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luci-in-trenchcoats · 5 years ago

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Follow Me Home (Part 1)

Summary: The reader wakes up in the woods on a cold November day with no recollection of anything after she was six years old. Chief Dean Winchester soon discovers though that the case is anything but simple...

Pairing: Cop!Dean x reader

Masterlist

Word Count: 3,400ish

Warnings: language, head injury

A/N: Enjoy!...

______

You breathed hard when you woke up, a man holding up both of his hands and taking a step back. You looked around the woods you were in, the sun still rising and the road in front of you empty aside from one car you assumed belonged to him.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” said the man, pretty green eyes staring at you. “I’m Dean.”

“Y/N,” you said, searching around behind yourself with your hand for anything to use as a weapon.

“Okay, now that we know each other, let’s agree not to hurt each other, okay?” he asked, looking back at your hand, giving you a friendly smile.

“I don’t…” you trailed off, looking around again, a shiver running down your spine.

“You got to be freezing,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket. You looked down, spotting yourself in only a thin tank top and a pair of underwear. You weren’t even wearing any shoes. Every bit of flesh was cold and covered in goosebumps. Dead leaves were scattered around and the frost on the ground made you shiver again. He moved to lay the jacket on you and you scrambled backwards, the man holding up his hands again. “How about I toss it over and you put it on?”

You nodded and he threw it to you. It was warm and big, a little bit of comfort coming to you but you were still freezing.

“Y/N, can you tell me what happened, sweetheart?” he asked. You stared at him, blinking a few times when you saw something shiny on his hip.

A badge.

“Y-you’re a police officer,” you said. Dean looked down and smiled, giving you a nod.

“Yeah. I’m a police officer, Y/N. I’m the chief of police here in Lawrence. You can trust me. No one’s gonna hurt you,” he said. “I see you got a cut on your head there. Does that hurt?”

You put a hand on your forehead, wincing a bit as you pulled it away, a jolt of pain on you left side next to your hair. You nodded as you moved your hand aside, Dean forcing a smile.

“Y/N, can you tell me what day it is?” he asked.

“No.”

“Okay, what year is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you said.

“Can you tell me the last thing you remember?” he asked.

“I was at the playground I think,” you said.

“The playground? Which playground? Were you going to meet up with someone?” he asked.

“No. I was playing,” you said. “On the jungle gym.”

“Sweetie, this may sound strange but how old are you?” asked Dean.

“I...don’t know,” you said. He smiled, running his hand over his face. “Is that bad? That’s bad isn’t it?”

“No. Nope. I don’t want you to worry about that. We will figure this thing out, okay? Right now though, I really need you to be brave and come with me. We’ll get you some warm clothes and some food okay?” he said.

“Can I have pancakes?” you asked, your stomach grumbling.

“Yup, we will go get you some pancakes,” he said, holding out a hand. You stared at it for a few moments before you let yours slip into it. Dean pulled you to your feet, putting an arm around your shoulders. “Okay, let’s go get you some food and something warm, huh?”

He helped you into the passenger seat of his car, Dean sliding behind the wheel and staring at the side of the road. He grabbed his radio and took a deep breath.

“This is Dean. I got the woman on the side of route 12,” said Dean into the radio, giving you a smile. “Do me a favor and start looking at any reports of missing kids somewhere about twenty years ago.”

You’d kept his coat on the whole time you were driving, Dean making sure the car was toasty warm for you. He had a pretty smile and you felt safe around him now. You weren’t entirely sure why but you weren’t as afraid as you had been when he showed up. Plus he drove around in an old muscle car over a police cruiser which made you like him even more.

“Dean,” you said when he parked in front of a hospital a short while later. “Pants?”

“Uh,” he said, glancing in his back seat and leaning over. He grunted for a moment before he pulled over a large flannel. “Can you wrap that around your legs for me?”

You nodded and put it on as best you could, fixing the rest when you got outside the car. Dean wrapped an arm around your shoulders as you walked inside. Apparently it was a back entrance and it looked like they were expecting you based on the number of people standing around.

