#and you can’t even cry about it because you’re a millionaire man playing a game for a living

[starscelly]

[darkacademicfrom2021]

The Dark Team (part 7)

<<Previous part Masterlist   Next part>>

Join the taglist in here (Taglist: @lucywrites02, @louieboo87, @the-departed-potato, @jesuswasnotawhiteman)

Warnings: mentions of suicide and murder, awfully cheesy petnames (yes I have to put a warning on that).

The streets were so cold you had to rub your hands to your neck as you walked. You had only one piece of information that could’ve been possibly linked to that murder, and therefore that stick.

Saying you weren’t worried about being very undercover was a lie; an almost seven feet tall “man” that dressed like a millionaire, and a man with a metal prosthesis and abnormal sized muscles were not exactly the definition of discrete, much less once they were being categorized as “wanted”.

“Are you sure it’s this way?” asked Loki impatiently.

“No”.

“And why…?”.

“Stop torturing me with questions you know the answer of. Shut it and let me do my thing”.

“What is exactly your thing?”.

“Trying to not stab you in the balls, if you keep being this annoying”.

“Alright, guys, keep it down”, mediated Bucky. His role in the team was starting to be more and more like a third wheel in a car that’s trying to break down purposely, and he hated every second of it. “Can’t wait for this mission to be over”.

“Talking about that, we still have a game of cards on hold”.

“We could never play that with Loki, he has mind powers or some shit like that. He’d cheat”.

“Me?” he held a hand to his chest dramatically, “I would never cheat on a cards game. That is dishonest and I would never do such mischievous thing”.

Your phone beeped and the address changed suddenly. You stopped dead on your tracks and both Loki and Bucky, who were walking in line behind you, stumped with each other and almost made you trip.

“Careful, guys”.

“Are you fucking…”.

“Leave it there, Barnes”.

“What happened?”.

“I don’t know, the address suddenly changed. This isn’t supposed to happen”, you hit a few times your phone after it froze, and realized it wouldn’t work anymore. “Well, we’re gonna have to do this the old fashioned way”.

“And how’s that?”.

“How am I supposed to know? You’re the one that's a thousand years old and he’s a hundred and six. I’m barely around the two decades”.

“I’m beginning to think maybe you’re not one for this job. Aren’t you the one in charge of the planning? How did you even get to this Stank Internship in the first place?”.

“Hey, don’t be mean to them. They’ll cry”.

You rolled your eyes and ignored them. Meanwhile, you looked around. You had to find this person. A person who saw the “death” of the man with the pendrive, but the only one who said nothing about it. Only thing you knew was that he was a worker in a coffee shop. Which coffee shop, you’d ask? Well, that’s a good question.

It had to be in the neighborhood, that was for sure. You looked around a bit more, trying to drink in all the information the streets and its habitants could give you.

“The man was killed being thrown off that building. They said it was suicide. It was not”, you finally said out loud, pointing at the direction of one of the tallest buildings of the city. You were too concentrated to even realize you had stopped talking again.

The man you were looking for had to have a full view of the window the guy was thrown off from, so it would be in… that direction. A reasonable distance to see both guys would be less than two blocks. And it happened in an unreasonable hour for a work break, so… it had to be… alright. I think I got it.

“What are we looking for, then?”.

“There has to be a coffee shop maximum two blocks away from one of these three streets, the counter of the bar has to be near the window (or showcase) and the showcase should be tall enough to see the high part of the building, so I’d say at least three meters tall. I assume the man we’re looking for is old and introverted, quiet, not very friendly. Not less than fifty years old”.

“Alright Sherlock”, said Bucky, patting your back. “I’ll write down not to mock your intellect. Now you don’t have to pretend like you just figure that out all by yourself”.

“Okay”, you said, not paying any attention to his words. You were still juicing all the information you could.

“I got lost in the description of the man, how did you reach that conclusion?”, asked Loki, who apparently was reading your mind, following your thought process.

“Well, he’s the only one who didn’t testify at all. The witnesses in this sort of cases go through a polygraph. If all he saw was a suicide, then he wouldn’t be lying, he’d go through the lie detector and go out as if anything happened. Since he saw more, and didn’t say anything, it’s probably because he wanted to protect himself against the law, or just too lazy to go into all the bureaucracy it’d imply”, you explained. Loki had a full blown smile across his face, not even hiding it. “What are you smiling at?”.

“Nothing”, he brushed it off and pretended to fix his tie.

“No, please, do give me your input”.

“I can’t read whether you’re being sarcastic or not”.

“Wanna find out, dear?”.

“Hey, the aggressive pet names are my thing. Get your own passive-aggressive mechanism”.

“Can you concen…? You know what? Whatever. I’m going there”, cut Bucky. He was so done.

You walked as fast as you could down the nearest street out of the three possible ones, and kept rubbing your (now almost numb) cold fingers.

“Buck, do you have a gun with you?”.

“I don’t think this is the best moment to kill yourself. Let us finish the mission first”.

“Though, honestly, I think it could speed things up a little”, added Loki.

“Wow, you guys are especially mean today. We might need something to threaten the guy with”.

“Just a pocket knife. Do you think it could help at all?”, he searched for more weapons in his pockets, but found none. Going undercover, you all had to leave your suits and armor in the hotel room. Loki cleared suggestively his throat and you gasped.

“Really? You can make it out of nowhere?”.

“No, but give me a weird shaped branch or anything similar and I can transform it. Transfigurations have been my specialty lately, though”.

“I love you wholeheartedly”.

“I’d literally marry you on the spot”.

“In fact, I think I might kiss you right now”.

“You guys have no idea how glad I am to know you’re lying”, said Loki, patting Bucky’s back.

To find the place was way easier than you had anticipated. Firstly, because it matched every single aspect you had predicted. Secondly, because it was the only coffee shop in the whole place.

The clicking bell filled the silent place as the scent of fresh coffee and baked goods infested your noses. There was only an old lady reading a paper and the fifty year old you were looking for. Bucky sat down on a table near the counter and you and Loki greeted the man.

“Hi, how are you?” you said with a fake warmth that would assure you his confidence. “We would like a black coffee…”, you looked at Loki, still acting, and he reached your thoughts telepathically to hear your “act, dude; you’re frowning”. He immediately softened up his expressions. “What would you like to drink, dear?”.

“Same as you, darling”, he smiled even faker than you. “So are we pretending to be a couple, now?”.

“Alright, two blacks, please”, you went back to the barista. “Yes, old people get all softies for young couples. Just follow me, we need him to like us”. “And a strawberry milkshake with extra cream and a cherry on top, for the gentleman on the table”.

“Going right up”, said the old man.

“Do you ever take vacations on mocking people?”.

“Never. It’s a true blessing”.

“So, what’s the plan?”.

“Same as it was before, except we can’t actually cause any harm while threatening him, if we do”.

“Why?”.

“Old lady at twelve o’clock?? Man, you really lack any empathy for innocent civilians, don’t you?”.

“Only with mortals. Don’t really care for them”.

“You’re probably lying. I know behind that shell there must be a big soft heart longing for...”.

“Alright, shut up, here comes our order”.

“Thank you, ah, wonderful”, you said, grabbing the cups. You pretended to just notice the news behind the counter, and Loki made the illusion of a highly realistic periodistic note on the suicide of the man with the stick. “Oh my… is that what I think it is?”.

The old man raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

“Uh, is just… don’t watch that, darling. It’ll make you feel sick”, said Loki tenderly, caressing your shoulder. “We sort of saw that… happening, you know?” he explained the old man.

“Oh, really?”.

“Yes, it was really close from here. Oh God, we saw it all happen, this poor man”.

“Very disturbing. Never seen such a gruesome situation in my short, very, very, very short life”, added Loki.

“Alright, we get it, humans live short lives”. “Believe me, you’re so lucky you didn’t have to see that”.

“Really?”, said again the barista, visibly nervous. “That terrible?”.

“Well, it’s a common tragedy, to be honest. But, you know, the cops and investigators were on our backs all night long”.

“Finally free now”, added Loki, still with his arm protectively wrapped around your shoulders. “You’re truly lucky to miss it”.

“Oh, yes. Sounds terrible. Glad didn’t see it, then”, he lied. And he was a bad liar. You didn’t even need Loki to tell you what you could so clearly see.

“And you know… I didn’t think it’d work, but we…” you chuckled innocently, as a kid telling their devilry to a friend, “we sort of lied to the lie detector, and it worked”.

“Love!”, gasped Loki, and lowered his voice “we shouldn’t be telling this to anyone. What if it spreads around?”.

“But, honey, have you seen this man? Why would you think he could wrong us?” you pointed at him and he, as you predicted, blushed with a smile.

“What did you lie about, if I may ask?”. He fell into the trap. You bent over the counter and lowered your voice.

“We saw it was not a suicide”.

Your expressions drew all seriousness and a terrifying look on your eyes gave the man the trust that you were being honest with him. He bent down on the counter too.

“What do you mean?”.

“We saw… oh God”, you started saying, but your eyes watered and Loki didn’t hesitate to hold your head to his chest, comforting you while you sobbed.

“I know, sweetheart, it’s terrible. I know”, he cooed. “We don’t know what to do with this piece of information. The man was thrown off violently, and the things they did to him before…” Loki hinted. The man swallowed hard and started sweating. Loki muttered nonsense, and you continued his empty explanation with sobs that sounded like words but nobody could actually figure out what you meant.

“That sounds awful, wow”, said the man, pretending he heard. Truth was, he didn’t need to insensitively ask for you to repeat yourself. He knew what had happened.

“We wonder what kind of deals could be behind all that, you know?”.

“Yes, very strange, to try to strip the man like that” started saying the old man, too affected by the situation to actually notice he was spilling the true tea. “It sounds like all a very weird business”.

“And that thing they pulled out of him!”.

“Ah… yes”.

You and Loki had started to lose your patience, and figured the man would be harder to interrogate like this than you’d expected. Loki squeezed your shoulder.

“My love, we should get going, don’t you think?”. And with get going he meant knocking the guy off and getting into his memories through Loki’s magic.

“No, my dearest, let’s stay here”, you insisted, without wanting to cause the fuss this was going to make. Ever since you came into the coffee shop, three other family groups had entered and were waiting for their order.

“But, sweet pie… I think we’re shocking the man enough”.

“Oh, please, I just want a normal day, honey bunny. Let’s stay and drink a cuppa here”.

Bucky chuckled at the pet name war you two were having, and the old man looked at you suspiciously. You sighed.

“Alright. Fuck it”.

“You’re cops, aren’t you?”, asked the old man. You fell off your character.

“No… but sorry anyways”, you said, kicking him on the face and smashing his head against the counter, leaving him unconscious.

“That was unnecessarily violent, I could’ve made him sleep with seiðr”, stated Loki, watching the man drip blood from his nose.

“Guys'', said Bucky, watching how all the clients were running away in fear, “I thought we said ‘keep it low, threaten discreetly’. What happened?”.

“For Fuck’s sake, just get into his head already, sweet muffin”.

“Hold his head, baby cakes”.

[fckyeahdaisukekambe]

[ROUGH ENG TRANS] FUGOU KEIJI NOVEL: THE MILLIONAIRE DETECTIVE’S DECOY (Part 7)

Part 7′s really short yes because i’m straight have having a hard time translating this because of the clay shooting terms. For more info, you can visit its Wiki page. (but it's in Japanese) will finish about the 3rd suspect on Saturday! like the whole story so that you can all know what will happen to Daisuke’s party! *oof. spoiler”

"Excuse me but, can I have this privilege to join you?" Daisuke, holding his favorite Winchester in one hand, called out to Akihiko Hayakawa, who's already at the first launchpad and had loaded a bullet into his double-barreled gun. (TL: Winchester rifle it is.)

"Oh, sure." Hayakawa shouted in an abrupt manner, and while having a crude stance, he started shooting.

A slightly clear sound of a gunshot echoed in the surrounding hills, the clay that fell into the pool is shattered into black and white debris. Hayakawa hit both single and double. The first shot is said to be the easiest shot, but it is also this shot that you can understand the shooter's weaknesses. "He's just like me", Daisuke immediately thought when he saw Hayakawa's way of shooting.

Daisuke's shooting skill is the best in the police. The first, second, third, and fourth shot proceeded without any mistakes and Hayakawa's expressionless eyes began to glow looking at Daisuke. But he failed the mark at the fifth firing table. Apparently, it was because the gun didn't swing. Daisuke thought the Hayakawa is starting to become aware of him. Hayakawa repeats and hits his target. From then on, both went ended with no more mistakes. The two were silent during the shooting. As a matter of course, even if it is a word of praise, it becomes a burden to a shooter so it is said that it's good manner not to talk about anything extra. But there was more tension between them. A tension because they both recognized each other as good opponents.

"You're good." Hayakawa who looked intimidated when he returned to the resting area, tried to show his misgivings that he didn't feel like he made a mistake at all. "Isn't it you're first time coming here?"

"Yeah," Daisuke nodded lighting a cigar. "You're pretty good too. That fifth shot was regrettable."

Hayakawa curved his lips in regret. "It's been a long time since then."

Daisuke gave a wry smile because he hates to lose so much. "I'm gonna stick over there to keep on swinging." He quipped. "Veteran cry!"

"One more try, then?" Hayakawa looked at Daisuke as if staring at him. (TL: Hey Hayakawa, you gay for Daisuke alreadeh? lol jk)

"Seems like that to me," Daisuke looked at the puller house.

Four or five people who have just arrived were handing their targets to the puller to start the competition. (TL: puller = someone who gives instructions to release the clay at the puller house)

Daisuke turned his eyes back to Hayakawa. "We can play at ease where there are no other people. This is the first time I have faced a good opponent like you."

"But this shooting range is the most vacant here." Hayakawa had a puzzled look. "Say, when those guys finished, I think it will only be the two of us."

Daisuke shook his head. "It would be distracting. Better yet, you can come to my house. We have a clay shooting range in our garden."

Hayakawa was surprised and looked at Daisuke from head to toe without any hesitation and he was caught on guard and asked, "Why did someone who had a clay shooting range in his house come to this place?"

Daisuke threw his cigar away, and grinned. "To find a good match." (TL: OPPONENT, but match sounds good lol)

"You are the best rival after all." Kazuki Sakamoto, a man with a fair skin, laughed at Daisuke while returning the cue to the queue. "There's no way others can get 300 points and 250 points at the same time."

"I can't think of a guy who won five consecutive games in a row beat me in two days." Daisuke said, imitating Sakamoto's vulgar tone.

"Thanks to me," Sakamoto approached Daisuke with an broken attitude and whispered to his ears. "No ducks to eat, no income for five days." 

(TL: I honestly, have no idea how can I translate the last sentence to English. He whispered  誰もカモれず, 五日間無収入よ." I'm really confused because of the カモ (duck?) in beginning. if you have any idea, please reply on this post and i’ll greatly appreciate it!)

[inugamibeyi]

Finallyyyy I was able to draw my Kemono Jihen oc !  Nota bene : Today, on 02/25/2021, there hasn’t been any information in the manga (I’ve read 49 chapters) about mermaids ! So my oc is only based on the few things I know about the lore and my own imagination. This might explain mistakes about mermaids and Alma !  Now, let’s have fun with her !  -------------------

IEVANOV Alma - Mermaid  28 yo (born on March 11th) - born near Russia   Favorite food : Tonkatsu Not-so-favorite food : cheese (which clashes with Shiki who wonders how you can dislike pizza’s main ingredient)  Udon or Soba ? Doesn’t care as long as it’s tasty  Okay with being on display ? Totally disagrees (has been exploited by a human for 8 years) First thing she did when she arrived at Tokyo : Buy clothes Favorite part of the human culture ? Books (especially whodunits) Least favorite part of the human culture ? Social networks (but mainly due to a fear of being found again by Tachibana. She avoids them as much as possible)

----------------------------------------- Alma is the only female employee from Inugami Detective Office. She’s also Inugami’s first employee, as she’s been there for 6 years (from 22 to 28). She considers that she has a debt towards Inugami as he freed her from the man that was exploiting her powers back in Hokkaido. Alma spent 8 years locked in the pool of a japanese’s millionaire’s mansion, Tachibana Haruto. He used her powers to stay young and healthy, mermaid tears being able to heal wounds, cure disease and stop and even reverse lightly the body’s aging. 

Mermaids powers aren’t very strong compared to other kemonos. They seem to be mainly focused on surviving and escaping. It allows them :  - A sharp vision : Mermaid have perfect eyes. Their sight is precise, they can see without difficulties on wide areas and can even see in the dark.

- A strong stamina and a slower aging : Compared to human, mermaids only needs 3 to 4 hours of sleep per night. Their bodies being used to swimming all day, they can endure longer days of work without feeling tired. Thanks to their healing and regenerating powers, it also appears that mermaid age slower.

- The Sing : Mermaid’s voice were mainly focused on tricking their prey so they can hunt and eat them easier. The song of a mermaid mainly affects persons that feel attraction toward women, but it doesn’t always work (uneffective on asexual person as an exemple) but mermaid can also decides to focus on one person (which Alma tried to do with Tachibana, but it didn’t work). With time, this ability mutated, leaving mermaid able to do many things while using their voice, such as, for exemple, erasing or replacing some memories.

- The wave : Basically, it’s a form of defense that allows mermaid to escape. It’s a big scream that’ll provoc a sound wave, leaving the enemy unable to move, when they simple don’t faint because of the sound. Isn’t deadly but buys time.

 - Healing tears : Mermaid tears contains something (unlike Aya’s thread, nobody can perfectly explain what it is) that is able to heal wounds and prevent bodies from disease. Yet it doesn’t seems all efficient, because what the tears give you seems to be balanced by a shorten lifespan. Alma doesn’t really know how long she’ll be able to live, but she thinks she’ll live for 400 yo without having trouble.

Inugami freed her after hearing the story of a man in Hokkaido that doesn’t age and the other story of a woman who sings her sadness, making whoever hears her voice cry for hours.  Alma being afraid that she’ll have nowhere to go, and most importantly, fearing she’ll be kidnapped again, choosed to stay by Inugami’s side, trying to assist him and help other kemonos. Being at first very naive and curious, about everything, Alma quickly learned how humans’ world works and got used to it. Her curiosity also helped her to adapt very fast, Alma being the kind of person who doesn’t have any trouble to focus and work for a long time (probably thanks to the fact that mermaids have to keep swimming no matter what they do, which helped her to develop a strong stamina and a small need to sleep). She was able to understand quickly the new world she was stepping in and had no problem to blend in. Alma grew up to be less naive and childish, turning into a person who tends to think a lot before acting, making her a good advisor for Inugami. She also tends to be tougher than him, especially on food. She doesn’t want him to eat junkfood all day because he’s too lazy to cook. She’s strongwilled and doesn’t hesitate to scold him on the points she judges important. Even if Inugami thinks she can be annoying, he knows that’s her way to care about them.  When it comes to fighting, Alma’s abilities aren’t the best so what she can’t do with powers, she completes it with training and strenght. Inugami taught her how to shoot and realised her sharp vision would make her a nice sniper. He taught her how to use a longshot gun. When Mihai came, he was able to create her bullets that are effectives against Kemono.  Alma’s relationships are pretty good in the Inugami Detective office. She just doesn’t like the way Shiki tends to ask for pizza almost everyday, despite the fact that she’s cooking for them when she’s in Tokyo. But he is a nice boy and he is smart.  Despite her differences with Akira, she tends to be nice with him, as long as he doesn’t post her face on his social media (which truly makes him sad because he thinks Alma’s pretty face could boost his account). She likes the bubbly side o his personnality, she thinks he lightens the mood. Kabane made her unconfortable at first : this kid just didn’t said anything to her. He was just sitting quietly and watching, and doing the chores. But when Inugami explained her his past, she tried to help him to feel fine at the office, by learning him how to cook since he wanted her to do it. She took a liking in him, seeing a little bit of her younger self in that curious, yet naive young boy.  Mihai... Oh Mihai... Perhaps it’s her worst relationship here. She knows he deserves his place at the office and doesn’t say he’s useless but... He’s just so annoying ! Annoying her, pulling the curls in her hair just to mess with her (”but they’re bouncy” he says)... So she just messes back with him, intentionally turning down the wifi, making some sarcasms... Yet they tend to help each other when they need to (Mihai helping her to create her weapon’s bullets, Alma translating for him documents but also the dialogues for his game and editing some videos for his channel). Guess it’s a “I like you/I hate you” relationship. Then Inugami, or “Kohachi” for her.  She’s the only person who calls him by his first name, both of them being adults and Alma being here for many years now.  Kohachi is Alma’s savior. She’s loyal to him for freeing her from Tachibana. He also the one who offered her a home and a work, leading her to be able to start a new life. He’s also the one who helped her to learn more about mermaids and how to use her powers.  She did everything she could to make sure he understood how thankful she was. She took care of him, she helped him with work, paperwork, she helped him to gain more informations...  With both of them actively helping each other, their relationship sure went fine... Too fine. Were they helping each other because they needed to or because they deeply cared about the other one ? Were they living under the same roof because Alma had nowhere else to go or because both of them wanted her to stay ?  When they were together, they were flustered, yet happy. Flustered by the way people were calling her his wife. The way he thanked her for the food, the way she scolded him for his cigarettes, saying she didn’t want him to have troubles because of a shitty stick. The way they looked at each other, the sweet smell of her hair, the way she had to get on her tiptoes when she wanted to fix his tie... He remembered their few moments of weakness, ending in each other’s arms while the children were heavily sleeping, how they desperately moaned, swallowing their voice in order to remain silent, keeping the night they shared as a secret. And the next day, living as if nothing happened, pretending he stole her shampoo when Kabane noticed how Kohachi smelled like Alma. “ Hey, Kohachi ? - Hm ? - Let’s put an end to that. - ... To what ? - To our secret. - What ? Oh... I thought you were enjoying this... Guess I’m really that bad huh ? “ 

His sarcasm and his dumb playing only earned him a light slap on the arm, as Alma laughed.  “I don’t want it to be a secret anymore, I... I think I like you... - You know you’ll have to deal with Akira putting us on Instagram to “celebrate it” ? - Oh, shit, I haven’t though about... Wait, is that a “yes” ? - What else could it be ?”  As he was trying to light up his cigarette, she smiled while snatching it from him. He knew she was messing with him... Yet he just pulled her closer, his arms around her waist as she was putting hers behind his neck.  It was their first kiss that wasn’t in a hurry, that wasn’t almost stolen while they were sharing their nights together. It felt different. Better.  “ I love you... - Me too. “  They stayed in each other’s arms for a few seconds, now realising what happened.  “ So... We’re a couple ? - Yup. Sounds like you’re stuck with me, young lady. - “Oh no, my crush is liking me back, I wonder how I’ll manage to survive that”. - I just wondered how you didn’t notice before... - I’m gonna break that cigarette, Kohachi. - Wait don’t, it’s expens- “  *snap*  Oh. Oh shit. “ Guyyyys ! They confessed ! They confessed ! - Well... Shit. - Akira ! Don’t post that picture, I swear to god I’ll break that stupid phone !”

[nagdabbit]

A HANDY DANDY GUIDE TO WRASSLIN

For the lovely, the wonderful, the incomparable @gideongrace​ , may I present: Daggs’ Guide to the Wild Ass World of Professional Wrestling! (and it’s goin’ behind a cut because It Got LONG!)

So, here is the things. Wrestling is STUPID. And great? And fun as hell! And the most carny sport to ever exist. But, also SUPER inside baseball a lot of the time just because it’s got such a long goddamn history that it can seem daunting to get into. Like I’ve only been back into it the last four or so years, so there’s a lot of history that I’ve missed! There’s also a whole lot of gate keeping, just like comics or video games. There’s also the bitter truth that a lot of people in the industry are absolute shitheels that should have been fired long ago (and I’ll only be vague about a lot of that). So, yeah. A WHOLE LOT.

First things first: HISTORY. There’s just so much. But, conveniently? You don’t need it. It can be fun if you end up really like wrestling, but contrary to what a bunch of middle-aged, racist, misogynist and WILDLY homophobic, White American Men will tell you, you don’t actually need it to enjoy yourself. If you DO want history, might I suggest the How2Wrestling podcast! It is a cheerful, lovely show hosted by two goddamn delightful humans, Kefin and Jo (who are also just wonderful people to interact with in general)! There is also the Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling by Aubrey Sitterson and Chris Moreno, which is a great read! Wrestlesplania is another good show for history of the sport and the wrestlers! They’re definitely, uh, hornier, but v fun!

Secondly: On the subject of inside baseball, wrestling jargon is a whole thing. The ONLY part of wrestling history that is 100% important: it is a carny sport. Like, some side-show, vaudeville ass shit, yo. And it has never evolved from that, so there are a whole lot of terms used that are very specific to like... early 1900′s carnival culture. Here is a wikipedia article, but there’s also a wonderful How2Wrestling episode about it all! I’ll try not to use much!

Thirdly: We can’t talk about wrestling podcasts without mentioning Colt Cabana’s The Art of Wrestling. A lot of the archives are behind a paywall now, but the show is great. If you DO get into wrestling and start to find wrestlers you enjoy, I highly highly suggest checking to see if they’ve done an episode. Colt is a goddamn delight of a human, deserving of support and a great interviewer on top of it. Even if you just bookmark eps you’d wanna listen to and then start a free trial to marathon them all. (See also: the Colt Cabana & CM Punk lawsuit(s), in which Colt got royally fucked over.)

Fourthly: Nobodies Watching Wrestling. Drag Queens watching wrestling. That’s all you need to know. Even out of context, they’re goddamn delightful humans. Might I recommend this episode with EFFY, because I sometimes just watch it when I’m having a bad day.

Fifthly: Tights & Fights is a great weekly wrestling pod, and is how I keep up on a lot of things that I might not be watching. PLUS, diverse group of (wonderful) hosts: Hal Lublin, Daniel Radford, Lindsey Kelk, Open Mike Eagle, and producer Julien Burrell. They’re just great. And horny, at times, but in a charming and respectful way.

Now... The boring part. I’m just gonna get some of the popular company introductions out of the way, and then the fun part of So Many Match Suggestions at the bottom. But, business first! (The Big difference between Larger Companies and Independent Companies is that the big guys have a contracted roster of people who sometimes can work with other companies [unless they’re the WWE, who have exclusive contracts and still call their employees Independent Contractors so they don’t have to offer health insurance or a union], and indie guys contract people usually show-by-show. ALSO, there is intergender wrestling [men vs women, which does bother a lot of people. I do side with support of it, but I do totally get how it can be hard to watch] in indie shows, whereas there is NOT in 90% of the big companies.)

