s less malice in his voice than usual.

iv.

The newsies are striking and it’s Betty’s chance to get a real story published!

When the newsies successfully stop scabs from delivering the papers in their places, Morris and Oscar try and muscle them all out. Betty has no problems going toe to toe with them. She doesn’t mind being the thorn in their side if it gets her the story - especially not when they treat other kids like crap. They don’t really hit the girls back, just sort of cart them off to the side, but Betty contents herself to being a distraction, for some of the other boys to get somewhere safe.

Then the bulls arrive. And relief lasts for only a second before a nightstick swings back and strikes Romeo’s face. And then chaos returns, a hundredfold.

The next time Morris scoops Betty up, he doesn’t try to carry her to the circulation gate. He moves to an alley, a side street. A way out. And when he sets her down and Betty tries to rush past him, he stands his ground.

“For a smart girl, you’re really fuckin’ dumb. It’s suicide, goin’ back there!” His voice is loud but not louder than the heartbeat thumping in Betty’s ears.

“They need me! Not everyone’s a selfish prick like you!” She struggles, hands pressed against his chest, knees lifting but he stands strong, even when she can tell her blows are substantial.

One of Morris’s hands lifts - not to push Betty back, but to hold her in place. His hand around her wrist causes her to freeze. She’s confused and angry and the battle rages on behind them and she just wants to help, hates hearing the way the newsies are crying out, she needs to help!

“Cooper.”

It’s the first time Betty can ever remember Morris calling her by name. And there’s something urgent, almost pleading in his voice. “It’s gonna get ugly. You don’t wanna go back there. Use that big ol’ brain o’ yours and do the smart thing.”

Oscar approaches, corralling Katherine and Veronica - but he appears less like he’s shoving them and more like he’s guiding them. Veronica, with one hand twined in Katherine’s, reaches for Betty’s.

They’ll regroup. They’ll find the newsies who’ve already escaped. Snyder and Pulitzer may have won a battle but they haven’t won the war. Katherine and Betty have their articles to finish, after all.

Morris lets go of her wrist, his face unreadable, and he watches for a moment as the girls - hands clutching each other’s desperately - flee into the night. Betty swears his eyes haunt her dreams for the following nights as much as the fight does.

“Honestly Delancy, what would you ever do without me?”

“Stop havin’ so many damn headaches a day, pro’ly.”

She chuckles but doesn’t stop her work, wrapping cloth around bruised and bleeding knuckles. She hasn’t asked what Morris was doing before she found him, resting in an alley on her route home from the Journal’s offices. She’s learned the hard way she doesn’t always want to know the nitty gritty details of Morris’s life. Not like he’ll tell her anyway. They may have formed some sort of tentative truce now that the strike’s over but she knows the Delancey brothers don’t trust a nosy reporter as far as they can throw her. (And Betty wagers they could probably throw her a fair distance.)

But she can’t leave him like this, struggling to bind his injuries with his non-dominant hand. So she takes his wounded hand and rests it in her lap, her fingers working to tie her handkerchief as a makeshift bandage. The banter is short-lived for once and a silence falls over the pair as the blonde continues her work. Once completed, Betty pats his palm gingerly with her fingertips, as if to punctuate the end of her work. “There. That should hold for the night, at least.”

He curls his fingers experimentally but doesn’t remove his hand from her lap. Betty pretends not to notice.

“…Why?” Morris finally speaks up, gaze aimed at his bound hand and ignoring the blonde beside him. His question’s so quiet Betty barely hears it.

She too is silent for a long moment, only shrugging in reply at first. “I don’t hate you, you know. You and Oscar seem to think I do but…I don’t.”

“Coulda fooled me,” he grumbles and Betty finds herself chuckling softly.

“I mean, you’re an absolute prick, don’t get me wrong. But I’m not gonna just let you bleed out on the street. No one deserves that.” He falls silent and Betty risks a glance in his direction. Something she can’t quite name worms its way into her chest and she hates it but she doesn’t ignore it. Instead, she pats his palm once more before standing up. “…G’night, Morris.”

She almost swears she hears a “G’night, Cooper” as she returns on her path home.

vi.

She really hates having to do this. But the headlines had all been talking about the borough-wide streetlight repairs being done and she knows it’ll be dark on her walk home tonight. Chic’s home with the flu, meaning he can’t pick her up from the Journal’s offices. She doesn’t want to bother her father - he’s still easing back into work after his leg had healed and walking across town and back wouldn’t be good for him.

She leaves the offices while it’s still light and tries to rush to the World’s distribution center. She figures there still oughta be some of the newsies around getting their pay. Maybe she can ask one of them to escort her home. But when she arrives, all she sees is Morris, stacking empty crates. None of her friends, not even Oscar or Wiesel, though Betty figures they’re inside.

Shit. She glances at the horizon, watches the sky turn dark. She could probably make it to the Tribune to see if Darcy was still there, but…

“Hey! Beat it, Blondie. Ya ain’t got nothin’ better t’ do than hang out around here? All ya newsie pals ‘re gone.”

…Great. So much for getting away without dealing with Morris.

Betty sighs, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her face. “Yeah, I’ve noticed. Don’t worry about it, okay? I was just trying to see if Jack or Davey or someone was still around and could walk me home. You know, since the lights are down and all?” Her gaze refocuses on the sky, trying to calculate how dark it would be by the time she walked somewhere else to find an escort home. “But forget it, I’ll go back to the Journal and-”

When Betty turns back around, words died in her throat at the sight of Morris’s outstretched hand and expectant stare. “…Are you serious?” she questions, skepticism all but dripping from her tone.

“D’ya see anyone else around here? C’mon Cooper, the sooner I get ya home, the sooner I can go t’ bed. You ain’t the only one who had a long da-”

It’s Morris’s turn to go speechless when Betty takes his hand, fingers lacing between his. Her smile is a little too smug to be aimed at someone doing her a favor. But Morris deserves it. He doesn’t really retaliate, only scoffing. He tugs on her hand, urging her to walk. And she does, falling in step beside the boy.

It’s dark enough to mask any heat that dusts Betty’s cheeks, allowing her to focus on the warmth of Morris’s hand in hers.

#messages #tomorrcwsnews #betty cooper » ic #connection » i know my skull bustin' arm could use a day of rest (morris delancey)#((hey hi uh?????? im fucked up????? these two got me fucked up????))#ship » i don't trust you but i want to ; please don't let me fall (betty and morris)#misc » i wanna scream 'i love you' from the top of my lungs (save tag)

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brtxxs · 6 years ago

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Cyber bullying

What is Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying and Cyberharassment are also known as online bullying. It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers.

Cyberbullying is when someone, typically teens, bully or harass others on social media sites. Harmful bullying behavior can include posting rumors, threats, sexual remarks, a victims' personal information, or pejorative labels i.e., hate speech. Bullying or harassment can be identified by repeated behavior and an intent to harm.

The harassment can have wide-reaching effects on the victim, as the content used to harass the victim can be spread and shared easily among many people and often remains accessible long after the initial incident.

The terms "cyberharassment" and "cyberbullying" are sometimes used synonymously, though some people use the latter to refer specifically to harassment among minors or in a school setting.

Victims may have lower self-esteem, increased suicidal ideation, and a variety of emotional responses, including being scared, frustrated, angry, and depressed.

Research has demonstrated a number of serious consequences of cyberbullying victimization.

• Internet trolling is a common form of bullying over the Internet in an online community (such as in online gaming or social media) in order to elicit a reaction, disruption, or for someone's own personal amusement.

Internet trolls intentionally try to provoke or offend others in order to elicit a reaction.

Trolls and cyberbullies do not always have the same goals: while some trolls engage in cyberbullying, others may be engaged in comparatively harmless mischief. A troll may be disruptive either for their own amusement or because they are genuinely a combative person.

Cyberstalking is another form of bullying or harassment that uses electronic communications to stalk a victim; this may pose a credible threat to the victim.

ISSUES OF CYBERBULLYING

“Twenty percent of kids cyberbullied think about suicide, and one in ten attempt it. Four thousand five hundred kids commit suicide each year” (Laird). Cyberbullying is turning out to be a enormous problem effecting many people. There should be a higher offense for a person who cyberbullies someone. Cyberbullying should be a felony, because it has pushed many people into self harm and committing suicide.

Cyberbullying can occur at anytime and it allows people to harass each other which could even end up in people harming themselves.Also you have to include the other emotions people feel when they get cyberbullied such as feeling depressed and empty because of the harassment they receive. They also feel hopeless as if there is no one they can talk to or feeling of hopelessness because you lost the feelings of friendship. A felony is an extreme punishment because if you get a felony you will , lose the right to bear arms, certain employment opportunities, public social benefits and housing, parental benefits, and even the ability to vote. “no laws specifically addressed cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying gets seen by not just the people that it is directed to but cyber bullying can be seen by anyone on the internet. The world is becoming a cruel place to live because everyone is attacking each other instead of building each other up, and now that we have internet it spreads the problem instead of stopping it.This should not be the way we live instead there should be a more serious consequence then just a slap on the wrist. Cyber bullying should be a felony because a felony is a harsher punishment and when people see they cannot take it any further and will hopefully stop.”68% percent of teenagers agree that bullying online is a serious problem”

• Cyber bullying is a huge problem especially since social media has not been out that long this also shows the progression of it has been extremely rapid. People are intentionally bullying people online because they are either cruel and heart less or they are to scared to do it in person but either way it is unacceptable. You shouldn’t have to be rude to people all the time or show them hatred over the internet.

Also “80% of teenagers use a cell phone regularly, making it the most common medium for cyberbullying, Most teens now a days have a smart phone and most likely have some sort of social media that they can get on this does not make it any easier to stop cyberbullying from happening.

“97.5% have been online in the previous 30 days, 63% have a cell phone, 42% regularly use Instagram, 33% regularly use Facebook, 15% have been the target of cyberbullying in the previous 30 days (boys: 11.8%; girls: 18.5%), 6.3% have cyberbullied others in the previous 30 days (boys: 6.1%; girls: 6.5%)”(cyberbullying facts). This shows that most kids are on social media and using internet in some way and 15% of kids were targeted in the past 30 days this is not a good thing that’s why there needs to be punishment to those who are doing this. Know that it’s not your fault.

What people call “bullying” is sometimes an argument between two people. But if someone is repeatedly cruel to you, that’s bullying and you mustn’t blame yourself. No one deserves to be treated cruelly.

Tips to help prevent Cyberbullying

* Cyberbullying is only the bully’s fault because they are the ones who keep perusing to be rude and inconsiderate to someone and it is not a laughing matter anymore. They have to be rude and cruel to make one person feel bad about them selves hurt them selves or even bully them to attempt or even commit suicide.