“Chief,” said a doctor that stepped forward, Dean nodding. “You must be Y/N. We’re gonna check you out a bit and make sure everything’s alright. How does that sound, sweetie?”

You looked at Dean, getting a smile in return from him.

“I’ll be right outside, okay?” he said.

“Okay,” you said, slowly walking away from him. “Okay.”

“How’s the breakfast?” asked Dean, walking into his office an hour later where you were eating. You hadn’t enjoyed the hospital but they said you had mostly bumps and bruises. There was a cut on your head and you had a slight concussion which was probably accounting for the amnesia but otherwise, you were okay.

“McDonald’s is always yummy,” you said as you cut off another piece of pancake.

“You know McDonald’s?” he asked. You nodded as you ate.

“My mom dropped me off there while she worked,” you said, scratching your head. “I think...something seems off about that. Can’t remember though.”

“Does your mom work at McDonald’s?” he asked.

“Mhm,” you said, taking a bite.

“That is such a good job, Y/N. Thank you so much. You keep eating,” he said, sliding behind his desk and going to his computer. Another man walked in the room, this one in jeans and a uniform.

“Hi,” you said with a mouth full.

“Hi, Y/N. I’m Sam,” he said, giving you a friendly wave. “Dean’s my big brother.”

“You look super familiar. Did you go to my school?” you asked.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” said Sam, eyes wide. Dean stood up as you smiled. “Y/N Y/L/N, Dean.”

“Wasn’t...didn’t she go missing when you were in first grade? And she was our...the whole town thought the mother…” said Dean, staring at you. “Holy shit, Sammy. Add twenty years and that’s her. That’s Y/N.”

“When’s my mom gonna get here?” you asked, wolfing down the last of your pancakes. The boys shared a look and you frowned.

“Sam, look up the Y/L/N file. Now.”

“What do you mean my mom isn’t coming?” you said. Dean kneeled down in front of you, giving you a smile but you knew you were in for some bad news.

“Somebody took you when you were a little girl. You understand that, don’t you?” he asked.

“That’s what that doctor guy said,” you said.

“Well when that happened, it made your mom very sad and she got sick-”

“She killed herself, didn’t she,” you said, Dean sitting back on his heels. “I’m not a child. Don’t speak to me like one.”

“How...how do you know what that is if you were taken when you were six?” he asked.

“I don’t remember but I know that phone is an iPhone in your pocket and that coffee machine is a keruig and that my mom probably committed suicide,” you said, closing your eyes.

“...We need to talk to the doctor again.”

“What exactly are you saying? She can’t remember anything after she was six years old,” said Dean, throwing his hands down on the table. “And it’s been more than a few hours, Bob. Shouldn’t her memory have come back?”

“Yes but she also had head trauma which complicates this. Her amnesia...it may be shock based, it may be physical. Either way, the fact it hasn’t come back yet likely means it’s not a great sign for it coming back at all. Then the fact that she knows modern day things, the fact she understood high school level math, college level math when asked, leads me to believe that despite the condition she was found in...she was likely treated as whoever took her’s child,” said the doctor.

“You’re saying the sicko that took her and raised her, treated her as their child?” asked Dean.

“It explains the lack of restraining marks, of scars on her body. It explains the intelligence level as well. If I gave the two of you a test I bet she’d scored higher than you even, Dean. If she was taken as a young child and truths were distorted, it’s entirely possible that she believed whoever took her was her actual parent,” he said. “She would have had no reason to fear them. She may have grown up free just as you did, only it was with the person who took her.”

“I must have found out,” you said, both of them turning to you. “The truth. Maybe I ran away, maybe I snuck out, I don’t know. But I left wherever I was and came back to my hometown. I found out the bastard took me I bet.”

“Well, whatever happened, you’re safe now and this crazy isn’t coming near you again,” said Dean. “So doc, you help her with her head while I hunt this guy down.”