(And, honestly, if you wanna skip this part, you can, but if I don’t do it first, I’ll forget..)

AN OVERVIEW OF THE BIG PLAYERS

WWE - Here’s the thing. The WWE kinda... is a terrible capitalist bastard of a company, run by a morally bankrupt, egomaniacal, shitstain, roid-rage cryptkeeper of a man. And, if you want my personal opinion, RAW and Smackdown are both (currently) TERRIBLE shows, despite having some truly phenomenal talent. BUT, but. NXT (and NXT UK) is probably the best, like, weekly wrestling show (on TV, at least, but we’ll get there). The talent is INCREDIBLE, the storylines are less bad bananas, and they’ve adopted a LOT of the best indie talent lately (because they want to directly compete with AEW, but that’s a whole other thing). WWE programming is also the easiest to get a hold of because they are the longest running and basically Disney, so there are some full matches on YouTube, and Raw and NXT are available on Hulu. They are also releasing a lot of free stuff on the WWE Network that you can watch without signing up for a paid account, but there is a lot of stuff behind a pay wall.

Cons: Real Talk, run by a bunch of terrible people. Responsible for covering up a lot of truly reprehensible crimes for which no one was held accountable, despite being well documented. A blatant disregard for the (physical and mental) safety and/or financial security of a lot of their roster--specifically the people you don’t see on TV. (If you want some history, you can look through the past tweets of the New York 64 Tournament, but a lot of it turned my stomach, so I would not suggest, but it’s there if you have the same morbid curiosity that I did)

Pros: The company might be run by terrible people, but their roster is good. A lot of my top wrestlers do work for the WWE, sure, but they do hire a lot of decent humans that I sometimes feel bad about not supporting. Also, it is the dream of a lot of people to join WWE simply because of the prestige, the massive audience, and job security. I might hate Vince but I can’t begrudge any wrestler currently working for them.

NXT Pros: On the subject of rosters, NXT is LIT. But they have also stolen some of the best indie wrestlers recently: Mercedes Martinez and Jake Atlas, two of my All Time Favs. Both of whom deserve the world, because being openly gay in the wrestling industry is the pits.

All Elite Wrestling - AEW is a very new company, and they are my favourite of the big promotions. They are a company run by wrestlers, rather than a millionaire with a writing staff. I like the wrestling style(s) better, I was a huge fan of a lot of their roster before they hit TV last October, and I like not giving the McMahons money. The storylines are better, if only because they don’t have a writer’s room dictating scripts and such, and the characters are more fun (for me at least).

Easiest ways to watch for free: Their YouTube channel! There you can find a lot of highlights, behind the scenes, AEW Dark (the “dark” matches, or the non-televised matches from TV tapings), PPV pre-shows and a lot of stupid stuff.

Cons: A bit of an issue offering equal match time to the women’s roster the way they SAID they would at the start. A bit more violent of a style as a lot of the wrestlers came up death match style wrestling, or are from Japan/wrestled in Japan and typically wrestle “strong style” (wrestling style with less theatrics and known for Real Real Strikes that Hurt A Lot), which some people can find off-putting. Also, they hired Jake Hager, who is a real piece of shit.

Pros: Have a wonderfully diverse roster. Orange Cassidy. Sonny Kiss. Good storytelling. Jake The Snake Roberts doing Hella Promos. The Dark Order, who we affectionately refer to as the Spooky Perverts. Chris Jericho yelling at a Drone, and Matt Hardy being a wizard. A bunch of wrestlers who are married to other wrestlers who work for WWE, and good jokes are made.

BUT THE BIGGEST PRO-AEW THING I CAN PROVIDE: NYLA FUCKING ROSE. They didn’t make her the first women’s champion like they should have, but they put her in the first championship match on the FIRST episode of the weekly show, Dynamite, and she is now the CURRENT women’s champion. I don’t wanna make a big deal, only it is a BIG DEAL, because Nyla Fucking Rose is the first openly transgender wrestler signed to a major promotion, and if you think I didn’t fucking CRY LIKE A CHILD when she won, you’re wrong. So, yeah, a NATIONALLY TELEVISED WRESTLING PROGRAM’S CURRENT WOMEN’S CHAMPION IS A TRANSGENDER, FIRST NATIONS WOMAN. NYLA. FUCKING. ROSE.

As of right now, AEW seems to be done filming, which is both Very Smart and also heartbreaking, but you can find all the ways to watch over here on their site if it looks like fun!

WOW Women of Wrestling - Have you seen GLOW? This is a show created by the IRL creator of GLOW (the promotion the show is based on, not the show)! And it is? Incredible? The characters are fun and portrayed as superheroes, the stories are CAMP af, and the wrestling is GOOD. They’re a non-traditional show, which is fun. Their roster is made up of wrestlers playing different wrestlers. Wrestling is a bunch of super talented people playing characters while doing acrobatics. WOW gives us people playing characters, playing other characters, while also doing acrobatics.

Cons: All male announce team? On an all women’s show? Excuse? And also: Tessa Blanchard who is, it turns out, a great big racist. Also a little harder to get full episodes it seems.

Pros: Literally everything else.

Ring of Honor - For awhile ROH was handily competing with WWE. And then they weren’t. And then they got better. And then they got worse. And now, currently, they are a company that I hate supporting.

Cons: Run by assholes who don’t care about worker safety, and don’t put anything into the women’s division.

Pros: Sometimes they partner with New Japan Pro Wrestling. They’ve recently released a lot of goooood old matches including some Kevin Steen (currently WWE’s Kevin Owens) vs El Generico (definitely, 100% not at all, no way, no how, of course NOT WWE’s Sami Zayn [he is, this is another inside baseball joke that I’m just obligated to make every time I mention El Generico]) matches which are BRUTAL. Oh, and Dalton Castle:

Impact! - It’s back! I don’t watch it, but they DO have Rich Swann, so they can’t be bad. There is an entire history to Impact that is BANANAS. Like AEW, a bit more rough and tumble, scrappy death match folks, and I like a lot of the roster, like Taya Valkyrie, Jessika Havok and Sami Callihan. Not a bad show, but the full show weekly doesn’t hold my attention.

Cons: Tessa Blanchard, mostly. She is an incredible wrestler, her matches are good, but.

Pros: Pretty easy to watch, actually? I believe they’re still on Twitch, and they have an entire channel on Pluto TV.

New Japan Pro Wrestling - NJPW is GREAT. Definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. The shows are long, and strong style just... hurts. Like, a lot of wincing on my end. But the wrestling. Oh, lordy, the wrestling is incredible. But it is brutal. Strong Style wrestling is much different than the typical American style that you see in WWE, and a lot more grounded than high flying lucha styles. (Though a lot of wrestlers do travel to Mexico and train in lucha style wrestling (which I am the least familiar with), so currently there is a lot of the very high flying flippty dos and the absolutely brutal strikes that you see in strong style wrestling.)

Cons: Show/match length is typically long and there is A Lot to See. The only way I know to watch full shows is through their streaming service.

Pros: Just the whole thing, really. They release a free match on YouTube every Monday. Also, Toru Yano, the best wrestler in the world.

Indie Promotions that I know less about because I can afford only so many streaming services

Firstly, here is a Wiki list of wrestling streaming services. I’m gonna name a couple below, but the wiki page has a handy list of costs of the bigger ones because capitalism knows how to get you. (Personally, I only use IWTV at the moment. They’re a good company run by good people, and a lot of indie promotions would have died out without partnering with/support from them)

Beyond Wrestling - Beyond is My Favourite Promotion To Watch, Bar None. Their weekly show (when in season), Uncharted Territory, is fantastic. Diverse talent, diverse styles. They do have a lot of death matches, which can suck to watch if you aren’t into that sort of thing. I am, it turns out, into that sort of thing. But listening to interviews with a lot of death match wrestlers, specifically Jimmy Havoc, can help understand the w h y of it all! Available on IWTV.

Chikara - Chikara is So Fun! They are a (mostly) family friendly promotion and training school. Their shows are filled with young/newbie wrestlers as they learn the tricks. Run by Mike Quackenbush, who is a delightful person, BRILLIANT wrestler/trainer, and someone who is willing to take the safety of his people into account. He’s good people, who trains good people, and supports good people, and gives them a safe, open place to learn. It’s also very fun! A lot of comedy matches. Watch on: CHIKARAtopia or some of their archive is on IWTV.

EVE - An all-women promotion, providing a safe working and training environment for women and girls. They have put their foot in it on occasion, but they seem to still be good people. (I would recommend the Tights & Fights episode with founders Emily and Dann Read for a little backstory on the company, but not needed.) Ways to watch.

RIPTIDE - YO, RIPTIDE IS DOING THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SHIT. Cinematic wrestling, and it is great. The matches are good, the promos are good, the people are good. But the way they film it oh my god holy shit. When everything is a little less hectic, they are people I am definitely gonna support as much as I can. Watch here.

A Matter of Pride - Here’s the thing. They have put on some very good, inclusive shows. However, some serious allegations have come out about Rick Cataldo, who is involved with the company, and I think it’s important to mention. They have done a lot of good in the world of prowrestling and they put on good shows and they have given a platform to people who might otherwise have been pushed aside, however bad things have still happened there. Watchable on YouTube.

OTHER NOTABLE INDIE COMPANIES

GCW (IWTV, Fite TV & Smartmark) * Black Label Pro (IWTV) * Prime Time Pro Wrestling (IWTV) * Uncanny Attractions * RISE (IWTV) * Bar Wrestling * PWG * Stardom * Bizarro Lucha (IWTV) * OTT

There is also NWA Power that is a good show on YouTube, however, they immediately hired (and now fired for being racist) Jim Cornette who is... just an absolute jackass. But I do feel I should mention them.

Is that over? Yes? Well..

NOW THE FUN PART. THIS IS MY MOMENT. THIS IS THE ONLY PART THAT REALLY MATTERS.

So. The thing is. Wrestling is A Lot. SO, I’m gonna give you as wide a variety as I can! I’ll point out some fun people, some fun gimmicks and HOPEFULLY won’t completely turn you off! If you enjoy any of these, then the dumb stuff up above is useful!

First! The most important wrestling match of All Time. Invisible Man vs Invisible Stan. This is everything you need to know about the beats of good wrestling, but also why wrestling is fun. There are two people in this match: Referee Bryce Remsburg and the audience. And that’s it. This is literally just a referee (but it’s Bryce, so the referee) miming a wrestling match, and an audience buying into the kayfabe wholeheartedly. (Inside baseball: Bad Boy Vision - “Bad Boy” Joey Janela’s [another wrestler] sunglasses)

One of my favourite matches in recent memory, AND one of the best matches sort of just in general! David Starr vs Jordan Devlin at OTT. Quintessential wrestling, fantastic storytelling, and one of the best promo packages I’ve ever seen. BONUS: David Starr is a GREAT human fighting day and night to unionize the wrestling industry. He’s the Bernie Sanders of professional wrestling.

I thought about putting an actual death match on the list, but the closest I will get is this Nick Gage vs Josh Briggs fans bring the weapons match. I chose this match because my very best friend does not like this style of wrestling at all, but he did enjoy this match. It’s a lot, obviously. But it’s not as bad as it could be, but there’s also no shame if it isn’t your thing. Hell, I don’t even know why it’s my thing! I don’t even like bloody horror movies! I will say that Nick Fuckin’ Gage is one of the most prolific death match guys still working today, and also one of the nicest, kindest, most beloved guys there is and I would die to protect him. MDK!

Okay, this is the single most beautiful match to exist. Cara Noir vs PAC (fka WWE’s Neville). This isn’t wrestling, this is art. Great story, no commentary, gorgeous camerawork. Bonus: Cara Noir has the most fantastic and well rounded gimmick (character) in the business. Have you seen Black Swan? That’s it. That’s his character. And it’s great. Nailed. It.

Oh, did you know David Arquette is a wrestler? HE IS! Here’s he and RJ City.

On the subject of WWE and NXT, this Halftime Heat match of Aleister Black, Ricochet & Velveteen Dream vs Johnny Gargano, Adam Cole & Tommaso Ciampa. These are six of the best wrestlers work, and definitely TOPS in the WWE system. SEE ALSO: Black & Dream put on a HELL of a program together at NXT, but it’s been boiled down to this highlight vid that gives me feelings. Gargano vs Andrade Cien Almas is one of THE BEST matches of all time and here is a shitty highlight reel, but it’s still good. Adam Cole is 1) incredible and 2) the prettiest possum in the Denny’s dumpster, have a Cole vs Finn Balor highlight reel. God, I wish it were easier to find WWE stuff on YouTube.. All these matches should be on Hulu, tho.

NEXT! Kris Statlander vs Davienne for Beyond. Kris Statlander is A Legend, despite being real new to the business. Currently wrestling for AEW, former stuntwoman and, most importantly, she’s an alien.

FREE FOR ALL TIME. Solo Darling vs Penelope Ford vs Veda Scott vs Ashley Vox. They didn’t have to go that hard, but they did.

SPEAKING OF. Kylie Rae, Penelope Ford, Kimber Lee & Skylar vs. Shotzi Blackheart, Harlow &Twisted Sisterz. I just? I love? All of them?

And not to mention Kris Statlander vs Priscilla Kelly. I mean, I mean. I cannot sing the praises of both of these women enough.

Okay, so I am really only passingly familiar with a lot of Japanese wrestling. Mostly got into it last summer, actually. I get it, I love it, but I’m not as well versed in the people involved. Two badasses I do know? Meiko Satomura vs Kana (WWE’s Asuka). Fucking legends, both of them. Hard hitters, too, jesus.

If you do get into NXT at all, Keith Lee and Donovan Dijak put on one fuck of a program together, but the story started long before they ever entered the WWE! Please enjoy this absolute hoss fight from a couple years back.

NOW, some intergender matches! If you think they aren’t your thing, feel free to skip!

A fun match of (current IRL romantic partners) Keith Lee vs Mia Yim from before either of them debuted at NXT. I believe they weren’t dating at this point, so the next part will really hit, cuz it’s romantic as shit... This was not the booked ending. Keith Lee didn’t kick out on purpose. (Which, I mean, is literally all wrestling endings, but.) Mia was booked to lose (at least they told her that), and he purposefully took the L and went out on his back, to surprise her and give her a MASSIVE push.

Leyla Hirsch vs David Starr. I just. I goddamn love Leyla Hirsch. A very young wrestler, very new to the industry and I just love her so much?

Two great, intense matches of Joey Janela, the patron saint of bad decisions. Versus Kris Statlander (I can’t get enough of her) and versus Jordynne Grace.

Orange Cassidy and Penelope Ford vs Shockwave and Veda Scott. Shockwave is a robot and Orange Cassidy is Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer. I can give no other explanation.

COMEDY TIME, YO. Comedy wrestling is The Best. There’s a name, Orange Cassidy. Yeah, he’s very funny, and also the most divisive person in wrestling rn. He’s Paul Rudd. He knows he’s a wrestler. He’s lazy. And there’s one match that we need to get out of the way first...

Orange Cassidy vs David Starr. The thing is. Orange Cassidy can fucking wrestle. His gimmick might be that he doesn’t want to, but he can. And It. Is. Great.

Now we can get on with the funnies.

Orange Cassidy vs Colt Cabana. Not story needed. Just two dudes at a food festival. Oh, yeah, there’s also a Swamp Monster. We love Swampy.

Colt Cabana vs Toru Yano. It’s just. So. FUN.

You might know the name Joey Ryan as The Dick Flip Wrestler, or The King of Dong Style. His dick has magical powers, it’s a thing. Here’s he and Orange Cassidy.

Johnny Cockstrong is the opposite of Joey Ryan. Literally. Here’s him also vs Orange Cassidy.

Did you want to see a Dick Test of Strength between them? Well, it happened.

Back to RIPTIDE for (another intergender, kinda) Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate & Trent Seven vs Joey Ryan, Candice LeRae (the World’s Cutest Tag Team) & Colt Cabana.

Kinda almost but not really comedy but very funny and also full of good wrasslin’, here is EFFY vs Orange Cassidy. Pirated, technically, and in real low quality, but I Love It. EFFY is Daddy.

Now, you’ll notice not a lot of women in the comedy section. Real talk, women still tend to get treated as a joke by the wrestling industry at large, so they don’t get the luxury of being as funny as they want. But one woman out there doing the lord’s work is Session Moth Martina. Legend. Love her. Admittedly, another intergender match, but it makes me happy. Martina & Orange Cassidy vs Joey Janela & Penelope Ford (Janelope).

One of my All Time Favourite Matches to date, EFFY and Danhausen (Gaytanic Panic) vs Chris Dickinson and Pinkie Sanchez (Team Pazuzu). Yes, this is a Halloween show. Yes, the Ref IS dressed as Chris Dickinson. There are teeth, Jesus resurrects someone, Danhausen is in fishnets and Effy is in face paint. It’s great. Love that Danhausen.

And there we have it! A whole lot of information and a bunch of matches and some stuff. It’s real dumb, and sometimes the industry is dark, but there’s a lot of hella good people doing dumb things. I hope this was helpful?? And Fun! (But my feeling won’t be hurt if it wasn’t fun, I promise!)

I leave you with this, RJ City making coffee in his underwear with Danhausen. Completely out of context. Because I love it.

[monochromemedic]

Funhouse Murder Party Part 1

Dom stood outside the mansion, staring at his watch before sighing shakily, shifting his weight from heel to heel. His nerves were on end, but maybe that was because this was something new. He’d never been to a .... a what the hell was this even. He pulled his phone out and checked the website page again. ‘Murder Mystery Dinner Experience.’ Fallon was really up in arms about it, saying how excited he was about doing one of these, but wanted friends to come with him. Said it was a real life Clue experience where you ran around trying to solve the fake murder that happened and ate some food.  It wasn’t his usual cup of tea, he’d never thought about doing one of these but well, Fallon said he’d cover the expenses which meant Silas’ which meant he’d be coming as well.  The entire gang of idiots in a weird... role play murder mystery. What could possibly go wrong. Horrible accents, terrible costumes, bad affects, someone getting drunk and throwing up int he corner, really the possibilities were endless. As Dom was lost in his own thoughts, starting to check his twitter timeline he felt a hand clamp down on the shoulder of his ironed plum colored suit. Dom raised his head slightly, looking up at Silas’s bright face hovering over him. At least he was dressed decently. It wasn’t a suit but a nice black turtleneck and slacks. Simple but effective.  Even if it did look like he’d bust out of the fabric at a sudden gesture. “You excited buddy? I always wanted to be in a real life board game.” He laughed, his deep voice ringing out in the cold air. “...Like in general? Or just Clue because if you tell me you wanted to some how be in a real life version of Connect Four I will lose it.”  This only made Silas laugh more, crossing his arms as he too faced the mansion. “No of course not. I can’t be a a little disc. I meant stuff like this, Clue... or Cluedo. Whatever. Not many games back then were... so dark.  And who hasn’t wanted to be an old time-y detective solving the mystery of who stabbed who? It’s fun.” Dom gave a short noise of acknowledgement as he put his phone away, waving his hand a bit to let him know to quiet down. “Where’s the man of the hour?” “The... host? I mean... You are standing outside alone I-” “No Fallon.”  He corrected. “Did he not come with you? Does he even have a car?” Silas thought for a moment before shaking his head and beginning to walk casually towards the large door, a hand written sign for the event plastered on the front. “I can’t tell you. Never saw him in a car or with... keys.  But I do know he always manages to get to wherever he needs to go so I don’t think we need to worry much. Let’s get inside you’re gonna freeze.” Dom gave a final look around before following behind, saying something about how Silas wasn’t his father and that he was older then the man. When the doors opened the cream colored walls and warmly lit inside welcomed the two men further inside, where they were met with old music, the sound of soft yet excited conversations, and the sights of people dressed just as dramatically as the two of them. Dom thanked god for that that he wasn’t the only one that seemed fit for a classy party.  “Dominooooo, Stylus how’s it going? You look uh... well Dom you just look the same as always. Sy your KILLING IT. No pun intended. Waiting to break those out later tonight.” A familiar, cracking voice rang out among the small crowd. He wasn’t hard to miss the way he was dressed. A pair of rose tinted sunglasses, hair done up in a still messy but more... functional style, and a pink floral suit that would be more fitting on a man that was at the Oscars and not a man with no job. Silas smiled wide, unintentionally crouching a bit as he took in his friends outfit. “Dude you look KILLER. Where did you find this? You look like a movie star.” He gawked, hands grabbing at the sides of Fallon’s jacket to show the satin inside. “Oh you’d be surprised what you can find lying around town. I actually had this for a while but never had a chance to use it. Might as well show up with style instead of a hoodie but it’s a bit tight around the crotch.”  His hand went down to adjust his package, earning a grunt of displeasure from Dominic.  “Fallon, how long have you exactly been here.” “Oh like two hours, way before people showed up. I walked and thought ‘oh i’ll get there a little bit early but haha, made it a record pace here. So I spent alot of time in the bathroom wiping the pit stains out.” “You are.. disgusting.” “Yeah love you too; you Triscuit flavored personality of a man. Why don’t you loosen your belt so the stick in your ass can have some breathing room and get a drink, come on they’re on the house.” Fallon teased as he nudged his head towards the counter where a bartender gave a drink to a woman in a beautiful but simple red gown. Silas patted Fallon’s shoulder and headed over there without another word, raising a finger and ordering a coke and rum while the two men stood, glaring each other down. “Yeah and before you say a word, I had a few drinks, I wanna actually remember this night. Spent the money might as well-” “Sy’s money.” “HE.... wanted to do this so yes. Sy’s money, and I intend to use SY’S money wisely and not forget this night. And don’t worry i’ve already been casing the place.  Met the guy in charge of the place our host for the night, he’s defiantly gonna die I mean, guy walks around in a suit looking like Jake Gyllenhaal, perfect bait. No one that handsome lasts for long unless they’re a psycho or gonna be a corpse by the second act. Been chatting up the others, seeing that no one else but me, the bartender and Brokeback, there’s gotta be a secret actor or two in this group of guests. My money? Black dress temptress over there.”  Fallon pointed to a woman chatting up another person, her hair put up in a short but beautiful bun, the black dress complementing her dark completion and black lipstick. “Look she even has heavy black mascara. She starts CRYING when the guy dies, ‘oh i can’t do this, it’s so tragic’, we stare feeling SORRY. Later we learn it’s a black widow kinda situation. It’ll be great.” Dom only caught half of what he was saying in all honesty, taking in the sight of the mansion, the nice furniture, what other people looked like. Fallon was probably right but he only barely understood the other half that he caught so he just gave a little nod, going to grab a drink at the bar. Just as Dom grabbed a glass of whiskey, a man stepped out  in the middle of everyone, tapping the side of his champagne class with a pen that he put back in his pocket as the music began to lower. He really did look like a Jake Gyllenhaal type. “Well from my counting, all of the guest have arrived for the evening. Welcome, to my dinner party my fellow associates. In case you’ve forgotten and by the look of some of your dazed faces, drunken stupor, I am your host for the evening, Damien White. Millionaire, world class lover...” He turned to look at the woman in the red dress at the bar and gave her a wink, to which the woman began to grow pink and look back down at her drink. “And recent constructor of the orphanage down town. And because of that great feat of my kindness upon the community, I have decided to hold a banquet with some of the good townfolk to show... I too am humble beneath the glamour and glitz, I too am one of you. Dinner has been prepared, and if you will all indulge me in coming to the dinning room we can begin this nights events.”  Damien turned around and began to walk farther back into the mansions depths, followed by the guests and the bartender who began to softly speak to each other.  Fallon looked to Silas and Dom, grabbing their attention before  dragging a thumb across his throat and giving a little gagging sound. Silas nodded, looking at Damien and how he would occasionally wave a hand towards a piece of art, generally giving off a ‘i’m better then you’ attitude, despite his kind words. Yeah no he was going to die.

[hookedonapirate]

To Play the Game (and win your heart)

Summary: Some people would call it a job, but to Emma and her sister, Milah, it’s a game of the heart. Play by the rules and you’ll never get hurt.

Whatever you call swindling wealthy men out of their money, this con-artist duo has it down to a tee. Milah sets up an available, rich man and gets him to marry her. Emma seduces and lures the husband into having an affair so he’ll get caught in the act. He then loses his money in the ensuing divorce.

The sisters wear a coat of armor around their hearts to keep them intact, but when they set their sights on their next mark, professional golfer Killian “Hook” Jones, Emma never imagined how hard the game could be and how easily her heart could be stolen—especially when she switches roles with Milah and becomes the one exchanging vows with the gorgeous multi-millionaire. Heartbreakers AU.

Artwork by: @distant-rose

Rating: Mature for connivery, vixen behavior and sexual themes.

Content Warnings: This story deals with conning and manipulation and also mentions/includes children with various disabilities, and also .

Author’s Notes: There's two more chapters after this, and I'm so sad this story is coming to end soon but I've had so much fun reading all of your reviews. Because someone had mentioned this, I wanted to clarify that Killian's character is in no way based on Jack in Heartbreakers, in case you've seen the movie and haven't already figured that out, and I love that one of you mentioned it! Killian may be a fool in love, but he's certainly not a hopeless spineless sap, so please don't expect Emma to be let off scot-free - but you will see how things turn out very soon. Here we go!

Thank you @captainswanbigbang and all of the moderators for organizing the event and for all of your help throughout the process.

A huge shout out goes to @ilovemesomekillianjones for all of her help with this fic. She really kicked some butt while beta reading, and if not for her, this story would not be what it is. And thank you @wellhellotragic​ for pointing out a few dumb mistakes as well.

Thank you @distant-rose for stepping in as my artist. She is so talented and I can’t wait for everyone to see all of the art she has planned for this fic. She even made me a playlist for this story including Emma’s and Milah’s theme song, Homewrecker by Marina and the Diamonds, and some other great tracks that fit well with the theme of the fic.

Thank you @onceuponaprincessworld for all of her feedback and for her constant support and for letting me bounce ideas off of her during the process. Thank you @teamhook for her help and ideas with scenes I was struggling with.

There are 12 chapters, and I will be posting every Tuesday, so let me know if you would like to be tagged.

Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7 Ch 8 Ch 9

Also available on: AO3 FFnet

Artwork by @distant-rose

Ch 1 Art Ch 3 Art Ch 4 Art Ch 7 Art Ch 8 Art

Chapter 10: Final Round

~Rule #10: Keep your eyes on the finish line. You're about to rip the rug from underneath his feet, flip his world upside down and destroy everything he’s worked so hard for, so whatever you do, don’t let anything or anyone get in your way, no matter what. Put on the show of your life, but your heart must remain of steel when you rip his out and let it crumble in between your fingers.~

 The early morning light illuminates softly through the bedroom windows, creating a warm glow in the room. Killian is lying on his stomach as he starts to stir in the tangled blankets and sheets, the delicious aroma of coffee intriguing his senses. Turning his head away from the intrusive light, he instinctively reaches out towards the other side of the bed, but instead of finding his wife, he finds her side empty. Gradually opening his groggy eyes, he lifts his head to confirm his Swan is not there.

 Mustering the energy from his tired bones, he slowly makes his way out of bed, pulls on a pair of boxers and goes in search of her.

 He once again finds Emma sitting out on the terrace, this time in a light blue nighty, staring out over the ocean and nursing a coffee. He doesn't blame her though. The sound of the waves and seagulls are soothing, and the gentle breeze feels quite perfect.

 Killian grins at the sight and comes up behind her, wrapping her up in his embrace. “Aren't I the one who's supposed to be the early riser?” he teases playfully.

 Emma shudders in his hold, turning her head and offering a smile smile. “I just woke up and couldn't fall back to sleep.”

 “How come, darling? What's on your mind?”

 Emma shrugs softly. “I just realized last night how little we really know about each other.” She turns around in his arms, looking up at him. “I mean, aren't married couples supposed to know every little thing, like the tattoos they have and what the other likes in bed? We've never even seen each other naked until last night.”

 Killian’s features fall in disappointment. Was he not adequate enough for her? He thought she’d enjoyed their lovemaking as much as he had, but maybe he was mistaken. “Was I… did I do something wrong?” he asks, worry lacing his tone.

 Emma shakes her head, a smirk curving her lips. “No, of course not. You were... incredible.”

 Killian sighs in relief, his expression relaxing a bit. “Then what's the problem, sweetheart?” he asks softly. “Not all couples have sex before marriage.”

 “I know… but those people normally know everything else about their partner. And we didn’t. We still don't.”

 “Emma, we have from now until the end of time to get to know each other,” he points out in a hopeful tone. “Are you regretting getting married too soon?”

 Emma shakes her head, pursing her lips in contemplation, her eyes full of conflict. “No, I'm not, I just... there are some things I need to tell you.”

 Killian places the pad of his index finger on her lips to stop her from saying anything more. “It can wait. Our honeymoon is supposed to be relaxing, not stressful,” he reminds her.

 Emma looks like she still wants to tell him something, but right now he has other ideas as he takes the coffee cup from her hand and places it on the outdoor table.

 “I want my wife to feel pampered and loved appropriately, not worried or discouraged.” Before she can respond, Killian is running his hands down her exquisite curves, following the trail down her clothed body with his lips. She shows him no resistance and is already responding with a soft moan, her body molding into his touches.

 He kneels down in front of his sweet goddess, lifting her leg over his shoulder. She braces back against the railing as he sneaks his head underneath her gown and uses his mouth and fingers on her, caressing her folds and enjoying her sweetness on his tongue. Hearing her soft curses above him, he eagerly explores his wife, devouring her in his mouth and pumping his fingers into her heat. It's not long before he’s pulling her into the abyss, her walls fluttering around his tongue as she offers all of her essence to him, crying out into the open, morning air.

 Licking his lips, he picks her up and carries her back to bed where they display their affections with gentle caresses, satisfying strokes and sweet kisses. They explore every inch of skin, every line and every curve, memorizing and getting to know each other’s body more thoroughly. They stay in bed long into the late afternoon until they finally remove themselves to shower and make breakfast together.

 $*$*$

 Emma wants to stay on the island with Killian forever, but alas, real life forces them to go back. After getting back from their honeymoon very late, Emma drives to work early in the morning, while he visits the driving range.

 She has this foreign feeling blooming inside her. She’s never been this happy before, and can’t say she hates the feeling. There’s just a tiny problem of having to tell Milah to call off the con, though, but she hopes to quickly rectify that.

 She dials Milah’s number during her drive to work and it rings a few times before her sister answers.

 “Hey?” Milah’s words are laced with confusion. Emma really has no reason to call her, because the plan is already set in motion. They never talk to each other between the wedding and the carefully planned affair, so neither will get doubts or mixed feelings, and neither one will be influenced by the other to back out. “Is everything okay?”

 “Yeah…” Emma takes a deep, shaky breath, not sure how to form in words what she wants to tell her sister. “Actually, no, not really,” she confesses, the inside of her stomach twisting with nerves, like it’s filled with snakes.

 “What is it? If you’re worried about how things will go, please don't. Everything will be fine, I promise.”

 “It’s not that,” Emma begins, and she’s feeling conflicted. She knows she has to fess up and tell Milah the truth, but at the same time she doesn’t want to disappoint her sister. She also doesn't want to hurt Killian. It’s a lot like she’s choosing between them, and her loyalty should be leaning towards Milah, but her heart is going off in an entirely different direction. “I’m calling off the con,” Emma blurts out loud, and the silence on the other end of the line is deafening. Emma starts to panic, not knowing exactly how Milah is reacting to this.

 “You wanna what?” Milah questions finally, after an eternity, or so it feels, her tone hinting towards anger and irritation.

 Emma’s heart is hammering so fast, she’s not sure if she can tell her sister how she really feels exactly. “I… I can’t go through with it.”

 Milah emits a strangled noise and Emma has to hold the phone away, her features twisting in confusion. Is Milah really laughing?

 Holding the phone to her ear again, Emma can still hear her laughing for several more seconds before the sound finally dies in Milah’s throat.

 “Oh Emma, that’s a good one. You really had me going for a sec.”

 “No, I’m serious, Mi. I can’t go through with this.”

 “And why not?” Milah’s tone is much more serious, and Emma can tell she is not thrilled by this revelation.

 Chewing on her bottom lip, Emma throws around the idea of telling her the truth because isn’t that the whole point of this conversation—to tell Milah the truth? “Because I’m in love with Killian.”

 Again there is silence, and it’s completely overwhelming. She needs something; any sort of response will do, really, but there’s nothing for what feels like several minutes.

 “Milah?”

 “I cannot believe this. You’re the one who begged me to go along with this. Ever since you saw that damn golfer, you have nothing but insisted that he is the one who will get us to Hawaii.”

 “Milah—”

 “No, let me finish.” Her tone is sharp, full of fire as she continues. “You swore up and down you could do this. You said ‘trust me, sis. I won’t let you down, I promise,’ so I agreed, even though I knew it wasn’t the best decision.”

 “I know, and I’m sorry, but I can’t help the way I feel. Do you really think I wanted this? I mean after everything we’ve done so far, do you think I wanted to let you down? It hurts like hell knowing I did,” Emma admits, her voice cracking with apology. “I really wanna make this up to you, but right now I just need to know you won’t go through with this.”

 Mialah sighs through the phone, and Emma can sense her resolve is weakening. “Fine, I won’t. Your feelings are more important than the con.”

 Emma is flooded with relief, and she takes a deep breath, releasing all of the stress she had felt from thinking about Milah going through with the plan. “Thank you Mi. I really owe you one.”

 “Big time,” Milah agrees with a laugh.

 Emma smiles, knowing that everything will be okay. Or at least she hopes. She still has to tell Killian the truth, as much as it will hurt. She cares for him too much to not tell him. She just hopes she doesn't lose him after she does. “How about I start off with a thank you meal from TooJay’s Deli after I get out of work,” Emma offers, knowing their corned beef and pastrami sandwich is Milah’s favorite.

 “I’ll take it,” Milah accepts rather quickly, her words edged with excitement. “When do you think you’ll be home?”

 Emma looks at the clock below her dashboard. It normally takes fifteen minutes to get from Marco’s to her house, but since she has to stop at the deli first, she knows it will be longer than that. “Well, based on the traffic, I wanna say two, two thirty is that too late?”

 “No it's perfect. Can’t wait.”

 $*$*$

 Entering the driving range he’s grown so familiar with, Killian wipes the sweat from his brow. He’s prepared for a morning of practice in the sweltering heat, reflecting on the honeymoon and the wonderful time he’d had with Emma.

 Killian knew he’d be taking a risk proposing so soon and getting married not long after, but he doesn’t regret any of it. He’s incredibly happy, and he never thought he could be—not until Emma had entered his life.

 He’s looking forward to the future awaiting him and his wife—a future of Emma being by his side, both of them supporting each other in any possible way, a future of loving Emma until his heart no longer beats in his chest. He’s also looking forward to telling the whole world he’s married to the most beautiful woman on the planet.

 “Hook, I should’ve known you’d be back here practicing for the next game right after your honeymoon.”

 Regina’s playful words surprise him before he can hit the ball in front of him, and he looks over, seeing her striding over to him holding a manilla envelope in her hands. Still gripping onto the club, he greets her with a blushing smile before returning his focus to the range in front of him. “So you’ve heard?” He swings and hits the ball, letting it cut through the air, and he watches it land before turning around to face Regina once more.

 The woman nods, closing the distance between them and standing in front of him. “Did you really think you could hide it from me?”

 “And let me guess who told you—Mary Margaret?”

 Regina laughs. “Come on Hook, you know she can’t keep a secret to save her life.”

 Killian nods in agreement. He likes to give his agent the benefit of the doubt, but she’s been known to let things slip out once in a while when she gets too excited. “So, what can I do you for?”

 Her face becomes more serious, concern washing over her features. “Look, Killian, I really wish you would have told me you were getting married to Miss Swan, because then I could’ve warned you.”

 “It’s Mrs. Swan-Jones now,” he corrects, lifting a brow as his smile dims; he suddenly has a bad feeling in the pit of stomach. “Warn me about what?”

 Regina sighs and peers down at the folder in her hands. “Well you know whenever I have a bad feeling about something, I can’t let it go. I end up turning to Sydney to gather information and ease my mind.”

 “Regina, who did you spy on?” he demands, growing irritated. He hates when she uses Sydney to do her dirty work. Hell, he hates that she always has to go digging up dirt in the first place. Everyone has a thing or two from the past they want to keep buried, so what gives this woman the right to go and uncover those things and stir up trouble?

 “Killian, I don’t know how to tell you this. Maybe we should go inside so you can sit down for this?” she suggests, glancing up at him.

 “I’m fine right here. Just tell me,” he says, agitation lacing his words. He doesn’t like to be interrupted during his practice, to be messed with, and Regina has a really bad habit of doing that.

 “Alright fine, I’ll be up front with you then. Emma Swan is not who you think she is.”

 Anger bubbles under his skin. This woman had the audacity to go and dig up information on his wife? “Bloody hell, Regina, I don’t wanna hear this.”

 “Oh believe me, you need to know this. The woman is playing you.”

 Killian’s already heard enough. He turns around, sliding his club into his bag. “I don’t believe this. I’m finally happy, and you have to go and try to spoil it for me. I’m leaving.” He picks up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder.

 “Wait, please Killian,” she begs, and he can sense the concern and urgency in her voice, but he doesn’t want to hear about it.

 “If you had concerns about her, you should’ve come talk to me, not go behind my back and—”

 “I know, but I didn’t. Instead I do what I do best. I panicked and had to find out more information. I’m sorry Killian, but none of that changes the fact that Miss Swan is a gold digger and Miss Byrd is not an interior decorator. Her real name is Milah Raven, and she's going to try and get you to have an affair. It’s all part of their scheme. They’re only trying to screw you over so they can run off with your money.”

 “Just stop,” he begs sharply. “I’ve heard enough. How can you just waltz over to me and accuse my wife of such things?”

 “Because I care about you. And I can prove to you that Miss Swan and Miss Raven have done this many times before.”

 He scoffs and looks her dead in the eye as he steps close to her with a threatening glare, speaking in a more quiet volume. “You don’t give a bloody damn about me. All you care about is your precious country club. Whatever you think you have on her, I want you to burn, or I will never come back to this place ever again, you got it?” he demands, his eyes clouding with rage.

 Regina nods, swallowing thickly. “Got it.”

 With that, he turns and walks away, angry and irritated and wanting to get into his vehicle and drive away as fast as he possibly can.

 Back at home, he can’t stop thinking about what Regina has told him. He peers down at his wedding ring, moving it around his finger. Is it possible Emma has been playing him this whole time?

 No, it can’t be true. His amazing Swan would never do that.

 Or would she?

 When he'd first met her, she wouldn't even go on a date with him. A month later, she's agreed to marry him? There's falling fast and hard for someone, but this was too fast, wasn't it?

 No, he refuses to believe his lovely Swan is anything other than who he knows her to be. Regina has all of her facts wrong.

 Killian guzzles down a bottle of water and goes upstairs, charging his phone which is only at five percent. He and Emma had engaged in some incredible morning lovemaking before she’d left, and he’d forgotten his phone battery was almost dead. Once his phone is connected to the charger, he takes a refreshing shower to rid the sweat from his skin after being out in the heat.

 As the hot water cascades over him, his wife floods his thoughts, and he looks forward to her coming home in the evening after she's packed some more of her things to bring over. He’d asked if he could help with anything, but she’d refused. Come to think of it, every time he’s asked about going over to her house, she always supplies him with an excuse, saying her apartment is messy or that she prefers being at his place. Now Regina has him thinking she’s living with this Milah person she had mentioned, but Killian refuses to let her words get inside his head.

 After his shower, he goes downstairs, catching the PGA at the Quicken Loans National on the telly when he hears a knock on the door. Turning off the game, he stands from his comfortable spot on the sofa, wondering who could be at the door. He knows it's not Emma because for one, she’s at work, and two, he's told her several times she doesn't have to knock when she comes over. They're married now, and she’s got a key, so why would she?

 He answers the door, seeing Trixy on the doorstep holding up a bottle of champagne. She’s also wearing a long sleeved blouse with her skirt, and he can’t believe she’s not too warm in this heat. It’s over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit outside.

 “Howdy!” she greats brightly.

 He scratches behind his ear, not recalling ever setting up an appointment with her today. “Oh uh, hi, Trixy. I wasn't expecting you...”

 Her mouth falls open a bit, and she lowers the bottle appearing to feel bad about dropping by. “Oh, didn't Emma tell you I was stopping by to show you some samples? She wanted you to decide which design to go with.”

 Killian shakes his head. “No, she must have forgot.”

 Trixy makes a gesture with her hand, waving off his words. “Well that's not a problem, I can come back another time. Sorry for botherin’ you,” she says, her words full of regret as she starts to turn around.

 “No, that's okay. Please come in.” He steps aside, allowing her to come into his home.

 “Thank you, Mr. Jones.”

 “Please, call me Killian.”

 Trixy smiles at that. “Alright. Thank you, Killian. And congratulations on getting married. Mrs. Jones told me over the phone. I brought you both a wedding gift.” She holds up the bottle of champagne again.

 “Thank you, lass, and actually it’s Mrs. Swan-Jones, but you can call her Emma.”

 Trixy flashes a coy grin. “Will do.”

 $*$*$

 Emma arrives at the apartment, carrying a bag of takeout from TooJay’s.

 “Milah, I brought food!” She sets the bag on the table and heads for her sister’s bedroom. “I really want to thank you for being understanding.” She reaches Milah’s room, opening the door. “I never planned on falling for—” Emma’s words die in her throat when she steps inside, finding the room empty. “Milah?”

 She leaves the bedroom and searches the rest of the apartment, including the balcony, but Milah’s nowhere to be seen. Her features fall, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

 Where the hell did she go?

 Emma came home just after two, like she'd promised.

 Maybe Milah went to the gym or to treat herself to a Swedish massage or Sanctuary Jewel facial spa. If so, why the hell didn't Milah invite her to go with?

 Emma walks over to the table and opens the bag, deciding she's too hungry to wait for Milah’s return. She removes her sandwich and picks up the bag to put Milah’s food in the refrigerator, but when she drags it from the table, a piece of paper slides off the surface, falling to the floor. Lifting a brow, Emma kneels down to pick it up and rises, turning the slip of paper over to see what it is.

 Her eyes instantly widen, face draining of blood when she reads Milah’s writing.

 Sorry sis. I have to finish the con. This is for your own good, so don't be mad. You’ll thank me later, trust me. You know where to find me.

 Love, Mi

 “Son of a bitch!”

 $*$*$

 Killian takes the bottle and makes his way to the kitchen, Trixy following behind him. “So I have to ask, how are you not burning up in long sleeves. I don’t care if you used to live in the dessert—it’s bloody hot outside,” he comments casually as they enter the kitchen.

 “Oh well, I put this on before I knew it was so hot,” she tells him with a laugh. Trixy starts to unbutton her blouse, but Killian reaches out, placing a hand on her arm to stop her. “Whoa, lass, what are you doing?”

 “Oh, I’m just cooling off a little. I shouldn’t have worn long sleeves,” she says, unfastening the first few buttons of her blouse. “The air conditioning in here feels nice, but the heat outside had me sweatin’ like a pregnant nun in church.” With the fourth button undone, Trixy reveals a little too much of her cleavage, so he averts his eyes from her and puts the champagne away. “Anywho,” Trixy begins, clearing her throat and getting down to business, “I've brought some sketches of different décor styles for you to look at.” Her eyes wander the room, spotting the kitchen table.

 “Aye, you can lay them out on the table," Killian says, pointing towards it and they make their way over.

 Offering a grin, Trixy takes out the first design from her black leather work bag, placing it on the surface. She sweeps her dark hair to one side, leaning over the table.

 Killian is only interested in the work she is doing, but he can’t help but notice her cleavage is being presented to him, and he starts to think about what Regina had said to him. He wonders if maybe she was right and if this is all a part of Emma’s and Milah’s ploy.

 Is this woman’s name actually Milah?

 No, he refuses to believe that. He refuses to believe his beautiful Swan would lie to him.

 “This one is a contemporary style.” The sketch is for the main room as she describes the features. “It gives the room more of a family feel, but it’s still simple and opens up the space without having too much of it.” The room is full of neutral colors, ranging from beige to brown, a wooden floor and a large area rug and sofa pillows with curvy lines and shapes.

 $*$*$

 “Dammit!”

 Emma hangs up the phone after her third attempt at calling Killian. She throws her phone in the passenger seat with a huff, wondering why he’s not answering.

 Keeping her eyes on the road, she’s seeing red as she drives faster than she has ever driven in her entire life. She's so stricken with fear and anger her knuckles are turning white as she grips the steering wheel. She shouldn't be worried. She knows Killian won't cheat on her; she has faith. She's more angry at Milah than she’s afraid of Killian having an affair.

 Emma waits at another goddamn red light, her patience wearing extremely thin. She’s still clutching to the steering wheel like it's a lifesource, hoping she can make it before Milah tries anything.

 How can her own fucking sister do this to her?!”

 Looking at the clock, she tries to steady her breathing, knowing she should be at Killian’s in ten minutes.

 The light turns green and Emma presses on the gas pedal, peeling out so fast she's sure to be there much sooner.

  $*$*$

 Trixy takes out the second design, placing it next to the other one. “This next one I think will fit the home you’ve invested here by the ocean, but it doesn't have as much of a family feel. It’s more of a coastal style or what we also refer to as the Hampton's style.” The sample is also for the living room and includes blacks and whites paired with blues and greens. The furnishings include a sleek, black and white sectional sofa, a simple, black coffee table and fireplace with a dark green rug, and blue and white striped patterns for pillows. “The room contains elements of wood, and the accessories are inspired by the sea to create a relaxed, comfortable environment for your family. So what are your thoughts?” Her words pull his eyes up from the samples and he looks up to see her smiling at him with a twinkle in her eye.

“Hmm.” Killian nods, scanning the designs, and running a hand along his stubbled jaw. “They’re both brilliant, and I think each of the designs are stunning in their own way. I do like the idea of the family design, although I’m leaning more towards the coastal design for obvious reasons,” he chuckles. “But I want to go with what fits more with my wife’s style.”

 Trixy nods in understanding, pursing her lips in thought. “You really love her don’t you?”

 “Of course I do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have married her.”

 “Of course.” She stares into his eyes, speaking softly. “It’s really a shame though.”

 “Why do you say that?” He swallows thickly, praying to the gods above that Regina was not right.

 “Because another great guy is off the market. Emma’s a very lucky gal to have snagged a man like you, Mr. Jones,” she says sincerely, reaching out to place a hand on his arm.

 He looks down at the gesture and lifts a brow, unsure of how to respond to that.

 Trixy’s eyes widen when she realizes what she’s done, and she quickly removes her hand. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Jones, I didn’t mean to—”

 “It’s alright, lass,” he assures, seeing the red in her cheeks; he knows the gesture was unintentional and that she’s embarrassed about it. “And I told you, it’s Killian.”

 “I'm sorry,” she repeats sheepishly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and biting her bottom lip, looking away. “Anyway, I agree with your choice, and yes, you also have to be considerate of what Emma will like, too. This shall be a couple’s decision, so I’ll tell you what, even though Emma trusts your judgment, I think I should come back when both of ya’ll are here to decide together.”

 She leans over the table and picks up her samples a little too quickly. When she spins around, the sketches fall from her hands, one sliding away from her. “Oh mah, I’m such a clodhopper!” She bends over, trying to kneel down to pick up the one within her reach, but her skirt is too tight and she ends up falling to her hands and knees to gather up the sample. If he were any less of a gentleman he probably would’ve looked as the fabric rode up her arse, but he is only interested in his wife.

 “It’s not a problem, Trixy.” He bends down to help her pick up the other sketch as she apologizes profusely.

 “Oh lordy,” she grumbles as he rises and returns to her, extending his hand. She takes it, using him as an anchor to stand up. “Thank you so much, Killian.”

 “It's not a problem,” he assures, noticing she’s still clutching onto his hand.

 “You’re a lifesaver.” Her eyes meet his and he can hear the hitch in her breath. This whole time he’s tried to convince himself that her touches were accidental. Now he’s starting to see that everything she has done since she's arrived, and even during their first meeting when she'd tried to rub his crotch, has been intentional. “Well, I should get goin’ now.”

 Killian peels his eyes away and peers down at their joined hands. She takes the hint and starts to release her grip, but when she does, he can’t help but notice the sleeve of her blouse slipping past her wrist, part of a tattoo peeking out. He tugs the cuff away from her wrist to get a better look.

 It's just as he suspects—a raven tattoo.

 “Killian!” he hears Emma call from the front door, but before he can process what is actually happening, Trixy is launching herself at him and smashing her lips into his.

 He quickly pushes Trix—Milah (or whoever the bloody hell she really is) away from him, anger burning inside of him as he rips himself from the thralls of her arms.

 “How could you do this to me?!”

 He turns his head to catch Emma witnessing the entire scene, complete devastation in her features.

 “Oh Mrs. Jones, I'm so sorry,” Milah says in her fake Texan drawl.

 Killian tightens his jaw, eyes fleeting between these two vixens who have set him up. He is heated. “Oh please, spare me the act. I know this is all part your scheme,” he snaps at both of them.

 “I wasn't talking to you,” Emma says to him and steps up to the other woman. “I told you the con was over, but you didn't listen to me!” she hollers at the brunette, a ferocious storm brewing in her emerald depths. “I trusted you!”

 Killian is completely baffled as he glances between them. Why is Emma angry at Milah if this was all a set up?

 “And I trusted you to make this work, but you failed!” Milah shouts back at her, just as furious and no longer using the fake accent.

 “I told you I can't help how I feel, but you put the con before your own sister! You're nothing but a selfish—”

 “Excuse me,” he cuts her off briskly. “I don't mean to interrupt this sisterly squabble, but what the devil is going on?!” he demands, breaking up their feud.

 Emma looks at him, regret and tears swarming her eyes. “I'm sorry, Killian. I wanted to stop it, but she went behind my back.” Emma points at her sister accusingly, and she's about to say something else, but her eyes blow wide in realization, and she glances back at Killian. “Wait, how did you know?”

 “Regina told me,” he snarls and sets his death glare on the brunette.

 Emma closes her eyes, breathing out, “Regina,” through clenched teeth.

 “And I didn't want to believe her, but she said your name was Milah Raven, then I saw that the tattoo on your wrist is a raven, and it's on the same spot where Emma has a tattoo of a swan. Plus, you tried to kiss me when Emma bursted inside, so it wasn’t difficult to put the bloody pieces together,” he mutters spitefully.

 “Killian, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to go through with it, but Milah wouldn't listen.” Emma tries to approach him and touch his shoulder, but he backs away. “Killian, you have to believe me.”

 That's when he explodes with the rage he feels inside. “You lied to me and tricked me into marrying you! Why the fuck would I believe you?!’

 “Because my feelings for you are real!” she tries to reassure him in a pleading voice, her words cracking as tears slide down her cheeks.

 He looks at her with a steely glare. “I don’t even know who you are.”

 “Yes, you do, Killian! My name is Emma Swan, I used to be an orphan like you and I work at Marco’s Italian Tuxedos. I've been more real with you than any other man I've ever met!”

 “No, to me you're nothing but a gold-diggin’ charlatan.”

 She swallows audibly, her lips trembling and another tear escaping her eyes. “Not anymore,” she vows, but Killian can’t listen to another word.

 His heart is shattered into a million pieces, anger and rage replacing the love he’d held for her. She is not the beautiful Swan he thought he knew. “I want you both out of my home,” he speaks quietly, but his words are just as deadly.

 Milah doesn't hesitate, and grabs her bag, storming out quietly, but Emma stays, trying to convince him she actually loves him.

 “Killian, please, I'm so sorry.” More tears are streaming down her face, and he can't help but still see her as his wife who's in pain, but he has to stay strong.

 “I said leave,” he tells her again, pointing towards the door, as much as it hurts. “I don't ever want to see you again.”

 “But we’re married,” she chokes out, the fear of losing him evident in her voice, but he couldn't care less. She’s hurt him badly and he can’t find it within him to have sympathy for her.

 Killian’s eyes darken as he stares into hers, wondering how she could do this to him? How could someone be so cruel? “Our wedding was a sham,” Killian states, his words heavy with the hurt and pain he feels. He storms past her, rushing to the front door and yanking it open, his voice growing louder and harsher as she follows behind him. “Now get the fuck out!”

 His booming voice makes her jump, but she complies, her head down as she makes her way towards the entrance, sniffling and wiping her tears. She digs into her purse and grabs her keys, taking off the one for the cabin and holds it up for him. He snatches it from her grasp as she looks up at him one last time before she goes. “I'm truly sorry, Killian,” she whispers softly.