* It is best to be able to reach out to some one and be able to talk to someone like a counselor, principal, mother figure, father figure just someone that you can tell how you truly feel. Also if someone is being cyberbullied do not just watch the argument unravel take action and tell a teacher parent about what is happening and to the person who was cyber bullied and see if in anyway shape or form you could help them so they do not have to go through this struggle alone

* At the end of the day cyber bullying is not something to joke about of even think is cute and funny this is really serious and needs to stop immediately that’s why the law for Cyberbullying should be a felony so after people saw what the punishment is they might double think before they are rude to a person so much that they would want to hurt themselves or even commit suicide.

websites : https://www.ukessays.com/essays/general-studies/issue-cyberbullying-8570.php

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberbullying

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happy-meo · 7 years ago

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Save Me. (Yoongi x Reader) PART 5.

“It swallowed me, this lunatic. Please save me tonight. Within this childish madness, you will save me tonight.” - [“Save Me” - BTS]

Summary: It was an unprecedented love that bloomed within the halls of your high school, until secret words were overheard, and shattered the budding romance. It changed your life forever, leading you down a path you had never thought you would be on– training to become a secret agent. You chose it to escape Yoongi and the results of how things ended between you two, but as fate would have it, that very same choice ended up leading you right back to him. Will you be able to save your clients and solve mysteries together despite your history? Will you be able to save each other? Will you able to save yourself…from yourself?

Yoongi x Reader (ft. Jin & all the other BTS members)

Secret Agent AU

Mystery, Action, Angst, & Fluff (contains some violence, mentions of murder, death, harassment, and bullying)

PARTS: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 (Finale) | Bonus: The Letter

A/N: So I’M BACK! Wow, I was a little rusty haha but hopefully, you’ll enjoy this new update ^_^ thank you again for waiting so patiently! Enjoy!

You sighed as you thoroughly read through the encrypted notes that Jimin had given you about the previous deaths and the two suspects you had asked for. Nothing seemed to be adding up despite having more information. None of their backgrounds had consistent similarities. There was a missing piece and you were frustrated that you couldn't pinpoint it.

You stared at the sheet, willing a clue to emerge. Everything was intriguing. All of their deaths, and all of their stories. Namjoon had so wonderfully organized it for you, but still, even combined with your own observations, no definitive patterns jumped out that could give you an advantage against the killer.

The deaths were as follows:

#1 - Female Student

Status: Main head of the popular group at the time; known by the students as the worst bully, but beautiful and the object of envy of everyone. She was the heir of a large corporation. She was athletic, popular, and intelligent.

Nicknamed the "Queen Bee".

Death: Became the first victim of the serial murders. She was not in attendance for two days, and was supposedly "home" to recuperate with her family doctor. But on the third day, she was found trampled/stomped in the hallway early the next morning. Family reported that she had never come home, and thought that she had stayed in school and was feeling better. Autopsy revealed that she was battered and stomped to death while struggling. "X" was carved on her forehead. Time of death was early morning of the 3rd day she had been missing. Peculiarities were that there was no trail of her blood in the hallway if she was dragged there or beaten there, which means she was killed elsewhere and carried into the school, and placed at that spot without being found. Roommate stated that she hadn't packed the uniform to go home, but the victim was wearing it in her death, and it had disappeared from the room on the 2nd day. Messages on victim's phone were wiped out completely, and unable to be recovered.

Quote found with body: "You regard it as impossible that a sinner should be struck down by the wrath of God! I do not!"

#2 - Female Student: Student Council Vice President

Status: Senior female student. One of the popular students, but was fairly quiet and reserved. Student reports stated that she frequented the library, and was usually found with her nose in a book. Family background was unknown and no school records of her family were found. She was Student Council Vice President.

Death: Never went missing, but her roommate reported that she had left in the middle of the night because she had forgotten something important in one of the classrooms, then never came back. The following morning, her dead body was found in the gym locker room. Time of death was approximately 2 hours after roommate stated she left the dorm. "X" was carved on her arm. Multiple deep slashes found on her body signaling that there was immense struggle to defend against the attacker. The deepest wound was found across her chest, which most likely caused her death. Autopsy revealed that she bled to death, but again, no blood found in the surroundings of where the body was discovered. Phone and any belongings of this student have disappeared completely.

Quote found with body: "This is no time for refusing to look facts in the face."

#3 - Nurse

Status: Worked as Nurse for 10 years. Rumored to have been dating the Gym Teacher, which resulted in the end of his long time marriage.

Death: Time of death was 2 days before body was found. No sign of struggle. Unclear as to what caused death because of the long time lapse between death and the discovery of the body. Suspecting that woman was poisoned to death then body was mangled and abused post-mortem. Signs of tearing and scarring in vaginal area signified penetration. Unable to tell whether object or male body part was inserted due to the severity of the injury in the region. Suspecting that it was a combination of both from swabbed mixture of fluids. Body was preserved with chemicals and hung on the large cherry blossom tree in school courtyard. Nurse lab coat was stated to be in her office during the course of her vacation, but had been stained with blood, so it was put on during the course of abuse, after death by poison. Lab coat is gone from her office, meaning the one she had on was her own and not a replica. "X" was carved on her cheek. Vibrant lipstick still on lips meaning that killer had applied lipstick then placed her on tree in close time proximity to when she was discovered. House was searched and all her belongings were untouched, except for her purse which has yet to be found. Family, friends, and Gym Teacher (ex-boyfriend) stated that she carried her phone, wallet, passport, and her make-up inside the purse. Lipstick that was used on her body was reported to be one she wore often. The peculiar thing was that Nurse was not supposed to return to the area until night before the body was found, but her death was stated to be 2 days prior. Had she come back earlier than what she told everyone? Or did the killer find her on vacation?

Quote found with body: "Unpleasant to feel that people were discussing you."

You ran your fingers through your hair, overwhelmed. Why were they targeted? They were all planned so intricately, so carefully that you were 110% certain that the killer had some sort of criteria for choosing the victims. Jealousy could've been a motive for the first victim, "Queen Bee", but not for the quiet, reserved bookworm Student Council Vice President. What was so important that she had to leave in the middle of the night to go get it?

The "X" 's were carved in different body parts for each victim-- did that mean something? How did these students disappear with plausible reasons, only to reappear dead? Where were the bodies being kept? Why did the killer preserve them prior to showing off their work?

You tapped your pen impatiently. The only thing in common was that their belongings, which possibly held evidence of the events leading to the attack, had gone missing. The two students had reportedly struggled...why hadn't the Nurse? Even the method of killing was varied. And why were they killed elsewhere and taken to a specific location at a given date and time?

You flipped to the next page, which contained the background of the two suspects you had asked for, who had a connection to the Agatha Christie book.

Possible Suspects:

Student Council President:

Entered school as a freshman, but no records prior to entering the high school. Any of his documents were incredibly hard to track down and find. Well-rounded, friendly, and well-liked. Trusted by faculty and students. First person to have unanimously been voted as Student Council President, and first person to run the Council without a VP beside him after her death. Athletic, top of his class, well-mannered. Family background unknown, but most students rumor that with his skills and personality that he is an heir to one of the richest, most secretive companies in the nation. Spends his free time in the library. Makes it a point to know everyone and everything related to the school. He and his Vice President had come to school early and were the two that found the first murder victim.

You furrowed your brow. Why did the Prez want to know everything? Why didn't he want another VP to help him? Why was his background so secretive? You hummed as you highlighted that he had been one of the two to find the first murder victim. Seeing as how the other was dead, you scribbled on the side that he might've gotten rid of his VP who could've been his accomplice at first. You shook your head, having a difficult time imagining such a cynical act coming from him. But then again, murderers don't exactly have their titles branded on their foreheads. Before being indicted, they were just mere citizens, friends, and family. You shivered, and continued your read.

Braids:

The youngest of 5 daughters. Eldest sister has already claimed and taken over the family business. Other older sisters were married off to wealthy people happily. Parents own big, successful agriculture franchise, but since she's the youngest, she can't inherit the company, so she has no real wealth or status to her name. And since she is still young, she is not yet viable to be married off to increase the family wealth. Average on all fronts. Not exactly intelligent or athletic. Considered the black sheep of the family, so constantly trying to prove her worth. Friendly and well-liked, but not belonging to a specific social group in school. Reported to be an attention seeker and clingy by her peers.

"Hm..." you jotted down your thoughts beside her information.

The fact that she didn't belong to a specific group could cause disdain with the popular clique. Envy could result in her plotting out these murders. And the fact that she's known and well-liked, yet perceived as a shadow and seemingly harmless by others may have been her strength in carrying them out. Now that you thought about it, she did appear behind you without you taking notice frequently, and your instincts were sharply trained. Were you just otherwise preoccupied or was she skillfully stealthy?

You clicked your pen and stretched...but why the Nurse? If it were only the students, it would be plausible, but why was the Nurse turned into a victim?

"Ugh." You slammed your head on the table lightly. As you stared at the corners of the paper, you realized there was another page to the packet you hadn't noticed. "What's this?"

You flipped it over to find Jin's smiling ID photo staring back at you.

"Why is Jin here?" You mumbled.

Your hand traced the information, which you knew to be true-- his birthday, his age, and his educational background. You smiled as your fingers glided over how he had been Student Council President in high school, and later on, a Campus Leader in his University. You giggled as you read that he had been in a dance team during college, remembering his uniquely stiff moves back in the day.

Teacher: Kim Seokjin

Well-loved and respected teacher and colleague. Reported to brighten up the room with his humor and amiable demeanor. Very close with all the students, enough to have students state that they think of him as an older brother or parent that they can confide in. It is his unique custom to give his students his cell-phone in case of emergencies, knowing that there are some things the students would rather not have their families find out. Makes it a point to know almost everything about his students and fellow faculty members. Frequently attends their recitals, competitions, and games to support them.

Your heart dropped and you shut your eyes, pained to think about your high school best friend being such a disgusting culprit. But you couldn't turn a blind eye that it was odd and incriminating that he made it a point to know everyone's activity schedule. If the students and teachers trusted him, maybe he knew where they were when no one else did. Which could fit into why the bodies were never found until the killer wanted them to be.

As you scanned further, you spotted Namjoon's scrawny handwriting on the bottom of Jin's page, which read "Yoongi requested a background check on him too." You exhaled, knowing that Yoongi was not as soft hearted towards Jin as you were.

"Probably for the best though." You hummed as you yawned. Hurriedly, you locked away the papers in a secret compartment in your backpack, and pulled out "And Then There Were None" to continue marking important passages and parts. Your eyes drooped in no time, the nightmare last night breaking your slumber and wiping out your energy. You fought hard to stay awake, but ended up reading and re-reading the same paragraph, sentence, word, until your world turned dark.

"Y/N?" Yoongi whispered as he perused the large library.

He relaxed when he finally found you, deep in slumber.

"Jeez. I seriously can't leave her alone anywhere can I? Look at all these openings." he chuckled as he took off his jacket and lightly placed them over your shoulders. Quietly, he took a seat beside you and slid your post-it note infested book towards him.

"What a nerd." he snorted as he sifted through your notes carefully. Then he noticed your earphones had fallen onto your lap, but faint music could be heard from them.

He plucked them from your legs carefully and placed them in his ears. His eyes widened, surprised at the sequential list of songs you were listening to.