“Son of a bitch!” shouted Dean, slamming his phone down in his office towards the end of the day. You glanced over from the desk in the main area they were letting you use, having you scan through the internet in hopes of anything jogging your memory. He left his office and sighed, giving you a smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Not much more left to scare me with after the day I’ve had,” you said, turning your attention back to the computer.

“Anything in your head?” asked Dean as you scrolled down another webpage.

“No. It’s probably not a good sign that I can’t remember, is it,” you said as he sat on the edge of the desk, watching you for a moment.

“No, not really,” he said, rubbing his thumb against the palm of his hand. “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. You don’t have to remember this way.”

“Maybe,” you said with a shrug. “It’d be awesome if I could remember something aside from memories of being a kid. I don’t even know what I do for a living.”

“I don’t want you to worry about it,” he said softly. “Listen, it’s getting late and we ought to get out of here.”

“We?”

“You’re sort of under police protection until we find this guy or you can remember so until either of those things happen, you’re stuck with me,” he said with a smile. “I got a safe place to crash. I promise.”

“Perfect.”

“This is the guest room. You can use it until we figure out a place for you to stay,” said Dean as he flipped on a switch.

“Thanks,” you said, looking around the plain bedroom. “This is your house?”

“Yeah. I moved out of my apartment and in here just a few months ago. It’s pretty neat owning your own house. Well I rent but still, it’s just me. No neighbors right on top of you, you can blast music, no shared driveway. I love it,” he said.

“My house was older and small I remember. Just me and my mom,” you said, glancing back at him. “Do I have any family left?”

“I’m sorry. None that we could find but we’ll keep looking. Something just doesn’t seem right about this whole situation,” said Dean.

“Which part,” you said as you sat on the bed with a laugh.

“If you have family out there, I will find them for you, okay? You’re a smart girl. Maybe we can get you into college and soon you’ll be out there saving for your house like that,” he said, turning up the heat in the cool room.

“Are there any colleges around here?” you asked.

“Not within a decent commute. Maybe you’d even want to do some online-”

“Quiet,” you said as you stood up, Dean snapping his lips shut. “Online college. I think I did college online.”

“Any idea where?” he asked.

“No. Sorry. But I have this feeling I went or did it already if that makes sense,” you said.

“You’re making a hell of a lot more sense than I think I would if I were in your shoes,” he said.

“I know it’s in there, the memories,” you said, closing your eyes. “I just can’t get to it.”

“You’ve had a long day. Don’t overexert yourself, sweetheart. Why don’t you call it an early night and try to get some sleep,” he said.

“You’ll be home?” you asked. He smiled and nodded.

“Yeah. I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen working a little while and then I’ll be up in bed. If you need me, just shout and I’ll come find you, okay?” he asked.

“Thank you,” you said.

“You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job,” he said.

“Thank you anyways,” you said.

“Get some rest, Y/N. I’ll see you in the morning.”

You tossed and turned in the bed for two hours before you finally got up and went down to Dean’s kitchen. Your stomach was rumbling and you opened the fridge, looking around before you spotted half of a roast beef sandwich.

“Go ahead,” said Dean from the table. You jumped and sighed, Dean wincing. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you said, taking out the sandwich and taking a seat at his kitchen counter. “We went to the same school, right?”

“Yeah. You were in Sam’s grade. I’m a few years older than him but yeah, I went to Midland elementary too,” he said. “That’s where we are actually, just a hop and a skip over from Lawrence.”

“Sam and I were in the bluejays I think,” you said. Dean chuckled, rubbing his eyes.

“Yeah, the smartie reading group. I was a dumbass red robin myself,” he said.

“That’s not true,” you said. “You’re a cop. You’re not a dumbass.”

“You should see some members of my force,” he laughed. “The whole town freaked out after you went missing. I remember they had assemblies at school and for a whole year, I didn’t go anywhere without my parents. Everyone was pretty scared that their kids were next.”