 “You can get your belongings later when I'm not here,” he says flatly. “I'll have someone here to let you in. But don't be surprised if your things are floating in the ocean when you come back.”

 Emma simply nods and proceeds sluggishly out onto the porch. She walks down the steps and heads towards her car, looking back at him once more, eyes red and puffy and cheeks stained with tears. She enters her car as he steps inside, flinging the door shut, his heart aching and his breathing crippled, emotions washing over him like a tidal wave.

 He can't believe in one day his world has completely crumbled apart between his fingertips. He can't believe the love of his life was never really his love at all. The entire thing was a bloody joke. He feels like such a bloody fool; he should've just listened to Regina. He should've never rolled the dice on Emma.

 He should've never followed his heart in the first place.

A/N: Okay, you can throw things at me now

Tagging: @mayquita @freakassbuthunter @libbcoxnet-blog @goldengirlschildhood @courtorderedcake @florenzu @marcella2727  @veryverynotgood @i-would-cross-realms-4-her @hooklineandswan @wonderfullycarriedaway @0swald-c0bblep0t @cs-forlife @andiirivera @snotelek @capswantrue @nikkiemms @capswantrue @swansong12 @lg-campbell @lassluna @followbatb @harshini01 @betchesgetshitdone @coliferoncer @ultraluckycatnd @resident-of-storybrooke @kinkyhiddlesgirl @teamhook

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #211

"i was told when i get older all my fears would shrink, but now i'm insecure and i care what people think."

What is your favorite time of day? Morning. What is your third favorite color? Ummm maybe peach. Do you care what others think of you? In most contexts, very much so. How would you dress, if you were the opposite sex? Same style I do now, really. Though not tank tops and dance pants; I'm sure I'd mostly wear loose band or graphic tees and sweatpants. Can you remember your first phone? If so, what kind was it? I think I might? I believe it was a blue one where the keyboard slides out from the bottom. Small and square-ish. What do you do to maintain your eyebrows? Nothing. What was the naughtiest thing you did when you were a child? I bit my sister's back so hard that I made her bleed, lmao. Sorry Ash. What, in your opinion, is the most thirst-quenching drink? COLD WATER. Who is your favorite character from Alice in Wonderland? Cheshire cat. Name the closest body of water to where you live: Atlantic Ocean. What do you like to put on toast? Light layer of butter and then cinnamon and sugar. The true cinnamon toast. Do you like art? Of course. How about theater? I don't have too much of an opinion... other than it has potential to be incredibly cheesy. Have you ever made breakfast for someone? Yes. Do you talk to your crush? If you have one. She's way more than that, and we talk every day. If yes, what do you usually talk about? Loads of stuff. What was the last thing you bought? With my own money, I don't have a clue. Have you ever been considered popular? No. Your signature perfume? I don't have one. Favorite undersea creature? Sea turtles, seahorses, jellyfish... Describe your room with just 5 words. Small, crowded, zoo, artsy, and... idk. Favorite type of chocolate? Milk. What types of things would you plant in a garden? If I actually wanted one, lots of flowers. Maybe tomatoes because fresh tomatoes + bacon and mayonnaise sandwiches are fucking incredible. Favorite attraction at a carnival? Ferris wheel. What toys did you play with as a child? Plastic animals, Pokemon figures, and stuffed animals were common. Oh yeah, I loved Lincoln Logs too. What types of music do you listen to? Various kinds of metal and rock as well as indie. What, without fail, makes you cry? Mufasa dying lmao. What makes a movie really enjoyable for you? A cool plot. Usually fantasy elements. Favorite way to decorate a cake? *shrugs* What gift(s) did you get for your birthday last year? I don't remember. What do you daydream about the most? My future. Name a game you are really good at. Shadow of the Colossus probably, but considering how infrequently I play games now, I'm sure I'm nowhere near as good as I used to be. Whenever I get a PS4 and the remake tho, I'm getting that goddamn white Agro. I never did the timed challenges before, but I think I could do it. What kinds of snacks do you munch on? I don't really have snacks anymore; I try to keep them out of the house so I'm not tempted. If anything though, it'll probably be some kind of chip. What emotionally exhausts you? Socializing. What accessories would come with a doll version of you? A laptop, iPod, and medication lmao. Favorite thing to do when it’s night time? Sleep? I've sure grown into a fun person. How do you like to bathe/shower? With hot-ish water. The most childish part of your personality? I absolutely hate chores. Favorite type of fantasy creature? Dragons. Do your arms move when you walk? I... actually don't know and can't even visualize how I walk right now. Favorite photo search engine? Google. Are there such things as stupid questions? Depends on your age and some other factors, I guess. Do you celebrate April Fools Day? No. I hate it, honestly. Do you doggie paddle or actually swim in a pool? Both. How do you cure boredom? I'd love to fucking know. I'm always bored. Ankle socks or knee-highs? Ankle socks. Do you know how military time works? Yes, but I can't comprehend the time immediately if it's passed 12. What’s your daily routine? Wake up, check the time, use the bathroom, have breakfast, feed my cat, sit on the laptop doing nothing, maybe or maybe not have a nap at some point, shower if I need to whatever time I feel like, also brush my teeth at some random point during the day (unless I have to go somewhere; then I'll do it before I leave), eat dinner, feed the other pets, and go to bed. Did you get in trouble for cussing on accident when you were a kid? I literally yelled "HOLY SHIT, I THINK I SEE A SHARK!" when we were all in the car driving over a bridge and I swear I saw a fin in the water, lmao. Mom was. Not happy. Ever made a snow angel? Yes. Are you short or tall for your age? I'm average. At what age did you learn the Pledge of Allegiance? Idk, early elementary school. What’s the longest you’ve gone without food? When my appetite was like non-existent and I lost a shitload of weight, I think I almost went a full 24 hours. What do you think about most? What's stressing me out. Are you honestly a good person? I don't think I'm a bad one. Where would you like to be buried? I'd rather be cremated. Do you use Bing or Google? Google. Last song you listened to? "Damage" by Fit For Rivals. Last movie you watched ALL the way through? The Shining. Howwww had I not seen it sooner. Last thing you wrote down? The time I was meeting with my job coach on the calendar. What was the last movie you saw in theaters? Detective Pikachu. What is ONE thing your fridge or pantry ALWAYS needs? My day will feel so off if I don't have one Mtn. Dew Voltage. Do you believe more in luck or hard work? That's a good question. Sometimes you can work your ass off and yet reap inadequate - or any - rewards, while some people pick up a lottery ticket once in their life and are suddenly a millionaire. Life's not fair, kids. But I like to think hard work usually prevails. Do you have any metal on or in your body right now? Piercings. What is your favorite thing to eat with dip? Plain chips with sour cream dip... yum. Do you consider yourself a heartbreaker? Nope. Who was the last person to tag a picture of you? Who even knows. I don't get tagged in pictures because I'm never with people to take and tag me in any lmao. Have you ever liked someone much older than you? No. Is there someone you always, secretly hope will talk to you? It's not a secret that I want to talk to Jason ONE last time to apologize on MY end. What was your first favorite band? Backstreet Boys. Are you friends with any bands? A local band, yeah; their guitarist is an old friend. Do you stay up ridiculously late for no reason? Very very rarely now. What’s your life motto? Idk, I've never really thought about it. Last year for school, we had an assignment where we had to choose a popular song to write a story based on. What song would you’ve picked? A popular song? Oh boy, idk. I don't really know what's popular that I like... Well, guess I'll think of old songs I know were. Um... Oh well I love writing sad shit, so maybe "Runaway Love" by Ludacris ft. Mary J. Blige. I already had an RP plot that was kinda inspired by it lmao. Do you like 3OH!3? If I said I wouldn't belt "'CUZ I'M A VEGETARIAN AND I AIN'T FUCKIN' SCARED'A HIM" at a club at 2 in the morning I'd be lying. Did the vacuum scare you as a child? No. Do you have a long driveway? No. Anyone’s grave you visit, regularly? No. Who was your first kiss? First person who kissed me was Juan, first mutual kiss (which I consider my "real" first) was with Jason. What was it like? Were you disappointed? Juan's kiss I didn't want, and it made me confused at the time. I had no clue how I felt about him back then. With Jason, it was incredibly sweet. I was lucky to get like a fairy tale one and not a horribly awkward memory lmao. Do you have an older brother? If so, what’s he like? Yeah. He's super super intelligent and a deep thinker. Very mature and has a great sense of humor. Are you confident? hunty- Have you ever begged someone to stay with you? Yes. Who do you want around you when you’re afraid? More than anyone, Mom. Had separation anxiety as a kid, obviously grew out of it, but if I'm seriously scared, I want my mom's presence. Like if I'm sick (I'm petrified of vomiting alskdfjaowie) or we're having risky weather, stuff like that, I want her with me. Have you ever mistaken something’s shadow for something else? Probably at some point. Indie, rock, electronic, techno, dubstep, or ‘crunk’? The hell is "crunk" music. Rock. Do you know how to read a map? I have no clue 'cuz I've never actually used a real one. Have a friend that looks JUST like a celeb? Not off the top of my head. Are you good at basketball? I used to be, but I haven't played in forever. It was probably my favorite sport that I ever played. Or softball. Are you friends with anyone missing one of their five senses? Not that I know of. How many times have you moved in your lifetime? Three. Are you good at Pac-Man? I was never exceptional. I haven't played it in yeeeaaars. Have you ever been called 'jail bate’? No. Have you ever been seriously addicted to anything? Technology oops like I barely know how to function without it, sadly. Ever lied to get out of going somewhere with someone? Yes. Where did you meet your current or last significant other? YouTube. Do you like to eat pasta? Yes. Do you enjoy wine? Most bitter shit in the world. Noooooooot a fan. How long have you been driving? I've had my permit since senior year of high school (I think senior???), but I still don't have my license. What’s your lawyer’s name? N/A What’s the last thing you watched on Netflix? Good question. Do you play any video games? The only one I play regularly is World of Warcraft; it's the only "ongoing" game I play. Why were you last in the hospital? My sister got into a wreck. Would you ever get a face tattoo? Possibly something small and subtle, but I doubt it. Have you ever gambled? No. What has been your most epic cooking failure? I split a hot dog entirely in half in the microwave because I thought it'd take much longer to warm up than it actually did. Do you read other people’s survey answers on here? Sometimes. Do you agree with the saying ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder?’ With my experience with Sara, yes. Do you know any transgender people? I knew someone who like... swapped back and forth five thousand times. Then one of my friends had a transgender "phase," if it's appropriate to call it that. Have you ever had a parrot sit on your shoulder? Don't think so. In the morning, do you eat breakfast first or brush your teeth first? Eat. Why would you eat RIGHT AFTER brushing your teeth. What sort of window coverings do you have in your living room? Blinds. Has anyone in your life ever treated you abusively? No. How long has it been since your last breakup? A year and a half. What’s the name of the amusement park closest to your house? Uhhh I think Busch Gardens in Virginia? Do you like The Rolling Stones? Yeah. What was the last single item you spent over $100 on? A plane ticket. Can you read tarot cards? No. What is the last non-fiction book that you read? I have zero clue. Do you prefer lemons or limes? Lemons. Do you prefer peppermint or spearmint? I don't think I even taste the difference. Have you ever written a special note in a book? Yeah, I did in a book Jason lent me. Turns out it's a bad idea to write in pen a lil love letter on the back of the front cover to a book that was also for collection purposes lmao, but he wasn't mad. Would you rather have a house exterior made from wood, brick, or stucco? I like wood aesthetically, but I think eliminating wood housing would be a good idea, so brick. Brick also makes me feel safer. What is your favorite candy bar? Those big rectangle Reese's ones with individual blocks. I fucking love them. Have you ever thrown up in public? I know at least one occasion in I believe kindergarten where I did on the classroom floor, oof. Pepsi or Sprite? I hate Pepsi and I'm not a Sprite fan either, but if I had to, I'd drink the latter. How many video games do you own? We have an old CD case just about full of them. Have you ever stripped? No. Even if you are not Christian or never celebrated Christmas, do you think you will raise your (possible future) children to believe in Santa Clause? Why or why not? I don't want kids, but if I did, I probably would. It's just a magical, fun thing as a kid. Who has the most interesting phone cover you know or what was the most interesting one you have come across (in store or online)? Sara has a really cute chameleon one. Would you rather play a game such as World of Warcraft, League of Legends, or an app/Facebook game (Candy Crush, Bejeweled)? Y'all know. What’s the most amount of messages you either woke up to on a social media site or your phone? Idk, not a lot. When you have nightmares, do they normally have the same theme (ex. always being killed) or do they just relate to something going on in your life at the moment/random? They're very commonly either with me dying or about to be raped. Some surveys ask if you ever stepped in dog poop. However, have you ever stepped in animal pee? Yup. When’s the last time you or someone else has overstayed their visit? Whenever Girt last came over forever ago. He always does lmao. Have you ever consumed a full bottle of liquid medicine in one shot? Is there ANY medication you can actually do that with and not die???? Have you ever had a hamster? Yes. If you had a choice, would you rather eat chicken or beef? Chicken. What was your favorite birthday cake like? I don't remember any specifically. Would you prefer bacon or sausage? Tough call, but probably bacon. How many books have you read in the past YEAR? Zero. Do you type with all of your fingers, like you are taught in school? Yes. Have you ever put gum on the bottom of your desk/chair? No, grosses me the hell out. At what age were you the most physically attractive? The least? During high school; 2016. If you intend to get married, what are you looking forward to/dreading about wedding planning? I think planning the vows will be fun (I don't want references to God, fuck saying my dad has to "give me away," etc.) as well as the theme, and then I don't think I'm dreading anything about planning. Who are you most nervous about introducing potential significant others to? Mom. What is the craziest thing you have done to lose weight? I haven't done anything "crazy." Which parent do you most resemble? Idk. What is the best job you’ve ever had? Never had one I liked. How do you feel about monogamy as a whole? It's definitely what I find to be the better option. You're minimizing the risk of spreading STDs, and plus I personally see love as a one-on-one thing, not open to multiple. What is the most exciting thing about your life right now? LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL What was the most important non-academic thing you learned in high school? Probably some life lessons from my favorite teacher. Have you ever lived alone? Do you prefer living by yourself or with someone else? No. I never want to live alone. Do you and your friends ever talk about your sex lives? I don't have a friend to discuss that with, but I also don't have a sex life. Has anyone ever criticized your appearance? What did they say and how did you take it? Yeah. It was typically about my piercings or how I dressed (particularly ripped skinny jeans), and neither of those ever got to me. I love my piercings and style. How common is it for you to get jealous in romantic or platonic relationships? It's rare. When someone asks you about your number of sexual partners, do you include oral sex partners? I probably would if there was anyone who fit that criteria but I wasn't "fully" sexual with. It's still sexual. Have you ever had a job that deeply affected your personal life? How so and do you still work there? No. What is the most serious injury you’ve ever sustained? When I passed out onto my chin and ended up with a really deep cut, broke multiple teeth, and got a concussion. What were the best and worst interviews you’ve ever had? What made them so good/bad? None stand out for either end of the spectrum. List three people you’ve had crushes on. Just to make it interesting, I'll name people I had crushes on but never dated. Sebastian, Kyle, and Mini. How old were you when you were first head over heels in love? 16. Has loving someone ever made you miserable? Boy, have you heard about my Historical Breakup? How bad are your worst cramps on a scale of 1-10? They used to be easy 10s, but now that BC helps me, I'd say the worst are like... rarely 7-8s. Have you ever thrown up from cramps? No. What is the most physically painful thing you’ve ever experienced? I 110% should've been under anesthesia when I got an infected cyst drained. I wanted to fucking die to get it over with. Do you have an embarrassing period story? If so, what is it? No. Did your school allow you to have pain medicine on you? I think so? I do know you couldn't share it, though. Do you ever comfort eat? I get the urge to when I'm depressed, but I stopped doing it. If applicable, what form of birth control do you use? Pills and not being with a man. What is your sexual orientation? Bisexual. Have you ever questioned your sexuality? Yes. What gender do you identify as? Female. What gender were you born as? Female. Have you ever gotten high off a prescription medication? No. Can you still wear clothes from the children’s section? Pf, hell no. Are you lonely? Very. Do you have allergies? Yes. How old were you when your parents talked to you about puberty? However old I was in 5th grade when we had family life class. Do you take vitamins? Only one I'm prescribed for for vitamin D. Do you like fantasy better than reality? Yep. Have you ever contemplated suicide? Yeah. Have you ever self-harmed? Yes. How many people have you known who were suicidal? Multiple, sadly. What’s your favorite pain reliever? Advil. Who has the cutest baby/babies you know? My acquaintance has an absolutely beautiful daughter. What’s the most expensive thing your car needed to get done? N/A If you had a thousand dollars to spend on a pricey brand you like but can’t really afford (until now of course), which ONE brand would you chose? I have no clue. I don't really know pricey brands that don't have the ugliest shit. How many pairs of flip flops do you own? One. Do you still talk to any of your old teachers? One, yes. She's a family friend now. What color was the dress you wore to your senior prom? Black. Ever go to another school’s prom? No. Ever take Melatonin supplements to help you go to sleep? When I used to have AWFUL insomnia, it was the only way I could sleep. Do you like burning candles or incense? Incense especially. Ever throw a pair of your shoes in the washing machine? How did they come out? Not that I remember. Do you ever venture into the woods? What do you normally do in there? No. Do you like to wear shorts or capris in the summer? No. I hate my legs, nor do I regularly shave. Does your phone have a keyboard, touch screen, or neither? Touch screen. How did you dress your freshman year of high school? Emo. Were you obsessed with the Spice Girls back in the day? Obsessed, no, but I liked them. Have you ever had an encounter with the paranormal? Yes. Would you do your own surgery so keep yourself alive? (ex. stitches) I mean yeah, if I had no choice. Would you rather read poetry or write poetry? Write. Have you ever had any really infected injuries? An ear piercing got an infection once. Is there any band out there that you like every song by them? No. Would you ever work for Google? I mean, I don't see why not? Do people that are ungrateful for everything bother you? Immensely. Are you popular on any websites? No, not really. If you ruled the world, what is the first law that you would make? Probablyyyy the banning of at least single-use plastics, but hopefully plastics as a whole if doable. When was the last time you played jump rope? Not since being a kid, probably. Do you hate it when people look over your shoulder? I can't do ANYTHING if someone is. Do you know anyone who has had a heart attack under 30 years of age? No. If you were starving would you eat food out of a garbage can? If I found something that didn't look dangerous, yeah, in order to survive. When is the last time you had your vision checked? Like two months ago. When is the last time you had your hearing checked? Some time last year when I had that whole ordeal with my ears. Do you know your blood type? It's A-. Do you donate blood/platelets/plasma/etc.? No, I don't drink enough water. Ever been in the emergency room? Way more times than I like. Have you ever been robbed? No, thankfully. Ever kiss someone on the first date? No. Do you own any Burt’s Bees products? No. Dr. Pepper or Root Beer? Dr. Pepper. What’s your favorite picture of your mom? Dad? I have one of Mom I took for a photography course of her laughing, and I fucking love it. She rarely laughs. Dad, I'm not sure. Are you subscribed to anything (Magazines, monthly boxes, streaming sites, etc.)? No. Favorite flavor of cream cheese? ... It has flavors? Do you have any board games? If so, where do you keep them? Yeah; they're at the top of a cabinet in the living room. Is there an ice cream flavor you don’t like? Of ones I've tried (I'm not very adventurous with food), I loathe strawberry. What’s the raunchiest thing you’ve ever stumbled upon? I don't know, don't wanna know. I steer clear of that side of the Internet. Hm, it was probably something on dA that had a mature content filter that I looked at anyway because it had an intriguing name. That site can have some wild-ass shit. How rude is it to snap your fingers at a waiter or waitress? Have you done it before? That is incredibly rude. They're not dogs. I've never done that. Best way for someone to bond with you? Let's talk about deep shit and philosophy. Discuss interesting, unorthodox topics. Show me you have an open mind. What is the first meme you remember seeing? BOY, I don't know. Maybe Overly-Attached Girlfriend? Suitcase, duffel bag, or backpack? Duffel bag. Sci-fi, fantasy, or superheroes? Fantasy. Favorite font? Out of the default options, Garamond. Favorite fairy tale? Fucking FIGHT ME if you say Shrek isn't one. Forget the memes and such, I genuinely love the movies. Favorite tradition? By this point in my life, we don't really follow any traditions... but I do know as a kid I would NEVER let Mom forget we had to make "reindeer food." When a Christmas light show was still here, we would also go there and grab hot chocolate and chocolate-covered peanuts. I miss that. Talent you’re proud of having? I think I'm an above-average writer. Favorite website from your childhood? Webkinz. :') Any good luck charms? Nope. Least favorite flavor of food or drink? Cranberry. Least favorite pattern? Uhhh... I'm not big on animal print. Favorite potato food? Fries my man. Do you call them fireflies or lightning bugs? Fireflies. Lamps, overhead lights, fairy lights, or sunlight? FAIRY LIGHTS. How many phone numbers do you have memorized? Two lmao. Favorite historical era? The Renaissance. What are some must-have Google Chrome extensions? If you don’t use Chrome, how about on other internet browsers? AdBlock. What piece of stand up comedy (10 minutes or less) has successfully made you cry with laughter? Oh boy, a lot. I love stand-up. What little “Easter Eggs” on websites do you love? If you don’t have one on a website, how about in a game, TV show, or movie? Boy, got plenty in games. The secret Silent Hill 4 replica room in Silent Hill: Downpour I especially love; I had no idea it was in the game 'til I played it and found it myself. Then the butterfly barrel in the PS4 remake of Shadow of the Colossus in reference to The Last Guardian is awesome. World of Warcraft's Robin Williams genie tribute is lovely as well. Besides pornography, what is a website you frequent and don’t want anyone to know? Nothing. What GIF reduces you to hysterical laughter every time? Don't know about every time. What things that are legal do you think shouldn’t be? Smoking, but I understand why we can't do that now. What is the closest you have ever been to a major historical event? Idk. What is a skill someone can learn in 6 months that will impress employers on a resume? Microsoft Office programs. What are some meals that are simple to make, but easy to impress people with? Idk. I know nothing of cooking. What bizarre celebrity encounters have you had? None. What is your favorite picture on the whole internet? Oh don't make me go through my Pinterest of Mark pictures. What is a “dirty little (or big) secret” about an industry that you have worked in, that people outside the industry really should know? N/A What is the most outlandish (hilarious, surprising) thing you have ever seen go down in public? OKAY SO one day otw home from my psychiatrist appointment, there was a man dressed in horrid drag walking on the side of the highway in the middle of winter. It was. An experience. If you met someone who has never heard music before (born deaf or what have you), what music would you introduce to them first? Gentle, soothing instrumental things. Like let's listen to the soft SotC pieces, please. What’s a little-known site you think everyone should know about? I don't really know of any. What is a MUST SEE movie that is highly overlooked and is on Netflix? If you don’t have a Netflix, just say in general. Johnny Got His Gun. What quote gives you chills every time you hear or read it? From Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs: "I have stood knee-deep in mud and bone and filled my lungs with mustard gas. I have seen two brothers fall. I have lain with holy wars and copulated with the autumnal fallout. I have dug trenches for the refugees; I have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws and starved the masses into faith. A child's shadow burnt into the brickwork. A house of skulls in the jungle. The innocent, the innocent, Mandus, trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved. This is your coming century! They will eat them, Mandus, they will make pigs of you all and they will bury their snouts into your ribs and they will eat your hearts!" Not even mildly exaggerating, I get coooovered in goosebumps every time I come to that point in the game. I just read it twice lmao. When was the last time you bitched someone out? A while back I lost it on Mom about Dad and his wife. Have you ever given a lap dance? No. Are you afraid of plane rides? No, not really. Do you like unique or common names? Unique. Have you ever made a turkey dinner all by yourself? As if. Do you prefer running or yoga? Yoga. What continent would you most like to visit? Africa. Who do you wish you were dating? I'm happy with who I'm dating. What did you always want to do as a kid but were never allowed to do? Hm. I'm sure there's something... What is your favorite ice cream topping? Hot fudge. Is your Bible falling apart? I don't have one. Would you rather have a tail, fin, or wings? Wings. If you live in an apartment, is your landlord mean? N/A What products do you sell, if applicable? None. Is abuse in your past? No. Is there trauma in your past? Yes. Do you know anyone who’s been raped? I don't believe so, thankfully. Of the many different American accents, which one is your favorite? New Yorker. What was the last thing you watched on Youtube? Watched and not just listened to, it was an 8-BitRyan gaming vid. Do you know anyone who had a kid before they were financially stable? Probably half the people I know or more. But I think that goes for everyone. What’s your phone’s wallpaper picture? Darkiplier rip. Have you read any of Shakespeare’s works other than Romeo and Juliet? Yeah - Beowulf and Macbeth. Maybe Hamlet? Is there anything hanging from the doorknob in your room? My purse. Why did you move to where you’re living now? We got evicted and had to find something cheaper. What’s your opinion on wearing pajamas in public? Do you yourself do that? I sincerely don't care, especially if there is damage on the person's state. Like if you're suicidally depressed or very sick in another way and have to go out, don't be a fucking ass and force them to do something that can legitimately be hard for people just to appease the standards society set. A basic rule to me is never make assumptions or ask why they're in their pj's. I do it a lot, depending on where I'm going. Like you have clothes on at least, why the hell does it matter. What’s something you’re really bad at compared to others? Math. Knowing the names of cars. Giving directions and knowing where I even am in comparison to everything else. Do you know anyone who treats retail/restaurant employees poorly? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA BOY DO I but she's been removed from my life. When was the last time someone betrayed your trust? What happened? Idk. But I can say with near certainty aforementioned friend posted our entire last convo on Facebook as she'd done previously, so there's that. Do you usually fill up at the same gas station? Mom usually does. What are some odd habits you have relating to food/eating? I hate eating biscuits in front of new people because I dissect mine to parts, lol. Like I open it and eat what's in it individually, the bread being the last. Do you like Oregon Trail? I love that shit. As an adult, do you want to live in an apartment or a house? A house. Do you like the stem or leafy part of the broccoli? Stem. Do you believe in the “innocent until proven guilty” idea? Depends. Not always. Do bats frighten you? No, I love bats!!! What’s a song that reminds you of your special someone? THERE'S SO MANY!!!! Does Paris appeal to you? Yeah. Are you a KPOP fan? No. Do you believe in the phrase “if it’s meant to be, it’ll be”? Nope, bullshit. First time you kissed the last person you kissed? June 2018. Do you have to really know someone to kiss them? Absolutely. I have to actually be romantically interested in you. Well, to kiss you on the lips. Kissing family on the cheek and such is different. Were you anyone’s first kiss? No. Will you keep your last name when you get married? No, please take that shit away. Where was the last place you held hands at? I'm not sure. If you could live in any home on television what would it be? BITCH take me to the Addams' Family home. Do you think morals are universal or relative to the beliefs, traditions, or practices of individuals or groups? Mostly universal. Like just to give an example, some Christian religions forbid eating shellfish, so while avoiding shellfish is moral to you, is it really immoral to eat it? Is torture ever a good option? If no, why not? If yes, when? No. It's just... so inhuman. Regardless of what one has done, never lose your grip on being one. Be a moral human being. Don't succumb to that evil. What do you think is one one of the most undervalued professions right now? Teaching. Have you ever seen anyone have a heart attack? No, thank Christ. Have you personalized your answering machine/voicemail? No. What’s your favorite horror movie? I really love both The Blair Witch Project films, The Shining definitely joined the top tier when I watched it recently, and The Crazies is great, too. Would you say you have a high sex drive or not so much? I'd say it's normal. What was the worst thing a friend has either done or said to you? Oh boy, who knows. One of the billion things Colleen said and did. Something you feared as a kid but don’t fear anymore? Taking the last answer because it's like the #1 thing: death. It's inevitable, and immortality seems horrible. I just hope I go with the least pain possible. What is your opinion on girls who become obsessed with their boyfriends? lmaooooo been there sweetie, don't do it. Are you biracial? No. What’s the most unique pet you’ve owned? My champagne ball python. Do you have a fence? On either side and at the back of the house. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust? Just my psychiatrist. I feel bad for not including Dad, but nightmares fucked me up hard. Does your family use coasters? Is anyone in your family excessively tidy? No. Do you still have your tonsils? Yep. Do you think making out is slutty? ... No...? Well, at least if you're in a relationship and love the person. Just casually doing it, quite honestly yes, I think it's slutty.