"What're you doing with my Ipod?" You peeked over Yoongi's shoulder as he was clicking away on your desktop. "You're not doing homework."

"I'll do it later." he hummed.

"Hm..." You placed your chin on his shoulder and watched him curiously.

"Don't peek." he shrugged you off.

"Is it a surprise?"

"Maybe."

You grinned and kissed his cheek. "Then I'll make us some snacks since we're both taking a break."

Yoongi blushed and smiled as you skipped out of your room happily.

A few minutes later, you returned with two plates of bread with various fillings and cold drinks.

"Done yet?"

"Allllmost." he clicked hurriedly then clapped. "Done!"

"What'd you do?" You raised an eyebrow.

He unplugged your iPod and handed it to you.

"I made you a 'Boyfriend' playlist..." he rubbed the back of his neck shyly.

"A Boyfriend Playlist...?"

"Yeah..." he blushed and averted his eyes. "With like songs that remind me of you and stuff..."

You bit your lip and looked at him amused.

"Ah! Let's just eat! Listen to it later." he huffed, embarrassed.

You giggled and grabbed your earphones, patting your bed. "Come here, Yoongs."

He blushed. "Wh-what?"

"Stop thinking dirty thoughts. Let's listen to it together, silly!" You tugged at his arm, but he didn't budge from his seat. So with a sigh, you settled onto his lap which made him tense up. You placed one earphone in his and the other in yours. He soon relaxed, his arms wrapping around your waist.

"You know if your parents walk in, this is going to be really awkward." he stated.

"I didn't think you'd be one to be scared of breaking rules." You teased.

"When it comes to your parents' approval, I am."

"It's okay. I'll tell them I attacked you." You grinned.

"It's cause you did." he scrunched his face.

"Thank you." you smiled. "For the playlist."

Yoongi blushed and nodded. "Listen to it well, for a long time."

"I will."

The playlist he had made for you in high school. You still had it. You still listened to it.

Hurriedly, the earphones flew out of his ears, and he flinched as he found you staring at him with wide-eyed surprise.

"Wh-what're you doing here?" You stammered.

You hadn't expected him to appear beside you, when you were trying to create distance after your nightmare yesterday.

"Um...looking for you..." Yoongi averted his gaze awkwardly. His heart was hammering in his chest. Why had you still kept his playlist when it seemed like you hated his guts?

"I told you I'd be back." You whispered and turned away shyly, packing your iPod away.

"I wanted to talk to you." Yoongi boldly lay his hand on top of yours. "Can we?"

You glanced at him, astounded by his serious tone. "Um...yeah..."

"Let's take a walk." he smiled.

"Okay." You were a bit hesitant, unsure what exactly he wanted to say.

"I'll carry this." He grabbed your backpack and threw it over his shoulder suavely.

"You just always do whatever you want." You exhaled, but followed him out nonetheless.

"What is this insane line?" You and Yoongi blinked as you stepped into one of the hallways.

"You think it's for...?" You trailed off.

"Probably. That guy always causes trouble." Yoongi snorted as you two moved closer to the Nurse's office.

"Mr. Park! Mr. Park!" the girls squealed.

Jimin chuckled and scratched the back of his head, flustered. "It looks like a lot of you aren't feeling well today?"

"Mr. Park...my head hurts." A girl whined and dramatically stumbled around.

You glanced at Yoongi amused.

"Um...what medicine was it again?" Jimin hummed as he browsed his shelves. "How about an ice pack to soothe your headache?"

The girls on the line giggled, finding it endearing.

Jimin smiled and felt her forehead, "And how about you lay down on one of my beds over there?"

The girl knees weakened at his proximity.

"Oh?" Jimin blinked as he felt her cheeks. "Do you have a fever? You're so warm!"

"Nurse Park..." You knocked on the door.

"Oh Y/N!" he beamed.

"Don't you have a thing to attend to today? Why are you still in school?" You blinked.

Jimin grinned, catching on. "Ah yes!"

He glanced at his watch convincingly. "Is it that time already? I have to go!"

The students whined.

"Please get rest everyone!" Jimin winked and grabbed his briefcase before sprinting out of the room.

As he passed, Jimin gave you a large grin and mouthed, "Thank you".

The female students smacked each other enthusiastically once Nurse Park disappeared completely.

"He's so good looking!"

"He's so cute!"

"Did you see him wink at me?"

"It was towards me!"

"I really have a stomach ache though!!"

You and Yoongi shook your heads in disbelief then continued on your way.

"Why was Jimin here on his day off anyway?" You questioned.

"I saw him earlier and he was looking at his computer seriously..." Yoongi recalled.

"You think he found something?"

"Let's forget about Jimin for a second okay?" Yoongi exhaled as you two finally stepped outside.

"Sure." You shrugged. "What did you want to talk about?"

"You." He stated. "I wanted to talk about you."

"Me?"

"Yeah...about well...what's been happening to you..." he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yoongi, you don't need to worry about me--"

"But I do." he cut you off and stopped walking.

You turned around curiously.

"I worry about you all the time." he frowned and clenched his fists. "And it freakin' makes me feel like crap that I can't do anything to help you."

"Yoongi..." You stepped forward worriedly.

"But it goes both ways, you know." Yoongi shook his head and stared at you intently.

"What?"

"People aren't trying to understand you because you aren't trying to open up to them. Being closed off makes everyone judge you as they please, and I hate that they do it. But I really hate that you let them."

"It's not that I let them."

"Yes, you do!" Yoongi called out. "You just take it. You don't fight back. You don't show them that they're all wrong about you. That's why they keep going with this harassment, this bullying!"

"I fought back once, and got kicked down harder. I tried to run away once, and got chased away further than I ever hoped to be." You raised your voice. "Why would I escalate things by fanning the flames?"

"Because that's how you are!" Yoongi yelled and grabbed your shoulders. "You do what you want confidently. You're not afraid to be who you are, to go for what you want, no matter what it takes. Not just in high school, but ever since we've gotten partnered up too. I've seen you."

You frowned and pulled his hands away from you. "And what if being myself isn't good enough?"

Yoongi sighed. "I don't know why you place being popular on such a pedestal, but it's not as grand as you expect it to be. The people who are well known are those who aren't afraid to be themselves and stand out from the crowd."

"Is that why you had to hide part of who you are in highschool?" You whispered.

Yoongi closed his eyes, frustrated. "We were young back then. But it's time to grow up, Y/N. I'm being who I am now, so why don't you as well? Just be yourself, Y/N. Know that I'll be there; so will Tae and Jimin, and the rest of the team. What have you got to lose?"

You looked up at him worriedly. "What if I lose myself?"

Yoongi sadly smiled at you. "Didn't you lose yourself already?"

Your eyes widened.

He cupped your cheek. "Please. I'm not really sure why or how you started letting people trample over you, but I know you're stronger than this. I don't like seeing you give up on yourself when so many people are rooting for you."

You turned away from his touch, unsure of whether you were mad at him, grateful to him, or just plain embarrassed that he was scolding you.

He sighed and stepped back. "That's all I wanted to say...I'll see you back in the room."

You nodded, still not able to look at him.

When you looked up after a few minutes, he was gone. You exhaled. Had things really gotten that bad? But when you thought about it...you didn't know anyone's names, although you knew their faces and possible ways they could be related to the killings. You hardly greeted anyone or made attempts to lend people pencils or pens when they needed it, while you always carried around extra. From the outside perspective, Yoongi was right, you seemed cold and judgmental, making it appear that others were beneath you.

"I hope you listen to him." A familiar voice was heard above you.

You glanced up. "Jimin, why were you eavesdropping?"

"On the contrary, Y/N, you two stopped at my hiding place." he grinned as he sat on the trunk of the tree he was in, swinging his feet cutely.

"I'm so stupid." You chuckled.

Jimin shook his head. "He said all those things 'cause he cares for you. We all do. We don't like seeing you get hurt in any way. So don't devalue yourself."

"Will it be that easy?" You leaned against the tree with a sigh.

"Being yourself is easy." Jimin grinned. "And me and Tae love you for it."

You blushed and smiled.

"Just like how you opened up to us, take the risk. You're in a better spot now than you were in the past."

"How so?"

"Because if people hurt you or break your trust, you know 5 people will be ready to snipe them this time." Jimin giggled.

"Saying that with that angelic face of yours." You snorted.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He blinked innocently.

"How was your Welcome Party?"

Jimin's face darkened.

"I don't like that look on your face." You frowned.

"I'll get back to you on that." Jimin sighed as he stood up.

"Hm?"

"People are coming." Jimin smiled. "Stay safe, Y/N."

"You too, Jimin." You whipped out your phone and pretended like you were calling someone as a few students passed by you.

"Welcome Mr. Park!! To our school!" The Principal grinned happily and warmly hugged Jimin. "It was a blessing you accepted so willingly after we told you what has been happening in the school lately."

"Ah it's nothing. It is definitely important to have a Nurse in times of crises." Jimin blushed.

"Ah, you were introduced to the faculty already, but you haven't seen these new faces yet. These are our private investigators. They're from a secretive company that's been associated with this school for years. Meet Mon & V."

Jimin coughed, trying to hide his laughter at his friends' aliases for themselves.

"I'm Mon." Namjoon smiled and shook his hand amiably.

"I'm V!" Tae giggled and threw an arm around Jimin's shoulder. "Let's be good friends."

"Yes...let's." Jimin smiled. "But Principal, why do you have ties to a secretive company?"

The Principal flustered. "Um well...the very nature of our school deals with the children of the wealthy so we don't want unnecessary defamation and false facts to come out..."

"Ah..." Jimin hummed, unconvinced.

"Well, enough of this serious talk!" the Secretary bubbled and clapped. "Let's dig in!"

"I made this, Mr. Park." the English teacher shoved Tae away and took a seat beside Jimin, fluttering her eyes. "Please try some and tell me how you like it."

"Umm...sure."

"She's not that good at cooking." Music Teacher huffed and English Teacher glared at him.

"Shouldn't we wait for everyone to arrive before starting the festivities?" the Vice Principal sternly pushed up her glasses. "It's only courteous to do so."

"Who's still missing?" the Principal asked.

"Um Mr. Kim and the Counselor."

"What do they think they're doing? Making us wait like this!" Gym Teacher slammed his fist against the table, making everyone flinch.

Jimin glanced over at the Science Teacher who was yawning, but carefully uncovering the food in front of him.

"Why don't I give them a call?" Librarian dissipated the tension immediately with her sweet smile.

"I'm here. Sorry I'm late." the Counselor bowed. "I met a friend who I haven't seen in awhile in town earlier and time slipped by!"

"Oh it happens!" Principal giggled and waved his hand. "How about Mr. Kim?"

"I have arrived!!" Jin jumped into the room brightly and spun around, shooting hearts at everyone.

"Finally! Let's eat." Gym Teacher grumbled.

"Here." Jin handed Jimin a gift bag.

"What's this?"

"A welcome present." Jin grinned. "Welcome aboard to this crazy faculty."

Jimin smiled. "Can I ... open it?"