“Did everyone think I was dead?” you asked, taking a bite of the sandwich.

“Eventually, yeah. Shit, Mr. Owens, you know, he owns the grocery store chain, he set up a memorial scholarship in your name at the high school,” said Dean.

“Well that’s gonna be awkward since I’m alive now,” you said. Dean smiled, taking a seat across from you. “You’re kind of hot you know.”

“Hot?”

“Yeah. Attractive,” you said, taking another bite. “Good sandwich maker too.”

“I’ve been told those are my best qualities,” he said, looking you over. “Are you flirting?”

“What do you think, Sherlock?” you said, picking up a piece of lettuce that had fallen, popping it in your mouth. “I’m pretty sure I’ve flirted before too. Pretty sure I ain’t even a virgin. Actually, yeah, definitely not that.”

“When they looked you over at the hospital, they kind of confirmed that. You’re actually on birth control,” he said.

“Isn’t that a lead? Like, I need a prescription for that most likely right?” you asked.

“It is. But we don’t believe that you’ve been going by Y/N Y/L/N in recent years and if I get a list of everyone woman on birth control in the county, which I don’t even believe I can do, it’d be enormous. That’s if you’re even on record in this county,” he said.

“Well, if I’m on birth control, I doubt I still live with whoever took me,” you said, munching on another bite.

“It’s possible. There’s just too many variables right now,” he said.

“Where’d you find me again?” you asked.

“Off route 12, on the way into town,” he said.

“What’s out there?” you asked.

“Old farms. Small crop fields,” he said. “Woods. Nothing really.”

“I think we’re missing something,” you said.

“You think so Watson?” he asked. You cocked your head, Dean shrugging as he smirked. “I too read.”

“Cute,” you said, popping the last piece into your mouth. “If you have a stroke of genius or anything, wake me up.”

“Hopefully tomorrow we can start figuring some things out,” he said. “I hope.”

“Me too, Dean.”

“Y/N,” chided Dean from behind his desk in his office the next morning, glancing over at you. “Could you please stop grunting?”

“I’m bored,” you said.

“Go look at the computer again or read a book. There’s plenty in the lobby,” he said. “Fran can get you some.”

“Let me help with your case,” you said.

“You’re not a police officer,” he said.

“I am the biggest piece of evidence we have though so…” you said with a shrug as you sat up. Dean stared and you gave it right back.

“You’re sassy and sarcastic. I think it’s safe to say that you weren’t being held against your will, at least...you know what I mean,” he said.

“There’s been no reports of a missing person anywhere?” you asked.

“Locally, no. Statewide...we’re still working on it. Again, that’s assuming you grew up in this state. You could have lived in Minnesota for all I know,” he said.

“You did run my fingerprints right? Or like my picture through a face recognition thing?” you asked.

“Hi. This is Midland, the tiny ass town next to Lawrence which has a fifth of the budget of that city’s tiny ass budget. This ain’t CSI Miami. Half that crap on TV isn’t real and the half that is…” he trailed off, looking at his computer screen, cocking his head. “Well...that is very interesting.”

“What?” you asked as you stood up and walked over.

“Apparently you work at an architecture firm,” he said, turning his monitor towards you.

There was a picture of you along with some others in front of a banner. You were in a business casual outfit, a happy smile on your face, some sort of award in front of the group.

“Apparently you were on the team that landed a big design contract for some new five star resort,” he said. “Up in Seattle, Washington.”

“Seattle? I’m from Seattle?” you asked.

“Well as of August of this year you were working there,” he said, jotting down the company name off of the facebook page. “We put up a post on our facebook page yesterday. Looks like we got a good tip for once.”

“Seattle?” you said again, Dean already pulling up the firm’s website.

“Harrington & Brothers,” said Dean. “You’re on the college recruitment team too according to this, Ms. Jones. Jane Jones to be exact. Magna Cum Laude out of Stanford ya little smartie pants,” he said.