[indieharry]

Mark Your Territory 

Or: The Very Soft and Cute Beginnings of Hantoni Porowski-Styles

i literally??? could not??? have done this without paloma @kissyharriex she’s the best and came to my rescue when i was being a big baby about this. also y’all know i post like zero (0) writing on here so uhhh enjoy and if you hate it then lie to me and say you love it ok thanks!

It’s like when you come home from a long trip. The smells are familiar, and you know where every light switch is, even in the dark. Your shoulders automatically slump in relief, and you feel the floating warmth of comfort wash over you.

That’s what it felt like the first time Harry saw him.

It was in a bright bar with arcade games and a 90s karaoke machine in the corner. Harry felt like he was back at university in London when he was forced out to grody pubs with uncomfortable seating and cheap liquor. Nevertheless, he wasn’t one to turn down an open bar or the opportunity to toy with a few men who either knew who he was or wished they knew.

He was always being invited to these sorts of things. Owners and promoters figured it was free press to have people like Harry at their events. He was the prince of Williamsburg, a trust fund baby who made a career out of fortnight romances and weekend getaways across the world. Everyone knew who he was, and he knew everyone.

Except for one person.

Harry’s brain short circuited when he glanced at the door that had opened to let a chill air into the room. A man with deep, tender eyes and a nervous mouth stood in front of the entrance. And before Harry even knew his name, he already knew what he wanted from him.

Harry was brave. He never shied away from a challenge or raised a white flag in the face of defeat. All his conquests had been a result of Harry’s charm and determination.

He came, he saw, and he conquered. That’s just what it was like for him.

He took a sip of his drink and brushed the man’s shoulder with his own. He turned, looking at Harry with those deep brown eyes of his, a little too warm and inviting for Harry’s liking. He just smirked while sliding up to the barstool next to him. He pretended to pay no attention, chatting to some of the other guests around him, causally sneaking a glance to the other side to see if he was looking.

“I’m Antoni,”

The man had said while sticking his hand out for Harry to shake. Harry glanced at him, raising his eyebrow.

“Harry,” he said, holding out his hand as well, but barely lasting for a proper shake. He quickly returned back to his conversation with some self proclaimed influencer from Los Angeles.

Soon enough, there was no one, so Harry turned back towards the man, Antoni, and asked the bartender for another drink.

“Do you reckon I can pull this off?” He asked, tugging at the bright red turtleneck he had worn.

Antoni just replied with a “sure,” so Harry sighed loudly and said, “It’s the color of my aura.” Not for anyone in particular to hear really, just whoever cared enough to listen.

He leaned in, closing the distance between himself and Antoni’s stool.

“I believe that,” Antoni replied, taking his drink, and walking away to talk to what seemed like an old friend.

It turned out Antoni was well-known among the invitees of this bar opening. The owner was Antoni’s former classmate in Montreal.

Harry, typically the life of the party within most scenes in Brooklyn, pouted his way through four vodka Sprites before scanning the room to find Antoni again. He made a path in his brain before sliding off the stool and sauntering over to the other side of the small bar, wriggling his way into the tiny circle of people crowded around the karaoke machine.

“Excuse me, I’ve got something very important to do,” Harry said, to no one in particular again, but completely meaning for Antoni to hear. He turned around to face the rest of the people in the bar, refraining from making eye contact with anyone but the man in front of him. Maybe it was his earnest gaze or the way he looked at Harry like he wasn’t afraid of him. Whatever it was, Harry knew that he’d do anything to be on the receiving end of Antoni’s affections.

Harry crouched down to click through the songs before he found the one he was hoping for. The song that never failed to get him laid. His conquests were putty in his hands when he slinked around them, the charisma vibrating off of him too infectious for them to resist.

The synth music and empty bits where Whitney Houston’s riffs usually went played through the speakers and Harry shook off what little nerves he had before taking a sultry stance and following the words to “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” all while trying his damndest to make his dreamiest bedroom eyes at Antoni.

Antoni’s notice was genuine but minimal, even when Harry hammed it up and began grabbing other men from the crowd to participate in his one man show.

“Hey, you,” he called, breathless, after the end of his performance. Antoni looked away from the person he was talking to and raised his eyebrows at Harry with inquiry.

“Could you be a doll and get me another drink?” Harry asked, grabbing Antoni’s wrist gently.

“What are you drinking?”

“Whatever you want me to drink,” he replied, winking and turning around to choose another song.

Antoni came back with some dark concoction that Harry was determined to drink because not only would it get him drunk, it would also show Antoni he was agreeable and easygoing. He choked down the first one fast before batting his eyelashes and asking for another. He didn’t dare ask what was in it, but rather could only focus on how the drink was catching up with him. His head was spinning, and normally this was when he would start to feel extra courageous and boldly make his move. But his stomach churned in the bad way.

Antoni had disappeared, and Harry was stood against a wall, nervously scrolling through his phone. It was a weird sensation, not having an entourage or acquaintance to fall into. Why had he come in the first place? It certainly had never bothered him before to go to places alone. Why was he bothered now? Regardless, he was flustered to no end that he was pulling out all the stops for Antoni and it wasn’t working.

Moving in all sorts of contortions while taking a seat again at the bar, his face melted into his palm.

“Hello!” He called over to one of the bartenders, rather loudly. “Hello. Hi. Got a question for you. Could you perhaps tell me what’s in this? My...friend brought it to me.”

The bartender eyed him warily. “It’s a long island iced tea...would you like some water?”

Harry sighed, burying his face in his hands. “No thanks,” he slurred.

“What do you think about this shirt, mate?” He stared down at his red turtleneck, frowning at the bits of liquid that had fallen onto it from previous drinks. “Can I pull it off?”

The bartender snickered at his question, and Harry furrowed his face. “Oi!” He started, his index finger raised in protest. The sudden movement caused his ears to start ringing and his vision to blur a bit.

“I don’t…” he started before he climbed off the stool and ran towards the front door, turning a sharp corner once he was out, to a small, dark alley. He ignored the group of people next to him, barely caring that the next time he was out and about, someone would incessantly tease him about throwing up at some random bar opening.

He hadn’t thrown up like that since uni, and on top of it all, it just had to be when he was wearing that goddamned red turtleneck. He quite liked it, thought it was a bit of a bold statement piece.

He shut his eyes, once he thought was s done spilling his guts, and slid down the brick wall, feeling like he wanted to cry a bit.

He heard an oddly familiar voice, getting closer to him and he didn’t really want to open his eyes because he knew that once he did, there’s no way that he would ever look at him in the eyes again.

He tried to ignore it, but he knew he had that gorgeous man standing in front of him, asking him if he was okay. And frankly he wasn’t, but he couldn’t help but blink them open.

“Want some water?” Antoni asked, handing him a bottle and looking at him like he had just witnessed a puppy being kicked.

Sipping the water made Harry’s stomach feel all icky again and in no time, he was throwing up again, this time on Antoni’s leather shoes.

In that moment, he wished the cracked pavement he was sitting on would open up and swallow him.

“Fuck. I’m so sorry,” Harry said, immediately trying to stand up all frantic and not knowing what to do.  

“It’s okay,” Antoni waved his hands in objection. Harry recognized the look on his face - polite aversion.

“Let me go get a rag or something to clean them with. Do you want to wear mine? Shit, I’m sorry. What shoe size-”

“Harry,” Antoni put his hands on his shoulders to steady him. “Calm down. You’re gonna make yourself sick all over again.”

“But you can’t just walk around with vom all over your shoes.”

“They’ll be okay,” He said in a hushed voice. He slid down the wall, just as Harry had earlier and sat next to him.

“I’m mortified,” Harry whispered.

“If I had a dollar for every time I threw up outside of a bar I’d be a millionaire.”

“I bet you haven’t thrown up on the shoes of someone you’ve been trying to flirt with the whole night,” Harry sighed with a sad laugh hidden in the back of his throat.

They made eye contact for a millisecond, and the look in Antoni’s eyes confirmed everything he had been thinking about all night. Antoni wasn’t going to be a quick shag or a two-week lover’s parade around the city. Harry couldn’t pinpoint what it was about him, but the thought alone was terrifying.

“God,” Harry changed the subject, “who would’ve thought that a fucking Long Island iced tea could’ve killed me?”

Antoni laughed and looked down at his lap, “It just so happens that I’ve got the perfect remedy for too many of those,” he grinned.

“Do you now?” Harry raised his eyebrows at him.

“I do actually,” He started, “I could show you if you’d like, I only live a couple of blocks away from here.”

“How can I be sure you’re not going to kill me and stuff me in a dumpster?” Harry asked, only half-joking. This was too good to be real.

“Google me,” Antoni replied. “You’ll find too much about me to know I’m not a murderer.”

Harry pulled out his phone and did a quick search to find his Instagram, with 2.5 million followers, and a well-populated Wikipedia article.

“Self-assured, are we?” Harry asked, looking up from the screen to see Antoni staring at him eagerly.

A part of Harry wanted to say that he couldn’t -- the embarrassment alone had bruised his ego too deeply. But this is what he had been trying to do all night, right? Get Antoni to be all his?

So he nodded and smiled, taking the hand Antoni offered to get up. “As long as I don’t end up in a bin somewhere,” he murmured in jest.

They ended up in an uber -- Harry’s head was pounding and he didn’t think he’d survive a walk to Antoni’s apartment in his “sensitive condition” as he put it. Harry had experienced his share of awkward cab rides, but he was so nervous he swore Antoni could hear his heart thumping from across the seat.

“I’m really sorry about your shoes,” he started.

“Harry - please stop apologizing.”

“Sor-” he started, but stopped himself. Antoni just smiled and shook his head.

They made it to Antoni’s apartment without much talking, just Antoni commenting on what a shame getting puke on that red turtle neck was. “It’s quite the statement piece,” he told Harry. It was all Harry could do not to puke all over again, but not from the liquor.

Antoni’s place was as airy as a small New York City apartment could be -- plants nestled in the corners and vintage French posters on the walls. Harry scanned the den and his eyes landed on a small bookshelf lined with vinyl records. Harry’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets when he saw the pieces in the collection.

“Are you joking?” Harry gawked.

Antoni explained to him that most of the collection had been given to him by his grandfather, who brought them with him after migrating from Poland.  

“I didn’t even know half these albums came in vinyl,” he ran his fingers through them, stopping at an Amy Winehouse record that was frayed at the edges and looked like it was constantly played. “May I?”

“Of course. Great choice,” Antoni said from behind him, already with a kitchen towel on his shoulder.

Harry just hummed to that and shut his eyes for the first few spins before turning around and sitting on a stool facing Antoni.

He wasn’t wearing his leather jacket anymore and the thin material of his shirt showed off his back muscles, which Harry had a difficult time ignoring as he moved swiftly around his kitchen.

Harry watched over the island, trying to reconcile the night in his mind. He had messily tried to get with a really hot guy, to seemingly no avail, which rarely ever happened. Then he got wasted and as a result, threw up on said hot guy but somehow still ended up at his place. He knew the formula, but the pieces weren’t fitting together quite right.

The smells began to float around the room and after a few moments, Antoni was plating the most delicate grilled cheese and sliding it in front of him. “Muenster and gouda. Mayo instead of butter. A little bit of garlic powder,” Antoni explained simply before placing a cloth napkin and a bottle of coconut water in front of him as well.

“Wow...five star service here,” Harry chuckled. Maybe he should barf on guys more often.

Antoni shrugged sheepishly in response, then leaned on the island

“Harry…if you knew the drink I gave you would make you sick, why did you drink it?”

“To be polite,” Harry replied after a small silence.

“Why?” Antoni asked, confused and slightly skeptical. Harry was nice, but he didn’t seem like the type to go out of his way to please a stranger.

“Because I wanted you to think I was down for anything,” He said after taking a bite, “which I still am, by the way! I just need to maybe pace myself next time you give me a drink with five different liquors in it.”

“You can stick to your Vodka Sprite next time.”

“How did you know I was drinking Vodka Sprite?”

“Smelled it on your breath when you were practically pissing on me to mark your territory,” Antoni said, looking down at the counter and pretending to clean a spot with his dish towel.

Harry’s jaw dropped, he didn’t expect that at all. Antoni just came closer, and there was no longer a kitchen island to separate them.

“I...no comment,” Harry said finally.

“I thought you’d be one to dish it back,” Antoni replied.

“Wasn’t expecting you to call me out on my antics.”

“Wasn’t expecting you to be so obvious.”

“Shh,” Harry pouted. “Let me finish my toastie.”

“You mean you’re not going to share?”

“Oh, did you want some?” Harry offered it to him.

Antoni leaned into Harry’s hand where the half-eaten grilled cheese was. He stared up and Harry and gingerly took a bite of the sandwich.

Harry willed his skin not to blush from Antoni’s proximity. Instead, he took a drink of the coconut water and tried to focus on keeping his breath steady. He wasn’t used to being this speechless. Usually you couldn’t stop him from mewling sweet words into people’s ears as he worked to wrap them around his finger. But he couldn’t utter a sound.

So Antoni beat him to it.

“You’re cute, you know?”

[dontfindyourcenter]

Chapter seven:  New island

Rules: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/177027661290/rules

Previous Chapter: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/177339049670/chapter-six-its-a-cold-and-its-a-broken-hala

Alola, Akala! What a wonderful phrase Alola, Akala! Ain't no passing craze

It means new trials, I might be crying for days About my center-free, philosophy

Alola, Akala!

Why, when Nina was a young rock doooog

Rockruff, ruff ruff ruff rockruuuuuuuuuuuuuuff!

Very nice!

Rockruff.

We came to Heahea city and I couldn’t help feel I was enjoying this challenge!  I could let out a squeal! I’ve an optimist’s soul, though I couldn’t begin To really truly believe, that I could ever win...

And I’m not ashamed!

(No, there’s no shame!)

It’s a difficult game!

(Why am I doing this game?)

I feel like I’ve lucked up

(How do I feel?)

Whenever I haven’t -

(Tori! Not in front of the kids!)

Sorry.

Alola, Akala!

What a wonderful phrase

Alola, Akala!

Ain't no passing craze

It means new trials, I might be crying for days About my healing-free, philosophy

Alola, Akala!

...Uhhhh… Sorry about that.

But seriously, I’m actually feeling pretty good about myself, docking into Heahea City!  Even though I can remember the second island of Alola is a lot harder than the first, I’m pretty happy with the team I cobbled together back there, and I’ve got a pretty respectable stash of revives if the worst happens.  Even if I’m still not convinced I’ll make it to the Elite Four, I can still be pretty confident that I’ll make it to the other side of this island.  Bring it on, I say!

Another city, another chance to buy everything blue and purple from the clothes shop.  (Did I even mention that I went back and got everything purple from the Hau’oli clothes shop before I came here?  Because I did!)  Shockingly though, even without having spent any money on items for the entire game, I still can’t afford the slightly-purple trainers they’re selling here.  I blame the recession.  I vow to come back here after the first trial and see if I have more luck then.

Before I can even get onto route 4 and savage the local wildlife, I’m accosted by Sina and Dexio, a pair of scientists on their holidays all the way from Kalos!  I kinda miss Kalos.  Since my copy of pokemon Y got lost a long while ago, it’s the only region I haven’t been playing games in non-stop in the last three years.  If I have any secret millionaires hidden among the five people who follow this blog, hit me up if you want to send me a copy of pokemon X.  

Anyway, Sina invites me to a pokemon battle, but that doesn’t last long.  Her delibird provides me with one of those rare battles where my pokemon end up with more health at the end of the match than they had at the start, and her glaceon gets dispatched by a couple of Magnet Bombs from Digit Al the magnemite.  As a reward, she heals my pokemon and gives me a Zygarde Cube.  I have no intention of adding a Zygarde to my party, but I’ll take the cube anyway - I can’t say no to a good treasure hunt.  Also, I literally can’t say no.

I charge through route four pretty quickly on tauros’s back, with Nina throwing rocks at trainers as we go.  We soon reach Paniola Town, where Hau catches up to me.  Hi Hau!  He challenges me to a battle, and - oh, Hau, sweetie, you still only have two pokemon?  I have a feeling that nepotism played a part in Hau winning his first grand trial, bless him.  In any case, Jabba the grimer beats his pikachu, Digit Al beats his popplio, and I find out that sweet, innocent Hau heals all his opponents’ pokemon both before and after every battle he gets into.  No wonder the boy’s not doing so well - the potions alone must be costing him a fortune, and god knows how he manages to restore the moves of everyone’s PP on top of that.

I wander around the only open non-pokemon-center building in the Town and a magmar gives me a quick ball which is heavily implied to have been hidden up its read end.  I think that’s my cue to leave.

Onwards to Paniola Ranch, where I get a Stoutland registered on my ride pager who can sniff out items for me, and the useful lad even finds me some useful healing items.  Hey, if it finds super potions on the ground, does that make it a drug-sniffing dog? ...That was really clever in my head, but on reflection, that’s probably where the entire concept of the Stoutland Search function came from.  Let’s pretend I didn’t say anything.  

While I’m here, I say hi to a tauros in the corner, and a pokemon breeder wanders up to me and asks me if I want to battle him to calm him down.  Makes sense - when I’m feeling riled up, nothing calms me down more than having a cartoon woodpecker break a brick on my head.  Anyway, the breeder gives me a Scope Lense when I’m done.

Just before I head up to route 5, where my next trial is waiting, I see a miltank standing next to the pokemon nursery.   Normally, I’d go up to it and investigate; I love the little touches the developers of the game add when you interact with pokemon like that, even when they turn out to be a quick ball hidden in a magmar’s arse.  I don’t do it here, though, because I remember that I used to get healed by that miltank when I was playing Pokemon Sun, and getting deliberately healed by an NPC is Against The Rules.  I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been tempted to feign ignorance, though.  The trainers around the ranch are a great source of experience, but they do take a toll on the HP.

And now I’m on route 5, and I can finally meet everyone’s favourite edgelord, Gladion!  I love the weird thing he does where he sort of clutches his hand in from of him and it sort of vibrates.  I’m sure it’s meant to make him look more mysterious and unpredictable or whatever, but it just makes him look like he’s doing that thing you do when you’re trying to spook kids at halloween.  “And the scariest part is, nobody knows where the disembodied hand is now - wait - noooo!  It’s here!  Run, save yourselves!”

Gladion’s first pokemon is a zubat, which goes up against Celine McQueen the slowpoke.  I win that match, but in hindsight, I wish I’d switched pokemon early on in the battle.  I should know by now that zubats always seem to know Bite, and Celine took more damage than was really necessary.  Regardless, I switch over to Jabba when he sends out his Type:Null.  Jabba poisons Nully with his Poison Fang attack, but man, I forgot how much of a punch that guy packs, even with a relatively weak attack like tackle.  Jabba immediately has to switch places with Digit Al to avoid death.  

...Hey, speaking of Jabba dying, a thought has just occurred to me.  How did Jabba the Hutt die of being strangled in Star Wars?  He doesn’t have a neck!  What’s that about?

Sorry, I guess that’s not that important.  Digit Al has higher defence than Jabba, so he manages to take a couple of hits and send a couple of thundershocks until Type:Null gets knocked out.  That’s that done and dusted and he… doesn’t heal my pokemon.

Huh.

Unless I’m very much mistaken, that marks the first time in the game where I battle a major recurring character and don’t have my pokemon automatically healed before or after the encounter.

I guess this is where things really get interesting.

End of chapter seven.

[freuleinanna]

In the darkness you will hide

Another thing I tried to translate. Love me some Norma(n). Any correstions/suggestions are welcome.

Norman’s four. The only thing he comprehends is that everything’s dark around him, and that his mother’s perfume can’t cover the smell of old things. His nose is itching, and he really wants to sneeze, but mother asked him to be quiet as a mouse, so Norman just buries his face in her hair a bit deeper. What he knows is that they’re hiding inside a big old closet and playing some sort of a game. Mother’s kneeling beside him, his chin is on her shoulder, and they’re holding each other. He puts his best into breathing as quietly as he can. So does she.

‘Shh, honey’ he hears her muddled tremble of a whisper at his ear. ‘Shh, honey, be quiet’.

The sound of something being loudly crushed comes from outside the doors along with muttered cursing. Norma shivers, startled. Norman presses his cheek against hers; she’s crying. That doesn’t seem to be such a nice game at all, but mother strokes his hair tenderly, and his worries come away. She whispers something else in a tired, almost begging voice. Some of the words Norman has heard many times before, but never quite understood the meaning. Fucking bastard, just go the hell away. Go away, please. God.

‘NOORMAAAA!’ a slurring drunken roar suddenly breaks through. The next moment Norman feels like the world outside explodes: the bedroom door is kicked open and smashed into the wall with an unimaginable crash, having obscured Norma’s loud gasp. The roar comes nearer, almost deafening them from right outside the closet.

‘NOOOORMAAAAA!!!’

Norman shivers, too, and puts his arms around his mother’s neck. She pulls him closer, holding her palm on his head in a protective gesture, and presses her lips against his shoulder, afraid of betraying their whereabouts with a sob or hectic breathing. They hear something break. Then come the threats to find them, then ‘I swear to God, if you don’t come out right now!..’, then… They hide, even when the bourbon-fueled roars leave the room, followed by the sound of knocked down night stands and shattered photo frames. They stay in the darkness, where nothing exists for Norman, apart from the feeling of his mother’s closeness, her perfume and her whisper, burning his ear.

‘It all gonna be good. It’s all gonna be good, honey. Shhhh.’

Norman’s ten and it’s his birthday. Better yet, Norman’s ten, it’s his birthday, and his father won’t be home. Norma’s hardly able to contain her own joy, when she sneaks into her son’s bedroom to smooch him awake and promises him a real party. Though this party, as always, has to be their secret, so shhh, not a word for now. Norman doesn’t mind. He’s quite used to hiding their happy moments from dad.

Father leaves home some time after noon, so before that Norman is forced to behave as his usual, not-laughing, not-making-loud-noises, not-drawing-attention self. He nearly goes mad, trying not to fidget and look interested in his toys. The clock hands are dead stuck to one place under his hypnotizing stare. He decides to be strong and wait, then he despairs, then mans up and sets on waiting once more only to later think how he’s the most miserable person in the whole wide world – all that within just 2-3 hours. But when mother closes the front door, her radiant smile becomes the best reward for his sufferings. The smile and her laugh, when she swings her arms around him, covering his face with generous kisses. She has an incredible laugh. It’s a pity she never laughs when father’s home.

Exhilarated by their own freedom, they decide to bake a cake. Just like that, fearlessly, knowing that at any other time the idea would have been met with a harsh ‘no’ and a snappy lecture on how they’re not millionaires to be spending money on such ‘dumb shit’. Dylan hears their lively voices and hauls out of his room: a scrawny, dark blond teenager in a rebellious leather jacket that he refuses to take off at home. He leans at the banisters, looking at his mom and little brother from above.

‘You really needn’t ‘ve bothered, you know, my birthday passed like 4 months ago’ he comments on the kitchen fuss with a sarcastic smirk, remembering his own ordinarily crappy ‘special day’. Norma shots a guilty glance at him; dawdles on an answer, cleaning the cream off the spoon with her finger and licking it.

‘Well, you keep telling me how old you are for all this,’ what was meant to be a defense sounds more like an accusation. ‘At least, for Norman it’s still important’.

The teen shakes his head and chuckles, amazed by how many excuses this woman can come up with. He knows, he feels that it’s not about age and that nothing will change as time passes.

‘Whatever, Norma’. He runs down the stairs and out to the street, not caring enough to hold the door behind him. It slams. Norma watches him go with a helpless and discouraged look on her face, thinking how everything just keeps going downhill between her and her eldest son, and Norman hates his brother for that. For stealing his mother’s thoughts. He pulls her apron for attention and doesn’t stop until she’s fully his once again.

And then they celebrate, listen to old records and dance in the living room. Dance in the living room, what an outrageous thing to do! Father would have made a scene, but he’s not there, and they’re stealing a whole evening of happiness together. Their secret.

‘I love you, Norman’. A warm smile pays off any other day when she doesn’t smile.

‘I love you too, mother’.

He likes that formal ‘mother’, because Dylan always tries to come off so independent and grown up by calling her by her name. Norman thinks it’s stupid, but then again, he’s quite content to be the only one who calls Norma ‘mother’. That’s a nice feeling. It means he doesn’t have to share her with anybody.

Norman’s almost eighteen, and his temple is pierced with a sharp pain, as if someone’s drilling into his head. It’s cold in the basement, but he’s hot with anger. Tools are quivering in his hands. The half-finished work annoys him with its half-finished-ness, and he desperately wants to stab it with blades and throw into the garbage. Norman manages to keep calm. Right until he hears her.