"Yeah! It's kind of generic since we don't really know each other well yet, but I figured you'd need it."

Jimin gasped as lifted up his very own name plate for his desk, extremely touched. "You didn't need to! Oh my goodness! I love it!"

Jin beamed. "I'm glad! Someone helped me pick it out. I was between a flower or an apple in the back, but they convinced me an apple would fit better cause you're a nurse and everything."

"I like apples." Jimin smiled as he swiped the engraved apple in the back of his name plate.

"Oh good. Y/N will be happy." Jin whispered to himself, but Jimin caught it, surprised.

"Let's play some drinking games after we eat and wind down!" the Secretary clapped happily.

"Will you take care of me if I get too bad, Jimin?" English Teacher blushed and looped her arm around his.

"Um..." Jimin blinked.

"Jimin, try this!" Tae shoved the English Teacher aside and shoved a spoon into Jimin's mouth.

"Yah!" English Teacher pouted.

"Why don't you sit next to me?" the Music Teacher beamed and patted the seat beside him.

"No thanks." English Teacher huffed.

"Why're you still mad at me?" he exhaled.

"Now, now let's not embarrass ourselves in front of the new faculty member." Librarian poured everyone a shot. "Let's drink and loosen up!"

"To the new Nurse!" Principal cheered.

"To the new Nurse!" Everyone bellowed.

After everyone threw their shot back, the Gym Teacher began crying.

"She was so young! Why did she have to?"

Everyone glanced at each other awkwardly.

"Um...why don't I speak to him for a bit?" Counselor smiled sadly, and whispered a few words to the Gym Teacher, before leading him out of the room.

"Well, no use not having fun by ourselves!" Secretary grinned widely. "Let's play some drinking games!"

"Uh...I can't exactly drink too well..." Jimin frowned.

"I don't like alcohol too well...is there something fruity I can drink?"

"Mm...I can mix something up for you, Officer V." Librarian smiled. "Hold on."

"Yayy!" Tae clapped.

"Let me head to the bathroom for a second." Jimin stated.

"I'll come too." Jin smiled. "I've been holding it in for awhile."

The two stepped out of the room.

"Sorry for the craziness." Jin chuckled. "But I feel like this is their way of relieving stress with everything that's been happening."

"I totally understand." Jimin nodded.

"It was only supposed to be me that knew she had come home early! So why? How? I called her so many times cause she asked me to pick her up, but I didn't know where or when. I should've tried harder."

Jin and Jimin paused where they were as they heard the voice of the Gym Teacher in the bathroom.

"Shhh...it's okay. It's not your fault. Why was she coming home earlier?" Counselor questioned.

"She said someone called her that something urgent came up and they needed to meet."

"Do you know if they did? Or who it was?"

"No...I didn't know anything like a fool!" The Gym Teacher angrily slammed the bathroom stall doors. "I was going to forgive her for leaving me to go on vacation with another guy, because I loved her so much. I did so much for her."

"Like what?"

"Ended things with my wife."

"Maybe we should go to a different bathroom." Jin whispered.

Jimin nodded, but made a mental note of what he heard.

"I didn't know they were in a relationship like that." Jin stated. "Wow."

"Weren't you on vacation too?" Jimin questioned.

"Yeah. I was visiting my family at my hometown." Jin grinned. "I go at least once a year and we either travel somewhere as a family or just hold parties at our place."

"Are you wealthy too? It seems like everyone here is well off."

"Mmm...instead of saying I'm wealthy...it's more accurate to say my family is." he chuckled. "I'm just average. I chose the life of an educator instead of following in their footsteps."

"Are they unhappy?"

"Not at all!" Jin laughed. "My family didn't mind, thankfully. Oh, here's the bathroom! Finally!"

The two of them ran in and hurriedly did their business.

"Took you two awhile." Music Teacher pouted.

"Wow, you guys look like you enjoyed more than a few drinks while we were out." Jin laughed.

The Science Teacher was dozing off, and Jimin noticed Tae watching him closely from afar. Namjoon was speaking English smoothly with the English Teacher, who looked smitten with him this time. Secretary was dancing excitedly with Principal. Librarian returned with a smoothie for Tae and he immediately lit up like a kid getting a present.

"It has very little alcohol. More fruit."

"Thank you!" Tae beamed happily.

"You're welcome dear." Librarian patted his cheek.

Counselor and Gym Teacher returned and joined in on the festivities a few minutes later. Gym Teacher chugged a few drinks to drown in his feelings it seemed, and soon ended up dancing robotically beside the Principal and Secretary.

"How absurd." the VP shook her head. "No one can maintain their decorum."

"It isn't very good to resist adapting, Madame Principal." Counselor smiled sweetly and offered her a drink. "It won't be too bad to let loose once in awhile. I heard you were quite the exotic dancer back in your day."

"Ooooo ~" the room reacted.

She blushed and accepted the drink. "Oh well...I wouldn't say I was THAT good, but hell, I was quite fantastic."

"Show us! Show us!" Jin clapped his hands and led the chant.

The VP grabbed the bottle of vodka and gulped down a good amount then began waving her body fluidly as the others hooted and hollered.

"Wow...I feel like I'm in college again." Jimin chuckled.

"Gotta act young to look younger, my friend." Jin nudged. "Show us your moves next!"

"Shall I?" Jimin wiggled her eyebrows. He stood up and began dancing to everyone's synchronized clapping then pointed towards Jin, who immediately stood up and began flapping his arms and shrugging his shoulders confidently.

The party later ended with Gym Teacher crashing and breaking the table with the weight of his body. The Science Teacher jolted awake and helped in the clean up, apologizing for his lack of participation profusely. The Secretary was hysterically laughing at anything and everything, while the Librarian tended to those who had fallen asleep -- Mon, English Teacher, and Music Teacher. Principal was still dancing with the VP to nonexistent music while the Counselor clapped along warmly. V, Jimin, and Jin ended up cleaning up the mess with the Science Teacher before forcing the drunkards to take a cab back home.

"I hope it was fun and not weird..." Counselor smiled at Jimin.

"It really was. Thank you." Jimin bowed.

"If anybody needs a lift home, let me know!" Jin called out from his car.

"I'm okay." Jimin called out. "I'm taking the officers back to their place since they live near me surprisingly."

"Yeah...Mon is out for the count." Tae giggled as he piggybacked Namjoon.

"Yah." a slurred voice was heard behind them. A male student stumbling around, disheveled, and clearly intoxicated was pointing his finger at the Gym Teacher, who was being dragged by Principal, Science Teacher, and Music Teacher.

"Yah? How could you talk to your teacher like that?" Principal gasped.

"He's the mean one! He always makes gym hard for us! It's supposed to be fun! And then to make the girls wear such short shorts...it's painful for the guys to watch them bounce around and not be able to touch them. But hehehe..."

"Hehe?" Jin stepped out of his car curiously. "Why are you laughing?"

"You're an asshole!" a girl came out crying from the shadows, her clothes ripped. "He harassed me!"

"You enjoyed it." he smirked. "Didn't you?"

Librarian gasped and hurriedly covered the female student up.

"You all have no proof." the male student shrugged. "And you can't touch me. My family won't let this slide, and they'll expose all of you."

"How dare you..." VP exhaled, but the male student fell backwards and fainted.

All the teachers glanced at each other worriedly and at a loss.

All in all, it was a fun party, but Jimin felt uneasy about almost everyone there, and he knew from his face that Tae was as well.

"Umm...g-good morning." You bowed as you entered the classroom.

Everyone froze and looked at you, surprised. Yoongi was already in his seat, and he grinned proudly.

"Good morning to you too, Y/N." Jin arrived behind her. "Good morning class!"

"Good morning!" the class chanted.

"I asked the English Teacher to come in to co-teach with me today, and I wanted you all to write up your own introductions and a simple presentation about yourselves in English."

Everyone groaned. "Why?"

"I think it's important to get to know each other. No complaints." Jin glared, which silenced the class. He was fairly playful, but everyone knew when he meant business and was afraid of him in those times. "Got it?"

"Yes."

You spotted Jimin by the window sneakily peeking in.

"That sneaky man..." you hummed as he gave you a thumbs up before disappearing.

Jimin had probably asked Jin to give you a way to open up without the awkwardness of suddenly changing behavior. Not directly of course, but in some way or another. You sighed nervously, but you were grateful to them.

"Hi, I'm Min Yoonji. I like basketball and wearing all black clothing. Thank you." Yoongi stood up and nonchalantly presented his simple English introduction. Everyone chuckled at his short and sweet statements.

"Yoonji! Write more!" Jin bellowed.

"But this is me, Teacher." Yoongi shrugged.

Jin huffed. "Who's next?"

You took a deep breath and raised your hand.

"Y/N." Jin smiled. "Please."

You coughed, "Hi...my name is Y/N. I know that I haven't really interacted with many of you, and I apologize for that. Um as you see, I'm quite shy and don't know how to express myself too well to new people. I realize now that it may have come across that I don't want to befriend any of you and for that I'm sorry. I wanted to get to know everyone, but I'm not too sure how to go about it. I hope from now on, you'll understand me as I try to be more open and change."

The class stared at her in awe.

"I'm not sure what she said." one of the male students stated. "But her English was amazing!"

"Y/N. If you could please translate for those that don't pay attention in English class." Jin sighed.

You blushed and Jin gave you an encouraging nod. With another deep breath, you translated your speech then sat down, embarrassed. But you smiled to yourself slightly, feeling that it was a big first step regardless.

And slowly, you began greeting people and they returned your greetings. Some people began initiating conversation with you, and many found your shyness and awkwardness endearing. It was comforting to say that Yoongi's presence and Jin's subtle acts of encouragement, as well as the fact that you could escape to Jimin's office later on from embarrassment, all helped you move forward to change the course of your high school career.

"Y/N." Yoongi called out one morning as you got ready for the day.

"Hm?" You turned to him.

"Give me your arm."

"Why?" You squinted at him suspiciously. "Are you going to put me in an arm bar?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, shut up. I'm trying to do something nice."

"Why..."

"Just..." Yoongi pulled your arm and slipped a sterling silver bracelet onto your wrist. "There."

"What...what's this?" You stared at it in awe.

Yoongi blushed. "Umm...it's a bit cheesy... but I guess something to remind you that you're never be alone? Like if I'm not physically there, I'll always be there for you. I got Tae and Jimin to choose a charm each too."

You smiled as you tinkered with the music note you knew symbolized Yoongi, the apple that symbolized Jimin, and the tiger that symbolized Tae.

"We're all proud of you." Yoongi rubbed the back of his neck. "And ah...I'm sorry for scolding you that time...I was just frustrated. I should've said it another way..."

"No." You shook your head. "I needed to hear it. Thank you. I know I can always count on you to tell me how it is, Yoongi."

He grinned.

"And I guess...it's nice being in the same class together...and that helped me a lot..." You mumbled quickly then scurried out of the room. "I'm going first!"

Yoongi chuckled at you fleeing out of embarrassment. "How cute."