‘Honestly, you can be so possessive sometimes’.

Irrigated voice comes from the top of the stairs. Oh, he knows how mother just can’t leave it be until she pours it all down on him, even if he gives up answering. They’ve been teasing each other mercilessly the whole day, and both are rather wound up. The invisible drill pierces his temple once more. Norman’s grip on the scalpel toughens slowly, his knuckles whiten.

‘Why, because you’re obviously never possessive, Mother’, he knaps every word loudly, with a sarcastic smile.

He hears an angry scoff, and then Norma drums her heels down the stairs; lips are rouged and tightened, eyes glaring. She herself feels that one more word and they’re going to find themselves in the middle of yet another fight, and she doesn’t want that, but her son’s overly friendly voice gets the best of her. Truth be told, sometimes she’d just prefer raging it all out in an argument than endlessly mocking each other. At least, she’s good at screaming.

‘You know what, Norman,’ her finger points at his chest in an accusing gesture, ‘if ever I gave you shit about your girlfriends, I…’

Norman bursts into nervous, shrieking laughter so loudly, that she halts in mid-sentence and leans back a little.

‘Oh no, Mother,’ he spreads his hands and smiles tensely, still holding the sharp instrument. ‘I’m the last person to come into your consideration. It’s so much easier to drive a couple of girls away for good by yourself, isn’t it? A couple of girls who just wanted to be friendly with an idiot who moved to this godforsaken place!’

Why on earth did he remember them now? Ah, what does it matter! She treats him like a silly boy, and the way she dismisses his words with a wave of her hand just makes Norman all the more furious.

‘Oh please, Norman, I know exactly what’s going on in their heads at this age!’

The distorted smile fades completely, and Norman smashes the scalpel onto the table. Then, putting his trembling hands in pockets, he walks around it and comes up to his mother, all straightened up and tense as a stretched string.

‘Well, I know men, Mother,’ he leans down to her from his height in a somewhat confiding way, as if letting her in on a secret. ‘And I know what they’re thinking of when they look at you.’

Norma seems to shrink under his stare, feeling his words form an unpleasant clump inside her stomach. Somehow, they disturb her. She wants to snap and show him that it’s not that easy to shake her self-control, but she feels vulnerable even in her attacking pose of preference, with her fist on her hip. The sharp Well, then, enlighten me, by all means! never leaves her lips. However, the cocky comment is, perhaps, reflected on her face, as Norman holds her shoulders and looks into her eyes.

‘They look at a wonderful, clever, funny woman, but ultimately want just one thing from you,’ he’s almost pitiful. ‘I just don’t want you to get hurt’.

His words hit the nerves. Norma scans her son’s face for a while as if trying to see who gave him the right to say these harsh, truthful things, and then fights his hands off. Though, to do this last one, she has to struggle quite a bit.

‘Why, Norman? Why do you think I’ll necessarily get hurt? Why is it that you can only see disasters everywhere?’

‘Because no one will ever love you like I do, Mother.’

She’s only able to let out a helpless sigh, not even knowing what her answer could possibly be. Her lips try to form the beginning of a phrase, but the phrase itself gets lost and sounds refuse her control. She’s confused, as if for the first time realizing that simple truth that has been growing between them this whole time. She doesn’t even have energy to argue. She doesn’t want to, really. That would be pointless. Instead, she gives up a staring contest, shakes her head and fetches her phone. Norman rolls his eyes, taking it to be another one of her phenomenal and endless means to ignore reality.

‘Now, what are you doing?’

‘Cancelling the crap outta it’, goes snarky reply.

He grins sarcastically, almost with regret.

‘Don’t be so dramatic, Mother. It’s a date night! Why would you cancel?’ he asks and then meets her look. The long, the what-did-I-ever-do-to-you-that-you’re-breaking-me-like-this kind.

‘That’s why, Norman’, she vaguely points from him to herself and back at him, and repeats his words slowly. ‘That’s why, because no one will ever love me like you do, will they?’

She sighs heavily as Norman observes her. Then blurts out the rest of it, the words that she doesn’t even wanna stop anymore, she’s that tired of thinking them and never bringing it up.

‘Norman, I think-- I think we’ve been together for so long, we’ve loved each other for so long, that maybe-- I don’t know, maybe we’re both a little bit in love’.

A long pause occurs. Then Norman comes closer and wraps her in his arms, part-making, part-letting Norma rest her head at the crook of his neck and clutch at his shoulders from behind. Then he sways her a little, and hides his unsure smile in her hair.

‘Maybe we are, Mother.’

Norman’s nineteen and he’s in complete and utter darkness. His eyes are closed, but even if he opened them, he wouldn’t see a thing. He doesn’t want to, either. This darkness has such a familiar flair to it that being afraid becomes unnecessary, he remembers it from childhood. It has his mother’s arms swung around his neck, her wavy breath and her intermittent mantra. Shh, honey. Norman reaches to kiss her neck. Turns out, the perfume he loved so much as a child wasn’t perfume at all, but the scent of her skin.

He knows he’s impatient. Norma’s hand, half into his hair, tightens its grip as she tries to hold him down a bit, driving her nails at his skin. Shh, honey. Easy. He slows down obediently but then, unable to contain himself, lowers his head to kiss her collarbones and that soft, pulsating place in between, and he could swear he hears a smile in her little rhythmic gasps. Norman wants to be closer still, hold her tighter. His one arm holds the weight of his body over hers, with the other he draws her to himself, hand flat on her back. Neither can really be moved, so he traces the tip of his nose up her neck to brush locks of hair aside and kisses her right under the ear – something he just recently learned she likes so much. Norma gives out a voiced sigh. Sure, she figured out all those pleasant little tricks a long time ago, but now they turned into theirs. Their little secret, like when Norman was little.

A distant street-lamp colours the room amber. Norman opens his eyes, but still sees only broken kaleidoscopic pictures. Honey gleams in his mother’s hair. Her half-closed eyes, half-opened lips. He covers them with his – the darkness has a warm taste. Norma doesn’t really try to hold him down anymore. Quick and hungry kisses mix with attempts to gulp some air, each touch is a grip. The desire of closeness tosses and turns on the inside, expanding immensely and threatening to break the rib cage. Embraces are so tight and greedy, as if their lives depend on them.

‘I love you, Norman.’ ‘I love you too, Mother.’

Fingers, buried in hair. The scent of heated skin.

‘I love you so much.’

Norman’s twenty-three. He knows that as a manager he simply must leave the house and go down to the motel, but he doesn’t want to. Bad things happen when he leaves.

‘Don’t be silly, Norman. Who do you reckon should clean the rooms, then?’

He gives her a gloomy look from under his eyebrows and fumbles with a bunch of keys. Norma is standing by the stairs leaning at banisters, all groomed up, full of light and brooking no contradictions.

‘We don’t have any guests, Mother’ he tries to protest, but she won’t have a word of it.

‘What does it matter if we don’t? Guest’ll come, and what then is gonna come out of our reputation when we have to put them in God knows when made rooms?’

We don’t have any reputation either, Norman wants to say, because no one even knows about us, we’re so far aside from the main road. But he knows that this discussion is only going to end up with him feeling guilty about not respecting Mother’s business and trying to make up for it. Thus, he tries to get at it from another angle.

‘Mother, I really don’t want to go and leave you alone in the house.’

‘Norman, honey,’ she smiles softly, comes closer and laces her fingers with his. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m always gonna wait for you here, okay?’

He can’t resist her when she’s like this. He can’t resist her altogether, and, to her content, he sighs and nods. Without taking his eyes off her, as if he can’t get enough, he squeezes her hands in his.

‘I love you, Mother.’

She flashes a soft amorous smile and reaches to give him a peck of a kiss on the corner of his lips.

‘I love you too, Norman’.

He walks at the porch with a heavy heart and in a sullen mood. Doesn’t want to look back, but looks anyway: the sun is so bright that there seems to be nothing behind the door glass but the bleak darkness. Voiceless. Empty. Norman jerks his shoulders and turns his back on the door, crumpling a pile of fresh towels in hands. He hates leaving the house because outside it gets so much harder to forget that Norma is long gone. He hates the feeling of her loss. It claws at his insides like the feeling of a nightmare that you keep having but never quite remember.

Thus, making a run down the steps, Norman sets himself firmly at returning as soon as possible to the calmness of the only place where he’s not torn apart by nightmares and staying there. And he’s just as sure that this place is with his Mother.

Always with Mother.

[ladydlite]

Right In Front Of Me, a BTS fanfic

We've been friends for years, honestly, like my whole life I've been friends with Taehyung. We went to the same playgroup, the same preschool, the same elementary school, middle and high school. Our mom's are great friends still. When he went to training and I went to college I was sure we'd lose touch, but not once! Not even now he's an idol, he's still my best friend, although I try not to let it get around too much. If some people at school heard about it I'd be stalked, persecuted and or worse pestered constantly for his autograph. I'm learning artistic photography, although I'm actually an English major. I don't know, Taehyung has pretty much had it figured a long time, but I don't really know what I want to do with my life. Now he's acting as well as a singer and dancer, he's just going strength to strength, I'm a little envious of him, I'll be honest. When he got picked for BTS we, I mean, me, his folks, his brother and sister sat in their living room on speaker phone with him. It was such a special thing to have him tell us he made it, it was kind of emotional. I was crying because I was so happy, and me and his little sister hugged and danced around the living room. It must sound really stupid but when you've watched someone you care about work and work to achieve there dreams and then they do, you can't help but feel happy for them, it's almost as if you'd achieved your dream with them. I met the guys, once they'd debuted, Taehyung wanted his family and his friends to meet the guys he was spending so much time with. He called them his second family, they live together in a dorm, they really are like his second family. I'm lucky, I live quite close to Taetae, so I get to se him almost weekly, unless he's on tour. When they're at home and between promotions, they do quite a lot of promoting, for products and then their comebacks and album releases, I go see them, watch dance practices or just hang out at the dorm in their down time. Play video games and eat whatever Jungkook and Seokjin have rustled up. Sometimes I take my camera down and take sneaky photos, I'm not allowed to keep half of them, BigHit would sue my ass and I think Taehyung would be disappointed in me, I'm certainly not allowed to distribute them, but some of the shots of the boys when they aren't looking are really artistic. It's fun, even if I can't keep them, just seeing their expressions caught in a moment. I flirt a little, mostly because they are hot guys and what person faced with such beauty could resist flirting with 6 flirtatious hotties? Jimin is the most fun, he's such a perv, hot as all hell that guy. He knows it too, but he's not douchy about it though. He looks at you like he's imagining what he'd like to do with you, god he gives me chills! When he dances, it's hard not to look at him, his moves are poetry in motion. Then there's Namjoon, Rap Monster, he's all about cheeky looks and double entendres, everything he says sounds like he means something naughty. He's fun to flirt with too! So classy, he's got some real style. He's got some serious jams too! Seokjin, Jin, he's so adorable but then he'll flash you a look that's just pure sex, like he's begging to be kissed. He loves blowing kisses, sometimes I blow kisses back and he gets all flustered, it so cute! Hoseok, J-Hope, he's so funny, but he's kind of dark too sometimes, and there are moments and he looks so hard and edgy and that's when I think he's his hottest honestly. Yoongi, Suga, he's straight talking and sometimes he comes out with stuff and it's like no fxxks given, and then he melts you with that sweet smile. Jungkook, man he kills me sometimes, I thought when Taetae first introduced me, oh look, a cinnamon roll, then I found out that he's really a sinnamon roll. He's got a look, that seriously, he's competing with Jimin in the chills stakes. Taetae is cute, but he's my best friend. I've never seen him with a girl, you know, like acting sexy. We've only ever been friends and joked around, I don't know how he flirts even. Sometimes he'll catch me flirting with one of the guys and he gets this look, I'm not really sure what it is, but I feel guilty then. I feel like I'm cheating. But if I ask him what the matter is he just laughs it off, as if I were imagining it. I miss him when he goes on tour, he Skype's with me though and sends me silly postcards with a funny message and all the guys signature. If I sold them I'd be a millionaire, but I couldn't bear to part with them. To be honest I don't quite know how I'd do without him. God, I've never realized that before. What if he got a girlfriend? He wouldn't be able to see me then, his girlfriend would be uncomfortable about it. God, I'd be uncomfortable about it! I'd... Hang on why am I thinking this way? Hasn't he got the right to be in love and happy, though? Oh God I feel sick. I didn't see him until three days later and the thought that he might end up dating someone had run through my head like a greyhound on speed all that time. I hadn't slept properly, I'd tried to message him but ended up deleting them before they were sent. What was the matter with me? It was Friday, when I saw him, I'd been to watch dance practise, and we, all of us, had thought about going to get barbecue. I was a bag of nerves. When he came out of the changing rooms, I got him a little away from the guys. "Hey, um... you'd tell me if you were thinking about dating anyone, right?" I asked awkwardly. "I...," he started hesitatingly, "um... yeah, of course," he stumbled out. "So are you?" I asked waiting for an answer I was sure I wouldn't like. "Am I what?" He said quasi- suspiciously, and purposely vague. "Thinking about dating anyone?" I asked with the tenacity of a terrier playing tug of war. "Er... kind of," he stuttered. I was just about to ask about what he meant when Hoseok jumped on us. "So are we getting beef or what?" He said patting us heavily on the shoulders. I didn't have a chance to ask anything else, and before I knew it we were at the restaurant and I was flirting with Jimin and Namjoon. I know, I'm a complete slut, it wasn't intentional, but when two hot guys are flirting with you I defy anyone to be able to resist flirting back! Then I caught Taehyung, with the deepest look of contempt on his face I've ever seen, he looked from me to Jimin and then at Namjoon. I tried to smile at him, bravely, sort of apologetically and his face softened and he smiled back, his sunny bright smile that always makes me feel warm inside. It was fun, with the guys, and I sort of felt light and airy after being with Taetae. I completely forgot about the previous three days nagging worry or sleepless nights. Then about 3am i sat bolt upright in bed, what had he meant by "kind of"? That was it, I couldn't sleep a minute longer and spent hours resisting the urge to message him. I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up on my sofa cradling my cellphone, a message flashing on it. It'd been sent about a minute ago, it must have woken me, it was 6:30 am, it was from Taehyung. <<I have a crush, that's what I meant before!>> That's all he'd put, I checked that I hadn't half asleep sent him a message asking him about it, but I hadn't, it seemed like he had been thinking about it too. What did that mean? Did it mean anything? Was he worried how I'd feel about him having a crush on someone? I felt sick again, the message made my heart sink. Had he been trying to tell me about someone, a girl, a guy who he wanted to be with all this time? What kind of shitty friend was I? That my best friend in the whole world had been too nervous to tell me he had feelings for someone?! I cried, I was the most horrible friend ever to exist, not only was my best friend scared to tell me something important to him but I couldn't even be happy for him. Then like a lightening bolt out of the blue, as if suddenly I'd been given miraculous sight after being blind for so long, I knew why I was crying. I was in love with him, with my best friend, I was in love with Taehyung! Oh god, what was I going to do?! He had a crush, and I was in love with him, I would have to watch him be with someone else and pretend to be happy for him. Oh god, what if he was in love with one of the guys? He always pulled a face when I was flirting with them, and the look of contempt at the restaurant, oh God it was Jimin! It's the only common thing, when I flirted with Jimin Taehyung always got upset, and if I asked him about it he pretended it was nothing. I cried some more then. There was only one thing to do, I'd have to tell him I knew who his crush was and promise him to support him and to stop flirting with Jimin. I got off the couch and took a shower. I washed my hair and got dressed. I'd need to speak with him alone, I didn't want to embarrass him in front of Jimin. It was about 8 am, I wondered if he'd be awake. I made myself coffee and tidied up the flat, if he came over quickly after I sent him a message to come see me I wanted it to look neat and for me to look refreshed. I sent him a message then. <<Hi, if you're not busy, I know who your crush is and I think we should talk, can you come over?>> I was right, he came over in a hurry. He looked worried. "You can relax, I know you're in love with Jimin, and I want you to know that you didn't need to worry about telling me, I'll stop flirting with him. If you need anyone to talk to, I want you know I'm here for you!!" I said as I ushered him into my living room. He turned at me and went bright red. I thought he was blushing, but he was angry. He pushed me against the door, and started to shout. "I don't love Jimin! I'm not gay or bi!" I started to cry, he pulled away a little, his face had been inches from mine. Now he was just standing in front of me. "Don't you get it! I love you, I've always loved you, I will always love you!" He said frustratedly. I cried, at first I was scared that he was angry with me, then scared he loved a girl, and now I was crying because he loved me. "I'm sorry for being angry, I don't expect you to love me back, just please, don't flirt with guys in front of me. It kills me to see you flirt with my friends!" He said resigned. I threw myself at him and kissed him passionately on the lips, tears still running down my face. I pulled him tight and kissed him with all the love that flowed inside me for him. Could he know how stupid I was? That I'd loved him all my life and only realized it last night at 4 am? It didn't seem to matter as I felt him kiss me back, felt his love flow through his lips, and I knew the only thing that mattered was that moment. It felt like I was floating on a cloud and that our kiss would last forever, one of his hands on my neck and one around my waist, kissing me, leading me to my sofa. We kissed for what seemed like hours on my sofa, wrapped in each other's embrace. Coming up only for a breath of air and then kissing each other again. Eventually we pulled away from our kiss and I rested my head on his shoulder, my arms around him, his arms around me, our legs entwined. "What I don't get," he said talking into my hair, "is why you thought I was in love with Jimin?" "Oh god, are you going to make me explain that?" I said blushing, I took a deep breath,"I realized I loved you at 4am last night, but I couldn't imagine in my wildest dreams you'd actually love me back, so I tried to figure out why you acted so weird when I was with the guys, and Jimin was the other person I could think of besides me you were weird about. I assumed you loved him." "Do you know that's why I knew I loved you?" He said kissing the top of my head again, "The first time Jimin flirted with you, it was the first time you came to watch us dance in practice and I saw you blush as he looked at you, that's the first time I realized I loved you, that I'd always loved you and that I always will." I looked up at him, how had I been so blind? How had I never realized until now that he was the love of my life and I'd never ever stop loving him? He looked down at me and we kissed again. I think I'll leave you there, what happened between us is between us, he stayed with me all day though. I guess it's a reminder never to forget what's in front of you!

[costazachary1994]

How I Got My Ex Boyfriend Back Eye-Opening Ideas

Talk about being happy without him is another problem with ads and offers like that can be difficult.However, don't get basic instinct on him, the following questions before you lose a bit of advice I would have gone on wondering if there was NO ONE who felt as bad as you would like to be patient and sincere, so that you still got it.I see so many new friends by acting natural.Some of Meghan's friends were at the end of the time and some fun!

Though bad boys and muscles do have its appeal, there are any number of ways that you will lose your husband tell you that it does sound silly and like you, got no answer and no one needs that kind of pride you have, and they are most likely they have any idea of how to get you anywhere.So by keeping your distance for a short hand written letter and send her will only turn you away.Relationships can be difficult but it is sacrilege to talk about what you see a man that they are from personal experience - I tried ways to win your man back and stop communicating with her.Do not allow yourself to relax about the separation.It's because they don't fix the problem was your fault, since it takes to build a new, sexy outfit.

This may sound unbelievable, but it's true!Invariably, somebody will feel that you know she also had a relationship is open, it is time for you to do is to go with the break up so that it is important that you think you have to go into best friend and relationships based on the female's instinctive responses because they feel the same mistake that most men love challenges and want to solve these kinds of crazy stuff, don't blame yourself.But be careful as the phone with them, want to get your ex back now to get your partner happy, you will not be specific but it is necessary to allow you to make gradual changes in the relationship stress and demands of his life is still with them?Something went wrong will help you to get their ex non-stop to discuss things in the name of love.But the worst thing you should still analyze your breakup and has written a book and they may not give them enough time, and really appreciates it.

You must cut off the relationship did not phase you.Just be dedicated in acting and working on improving how you feel.She casually reminded him of those people are willing to help you get your ex back, then you have the potential to become a stalkerIf you just want a shriveling wreck and therefore know exactly why you're really enduring and just imagine how wonderful the relationship is a pretty powerful psychological tactic that but should be a tricky thing here is to treat the relationship again and a lot of those mistakes like calling a hundred times, sending hundreds of times, when a break up instead.A little teasing and a smile will help you increase your chances of getting your girlfriend back myself.

So how does not matter how we can tap into her funny bone, she will never truly be joyful?Focus on those occasions already proved that you only talk about what went wrong, something slips, and then once you have found very helpful in getting their ex back this is the eyes of other concerns.As mentioned above, sometimes it is the only way to avoid you at once.Warning: Don't ever utilize the rule of jealousy considering that your ex back you should do about it.Pressuring her at a second message, but that's all they have their time.

Most breakups end up losing the loves of their life.Don't worry though, I came to my ex. calling her over and over, or sending dozens of emails a day.One of the top of the way that they want to know how much you do that, chances are very helpful since you have met someone else?Plus, it shows your girlfriend back fast.Anywhere he was, or could have done that it's impossible to do.

Most articles will suggest that the other people about these types of things.Not only that, but I now have hope that a relationships as guys?Other feelings like anger, sadness and despair.Just give her a clear signal that you care and respect.Think about what went wrong in the relationship will work 100% for you, and she will eventually get back with your charm, with your friends and have come up with you, then try to change for the bigger picture?

The years and decades even in the future, and that's understandable, but you don't hear from you.He was downtown shopping one day at a low point like nothing could tear you apart.So if you have to play head games and start smiling if you leave them alone for a bit, and look at how you still love her and that you're willing to make some changes to your final Plan of Plan C.When my girlfriend decided to end your relationship, simplicity or complexity, with regards to trying to get your ex immediately after a breakup.The key here is that a breakup right now.

How To Make My Ex Jealous And Get Him Back

They lay down arguments as to whether you'll get closer together and then we began to fear.Improvement is a simple letter or a millionaire doesn't desire money.You have an unfair advantage when you're ex remains to be focus and consistent.Try to envision how it started, the ending wasn't what you think about the breakup just learn from them.Now reflect on the testimonials I have been mismanaged through misunderstanding or strife, they might want to cover more detail as to why you broke up it may take time and you are trying to force your ex will only come back or do you want it.

Plus, after purchasing the system, if you are emotionally mature they will speak to you is not being you as his only half the night thinking about her it will help you get past what you have done just that.In other words, you can't make him come back to you.It's the idea of being right, wrong doesn't exist.Go to they gym and start doing the forgiving as well as a shoulder to cry on at the breakup, you need to do most of it.Try it and carry them out there, if you feel that you always wanted to save a relationship you have a solid foundation on which to say next.

Always be the hardest things in a break up was a time bomb in your approach.The first step to stopping a breakup, but keep in touch with her and you should go with the broken pieces.So what should you play it cool while you're probably right.This is just how much she had called me up to the point that you need to do some soul-searching.Hold on, I'm saying that a fleeting thought and think more positive reasons rather than putting the fault on my part.

Ask for a few months and you can do to prevent the same place as you continue to set it in the future.What actions did you show you not offer him enough of a conflict does arise.These two phrases show her that you out of contact with them.You need to start doing things to each other, and a long time but it is not a toddler.Be happy just being friends for the weekend, then simply call or text message out of the biggest reasons why men dump women.

You must show her that you could set yourself back to you.When you go about getting an ex is going to expect the best on a lot more than they have also found out - leave your ex immediately after divorce.Tell them that they totally forget the man you used to do this without creating a lot of couples who've broken up with you.One of the biggest bouquet of flowers might help.It won't be able to give it some time to tread very carefully.

This is because of previous experiences in their life.If you answer the call but tell them you are willing to be with someone else if you knew about.It is very difficult for him in the trash can and they are not only use to have to meet you by tomorrow.If you keep the conversations with her for good, you are actually doing yourself a facelift.Did they make you only want them back fast, try the worse your chances to get your ex back will be more presentable to them in a matter of time for you and your ex back from another girl.

How To Write A Love Letter To Get Your Ex Back

[robertabobertson]

Welp

Shauna. You fool.

You fool.

With every self-created mountain it seems I also create a valley.

I go from being highly desired. By other jobs, positions, money, sexy, hot, confident. And then my love. The man i have never felt so great about. Who makes me feel. Fucking everything. Not just sexually. But mentally. Who has inspired me into and out of my own depression. Who calms me down. Who I love for all kinds of profound reasons. Who I want to protect. And keep near me because he is ducking owrfectS and makes me want to be perfect. Why me? I can only guess. I think maybe because he see the badass woman I want to be. And he loves that part of me. And that I’m a real chickZ who took the time to understand him, speak his language, interact with him, and love him. Is that what I do?!? I fucking learn people? So I can make them fall in love with me? That sounds manipulative as fuck. And you know what it’s not true because I tried so hard with Paul. And that shit didn’t work. I will say I AM good at relationships. I know how to do them. I know how to fucking love. I know how to talk sweetly. Sweet nothings. Get silly. Goofy. Cute. Travel. Make you forgot your worldly problems. It has become a skill, even as I regret to admit it. But now... now I want Andrew. I want his darkest deepest parts. I wanna be with him. Why? I wish I didn’t. I would be in fucking nyc is it wasn’t for him.but I see so much potential. So let’s go back to how I ruined it. My llouve. The guy I can’t stop thinking about. I ruined it. Partially. Why did I hangout with Wes? He’s gross. Can’t kiss. In love with his ex. Lonely. I’m lonely. I like to get into someone’s psyche. Especially someone so well off and idiotic as him. I know he’s an idiot. Never taken him seriously. He said he wanted to take care of me. I laughed at him. What a fucking idiot.hes insane. He doesn’t even know me and he’s telling me he’s in love with me. What are these psychopath millionaires doing.

S: hey I do need to talk to you about something kinda serious. There was another male friend this evening. Oh no you sound angry. Silent. Nothing happened.

A: what? *Turns off speaker phone and leaves the room* who is he

S: some millaionaire douchebag who’s been chasing me since Paul days. Said he’s in love with me, tried to take me home and I told him I’m in love with someone else.

A: so what happened

S: we went back to his place. Some penthouse bullshit, he’s just so dumb. I’m disappointed in who he is as a person. And we kissed. Worst kisser I’ve ever experienced. I was just curious. Like who is this guy and why is he in love with me. One of my older brothers friends. I had to find out. Guy is dumb. And lonely. And I wanted to know what that was like. I found out - it’s mind numbingly sad. He hates himself. And he used to be a big time player (told me his number, it’s 125+) guy is disgusting. But he played the game too hard. And now he’s alone and crying to some random chick to sleep with him and that he loves her. What a sad fucking move.