His hands tingled with the feeling of your skin against his, and he shook it off.

"Ahh time for class, time for class."

But when he made it to the front of the building, his heart dropped as he spotted a huge crowd in front.

"Yoonji!" You hurried to him, as pale as a ghost.

"Don't tell me..." he trailed off.

"It happened again."

"Who?"

"It's a male student this time..." You whispered.

The only pattern that made sense up until now was that females were being targeted, but even that had been taken from you two.

"Goddammit." Yoongi hissed. "Have you seen the crime scene?"

"Not yet."

Yoongi grabbed your hand and pulled you forward, surprising you. "Let's go."

"What happened, Prez?" You huffed worriedly as you spotted him, once again on the other side of the Caution tape.

"It was just found before the school opened." Prez frowned.

"Who found him?"

"The new Nurse." Prez turned, and you two spotted Jimin shaking as he tried to keep his composure and speak with Namjoon and Tae about what happened.

You wondered if he was really shaken up or if he was acting the part, but regardless, it meant that who found the body was completely random and unrelated.

"He was found by the dumpster in that alleyway near the entrance. His body was frozen...like it was preserved for a few days already." The Prez winced.

"What?"

"His body was mauled. His clothes ripped, his body slashed and beaten." he closed his eyes.

"Good riddance!" a female student yelled. "That asshole harassed me! He deserved this! How dare no one punish him? So the Heavens did!"

There was commotion amongst the students against her radical opinion. You glanced over and met Jimin, Tae, and Namjoon's eyes. They all nodded, confirming that her statement was true.

The Prez leaned down and whispered into your ear, "The Principal told me that the story was true. During Nurse Jimin's party a few weeks ago, they saw this same student drunk as hell and that girl yelling before, rushed after him with her clothes ripped off, claiming that he harassed her."

"But no one did anything?"

"They couldn't." The Prez frowned. "His father is the CEO of a large news corporation. One ill word about his son, and the school could be shut down for good. Plus there was no evidence."

"But won't that happen now? Since...he's..." You glanced at the body that Tae's and Namjoon's team were examining. You shuddered as the male student's eyes were wide open still, but his entire body was frozen and unmoving.

"We're not sure. Whoever this killer is, has a knack for making these wealthy families silent about these murders..." Prez sighed.

"What was the quote...?" Yoongi mumbled.

"'But no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a natural craving for recognition which cannot be gain-said.'" Prez recited.

And you felt your gears turning ever so slightly.

Classes resumed in the afternoon, since the school was unable to forsake another missed day of learning. So you found yourself in gym class, trying to piece together the new findings with your previous conjectures. It probably wasn't the best time...considering you were in the middle of a very intense dodge ball game. But you felt like you were close to figuring something out.

"So he was supposedly guilty of harassing her, but never got punished. Then a few weeks after that incident, he's found dead. What were the other victim's back stories? Gahh, think!" You muttered quietly to yourself.

"Y/N!" Yoongi yelling your name jolted you from your mumbling in time to see a ball hurtling towards your face.

Your body instinctively reacted. You lunged towards it, capturing it in your hands, and performing a roll at the end of your momentum to bring yourself back up to standing position. Then without hesitation, you whipped the ball, full strength at one of the largest athletes on the opposing team. He fell back at the sheer force of your throw, and everyone stared at you stunned. You gasped, realizing your training had kicked in since you were in some sort of danger.

"Uh --out! And Y/N, try to use a little less power next time?" one of your fellow students requested.

"I'm sorry...I panicked." You scratched the back of your head.

"Oh my gosh. She's so cool."

"Look she's so shy about it. How adorable."

"Thank goodness. He was such a ball hog. Now maybe we can have a chance to play too!"

You smiled shyly and retreated to the back row, away from the center of the game. Yoongi nudged you playfully.

"Wasn't so hard being yourself, huh?"

You grinned. "It was a no brainer."

He rolled his eyes. "This is what happens when you hang out with Jin. You come back with lame puns."

"That was a good one, please."

"Heads up, Miss Badass." Yoongi scurried away as the ball came flying towards the both of you.

"You lazy ass." You hissed as Yoongi smirked and yawned while you caught the ball.

Everyone from your team immediately parted the way for you out of fear and you whipped the ball to the other team, getting another athlete out. Your team cheered excitedly, and a few of the students patted your back.

You grinned. Maybe Yoongi had been right. Maybe it wasn't being popular that felt good, but being yourself and people liking you for it. Had you been chasing after the wrong thing all along?

Yes. Yes you were.

With people now seeing you in a different light, came your rise to popularity, and with the presentation of your surprising athletic ability along with your shy personality, a lot of males found themselves quite attracted to you. At first, you basked in the attention and let it raise your self-confidence, but it soon began taking a toll on your school life. Male students began asking you out and trying to win you over, almost to the point that it became a frenzy.

"Oh my goodness..." You gasped as you found a crowd of male students in front of the school building, waiting for you with flowers one weekend. You had wanted to visit Jimin then spend quiet time in the library, and thought no one would think about entering school on a weekend, but you were very wrong.

You took a few steps back, praying no one spotted you, but even that didn't go as planned.

"Y/N!" someone bellowed.

"Y/N? Y/N!"

They all began running towards you.

"Oh holy crap. Why is this happening?" You whined as you sprinted away.

"Y/N?" Yoongi stopped as he saw you.

"Sorry, insane male hormones rampaging behind me. Tell Jimin I'm sorry but I don't think I can come! Fill me in later!" You bellowed.

"Y/N--" Yoongi gasped as he dove out of the way. "What in the world??!"

"Y/N! Go out with me!" The men called out.

"What the fuck?" Yoongi hissed as he dusted himself off.

Suddenly, he spotted a motorcycle driving on the grass and heading towards Y/N. He put on Tae's zoom-in sunglasses to figure out who it was.

"Y/N. Hop on!"

"Prez!" You exhaled in astonishment.

"Come on!"

"But I've never --"

Prez pulled a helmet over you and helped you hop on. "Hold tight."

You wrapped your arms around his waist and shut your eyes tightly. Honestly, you had never been on a motorcycle and were always far too frightened to do so cause of its speed.

Yoongi grumbled and kicked dirt out of irritation, before heading to meet with Jimin.

"What's gotten your knickers in a twist, hyung?"

"Cut it out, Harry Potter." Yoongi snapped.

"Where's Y/N?"

"Out with her boyfriend, the Student Council President, riding away on a motorcycle."

"Y/N hates motorcycles though."

"Didn't seem like it." Yoongi scrunched his face.

"Well, was it because she was being chased by the swarms of male students that were waiting in front of the school?" Jimin giggled.

"Couldn't you have warned her?"

"She came out as #1. I thought she could handle it." he shrugged.

"You are evil." Yoongi pointed.

"And you are jealous." Jimin smirked.

Yoongi scoffed. "Why would I be jealous?"

Jimin sang, "I don't know ~"

"Prez! Slow down!" You yelled. "They're gone!"

"Are they?" he pulled to a stop and you leaped off, falling to the ground.

"Whoa." You caught your breath finally.

"Sorry..." he knelt down and patted your back. "It was a little scary seeing that. Reminded me of some zombie apocalypse shit."

You shuddered. "Please don't say that. It makes it worse."

He chuckled.

"Where did you come from?" You glanced at him.

"Well I was heading to the library then I saw what seemed to be a massive goose chase on the field. I recognized you and went to your rescue."

"You saw me from that far?" You chuckled.

"I have really good vision." he grinned.

You snorted and let him help you up.

"Y/N? President?" You two turned around to find Jin staring at you two curiously. "You two okay?"

"Yeah." You huffed. "I just...I just had a surprise morning exercise today."

"Well..." Jin lifted up a basket. "I made food if you two wanted to join me."

You and the Prez glanced at each other and shrugged.

"Um sure...I could use some food." You breathed. "Thanks."

"Yay!" Jin grinned. "I usually come to this park on nice days and have a picnic."

"By yourself?" Prez questioned.

"Shh." Jin scolded.

You giggled.

"What're you two up to?"

"Well Y/N was being chased by her male suitors and I valiantly saved her on my noble steed. We rode off at the speed of light into uncharted territories and thankfully ran into an old friend." The Prez grinned.

"This story just keeps getting more and more intricate. You should stop reading so much." You shook your head.

"Did you use old friend to take a jab at my age huh, kid?" Jin snapped.

"No Mr. Kim! Of course not..." Prez guiltily bowed.

"I'm just pulling your leg. Come help me with the straw mat, Prez." Jin laughed. "He was once in my homeroom, Y/N, if he didn't tell you already."

"Oh? He didn't mention it." You shook your head.

"I'm hurt." Jin pouted.

You giggled.

"You're both in luck 'cause I made my specialties today." Jin grinned.

Your stomach rumbled shamelessly, and you weakly smiled as the two laughed at you.

"She's not home yet, Hoseok." Yoongi hissed as he paced the dorm, on the phone with his best friend. "She's out with one of the suspects. What if she needs me?"

"She's a big girl. She would call for back up." Hoseok exhaled. "You've been calling me non-stop for the past 2 hours. Please go pick up another hobby or do an investigation of your own."

Yoongi sighed and lay down in his bed. "You know..."

"What?"

"She still has the playlist I made her..."

"Yoongi..."

"I don't know if it's cause we're acting like we're in high school again or because I'm getting to know her again, but I keep worrying and thinking about her. And then when I wonder why I feel these things...is it because I feel guilty for what I did? Or is it because I still like her?" He ruffled his hair, frustrated.

"Yoongi." Hoseok stated seriously. "I'm going to say this once because you'll kill me and this is the only time when we're not in the same vicinity."

"Spit it out, Hoseok."

"You like puzzles and mysteries, don't you?"

"Um yes..." Yoongi raised an eyebrow.

"But the one mystery that you're not trying to solve is why things ended between you and Y/N in high school. Why do you think that you half-heartedly asked girls out that you knew liked you, after she dumped you? And even though they had a thing for you, why did they say no? That always struck me as odd, hm? And then what I've always wanted to say is that, why did you not want to date anyone, unless I dragged you to accompany me for a double date? You always said you weren't interested and no one's piqued your interest or you were too busy or it was too bothersome, but you know what I think?"

"What..." Yoongi whispered.

"I don't think you ever got over Y/N."

Yoongi fell silent.

"Yoongi. You have to figure out what happened, and then you can probably figure out what exactly your feelings are towards her." Hoseok calmly explained. "And do it fast, before she gets taken away. You know that when she shows who she really is, she's a true catch. Don't let her slip out of your net until you figure out whether you want to keep her or let her go. Figure it out before it's too late."

Yoongi exhaled and shut his eyes. What exactly were you to him now?

"Thank you for the meal!" You patted your stomach and exhaled. "That was delicious."

Jin beamed, delighted at your compliment. "I'm glad you two ate so well."

The three of you cleaned up and helped Jin pack the stuff back into his car.

"Do you want me to give you a ride back to school Y/N?" Jin asked.

"It's okay. I can take her back." Prez stepped in.