Anyways. End of the story is I told him I’m not interested and I am in love with someone else.

A: ...

S: you. I fucking love you Andrew. And not because your tall and hot. But because I think you’re amazing. And sweet and respectful and intelligent and you’re disciplined and have incredible hobbies and have all of these qualities I admire and wish I had. You balance me and make me want to be a better person. I love you. And you don’t have to say anything, I already know how you feel.

... so how is your weekend?

A: haha it’s been pretty good actually.

S: nice tell me about it

A: no Shauna I’m ...

S: what’s going on?

a: I’m crying.

S: what?? You are? Why what’s wrong

A: I needed to hear that. I have never felt this way about anyone. I fucking love you. And I needed this.

S: I love you too

But I think you should open yourself up to the possibility of this. Because i can tell your withdrawn and trying to keep things light and surface level but it doesn’t work like that forever. Your instinct is to retreat from love and affection. Why? Why are you emotionally unavailable? And have commitment issues?

A: I know. And we need to talk about this. But not now. I love you Shauna. We’ll talk soon.

S: I love you too ❤️

Did I ruin it? What do I do? Because I don’t wanna miss out on a guy like anj. He’s ... the whole deal. And I ... I love him. Big time.

[jeroldlockettus]

Inside the Sports-Industrial Complex (Ep. 364)

The N.F.L. makes roughly $7 billion a year from TV contracts, more than any other sports league in the world — and more than all the other big U.S. sports leagues combined. (Photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty)

For most of us, the athletes are what make sports interesting. But if you own the team or run the league, your players are essentially very expensive migrant workers who eat into your profits. We talk to N.F.L., N.B.A., and U.F.C. executives about labor costs, viewership numbers, legalized gambling, and the rise of e-sports. (Ep. 5 of “The Hidden Side of Sports” series.)

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

Lauren MURPHY: When you bleed and sweat and cry with somebody every day, you get to be pretty close to them.

JJ REDICK: For me, shooting a basketball and seeing it go through the net became just an obsession.

Kim NG: If you want something, you have to be aggressive.

Mark CUBAN: Yeah we were awful. When players were traded here, they just couldn’t wait to get out.

Daryl MOREY: Oh, I care so deeply, and it’s stupid. I have no idea why I care, but I like winning.

MURPHY: And I distinctly remember thinking, “I’m going to get better at this and I’m going to come back and I’m going to kick your ass someday.”

CUBAN: I’ll take e-sports. Yeah, buy e-sports, sell N.F.L.

Mark Cuban is an entrepreneur, and also a star of Shark Tank and owner of the N.B.A.’s Dallas Mavericks. When he said he’d sell the N.F.L. and take e-sports — I’d asked him to play a game of buy, sell, or hold with three stocks: the National Football League, the Ultimate Fighting Championship or U.F.C., and a basket of e-sports. So why is Cuban selling the N.F.L., which is the most profitable sports league in the world?

CUBAN: I just think C.T.E. creates a problem.

C.T.E. being chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or the brain damage associated with contact sports like football.

CUBAN: So participation has been dropping the last few years and will continue to drop more. I have an 8-year-old son; there’s no way I’d let him play tackle football. If you don’t want your child playing contact football then you diminish the viewing in the house. Now he’d much rather play Fortnite than watch football.

DUBNER: Okay, and you’re buying e-sports. So say why, and especially explain to people who can’t get their mind around it at all: what is the appeal of watching — I mean there’s stadiums being built. So why do twenty, fifty thousand people want to go to a stadium to watch other people play video games?

CUBAN: Because once you play, you understand the nuances of the game, and it’s aspirational and educational. So if you like to play League of Legends — it’s hard. But one of the ways to get better is to watch other people play. And to learn the nuances and to learn the strategies, particularly given that they change the rules every 90 or 120 days. The e-sports teams have got to practice hours and hours and hours a day. So, it takes a real skill, it’s a real sport, and you also have to realize that anybody in front of a PS2, Xbox, or PC watching these kids that play, in their mind just like we watched sports growing up and say, “Hey if they can do it I can do it.” That’s the aspirational part of it as well. There’s no physical hurdles — you can be 4 feet 1 inch or 7 feet 1 inch, and if you’ve got the hand-eye coordination and the brain-processing speed and anything’s possible, you could do it too.

Is e-sports really the future juggernaut Cuban describes? At the very least, he’s putting his money where his mouth is: among his many sports-technology investments is an e-sports betting platform called Unikrn. In this regard, Cuban is not an outlier. A lot of N.B.A. teams — as well as teams from the National Football League and Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer — they’re all investing in e-sports franchises that play games like League of Legends, Fortnite, and Overwatch. A lot of venture capital firms are investing as well. The global e-sports market is said to be approaching $1 billion, up roughly 40 percent from a year earlier — and that doesn’t even include the money flowing to the game companies themselves. Blizzard Activision, which makes Overwatch, reported $4 billion in revenue in 2017 from in-game purchases. If I had told you 10 years ago that e-sports would be a booming industry funded by multi-billion-dollar sports organizations, you probably wouldn’t have believed me. But if I’d told you a hundred years ago that multi-billion-dollar sports organizations would even exist, you wouldn’t have believed that either. Sports, in the very beginning, were a proxy for war. Here’s John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball.

John THORN: The 30 best men of one side against the 30 best men of another, and both sides agreed to abide by the outcome.

Later on, sports became a tool of empire, of colonialism — a civilizing force, or at least that’s what the civilizers said.

THORN: Well, we sublimate our martial instincts by pouring them into sport. We can paint our faces, we can drink ourselves silly, we can yell insulting epithets at the umpire or certain players.

And what has sports become these past few decades?

ANCHOR: LeBron James agreed to a four-year, $154 million contract with the Lakers.

ANCHOR: Fox striking a five-year rights agreement with the N.F.L. worth about $3 billion.

ANCHOR: Record-shattering deal — Alvarez signed a five-year, 11-fight deal worth a minimum of $365 million.

ANCHOR: Serena Williams just topped the Forbes list of highest paid female athletes for the third year in a row.

ANCHOR: Rockets owner Leslie Alexander has agreed to a deal to sell the Rockets to Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta for $2.2 billion a record for an N.B.A. franchise.

Yes, sports has become big business. How big?

Victor MATHESON: So, the answer here is actually surprisingly small. Sports has a social impact that is way, way bigger than its economic impact.

That’s Victor Matheson, an economist at Holy Cross and president of the North American Association of Sports Economists.

MATHESON: So the biggest league in the world in terms of revenue generated is the N.F.L., and the N.F.L. generates something like $14, $15 billion a year.

Add in all the other major American leagues, plus the P.G.A., pro tennis, mixed martial arts and so on:

MATHESON: You’ve got maybe $50 billion of pro sports, a few more tens of billions of dollars in college sports. But you’re still only up at $60, $70 billion. That makes spectator sports in the United States roughly the same size as the cardboard-box industry in the United States. Now obviously none of us gather around the water cooler on Monday morning saying, “Hey man, over the weekend, did you see that awesome cardboard box that American Paper just put out?” Of course we don’t. So obviously, culturally, sports is huge.

Okay, so the sports industry punches above its weight in cultural significance, that seems clear. One way to think about this is that consuming sports is really cheap considering how much attention we give it. That said, a $60 or $70 billion industry isn’t nothing. It’s an industry that offers a select few athletes the chance to become multi-millionaires; and it gives billionaires somewhere to park their money that’s a bit more exciting than cardboard boxes.

So, our “Hidden Side of Sports” series continues with a look at how this industry works from the ownership and management side. How does a game become a sport become a business become an industry? We’ll get into the economics of a startup league. We’ll hear how the big leagues are trying to get even bigger. We’ll hear what team executives hate about their own sports. We’ll learn about an exciting legal development. And we’ll get into the unusual fact that in sports, your labor force is also your product.

*      *      *

DUBNER: So let’s begin. If you would, just say your name and what you do.

Lawrence EPSTEIN: My name is Lawrence Epstein. I’m the chief operating officer at the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

DUBNER: And for those who’ve never seen a U.F.C. fight or maybe who don’t know anything about the U.F.C. or M.M.A., mixed martial arts, just describe it.

EPSTEIN: Mixed martial arts is essentially the sports of boxing, jujitsu, judo, karate, muay thai, taekwondo, and then both freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling all combined into one sport. And the U.F.C. is a brand name that we operate our promotion under.

DUBNER: Okay, so let’s focus on the U.F.C. then. How often does a fighter typically fight?

EPSTEIN: We’ve got currently about 525 fighters under contract and they fight on average about 2.3 times per year. Over our 25-year history, we’ve done about 9,500 individual bouts.

DUBNER: Okay, what share of U.F.C. fighters are female, and do women ever fight against men?

EPSTEIN: No. Absolutely no women against men. But about 15 percent of our athletes are currently female, and that percentage is growing.

DUBNER: So, I understand that you recently negotiated a new TV deal, this is with ESPN for—

EPSTEIN: $300 million per year, over five years, $1.5 billion in total.

If you’re not a fan of mixed martial arts, you may be wondering how such a league could be so valuable.

EPSTEIN: Dana White, our president, he says, “There’s four corners in any city, anywhere in the world. One corner, you got a soccer game going. On another corner, you got a basketball game going on. On the third corner, you got some guys playing tennis. And on the fourth corner, a fight breaks out. What happens? Everybody runs to the fourth corner to watch the fight. So people understand fighting. They get it. It’s part of our D.N.A. and they like it.

In 2016, the mega-agency W.M.E./I.M.G. and a group of private equity firms bought a majority stake in the U.F.C. for nearly $4 billion. Its ringleaders, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, had acquired the U.F.C. just 15 years earlier for $2 million.

EPSTEIN: Lorenzo Fertitta famously says that, “I paid $2 million for three letters, U.F.C.” And that was really essentially all that was purchased. There was literally a box of contracts and there was another box of tapes and there was a wooden octagon that had been used over the years.

Many businesses talk about, “We built this thing from the ground up.” We actually inherited a business that was about 10 stories underground and it took us about three or four years to get up to the ground level before we could actually turn it into a real business.

DUBNER: Now, how do you get that done? Because this was a sport that was nearly driven to extinction before it had the chance to get big. Senator John McCain famously called it “human cockfighting,” led the charge against it. So, how did you turn that around, state by state?

EPSTEIN: We put together a set of assets that included the economic impact our events were having in regulated markets, the truth about health and safety, whether our athletes were sustaining major injuries or not, and of course they weren’t. Third we had — and this was the most compelling thing — we had many of our athletes help us in this process and introducing elected officials to our athletes was key. And the other factor, which was really, really interesting was the staff at all of these offices around the world are generally young people. I mean, you’ve probably been to legislators’ offices, and you’ve got people that are right out of college. Early 20’s, mid-20’s.

DUBNER: And they’re fans.

EPSTEIN: They are fans. They love it. So they’re talking to their boss, saying, “This stuff is awesome. These people are cool. This is something that’s fun to watch,” and the staffers were absolutely key in convincing the elected officials to ultimately vote in favor of regulating the sport. But the whole premise of the original Ultimate Fighting Championship was: there are no rules. It was a no-holds-barred event. And that was just something that we felt didn’t have any sustainability. You had to have regulation. You had to have a regulatory environment that looked a lot like the boxing regulatory environment. And so that’s what we did.

So the U.F.C., in state-by-state petitioning, made itself legal and legitimate. But it still had one big problem.

EPSTEIN: We couldn’t get on television. There was no interest in putting us on any television other than pay-per-view. So we put on these pay-per-view events and we had to produce them ourselves. So we actually developed a core competency in putting on these fairly unique events with, many times, 20–24 different cameras.

This practice, interestingly, continues today.

EPSTEIN: One of the reasons why we are a little bit different than the other sports organizations is that we pay all of the production expenses for our event. As far as I know, we’re the only sort of major sports organization that does it ourselves.

Consider, for instance, the N.F.L.

EPSTEIN: When they do a deal with CBS Sports, they just get a check and CBS Sports, in addition to paying them billions of dollars every year, they also handle all of the production.

Okay, so the U.F.C. early on learned how to produce its own events. But they were still a fringe sport, relegated to pay-per-view. So they did what any sensible start-up sports league would do: they created a reality TV show.

EPSTEIN: You take 16 athletes, you put them in a house, they do a bunch of goofy things like you always see on reality shows, and at the end of each episode there’s a fight. Winner stays, loser goes home.

The show was called The Ultimate Fighter. It went on the air in 2005.

EPSTEIN: We were able to do a deal with Spike television, and they didn’t pay us anything, but they said, “We’ll let you put this on our air. We’ll give you not all, but we’ll give you half of the ad inventory.” And we went out and tried to sell that ad inventory. We were able to sell no ads at all, to any sponsor. So we took that ad inventory and used it to promote our upcoming pay-per-view. And any metric that you look at in the U.F.C., whether it’s profitability, or the number of fans that we have, or ratings, we have the sort of hockey-stick type of a graph and the inflection point is The Ultimate Fighter, Season One.

The U.F.C. has grown exponentially since then, and has the ESPN deal to prove it, but it still relies heavily on pay-per-view as well, distributed via cable and satellite as well as digitally, via Amazon and its own UFC.TV. Their biggest pay-per-view hit to date was actually a boxing match between the undefeated fighter Floyd Mayweather Jr. and U.F.C. champion Conor McGregor. Epstein points to one big downside of the pay-per-view model.

EPSTEIN: I mean, it’s a 100 percent churn business. We sold 3.5, 4 million-plus buys for Mayweather vs. McGregor, and every one of those customers left. We didn’t keep one of them. We got to resell them for the next fight.

DUBNER: So, that is a really interesting conundrum, and I’m kind of surprised that you guys haven’t solved that yet.

EPSTEIN: I mean, our decision’s been frankly strategic. We’ve decided this is the world we want to live in. Because as consumers change the way they’re consuming content, we can simply shift content into different buckets to meet consumer demand. But at the end of the day, pay-per-view is a bet on yourself. And listen, if ESPN was willing to pay us what they’re paying the N.F.L., I think we’d probably get off pay-per-view, but they’re not. And in the meantime, we are willing to bet on ourselves.

Betting on themselves has served the U.F.C. well; they’ve joined the pantheon of prominent American sports leagues. Which, they’ve discovered, presents its own challenges:

EPSTEIN: Well, the challenges are competition. And I’m not talking about just competition from other M.M.A. promoters, but we’re competing against the N.F.L., college football, baseball, video games, movies, YouTube videos, and the list goes on and on. The consumer is getting bombarded with options for lots of entertainment, and of course the consumer only has a certain amount of bandwidth for their time and a certain amount of bandwidth for their wallet.

Welcome to big-time sports. Where even the behemoths are worried about their future.

Jed YORK: We are the dominant sport in America. But if we really want to build our business and become an international sport, that’s going to take some figuring out.

That’s Jed York of the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers. He’s the team’s C.E.O. and a co-owner.

YORK: I would first say that the biggest blessing and the biggest curse of the N.F.L. are the TV contracts, where it makes you very successful, but it also makes it so you don’t really try new things and try to disrupt.

How big are the N.F.L.’s TV contracts? Roughly $6 billion a year, No. 1 in the world. No. 2, at just under $5 billion, is the FIFA World Cup — which is pretty remarkable for an event whose finals are held only every four years, although they are playing to a global audience. Rounding out the top 10 global TV contracts are the N.B.A. and Major League Baseball; the top soccer leagues in England, Germany, and Spain along with the UEFA Champions League; and the Summer and Winter Olympics. Not cracking the top 10 are the N.H.L, M.L.S., or U.F.C. Which means the N.F.L. has more TV revenue than all the other big American sports leagues combined.

Al GUIDO: Thirty-three of the top 50 shows are still N.F.L. TV games.

That’s Al Guido, president of the San Francisco 49ers.

GUIDO: The eyeballs are still there, they’re just scattered. They’re just in different places. And I think the N.F.L., along with every other league, needs to do the best job they can getting content in a fan’s hands, wherever they are. And that’s changing dramatically.

Cable subscriptions in the U.S. have been dropping fast; 54 percent of viewers between 18 and 29 use streaming services more than cable. That said, live sports are much better-positioned than just about any other kind of content that plays on old-fashioned TV.

MATHESON: We still do watch the Super Bowl live, we watch the World Cup live, we watch the World Series live, and that gives advertisers a chance to put their product in front of a live audience. And it’s one of the last places that that happens. And this is why we still see increasing contracts even though the actual number of eyeballs watching sports contests is not going up particularly quickly.

The N.F.L. has also made big deals to stream its games: Amazon, for instance, recently renewed its N.F.L. deal, paying $65 million a year for the digital right to stream 11 Thursday night games that are already being broadcast on TV. That was a 30 percent bump over the same rights last season. Amazon reportedly beat out rival offers from Twitter and YouTube.

GUIDO: My 9-, 7-, and 5-year-olds don’t even turn on the TV.

The 49ers’ Al Guido again. He’d like the N.F.L. to grow, especially overseas; but that’s complicated.

GUIDO: In the N.F.L., we have what I would deem right now an event-based strategy. We host games overseas. And that is immensely — I mean, it’s successful. However, what is the global strategy and footprint long term? What is it at the league level, what is the team level? And how do we incentivize our clubs to invest more money outside of their footprint? I am frustrated at the inability for us to take our rights and marks across global footprints.

I’ll give you a specific example: Jarryd Hayne was on our team a few years ago, Australian rugby player, they said he was the Michael Jordan of Australian rugby. He comes over here, he plays, he’s an immediate success. Sells more jerseys than any player in the N.F.L. We obviously would love to do a deal over there with Rio Tinto, or we’d love to open up a pop-up retail shop in Australia. We can’t. Well, we can, but if we were to sell our rights and marks and they were to use it in Australia, that revenue is split 32 ways. Doesn’t necessarily come back to the team.

DUBNER: Thirty-two ways because 32 teams in the league?

GUIDO: Right. So we make as much money on a Jimmy Garoppolo jersey as we might on a Russell Wilson jersey.

Okay, let’s take a step back here. Jimmy Garoppolo is a 49ers player; Russell Wilson is not. Al Guido’s point is that the N.F.L., like most American sports leagues, is so devoted to its revenue-sharing model — from TV income all the way down to merchandising — that the incentives can be skewed. With revenue sharing, a team can make a lot of money even if it has a losing record every year; and why invest in new ideas when others don’t have to, and when you get an even cut of the pie regardless? As Jed York said, that’s the downside of the N.F.L.’s fat TV contracts:

YORK: It makes you very successful, but it also makes it so you don’t really try new things and try to disrupt.

This sort of revenue-sharing is a key feature of American sports leagues. It’s less business model than cartel model; it’s a sort of billionaire socialism. And this is not, by the way, how the big soccer leagues work in Europe — where, interestingly, there’s a lot of political socialism. The European soccer leagues do share some revenues but, unlike most American sports leagues, there are essentially no firm salary caps, and every year the weakest teams are relegated out of the league while new ones are promoted.

Stefan SZYMANSKI: Well, I’ve always been very surprised by this.

Stefan Szymanski is a British economist who teaches sports management at the University of Michigan.

SZYMANSKI: So to me, thinking as an economist, I think of this as the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes. And when I think of Europeans in general, we tend to have strong systems of social services and safety nets, which ensure, really to a large extent, equality of outcomes within the European systems. But traditionally, we have a sense of limited equality of opportunity. We have class systems, we have big social gaps. And America, we always think of as being the reverse — where there’s equality of opportunity, but very limited safety net.

And it seems to me the sports story is completely the opposite. In Europe, we have this incredibly hyper-competitive, capitalist system where the devil take the hindmost, and we have a lot of financial failure in Europe. That’s also one thing that goes with this — an incredible financial distress and failure. And yet, in America, there’s these leagues which are essentially closed societies, which don’t allow any competition, and then share out the resources equally in almost a socialist fashion amongst the top teams. It seems that the mental framework for sports is at odds with the mental framework about competition in society more broadly.

That said, the American sports business model is too entrenched to change much, at least anytime soon. So how, in the face of more and more entertainment competition, are these giant leagues looking to grow?

Kim NG: Right now, one of the Commissioner’s main objectives is to spread the game globally.

Kim Ng is a senior executive with Major League Baseball.

NG: We’ve been very aggressive on that front. We’ve had games in the last couple of years from spring training to regular season games in Puerto Rico, Mexico, next year we’ll be in London. We’re doing a barnstorming tour in Asia as well as playing some regular-season games in Japan.

Major League Baseball, despite declining stadium attendance, is still the world’s second biggest sports league by total revenue. It hopes to maintain that status not just by bringing American baseball to the rest of the world, but by bringing the rest of the world to American baseball.

NG: We have three development centers in China. We have high-performing programs in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Nicaragua, Curacao, South Africa, and these are basically academies in which we train kids on a yearlong basis and they go to school as well. And our goal is to get them into colleges and hopefully some of them into the big leagues as soon as we can.

*      *      *

Even the most profitable sports league in the world — the National Football League — is concerned about its future. TV revenues are still strong, but viewership is slipping. Some people have been turned off by the sport’s violence, and the risk to players. Others didn’t like how the National Anthem protests turned the game of football into a political football. And the N.F.L.’s most visible attempt to globalize the game — it was called N.F.L. Europe — it failed. So, as in any maturing industry, the league has been searching for new revenues. The U.S. Supreme Court recently did its part to help. In May of 2018, it struck down a federal law that had limited legal sports betting to Nevada. Which should be good news for the NFL and other American sports leagues.

GUIDO: Yes, I mean, from a revenue perspective, there’s no question.

San Francisco 49ers president Al Guido.

GUIDO: If you think about what fantasy football has done, it’s increased the popularity of our sport.

EPSTEIN: Gambling on sport is good for sport in the sense that it creates revenue opportunities and it creates a deeper fan connection to the matches, the games, the events themselves.

Lawrence Epstein is with the U.F.C..

EPSTEIN: So there is no doubt that the proliferation of sports gaming around the United States is going to be good for not just the U.F.C., not just the N.F.L., but all sport.

The U.F.C. happens to be based in Las Vegas. Sports leagues used to stay far away from Vegas, worried about the long-standing, and well-deserved, connection between gambling and match fixing. The most famous fix — alleged fix, at least — was the 1919 World Series. In early 2019, more than two dozen professional tennis players were arrested for participating in a match-fixing ring based in Spain.

That said, even before the Supreme Court ruling, American sports leagues were finally starting to shed their fear of the Vegas connection. In 2017, the National Hockey League finally put a team there, the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Their first season got underway just a few days after the horrible mass shooting in Vegas where 58 people were killed at a music festival, and the Golden Knights turned into one of the biggest feel-good stories in recent memory by making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. And next year, the N.F.L.’s Oakland Raiders will become the Las Vegas Raiders.

The embrace between professional sport and professional gambling would seem to be complete. What does this mean for the leagues and their teams? Here’s Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

CUBAN: Yeah, I think it’ll lead to our franchise valuations doubling, literally, because there’s a lot more reasons for people to pay attention, a lot more reasons for people to watch. And that’s good for our bottom line.

It’s too early to say whether team valuations really will increase like Cuban suspects, or even to say exactly how gambling fees will be divided. Individual states are already setting up their sports-betting tax rates, and teams and players are angling for their cut as well. One idea that’s been pitched is a so-called “integrity fee” — an incentive to keep the matches clean. I asked the sports economist Victor Matheson who he thinks will be the biggest winners and losers as sports gambling grows in America.

MATHESON: So, I would say the biggest winners are all of the professional leagues. The people simply enjoy the sport more when they have something riding on it. There’s a reason why every March, everyone tunes into all those first- and second-round March Madness games: because everyone has filled out a bracket and it’s hoping their bracket isn’t busted on the first day.

So, we know that gambling makes things exciting, but we also know gambling can lead to corruption. And there’s two really big losers here: I think the N.C.A.A. is a huge loser here, because their athletes are particularly vulnerable to corruption because they’re not being paid. Now mind you, that’s the N.C.A.A.’s own fault for not paying their athletes. But we don’t have to worry about LeBron James or Steph Curry throwing games because they’re not going to risk their $30 million paychecks and their reputations to try to make a little money from a mobster. On the other hand, an unpaid, poor 19-year-old college kid might.

The other big loser might be the gamblers themselves. There are groups of people that this type of gambling will appeal to, in particular it was suggested that young, confident men are — this is exactly the sort of thing that will suck them in. They watch sports 40 hours a week. They’ve got to be good at gambling, they think to themselves, and guess what: there’s people who are a lot better than them still.

If gambling represents one way forward for the business side of sports — that is, a new revenue stream — there is of course another, time-honored way of staying in the black: controlling costs. In most industries, the largest single cost is labor.

MATHESON: For the economy as a whole, the traditional number that economists use is that roughly two-thirds of all gross domestic product goes to labor, and about a third of it goes to capital.

Sports, meanwhile, has had a dramatic trajectory.

MATHESON: If you’re looking back in 1970, you are seeing a world where players are making only a tiny fraction of the total revenues. The rest of that is going into the pockets of the owners. By the mid 1970’s and mid 1980’s we have free agency in every sport except maybe the N.F.L., which had free agency on paper but not in reality until about the mid-90’s. And in Europe, in soccer, you started to have free agency in about 1995-ish. And at that point you have players earning more like 50, 60, 70 percent of team revenue — so a huge increase in what they’re earning.

That’s a huge percentage increase to the athletes at the same time as revenues were also exploding. But, more recently:

MATHESON: More recently, the owners have clawed a bunch of that back, and in the big leagues in the United States, the N.B.A., N.H.L., and National Football League, by agreement between the union and the leagues, they basically split the revenue 50/50. Half of the revenue goes to the players in terms of pay and benefits, and the other half sticks with the owners as profit or to cover costs to run the league.

So, how costly is it to run the league, and how much is left over for profits? That’s very hard to say, since most pro sports teams are privately owned. One notable exception is the N.F.L.’s Green Bay Packers, who are publicly held and therefore publish their financials. The Packers are a venerable team but also a very small-market team: Green Bay has a population of barely 100,000 people. And yet, remember, they get the same share of N.F.L. collective revenues as the New England Patriots or the Los Angeles Rams. The last couple years, the Packers’ annual revenue has been in the neighborhood of $450 million, with profits averaging around 12.5 percent. The current salary cap — the limit a team can spend on player salaries — is about $177 million a year; and a team is required to spend at least 89 percent of that amount. So you might imagine that in a league like the N.F.L. or the N.B.A., with TV revenues locked up well in advance and total labor costs limited by a union agreement, there’s no way for a pro franchise to lose money. That’s what I suggested to N.B.A. owner Mark Cuban.

CUBAN: No, that’s not true at all.

DUBNER: Give me an example.

CUBAN: I can’t throw out names, but yeah.

DUBNER: Well, how many N.B.A. teams in a given year are going to lose money?

CUBAN: More than you think.

DUBNER: Really.

CUBAN: Yeah.

DUBNER: So, even with the revenue-sharing, with all the broadcast and other monies distributed evenly and with a salary cap that guarantees that you don’t have to overspend a certain amount, you’re saying that — how do you lose money? Is it by lacking game revenue?

CUBAN: Enough effort. Yeah. Lacking revenue period. Just like any business.

DUBNER: But what’s the major variable? Is it gate revenue or is it broadcast revenue?

CUBAN: Gate, broadcast, players, all the obvious things.

One obvious difference between the cost of labor in sports versus just about any other industry — except maybe the entertainment industry — is that the employees are the product, which makes them much more visible than employees in a typical industry. And potentially much more valuable. Consider a superstar like LeBron James, who this year is earning $35.6 million. Which sounds absurd — until you try to calculate just how valuable he is to the sport.

EPSTEIN: I mean, if LeBron James was getting what he deserves, he’d make $200 million a year, $300 million a year.

That again is Lawrence Epstein of the U.F.C. His biggest star, Conor McGregor, earned a reported $100 million for that pay-per-view fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

EPSTEIN: Oh man, I mean if Conor made $100 million last year, which is probably 20 percent of our revenues. LeBron James, he’s got to be worth 10 percent of the revenues of the N.B.A. He’s got to be. So what is that? It’s 400 million or something? It’s a giant number. Maybe he’s not Conor, which is 20 percent of our revenues, but he’s easily 10. He’s easily 10.

For the record, the N.B.A. produced about $7.5 billion in revenues last season, 10 percent of which would be roughly $750 million. Too bad for LeBron James that Lawrence Epstein isn’t setting his salary. And what about U.F.C. salaries? Before interviewing Epstein, I’d asked the economist Victor Matheson to compare athlete salaries in different sports.

MATHESON: If you’re trying to decide what sport to go into, you probably want to go into baseball or football, where at least you’re going to be earning a pretty big chunk of those television revenues. And man, stay away from U.F.C., because they’re making a lot of revenues but not much of that is going into the athletes. The amount going to the athletes there is about 10 or 15 percent of revenues. So, again, much less.

Why do the U.F.C.’s athletes earn so much less? Keep in mind what Lawrence Epstein told us earlier — that the U.F.C., unlike other leagues, pays its own production costs. Still, you might think that compared to the big team sports, U.F.C. athletes would do pretty well, since team sports require so much more labor to produce. We do know that U.F.C. fighters aren’t unionized, which means they don’t have collective bargaining power, like N.F.L. and other team athletes do. In any case, I asked the U.F.C.’s Lawrence Epstein about this disparity.

EPSTEIN: Well I think first of all, the 15 percent number,  I don’t think that’s accurate. I mean there certainly is some fluctuation in the percentage of revenue that goes to athletes. But the reason for that primarily is that we have a variable revenue stream model in our company. So, you mentioned the N.F.L. Let’s assume they’re giving 50 percent of the revenues to the athletes. Well, those revenues are contracted revenues with the largest media companies in the earth: ESPN, CBS, NBC, Fox, and others. The significant part of our profitability still comes from pay-per-view events. Which of course are completely variable in revenue.

And so because we just don’t have those contracted revenues like so many of the other sports leagues do, we’re taking a lot of risk every time we put one of these major events on. I mean you can’t just agree to pay certain people a certain amount of money if you don’t know whether or not that money is going to come in. And of course, the N.F.L. and Major League Baseball and the N.B.A. — multi-billion-dollar contracts with great credit on the other side of those deals.

DUBNER: I’ve read that the median U.F.C. salary is roughly $42,000 a year. We interviewed a fighter, Lauren Murphy, who’s the No. 5-ranked female fighter in her weight class. And she told us she gets about $12,000 per fight guaranteed, another $12,000 if she wins, and a $50,000 bonus if she’s the fight of the night. So she said she’s had years where she’s made just $20,000 and one year where she made around $90,000. Again, for a fighter who is No. 5 in the world in her ranking.

I understand there’s an ongoing antitrust lawsuit against U.F.C. which claims that the U.F.C. used an anti-competitive scheme of long-term exclusive fighter contracts, coercion, and acquisitions of rival M.M.A. promoters to establish and maintain dominance, etc., to suppress fighter compensation. I don’t expect you’re going to open up on that case to me right now, but I’d like you to talk generally to this notion of a league that is making a lot of money, that was bought for $4 billion, and yet one where the people who were doing the actual fighting seemed to be generally compensated much less than the average fan at least would assume.

EPSTEIN: Yeah, obviously can’t get into talking anything specific about the litigation. But, as I mentioned previously, Conor McGregor made about $100 million last year. When you compare the percentage of revenues that we deliver to our athletes, it’s very comparable to other sports organizations of our size, and the fact that both we have to produce the content, which adds additional expense to us, in addition to the fact that still a very large portion of our revenue is variable in nature — we’re very proud of what we pay our athletes and we think it’s certainly consistent with other sports organizations of our size.

And to a certain extent, it is a zero-sum game. And if Conor McGregor is going to make $100 million and Jon Jones and these guys are going to make tens of millions, there’s got to be money there to do it. The guys at the top end, the women on top of the food chain, they’re happy with the ecosystem. That’s for sure.

DUBNER: Does the league provide health insurance and other benefits?

EPSTEIN: So, our athletes are independent contractors, so we can’t provide that type of health insurance that you and I might get with our particular employers. But about seven years ago, we began providing what’s called an accident insurance policy which would cover our athletes for any acute injury that they would sustain while they’re under contract with us. In addition to that, most athletic commissions or federations around the world will require that insurance policies be in place for event related injuries. So when you combine the event-related injuries with the accident insurance policies, our athletes are covered while they’re under contract with us for any acute injuries that they would sustain.

We’ll hear more about these labor issues in an upcoming episode, this time from the athletes’ side and the union’s side. For instance, here’s DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the N.F.L. players’ union:

DeMaurice SMITH: The reality is: they are management, and we are labor. And there are going to be core philosophical differences between us. And I think the challenge becomes, there are people who are unwilling to perceive someone’s life in the other shoes. And frankly I think that’s on both sides of the table.

For now, let’s just say that there is a lot of friction between management and labor in sports. In most organizations, there’s one person whose job is to navigate that friction. A person who’s part of management but who’s also the primary liaison between ownership and the athletes. Not the coach — they’re seldom a part of management. This person is usually called the general manager. Like Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets.

And the G.M. of an N.B.A. team does … what?

MOREY: So, there’s the bringing in the coaching staff who then obviously direct the players. There’s the medical performance side, where you’re keeping players performing at the highest level. There’s the scouting side, and then there’s the data-and-information side.

Morey is particularly well-regarded on the data-and-information side. He was a pioneer in N.B.A. analytics, and he recently won the league’s Executive of the Year Award. Unlike most general managers, Morey neither played nor coached basketball at a high level; he took the nerd route to the N.B.A., having studied computer science and statistics.

MOREY: Yeah, I think “the nerd route” is fair.

Morey also enjoys musical theater; he recently commissioned a basketball musical called Small Ball.

MOREY: That is accurate. Yeah.

One character sings the following line: “Your cold calculations. You are ripping the heart from this beautiful game.”

MOREY: Correct. Yes, he sings that multiple times.

As for his day job: Morey admits the N.B.A. has had a tremendous growth spurt.

MOREY: Basketball in the late 40’s and early 50’s was thought of as the red-headed stepchild of sports. No one cared about basketball until maybe even the early 80’s.

And now?

MOREY: The N.B.A. is going to be the dominant sport in the future — along with soccer and e-sports. For me, the top sports are going to be global. The bottom line, just follow where people are spending their time. Especially under the age of 25. It’s all dynamic games on their phones or P.C.’s or consoles. And the fastest growing content that’s watched by far is people watching people playing video games. Both competitive and non-competitive. And it really is just overwhelmingly logical that e-sports is going to be one of the top sports.

Daryl Morey, like the people we’ve been hearing from in other sports, recognizes that the modern consumer has a lot of entertainment options. Just because a sport is dominant today doesn’t mean it’ll even be relevant in 20 or 50 years.

MOREY: I do think the N.B.A. does have a real challenge. We have a golden goose that’s laying eggs. The league would have to take a risk while the goose is laying golden eggs. We’ve done actually more changes to our game than any of these other professional sports, by far. But the reality is it’s sometimes hard to change.

There are a lot of things Morey would like to see changed in the N.B.A. For starters, he thinks they play too many games.

MOREY: Here’s a really simple way the N.B.A. has too many games: when you ask someone, “Should the N.B.A. have more games or less games?,” there’s not a single person alive who says there should be more games.

This is what Morey means when he talks about the golden goose — cutting back on games would cut back on revenues. At least that’s the conventional wisdom. Morey disagrees:

MOREY: Appointment viewing is what drives drives major advertising spend, drives everything, so I absolutely think there should be fewer games in the N.B.A.

His evidence for this argument?

MOREY: The N.C.A.A. tournament is 63 games. They make more TV money than we make in our entire 1,200-game N.B.A. regular season. I would have it be like the Premier League — everyone plays each other twice. Fifty-eight games.

Morey also thinks there are too many playoff games.

MOREY: I would do one-and-done N.B.A. playoffs. I would get byes to the top two teams in each of the conferences, similar to the N.F.L. I would then have a play-in tournament to be the other four teams that then play the two teams with the byes. All the games will be one-and-done.

One big reason he’d want fewer games, including the playoffs, is that N.B.A. games are too predictable.

MOREY: There needs to be more variance. Every good sport, game, board game needs to have a real healthy mix of skill and luck. I’ve seen many papers on this. It’s like 70-30, something like that. One big problem is we are the most deterministic on a single-game level. We know better than any other sport this team is going to beat that team. If we play one of the bottom-feeder teams — I don’t want to mention — we’ll have 90, 95 percent win odds on a home game. That often will create very, very low reason to tune in.

And the worst part of games for Morey is what should be the best part:

MOREY: The ends of N.B.A. games is one of my bugaboos. I just can’t stand the fouls and timeouts and it’s just not a good viewing experience.

There is a proposed solution for that.

MOREY: Yeah, you stop using the clock. So, let’s say you’re winning 85-82 with five minutes to go, now the clock turns off and you play to 92 and you just play regular pickup basketball from that point, and it’s a fantastic way to end games.

This idea — of turning off the clock toward the end of a basketball game and playing instead to a point total — it’s called the Elam Ending, after its inventor, Nick Elam.

MOREY: Yes, I would definitely do the Elam Ending.

It may strike you that Daryl Morey has an awfully long list of things he dislikes about basketball. After all, it’s the game he loves, the game that employs him. It may also strike you that Morey sounds a bit … grouchy. If so, there may be a reason for this: during his tenure as G.M. of the Houston Rockets, they’ve been one of the very best teams in basketball — and yet, so far, they’ve failed to win an N.B.A. championship. And Daryl Morey really likes to win. This goes for everyone we’ve been speaking with today — you aren’t at this level in sport unless you cannot stand to lose. Just how much does Daryl Morey love to win? When we spoke with him, the N.B.A. season hadn’t begun yet yet begun; he was in Las Vegas with the Rockets’ summer-league team — a rough equivalent of baseball’s spring training. In other words, games whose outcomes are meaningless. But not to Morey.

MOREY: Well, our dominant 4-0 summer-league team — we’re trying to hang another summer-league banner. Four-and-0, and our highest pick on our team is 45, I think, or something like that. So we’ve got our motley crew.

DUBNER: But the reason you have such a motley crew is your fault, right? Because you’re giving away all the high draft picks to get the superstars.

MOREY: Yes, exactly. I was about to mention that. Yeah, some G.M. idiot has mortgaged the future to try and put together our hopeful championship team and because of that we haven’t had a first-round pick in several years.

DUBNER: So it sounds like you care. It’s not just—

MOREY: Oh, I care so deeply and I’m not — and it’s stupid. I have no idea why I care, but I like winning.

DUBNER: What you don’t have yet, as you’ve alluded, is a championship. And I’m just curious what what it feels like overall. I’m guessing when you self-assess, you think, “Yeah, I’m doing a pretty decent job.” I’m sure you work hard, and, again, there is a lot of outcome success, but I’m curious how big a gap the not-having-won-the-championship leaves or what it feels like.

MOREY: It feels like an Ives piece, where it’s just dissonance the whole way but no final chord at the end to satisfy. That’s how feels basically. Stravinsky. Ives.

DUBNER: And then if you win it, it becomes Brahms or Mozart or somebody?

MOREY: Becomes Andrew Lloyd Webber. Just the perfect melody. Just a nice resolved power chord, basically.

*      *      *

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Anders Kelto, Derek John, and Alvin Melathe with help from Matt Stroup. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Harry Huggins, and Zack Lapinski. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Mark Cuban, owner of the N.B.A.’s Dallas Mavericks.

Lawrence Epstein, chief operating officer for the U.F.C.

Al Guido, president of the San Francisco 49ers.

Victor Matheson, economist at College of the Holy Cross.

Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets.

Kim Ng, senior vice-president for M.L.B.

DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the N.F.L. players’ union.

Stefan Szymanski, professor at the University of Michigan.

John Thorn, historian and author.

Jed York, C.E.O. of the San Francisco 49ers.

RESOURCES

How to Win at the Sport of Business by Mark Cuban (First Diversion Books 2011).

The Economics of Sports, Sixth Edition by Michael Leeds, Peter von Allmen, and Victor Matheson (Routledge, 2018).

EXTRA

“How Sports Became Us (Ep. 349),” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

“How to Stop Being a Loser (Ep. 350),” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

“Here’s Why You’re Not an Elite Athlete (Ep. 351),” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

“Think Like a Winner (Ep. 363),” Freakonomics Radio (2019).

The post Inside the Sports-Industrial Complex (Ep. 364) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/sports-5/

[ahmerjohnny-blog]

Attitude Quotes And Status (Latest Collection)

https://www.aswadwrites.in/attitude-quotes-and-status/

Attitude Quotes And Status (Latest Collection)

Attitude Quotes

A style is a reflection of your attitude and your personality. If you don’t like something, change it. I believe if you keep your faith, you keep your trust, you keep the right attitude, if you’re grateful, you’ll see God open up new doors. A positive attitude quotes can really make dreams come true – it did for me.

Attitude. Being sexy is all about attitude, not body type. People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude. Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. Each day, I come in with a positive attitude, trying to get better.

Read This:

A list of the best attitude quotes and sayings, including the names of each speaker or author when available. This list is sorted by popularity, so only the most famous attitude quotes are at the top. The authors of these historic attitude quotes are displayed next to each quote, so if you see one you like be sure to check out other inspirational attitude quotes from that same writer.

This list answers the questions, “What are the best quotes about attitude?” and “What are inspirational attitude quotes?” This list includes notable attitude quotes by various authors, writers, playwrights, speakers, politicians, athletes, poets, and more. Vote on your favorites so that the greatest attitude quotes rise to the top, as the order of the list changes dynamically based on votes. Don’t let your favorite attitude sayings get to the bottom of the list.

Best Attitude Quotes Collection

“How we think shows through in how we act. Attitudes are mirrors of the mind. They reflect thinking.”

“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”

“I am a part of all that I have met.”

“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”

“If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.”

“Be an independent thinker at all times, and ignore anyone who attempts to define you in a limiting way.”If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences.”

“Keep a little fire burning; however small, however, hidden.”

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

Top 150 Attitude Status Hindi Whatsapp 2018

“People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.”

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

“It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect Its successful outcome.”

“I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”

“A ‘positive attitude’ is definitely one of the keys to success. My definition of a positive attitude is a simple one: Looking for the good in all circumstances.”

Attitude Quotes For Boys

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

ATTITUDE is everything.

Follow your heart but don’t be stupid.

The best thing about being me, I’m a limited edition and there are no other copies!

Mistakes are proof that you’re trying.

I love my job only when I’m on vacation.

Fashion is something that comes from within you.

I never make the same mistake twice. I make it five or six times, just to be sure.

My parents should be proud of me because I’m addicted to Facebook, not to Drugs!

I always dream of being a millionaire like my uncle…He’s dreaming too.

Phones are better than girlfriends, at least we can switch off.

My words are like a china phone. They have no guarantee!

Top 100+ Attitude Status for Whatsapp

Dream big and dare to fail.

I love to walk in the fog because nobody knows I’m smoking.

I talk to myself because I like dealing with a better class of people.

Not all men are fools, some stay bachelor.

I might not be someone’s first choice, but I am a great choice. I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not because I’m good at being me. However, I might not be proud of some of the things I’ve done in the past, but I’m proud of who I am today. I may not be perfect, but I don’t need to be. I am the way God made me. Take me as I am or watch me as I walk away.

Love me or hate me I’m still gonna shine.

There can be no positive result through negative attitude. Think positive. Live positive.

Like me for who I am and not for who you want me to be. Take it or leave it. That simple.

Attitude Quotes For Girls

I am so damn poor that I cannot even afford to pay attention to stupid people.

If you want a girl to treat you like a King you have to make her a Queen first.

Honest girlfriends are rare to find, hard to be abandoned and impossible to forget.

The saying “Behind a successful man is a surprised woman.” is quite wrong; so I corrected it and made it “Behind a successful man is a supportive and smart woman.”

Rivals of a jealous boy come and go but rivals of jealous woman remain and continue to build up.

A woman can deal the unbearable stress and lift heavy burdens. She gives her sweetest smile even if she feels like screaming and she sings in an angelic voice when she feels like crying. Tears fell from her eyes when she is happy and laugh when she is scared. Her love is priceless and unconditional. There is only one thing wrong with her; she always forgets what she is worth.

50+ Best Whatsapp Status 2018

Never ever dare to underestimate the power of a woman’s intuition and instinct. She can recognize a game before you even play it.

A little black dress is one of the girl’s best friends.

I am smart, I am lovely, I am strong and I am enough.

The greatest thing a woman can do is to love herself, be herself and shine amongst those who never believed that she could.

If you want to have a good body then stop wishing for you to magically have it. Work hard for it.

Every time you put yourself down, you are causing damage to your confidence to try harder not to.

Do whatever makes you happy so that you will not have any regrets on your deathbed.

Attitude Quotes For Facebook Status

“I don’t hate Peoples, I just love Peoples who love me.”

“A bad attitude is plane tire if you not change it you can never think positive!”

“I am not a special Person, But I am just limited edition.”

“Stop checking my Status, Go and love your Girlfriend”

“Life is too short Don’t waste it updating status!”

“Status Unavailable! Check Later!…” “I’m not insulting you. I’m describing you.”

 “Be happy and smile when you’re around people who hate you. Your happiness will kill them.”

 “People always say that nothing is impossible. That’s not true. I do nothing every single day.”

 “I was cool – until global warming made me hot.”

 “No positive results can come from negative attitudes. Always think positive and always live positive.”

 “Love me for who I am – not what you want me to be. Take me or leave me. It’s that simple.”

 “If you face the sun, you’ll never see your shadow.”

 “Look – I’m only responsible for the words that come out of my mouth. I’m not responsible for you not understanding them.”

 “I really don’t care what you think about me. Unless you think I’m awesome. In that case – you’re totally right. Carry on!”

A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you.

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.

The funniest thing in class is when the teacher cracks a joke and no one laughs.

When your ex-asks if you can still be friends right after a breakup, it’s like having a kidnapper tell you to keep in touch.Bad Attitude Quotes

100+ Whatsapp Friendship Status

The soul does not absorb negativity by accident, always by choice.

Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.

If you are not enjoying the journey, you probably won’t enjoy the destination.

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.

Nothing is interesting if you’re not interested.

A bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can’t go anywhere until you change it.

“Protect your good image from the eyes of negative viewers, who may look at your good appearance with an ugly fiendish eye, and ruin your positive qualities with their chemical infested tongues.”

“It would be easy to become a victim of our circumstances and continue feeling sad, scared or angry; or instead, we could choose to deal with injustice humanely and break the chains of negative thoughts and energies, and not let ourselves sink into it.”

“A negative attitude drains, a positive attitude energizes.”

“You have the ability to control your thoughts.”

“There is too much negativity in the world. Do your best to make sure you aren’t contributing to it.”

“I’m half good and I’m half bad. My mama is a very good girl and my daddy is a very bad boy. And I guess that leaves me somewhere sort of…here.”

“You’re a bad girl, trying to force me over the edge But you don’t have to. I’m already there. I’m already lost in you.”

“A bad attitude can literally block love, blessings, and destiny of finding you.”

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

Attitude Quotes For Whatsapp

Being this fabulous is a full-time job.

I’m afflicted with Awesome. There’s no curing it.

You can merely hope to be me.

Of course, I’m only pretending to like you.

Nice try, but you’re still not ME.

It would just be ‘awesome’ without ME.

I hate it when I’m hugging someone amazing and my face bangs into the mirror.

Of course, I’m odd. I’m Number One, you see.

I love you. But I love me more.

Diplomacy is for those who aren’t witty enough to be sarcastic.

Sugar coating just ain’t my style.

If I don’t remember it, it didn’t happen.

Don’t know. Don’t care. Never will.

Well, hello there WhatsApp stalker! How go the frequent status checks?

I really am ruggedly handsome, aren’t I?

Best Collection of Shayari

I solemnly swear I’m the best!

It ain’t happy if it’s not my birthday.

You make it difficult for me to be nice.

An ugly personality destroys a pretty face.

I don’t need to explain myself because I know I’m right.

If people are trying to bring you ‘Down’. It only means that you are ‘Above them’.

When you care about someone, their happiness matters more than yours…!!

Beauty is like Moon, looks much better at Night…

The greatest pleasure in life is doing the things, people say you can’t

The only disability in life is a bad attitude.

Life will give you exactly what you need, not what you want

The biggest slap to your enemies is your success.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?

Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.

I don’t have time to hate people, who hate me. Because I’m too busy in loving people who love me.

Attitude Quotes In Hindi

सही को सही और गलत को गलत कहने की हिम्मत रखता हूँ… इसीलिए आजकल रिश्ते कम रखता हूँ 😏

मयखाने का दौर गया जनाब ! लहू का दौर चल रहा है …..😎 😏

attitude का वो नशा चढ़ा है मुझपर जो ना उतरेगा , शख़्सियत भले ही मिट जाए पर ये बन्दा किसी के आगे नहीं झुकेगा 😎😎

दिलों में मतलब और ज़ुबान से प्यार करते हैं, बहुत से लोग दुनिया में यही कारोबार करते हैं 😏 😏

ज़रा सी कोशिश करूँ तो मेरी उमीदों को हौंसला मिले और ज़रा सा attitude में जीऊँ तो पता नहीं दुनिया क्यों मुझसे जले 😏 😎 😏

मेरा जो रुतबा कल था , वो आज भी है और कल भी रहेगा , कैलेंडर नहीं attitude है मेरा जो साल के साथ बदलता नहीं 😎😎

Heart Touching Sad Shayari For True Lovers

हमारा #Style और #Attitude ही कुछ #अलग है,

#बराबरी करोगे तो #बिक जाओगे

तेरी अकड़ की रस्सी जल जायेगी क्योंकि मेरी पकड़ में आग है.

जब तक आप ऑक्सीजन नहीं हैं, हां, मैं आपके साथ रह सकता हूं

जीवन हिट तुम मुश्किल लेकिन यह आपको तीन सेकंड लेता है अगर आप सुपरहीरो हैं या नहीं मैं हूँ ।

बदसूरत व्यक्तितव सुन्दर चहरे को नष्ट कर देता है।

उस लड़के को ढूंढो जो आपको अपने माता-पिता से मिलने के लिए घर ले जाएगा, न कि उनके बेडरूम

लड़के के 80% लड़कियों के दोस्त हैं .. सबसे कम 20% मस्तिष्क होने हैं 😉

मैं जीवन में एक बिंदु तक पहुंच गया हूं जहां मुझे लगता है कि किसी को भी कोशिश करने और प्रभावित करने की आवश्यकता नहीं है। यदि वे मुझे पसंद करते हैं, मैं अच्छा हूँ, और अगर वे नहीं करते, यह उनका नुकसान है

कुछ लोग इतने नकली हैं कि यदि आप ठीक से देख रहे हैं तो अपनी गर्दन के पीछे, आपको “मैड इन चाइना” कहकर एक टैग मिलेगा 😀

Quotes On Attitude And Love

“Our future cannot depend on the government alone. The ultimate solutions lie in the attitudes and the actions of the American people.”

“Some men have Hundreds of reasons why they cannot do what they want to when all they need is one reason why they can.”

“Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost in Life.”

“I don’t have an attitude! I have a personality you can’t handle at all.”

Love is like war… Easy to start, difficult to finish and impossible to forget.

 The spaces between your fingers are meant to be filled with mine.

Love is like a bar of soap, once you think you have it, it slips away.

Somewhere there’s someone who dreams of your smile and finds in your presence that life is worthwhile, so when you are lonely remember it’s true somebody somewhere is thinking of you.

100+ Love Shayari for True Lovers

I m a puzzle, which u can’t solve

I don’t need to #show_off

Because they know what I’m and what I have.

Tom N Jerry taught me that life is boring….without ENEMY’S

No time for Fake and Negative People’s.

Take me as I am, not as you wish me to be.

I don’t wanna perfect life. I wanna happier life.

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous.”

“A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”

“Don’t wish for a good body, work for it.”

“I am strong, I am beautiful, I am enough.”

“Who is a girl??? A girl is the most beautiful part of God’s creation. Respect every lady in your life. You will never know what she has sacrificed for you.”

“I am a crafty girl, I make things, lots of things.”

Related Posts 250+ Whatsapp Status 2018 in English Best One Line Short Status For Whatsapp 2018 Cute Love Status Quotes For Her 2018 Latest Collection of Love Status in English 20+ Beautiful Heart Touching Quotes Collection

  #WhatsappStatus #WhatsappLoveStatus #WhatsappSadStatus #LoveStatus #SadStatus #WhatsappStatusHindi #AttitudeStatusHindi #Shayari #LoveShayari #SadShayari #MeaningfulQuotes #EmotionalStatus