"The motorcycle is a little dangerous though..." Jin frowned. "I feel uneasy."

"I have to go back to school anyway. So I can definitely take her back, and it won't be out of the way." Prez pressed.

Jin glanced at you worriedly. "Well, what do you think Y/N?"

"Um..." you swallowed.

You honestly didn't want to ride the motorcycle, but you didn't want to offend the Prez. You were a bit torn.

"Hey! I found her!" a male voice was heard. "Y/N!"

"Oh shit. They were still looking for me?? What're they on?!" You freaked out.

"Hop in." Jin stated seriously.

"I'll distract them." Prez put his helmet on. "They won't know which person took her if we leave simultaneously and split up."

You snuck into Jin's car and ducked, making it seem like no one was on the passenger's side. He revved his engine and smirked at the Prez.

"This is the most exciting thing I've done in awhile!" Jin giggled excitedly.

"I'm glad I amuse you." You replied sullenly.

"I'll get you back safely. Don't worry." Jin gave you a thumbs up.

Prez nodded and the two of them sped forward and split at the fork in the road.

You thought it'd be an easy way out, but unfortunately, some of the students also brought their cars with them.

"What spell did you put on them, Y/N?" Jin snorted. "This is more of an obsession or a mania at this point."

"Braids said it's from dehydration." You stated as you peeked out of his side view mirrors.

"Dehydration?"

"Well the males have already seen and been with all the female students since freshman year so they were desensitized. Those who have liked someone, have tried and either ended up being rejected or began going out with them. But in other words, they're all used to each other. But me --"

"You're someone new that popped up on their radar." Jin finished. "Quench their thirst per se."

You shuddered. "Probably what the analogy means."

Jin shook his head then checked his rearview mirror. "One of them is catching up. Yah! They're driving way over the speed limit then!"

"Jin, this isn't the time for rules!"

"It is always the time. People could get hurt."

"Hmmm..." you hummed.

"What?"

"I'm going to roll down your window and do something."

"What're you going to do?"

"Temporarily blind them."

"What??"

"Think of it as 'flash' or a banana peel during Mario Kart." You closed one eye and angled your make-up mirror towards the sun.

"I love Mario Kart!"

"When I say go, I want you to accelerate and switch lanes like a madman."

"What? That's --"

"Just 3 times. So we could lose them."

Jin hesitated then hummed.

"Got it!" You grinned as the sun reflected off your mirror and shone right at the driver behind Jin's car. They panicked and swerved a little. During the time of distraction, you placed one of Tae's gadgets on the side of Jin's car, which changed the color of anything it touched.

"Go!" You yelled and Jin pressed on the gas as hard as he could, pinning you back against your seat.

"1...2...3..." Jin counted his lane switches then slowed down, taking a breath of relief.

You smirked and relaxed.

"We lost them."

"Thank goodness." Jin exhaled. "Now I'm hungry again."

You chuckled. "You're always hungry, huh?"

"Pretty much." Jin shrugged.

"Why is it that you always end up in another man's vehicle?" Yoongi shook his head as he waited for you at the front of the dormitory. "You left with Prez and come back with Jin. I didn't know you were such a player."

"Oh Yoonji." You exhaled and patted his cheek. "I'm actually glad to come home to your nagging for once."

He pouted as he stomped into your dorm after you. "You aren't taking me seriously. Men are dangerous."

"I agree from the stampede I experienced today." You plopped down on your bed. "I got out thanks to Prez and Jin, so don't get mad at them."

Yoongi huffed. "They're two of the suspects, you know. You're close with the top THREE suspects."

"Hey, if they like me, they can't kill me." You smirked, then you sat up in your bed. "I think I figured out something."

"What?" Yoongi stared at you curiously.

"Yah." You glanced at him.

"What?"

"What if the killer is targeting people who have done them wrong?"

"Like a personal vendetta?" Yoongi questioned.

"Yeah! Think about it...this last victim. He harassed a female student...what if it wasn't his first time doing it?"

"That would mean the killer was a female, which means...Braids?"

You two stared at each other.

"Maybe I should get to know her better..." You mumbled.

"Y/N. Be careful." Yoongi frowned.

"It's a possibility though right?" You looked at him, waiting for his approval.

He relaxed and smiled, stroking your hair. "Yeah. Definitely. It's a big possibility."

You grinned. "At least we have some sort of conjecture again."

"Just..." Yoongi knelt down and grabbed your hands warmly. "Please stop going off where I can't find you, hm?"

You smiled, eyes twinkling, and squeezed his hands in return.

"But you'll always find me, Min Yoongi... right?"

He chuckled and blushed.

"Yes." he leaned his head on your interlocked hands, defeated. "Yes, I'll always find you."

When Monday arrived, you scurried to the library during free time to avoid the classroom visits from your crazed suitors.

"She's not here. Please go away." Yoongi drawled when they arrived.

"Where'd she go?" the men whined.

"You don't need to know, so back off." Yoongi defended.

"Why you little --" one of the students grabbed Yoongi's collar and the male students in the class stepped forward to push him away.

"How dare you touch Yoonji?" the male students yelled. "Do you beat up women? How unmanly!"

Yoongi chuckled and moved his jaw around, angrily. "Yah. You want to die? You should be treating me well. Do you know who I am?"

"No! Who are you?" the male student yelled.

Yoongi sniffed and rubbed his thumb against his nose chicly. "I'm Y/N's roommate and best friend. If I say one bad thing about you, she'll take my word for it and you'll be--" Yoongi clicked his tongue. "--out."

"You're bluffing." the guys stammered.

"It's true. They transferred together." Braids interjected.

"Wow!" they completely changed personalities within seconds, fawning over Yoonji.

"I really like your hair!"

"Wow, I've always thought you were cool!"

"Yah! I said respect me, not creepily flatter me!" he bellowed as he crossed his legs confidently.

The male students bowed their heads obediently.

"Guys, there's a fight in the hallway!"

"A fight? Who?" Everyone's interests were piqued.

"Between two nerds! Look at them lamely going after each other!" The students surrounded them, cackling.

Suddenly, the announcement speakers squeaked, causing everyone to cringe and cover their ears.

"Attention students: An unidentified person has entered the premises and was last seen inside the school building. Please run into the nearest classroom. The school is now in lock down mode. I repeat, the school is in lock down mode."

Yoongi's heart dropped. "Y/N."

"Where are you going?" Jin grabbed his arm as he tried to head towards the library.

"Y/N is in the Library!" he breathed.

Worry passed Jin's face, but he stared at Yoongi intently. "Everyone that's here must go inside the classroom right now. The Librarian is there and is a well-trained staff member of what should be done in a lock down situation."

Yoongi bit his lip as he was dragged into the classroom, against his will. The lights throughout the building were all shut off. Blinds were pulled down. Desks were moved to barricade the doors, and everyone huddled into the safest corner of the room.

Your breathing thinned out as the announcement sent shivers down your spine. You were alone in the library, save the Librarian who was in the very front, while you were deep inside. The lights shut off, and you hurriedly scrambled into your bag, grabbing Tae's night vision goggles. You grabbed your things and began to move, trying to find a good hiding place.

Suddenly, you heard someone else's footsteps in the silence. You gasped and peeked through the bookshelves. Without a doubt, it was the silhouette of someone with their hood up. You squinted your eyes, trying to get a clearer view of any clues that might help you identify the shadow. A few seconds later, something fell somewhere in the library and you flinched. In the mere seconds you had taken your eyes away from the suspect, they disappeared. You glanced around through the books again to see if they had moved somewhere else close-by.

Out of the blue, you suddenly felt a large hand cover your entire mouth, and you squirmed frantically in retaliation. Had you been captured?

"It's me."

You stilled, recognizing the familiar voice. Your eyes widened, and your heart was pounding audibly against your chest.

It was the Student Council President.

PART 6

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wirewitchviolet · 7 years ago

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Isolation

You don’t want to read this post, it’s just me wallowing in self-pity.

I’m not presently suicidal. If I were suicidal, I’d be ineligible for a lot of trans related things, and more importantly, I just left the house for the weekend, so my cat is being extra clingy and reminding me how much it would be upset if I ever left and didn’t come back.

I have, however, completely given up any hope of ever being happy, or feeling safe, or having a job, or someone I can trust, or not bringing pain and misery to the people I do care about.

Looking back over the archives of this blog, I see a post from a year and a half ago which oddly enough, I also titled Isolation. Reading back over that, it’s pretty informative about what I’m dealing with tonight, and I’m at a point where I can fill some of those blanks in from that.

There is some guy named Gabe who leads some little clique (sometimes referred to as “the tankies” or “the anime communists”) whose collective hobby is making up ridiculous rumors about trans people, spreading them to people with a weird willingness to tear down “fake progressives,” and continuing to stalk and harass targets for years afterward and targeting anyone else who comes to their defense. Recently someone wrote a nice article explaining that whole mess, and I think, lately, they’re enough of a known quantity it minimizes the harm they can do.

At the time they targeted me, this little group was untouchable. When people talked about them at all, it was always in guarded whispers and vague references with the implication that powerful people defended them, and I was personally urged never to speak about them by Zoe Quinn. At the time that had me particularly horrified about how powerful they apparently were because Zoe wouldn’t say that about any other hate group, and my personal opinion of Zoe was entirely too high for the thought to ever cross my mind that Zoe might be one of the “powerful people” defending them.

I absolutely panicked at the time, partly because the attack itself was quite effective, with hundreds if not thousands of people in my professional and hobby circles hearing some vague third hand account that I was bad news and should be blocked, which is how it always goes with this group. The actual accusations are patently ridiculous in context- someone gets painted as a violent anti-feminist for muttering about TERFs, or islamophobic for saying Trump’s nazi ties concern them more than hypothetical hawkishness from other candidates. In my case, it was some ridiculous story where I’m a racist cop from Brazil using coded phrases to attack some random woman I’d never heard of. Those full versions though get truncated down when they start spreading. “She’s anti-feminist.” “She’s islamophobic.” “She’s racist.” And the rumors are spread amongst people with no close connection to the target, generally.

What mainly concerned me at the time though was Zoe Quinn’s reaction when I found myself getting blackballed left and right and asked for advice. Lots of “I have friends on both sides of this,” and “I don’t want to get involved.” In hindsight, the obvious meaning here is “I don’t want to alienate my troll friends by defending you against their obviously baseless slander” which is pretty inexcusable from the public face of an organization whose mission statement was helping people deal with exactly that sort of attack. From my viewpoint at the time though, it was so much worse. My impression was that there was some version of the absurd rumor floating around about me having it out for some random woman and spearheading attacks on her was so convincing that my most trusted friend and confidant at the time not only believed it, but was too scared of me lashing out to even discuss it.

That lead to me attempting suicide on multiple occasions, particularly as Zoe encouraged more mutual friends not to talk to me, shut me out of my only support network at the time, and made it overtly clear I wasn't entitled to so much as a sympathetic ear when I was later targeted by Jesse Singal and Randi Harper when they came out as deeply transphobic.

I didn't even start to piece together the more mundane version of things until early this year, when my routine private conversations with other people driven to the brink of suicide by mass harassment campaigns showed me how many other people I know were terrified that Zoe had completely cut them off on asking for help dealing with attacks from the same nasty little clique, all of whom had also been downright worshipful of Zoe to the point where Zoe not believing them made them feel like nobody would.

I've finally mostly come to terms with all that. Someone I thought was a really good friend I could always trust wasn't. OK. And a ton of people I've never even talked to think I'm some kind of monster because some creeps spread ridiculous rumors, and people always forget the specifics when they here someone's a bad person but that they heard it tends to stick, so no matter how much those people get exposed discredited it won't matter for their victims. OK. People always say though that these sorts of things help you work out who your real friends are though, because they stick with you. But that isn't true.

Recently I wrote something touching on some of this. I really didn't want to. I was fine with working out who else got hurt the way I did and helping them cope quietly, and not publicly expose any ugliness. But then Zoe went and publicly posted something about hanging out with her super great friend Randi Harper, and a couple dozen people suddenly see the person who gaslit them into suicide attempts by pretending mass harassment campaigns weren't happening and disappearing from their lives, publicly endorsing someone who actively attacked them and took out a damn hit from reddit nazis, so people started saying things about it, and getting discredited, and getting attacked. And since these are all severely marginalized people whose lives were destroyed by all of this, and nobody believes them, I stood up and laid the cards out on some of what I've been carrying around for the last two years. And more people I didn't realize had been hurt like this came out of the woodwork to thank me for letting them know they weren't the only ones suffering like this, so I think that was the right call, but obviously a ton of other people didn't want to learn about this and walked out of my life.

And so did people who already knew all this. In that earlier blog post from a year and a half ago, I mentioned a point when "I was considering suicide, and only two people in the entire world bothered to say anything." One of those two people is someone I was extremely close to. We'd talk about serious dark stuff in their life, we've both talked each other off ledges, they personally witnessed a lot of what left me such a mess, and they were the only person to even attempt to pick up some of the pieces and clear the air about ridicious rumors about me. Less than an hour after I posted that storify, they severed all ties with me, blocking me in everything we'd ever used to talk, all without a single word. Other people who'd heard what I'd been through at the time, just without the names, and offered support, turned on me viciously once they had names. A friend without any onnection to anyone else involved just bowed out of my life because I suddenly didn't seem like someone to be associating with.

Then a professional bigot highlighted the whole thing and spun it as some new ridiculous attack, and more people let me know they hated me, and when I finally thought it was over, I went somewhere public, and ran into people I hadn't talked to, who made it clear they don't like me, and I came home to more sudden wordless blocks, and comments about not being welcome places. It never stops and any time I try to speak up it only ever gets worse. Nobody believes me, even when I can prove I'm telling the truth. It's better for everyone to denounce me than risk hurting the reputation of people who have wronged me I guess, and even at the best of times I don't know if I've ever even really had a fairweather friend. There's people who say consoling things when I'm losing it, but I can count on one hand how many times anyone has ever just spontaneously asked me to come see a movie, or paid me a visit, or introduced to their other friends, or just checked up on me since it had been a while.

And when there is someone who seems to kind of like me, I can't ever trust it, because people I thought were the best friends I'd ever had have stabbed me in the back without a second thought, and my own parents don't even like me. All I really have is this cat who's sitting on my lap licking tears off me, and I don't think there's anything I can do that will ever change that.

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samanthasroberts · 6 years ago

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6 Real Crime Waves From History That Were Hilariously Insane

Thanks to the news, it’s easy to feel that right now is the most dangerous time to be alive. However, the truth is that the world in general keeps getting safer. You see, not only was the past lousy with criminal terrors, but ye crime waves of olde were also bit more … eccentric. Case in point …

A Bootleggers’ Turf War Included Tank Battles And Bomber Planes In 1920s Illinois

Illinois was both a great and terrible place to be a beer fan during Prohibition. Sure, there was no real shortage of booze, but there was a decent chance you’d be shot while drinking it. But while we all know about the glamorous gangland violence of Al Capone’s Chicago, a wholly different criminal empire was tearing it up in the southern part of the state at that time: the hillbilly mafia. And when they got into fights, it wasn’t with blunderbusses and cussin’, but with homemade tanks and aerial bombs.

During Prohibition, the booze king of Southern Illinois was a bootlegging antihero named Charlie Birger. He was loved because he drove the KKK out of the area, omitting that he did so mostly because they kept trying to steal his liquor. Soon after, he joined forces with the Shelton brothers, who agreed to take a cut of the profits from Birger’s speakeasies in exchange for providing him with only the most primo hooch directly from Florida. And if Floridians use it to blot out their reality, you know that’s some powerful hooch.

The partnership quickly dissolved, however, and the two sides went to war. Like, actual war. The Sheltons’ retribution involved attacking Birger with an armored truck they’d made themselves which rolled through the streets equipped with “an assembly of weapons” — i.e. a freaking tank.

As if that wasn’t enough, the brothers then performed perhaps the first aerial bombing on U.S. soil ever when a plane they hired dropped a few bottles of nitroglycerin wrapped in dynamite over one of Birger’s hideouts. You might be okay with dozens of people dying on the street, and you might be okay with criminals blasting each other with Tommy Guns, but when your criminal element is better-armed than the Army Reserve, it’s time to move.

19th-Century Sexual Harassers Were So Bad That Women Would Stab Them

While it’s oddly comforting to know that street harassment is not a modern problem, we should all long for a return of the Edwardian era, and not only because their catcalls involved complimenting a lady’s ankles and expressing a strong desire to experience the sublime sight of her ravishing bosom. At least in our great-great-grandmothers’ day, harassment had to be done face-to-face, which gave them a lot more options regarding what to do with said faces.

By the end of the 19th century, it became commonplace to fend off unwanted advances by plucking one’s hatpin out of one’s fashionably enormous hats and stabbing the fucker. These were no puny little thumbtacks, either — they could be well over a foot long and do fatal damage.

San Francisco Sunday Call Cutting-edge fashion.

One woman even forced robbers from a moving train armed with nothing but her hatpin, while 100 factory workers all wielding theirs fought off police who had come to make one of them as a political prisoner. You simply don’t see that kind of sisterhood anymore. Two women in Chicago, upon the former’s discovery of her husband’s infidelity with the latter, “drew hatpins and circled each other, duel-style, until policemen broke it up.” Cops just don’t get called to bust up hatpin phalanxes anymore these days.

And while today there’d be badly kempt rioting in the streets if dudes got stabbed every time they “accidentally” brushed a woman’s derriere on the sidewalk, 19th-century society still had a strict “gentleman or GTFO” attitude. Reporters were only too happy to dub someone a harasser, or “masher.” Even asking “insulting questions” was all it took to find yourself cast as the mustache-twirling villain. It was such an accepted part of society that it became a trope in the fiction of the era, and newspapers printed tutorials on how to get the most out of your deadly accessory, mostly by encouraging the lady to go straight for the balls. The clothes might make the man, but a hatpin can reverse that process in a pinch.

Brooklyn Museum Repeat: One foot long. Right through the balls.

Unfortunately, errant hatpins had a nasty habit of stabbing people by accident, too. At least, that was the purported reasoning behind laws banning or regulating hatpins — which, coincidentally, women weren’t allowed to vote against. Those laws are presumably defunct now, so if any fashion industry moguls happen to be reading, please bring back ridiculously huge hats and their pins. Plenty of people need reminding of that particular fashion tip.

New York Had a Gang Of Child Criminals Run By A Kindly Matron

When Fredericka Mandelbaum emigrated from Prussia to New York City in the mid-19th century, all she wanted was for her husband and herself to eke out a modest living to feed their children. She didn’t count on becoming the country’s first female crime boss.

Starting out as a snazzy street peddler, Mandelbaum discovered there was a fortune to be made befriending the countless Dickensian pickpockets in the city and buying their stolen wares. “Marm” Mandelbaum then used her motherly charms to recruit these baby criminals as her own private ragamuffin army.

Valerian Gribayedoff To supplement her regular muffin army.

Mother Mandelbaum used her stolen-goods-for-candy-and-affection racket to move up in the criminal world, leasing a store as a front from where she ran her operations, which ranged from financing bank robberies to moving stolen livestock. As a devotee of continuing education, she used the back as a classroom to teach her young delinquents how to become better at crime, a sort of finishing school for repeat offenders. She particularly exalted her female students, whom she was proudly saving from “wasting their lives being housekeepers” — a weird glass ceiling to break. With her sharp eye for business and nurturing of young talent, Mandelbaum soon had enough resources to buy the most important thing for a criminal: friends in high places. She had everyone from the local cab drivers to the police to the city’s highest-powered defense attorneys in her pocket.

In the end, it took a private detective agency hired by the district attorney to bring her down, as no local cop dared to raise a hand against Mother. But before the law could close in, Mandelbaum simply packed up and retired to Canada, making everyone to feel bad for never visiting. She lived there quietly under an assumed identity until her supposed death in 1894. Rumor had it that her coffin, transported back to New York City, was filled with stones, and she had in truth returned in the flesh under the name Madame Fuchs, indicating how few of them she gave. In any case, at her funeral, many mourners reported having been pickpocketed. It’s what she would have wanted.

Bandits Used To Steal Wigs All The Time

These days, a secondhand wig is worth about as much as the cheap bald bastard who bought it. But in the days of dandies, having a fancy wig was both necessary and expensive. That meant wigs, which cost about as much as the average worker made in a year, were right alongside jewels and cash on every highwayman’s wish list.

Wigmaking was a process that took “six men six days working from sunup to sundown” and a complicated pre-UPS importing system. That’s a lot of money for something that looks like a Bond villain’s pet died on your head. In fact, getting your hands on a bigwig’s big wig was such a score that it made other types of robbery not worth the risk. Instead of slyly trying to cut a purse or pick a pocket, all a would-be bandit had to do was cut a hole or two in the back of a carriage, grab a few fistfuls of powdered perfection, and take off before their now-unsightly owners had any idea what hit them. Boom, that there’s a year’s worth of absinthe.

And with way less needless crotch contact than pickpocketing.

One story tells of a thief so bold as to simply replace his mark’s wig with his own cheap rug when he wasn’t looking. The mark, not feeling the difference, simply walked away, not realizing he had lost a fortune in doll hairs. Unfortunately, the bandits too fell victim to fashion. Wigs eventually stopped being stylish, thereby killing one the criminal underworld’s sillier sources of revenue.

17th-Century Dairy Farmers Used To Dye Their Cheese To Jack Up The Price

Food coloring is an important staple in today’s food, especially when it contains little to no actual food. That’s why we’d be more upset at finding out that Cheetos do in fact contain cheese. But back in the day, fake cheese was a huge scandal.

Before we needed an advanced chemistry degree to read food labels, a food’s color was often a sign of its quality. For cheese, a bright orange color signified that it came from quality breeds of cows that eat certain types of grass, which affected the taste greatly. However, in the 17th century, English farmers had figured out that they could get more bang for their cheese by separating the cream first and using it for other products. But it was the cream that had all that orangey goodness, and while their now-white cheese was of the same quality, there’s such a thing as branding. Paint those McDonald’s golden arches green, and it’s game over, baby. Game over.

So the cheese makers came up with a way to disguise their stupid white skim cheese as the full-fat good stuff. They started using natural dyes from a number of plants, including saffron, marigolds, and carrots, and the monocled masses were none the wiser. Later, they started using an extract called annatto, which is what Kraft now uses instead of artificial coloring, because you can even make fraud more lucrative by making it “vintage.” In a matter of decades, the ruse had become an industry standard, being used by cheesemongers all across the UK and the U.S. (except New England, as they prefer to dine on their own smugness). However, the practice of coloring cheese eventually backfired, as it became so common that orange cheese came to be regarded as low-quality instead, begetting an industry of “artificial cheese products” and giving previously exalted cows low self-esteem.

A Gang Of One-Legged Men Terrorized Australia

Everything in Australia is deadlier than it should be, and that extends to their old-fashioned gangs. Around the turn of the last century, the scourge roaming (or rather, hobbling around) the streets of Melbourne was a gang called Crutchie Push, and it consisted almost entirely of one-legged men.

They might not have been fast, but death was certain if you were caught by the Crutchie Push (“push” being so hilariously appropriate Australian slang for “gang”). It was a requirement to be one limb short of a set to join the gang, meaning most of them went into battle already on crutches — except for one berserker who still had both legs and ran into fights swinging a brick stuffed inside his sweater sleeve like a low-rent Mr. Fantastic. From there, everyone else (hopefully in choreographed synchronicity) balanced on one leg and used their crutches as weapons. Their signature move was to jab an opponent in the stomach with the tip of the crutch, then swing it around and beat him with it while he was doubled over. It was a surprisingly effective way to force compliance from shop owners and random people of whom they demanded money, food, and booze. Still more reliable than Social Security.

But for a bunch of people who were physically unable to run, the Crutchie Push were bizarrely hard to catch. You’d think you could just lead them to a staircase and be done with it, but when an officer became involved in a brawl with leader Valentine Keating, the one-legged man actually outran the officer before he could be arrested. That’s either Olympic-level crutch skills or a hilariously unfit cop. Eventually, the police became so frustrated with the gang that they assembled a task force made up by the ten most violent police officers in Australia. These “Terrible Ten” were sent out to track the Crutchie Push down and beat them with hoses, because there is apparently a very fine line between legitimate Australian history and the fever dream of a wealthy conservative business owner looking to build a casino atop an Army veterans clinic.

Keating was eventually imprisoned for beating a cop to death with his crutches, after which he … um, went on to a nice, quiet life as a barkeep until his death from tuberculosis. In all of his days tending bar, he never called the police to break up a fight. Why use them as a crutch if you can beat a man to death with your own?

You don’t have to steal to get this wig for your dog.

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Source: http://allofbeer.com/6-real-crime-waves-from-history-that-were-hilariously-insane/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/6-real-crime-waves-from-history-that-were-hilariously-insane/

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liskantope · 8 years ago

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My reaction to 13 Reasons Why

I recently finished the controversial Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, partly because I wanted to understand the controversy myself, and partly because several people highly recommended it. Here are my main thoughts. Spoilers and content warnings for the obvious heavy issues (see tags) under the cut.

To start with, this series was well-done, well-acted, and really gripping at least once it got into its stride. I also found that it was deeply moving and conveyed really positive messages in certain places. As well as the expected suicide scene (which was longer and more graphic than I expected), there’s a rape scene near the end which I found very upsetting and uncomfortable to watch, so I would hate to think how someone whose life experiences are closer to Hannah’s might react. I guess my point is that the content warnings should really be taken seriously.

One thing this series is not is gritty. The darkly glamorized high school aesthetic strikes me as unrealistic and annoyed me a lot earlier on. Maybe part of my annoyance originates in my not having had the typical high school experience, at least the way it’s depicted in most media (I feel similarly about That 70′s Show, which displays a lighter version of this subculture). But even granting that partying, drinking, and sex are so ubiquitous in the high school environment and that pretty much everyone is super good-looking in high school, are most teenagers really go around with that kind of verbally quick-witted confidence? Do most parents respond to their sarcasm not with anger but with an equal degree of casual sass? Are most parents so lackadaisical about their teenagers going out to parties at unknown houses (”why not take a break and relax?”). The events that take place at parties in this show are sort of an argument against that kind of laxity, I think, but they’re not pushed as such. And a lot of the dialog felt basically like an un-nuanced depiction of how adults imagine today’s teenagers to talk: for instance, I remember the perjorative term “pussy” being popular among guys who liked to put down other guys, but not nearly so ubiquitous in conversation. Also, I’ve never had the impression that so much slut-shaming comes directly from guys rather than from other girls, but I could be wrong.

Most of all, I was bothered for the first two-thirds of the series by Hannah’s self-assured articulateness and apparent confidence which seemed to be with her at almost all times. My impression is that such characteristics, along with flawless good looks, tend to make for a lot of popularity, with the main forms of bullying stemming from jealousy (which is not the way Hannah’s bullying was depicted). It was hard for me to swallow the fact that Hannah wasn’t a total hotshot despite clearly having the looks and the social skills to be one, and it felt like a bit of a stretch to me that the slightest things caused negative rumors against her that were taken quite so seriously. But it may well be that these events are quite realistic and that high schoolers are even dumber and crueler than I realize.

There were of course some plot points that seemed unrealistic. To name a couple, it seems like relatively little was made of Clay basically having to watch his friend Jeff die (his parents are wondering why he’s acting strange, and this is never even brought up as a recent traumatizing incident!); and it seems strange that Hannah’s parents, anxious to get their hands onto any clue behind Hannah’s suicide, weren’t immediately on the hunt for the tapes that Hannah had wanted for her “stupid” school project.

A couple more stray notes:

I’m always pleased to see depictions of a couple like Hannah’s parents, who obviously had a lot of disagreements both before and after the horrific event of their daughter’s suicide and still manage to stick it out together.

The plot event at the end that sets it up for a second season doesn’t particularly intrigue me. This just doesn’t feel like the kind of story which should be followed with a sequel.

And finally, the big controversy about the potential dangers of this series. The issue in a nutshell is that a lot of people worry about the content of this show encouraging suicide among viewers, especially teens. My first response to this is going to be mostly tautologically obvious: 13 Reasons definitely will have a harmful effect on some teenagers for the reasons I’m about to discuss, while it will also have a helpful effect on others because of some very positive and helpful messages it preaches. I wouldn’t be able to offer much insight on which people might react how because I don’t have enough experience dealing with high schoolers who are struggling with these issues. (For what it’s worth, one of the glowing recommendations for this show came from a friend of mine who worked/volunteered for years helping teens at suicide crisis centers.)

On a basic level, some are criticizing the show for “glamorizing” suicide. Although the writers were clearly well-intentioned and went out of their way to show that suicide is not “worthwhile”, I think I understand exactly what these critics mean. Disclaimer: I am not suicidal and have never been seriously suicidal for any extended period. Yet watching the show made even me feel a sliver of attraction to it in the abstract due to the glamorous way it’s done (leaving 13 well-spoken messages), in a similar way to how watching a James Bond movie might give me a momentary desire to be a gun-slinging badass even though I hate guns, or how Breaking Bad made me idly fantasize for a moment about running a drug empire. So I do worry about the wrong person consuming it at the wrong time.

But the suggestion that makes me raise my eyebrows a little more is the deeper idea that 13 Reasons encourages suicide by providing a close-up shot of a lot of horrible things that happen to one teenage girl (mainly to do with sexual harassment, assault and rape) and how it drives her to kill herself -- as in, maybe this might weaken the resolve of a real-life teenage girl who is going through similar things. And it’s not as though there isn’t a point to that. Because yes, the story depicts rising above the trauma of being harassed/assaulted/raped and bringing the perpetrator(s) to justice (Jessica says something like “You know what happens to girls who go for help”) as pretty hopeless. The story pretty much implies the message that these things happen to women all the time and that the result is necessarily life-shattering trauma that can’t possibly be overcome except in the vastly unlikely circumstance that someone is actually willing to listen without saying anything that could be perceived as judgmental. And it pretty much implies (although I don’t think the writers quite intended this) that it’s perfectly natural for a girl in a severe enough situation of this kind to be driven to kill herself. Rape is presented as pretty much the worst thing that can happen to someone apart from death, and possibly even worse than death.

The interesting thing is, I get the impression that a lot of this criticism comes from the same kind of people who, in the name of feminism, present rape and its milder variants as necessarily a life-shatteringly traumatic thing for which it’s virtually impossible to pursue justice. Such people must surely realize that to some extent, in order to raise awareness and opposition to horrific crimes, we need to deliver a message about just how awful it is to suffer them and how helpless victims or potential victims can feel and that it’s okay to feel that way. But at a certain point, too much of this narrative just might become needlessly disempowering for victims or potential victims.

So where do we draw the line? It seems that depicting a victim actually committing suicide goes over the line for these people, but is it really so much less damaging to constantly push a narrative implying that rape is absolutely always so thoroughly dehumanizing and second-only-to-death that fear of it has to be the main day-to-day existential concern for women everywhere? Isn’t it possible that such a narrative might push some rape victims over the edge to suicide even when nobody’s actually saying “a rape victim might reasonably want to kill herself”? It’s something that I wish more people would think about. Because I’m not saying that I know where that line is, but I don’t think it should be assumed hands-down that telling women how helpless and fragile they are in the face of sexual violence is completely justified exactly until suicide is (somewhat) sympathetically depicted as a response.

#13 reasons why #13 reasons why spoilers #suicide cw #rape cw #That 70's Show #feminism

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adambstingus · 6 years ago

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allofbeercom · 6 years ago

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6 Real Crime Waves From History That Were Hilariously Insane

A Bootleggers’ Turf War Included Tank Battles And Bomber Planes In 1920s Illinois

19th-Century Sexual Harassers Were So Bad That Women Would Stab Them

San Francisco Sunday Call Cutting-edge fashion.

Brooklyn Museum Repeat: One foot long. Right through the balls.

New York Had a Gang Of Child Criminals Run By A Kindly Matron

Valerian Gribayedoff To supplement her regular muffin army.

Bandits Used To Steal Wigs All The Time

And with way less needless crotch contact than pickpocketing.

17th-Century Dairy Farmers Used To Dye Their Cheese To Jack Up The Price

A Gang Of One-Legged Men Terrorized Australia

You don’t have to steal to get this wig for your dog.

Also check out 8 Unsolved Crimes That Were Clearly Committed By Satan and 4 Terrifying Historical Crimes No One Can Explain.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Why Thomas Edison Was History’s Biggest Dick, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Follow our new Pictofacts Facebook page, and we’ll follow you everywhere.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-real-crime-waves-from-history-that-were-hilariously-insane/

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