“Wait. If I work in Seattle, how the hell did I end up in Kansas?”

_____

A/N: Read Part 2 here!

#supernatural #spn #dean x reader #dean winchester #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester x reader #dean #winchester #dean spn #cop!dean x reader #au #series

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kumkaniudaku · 6 years ago

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Un-Thinkable

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: Sexual Content (18 +)

Written By: @kumkaniudaku and @justanotherloveaffair

Author’s Note

Recommended Listening: Unthinkable (I’m Ready) x Alicia Keys (ft. Drake)

Even the most beautiful things must, unfortunately, come to an end.

At the dawn of the next morning, as CoCo and Chad lay side by side in the calm silence of their villa’s bedroom, the creeping realization that they would have to leave paradise to return to the often difficult hustle and bustle of normal life attempted to put a damper on the time spent together.

Rolling over to address his wife, Chadwick found Tasha already awake and staring at the ceiling in deep thought.

“Mornin’, baby,” he spoke in a hoarse whisper as he shuffled closer to her body. CoCo answered with a distracted greeting of her own, prompting Chadwick to make up the slack in the conversation. “What you thinking about?”

Sighing deeply, she turned on her side to face him, “Let’s just stay here. We can fly the kids out and live here for the next year. I planned it out this morning.”

“Are you being serious,” he laughed.

“Very. I’m sure there are schools for Micah. We’d, of course, have to convert to the national religion, but that’s okay. We can work on that.”

“Okay, I’m sensing something else is up. C’mon and talk to me about it.” Chadwick listened to CoCo whine as he shifted himself into an upright position against the headboard and opened his arms. It was a tradition in their relationship for matters of the mind and heart to be discussed with Tasha straddling her husband’s lap to bring them face to face in a position that offered limited opportunities for movement. The practice was mostly to stop CoCo from walking away from difficult conversations as their shared therapist suggested.

In traditional fashion, she sat up to swing her leg over his lap and settle her bottom half onto his lap. A tinge of excitement rolled through both of them as flashbacks of all other encounters in the same position flashed behind their eyes. This wasn’t one of those times, so they quickly returned to reality.

“Okay, spill it. What’s on your mind, Cookie?”

“I don’t really want to. It’s nothing, I promise.”

“For some reason, I don’t believe that. So, before I resort to more drastic measures, I’ll ask you to spill it one more time.”

CoCo’s head tilted in confusion, earning a playful eyebrow raise from Chadwick who maintained eye contact. She had no idea what his “drastic measures” were, but knowing the lengths he’d gone to before to get her share her thoughts, CoCo let out a sigh of surrender that signaled that he had one the silent battle.

“I...I just,” she stammered, playing with her fingernails and avoiding Chadwick’s gaze. “I don’t want this to end. We’re in a good place, listening to and understanding each other, and I know what the stress of life back home can do when we aren’t paying attention to us.”

“Come here, baby.” Chadwick’s fingers lightly grazed the warm skin of his wife’s thighs before dancing up her arms to pull her chest to his. She settled into the embrace and closed her eyes, preferring to listen to the steady thump of his heart in his chest.

“We’ve had our moments where we...didn’t treat each other the best. But staying in the Maldives, no matter how beautiful it is won’t stop one of those moments from coming around again.”

“Eh, save your logic and tell me what I wanna hear,” she groaned in the crook of his neck as her head rested on his shoulder.

He laughed at her childish response before kissing her forehead. “What I’m saying is, we can’t predict what will happen when we get back home and we can’t avoid it by staying here. What we can do, is take this feeling, bottle it up, and save it for those times when home feels like Hell instead of paradise.”

“Even the sex?”

“Oh, that’s what I was talking about. Were you referring to something else?” CoCo playfully pushed his chest in the midst of their shared laughter. Chadwick caught her smaller hand in his and brought it to his lips for a quick kiss.

“We don’t need to stay in this place to listen to each other and create moments that are just for us. All we need is the feeling.”

“And once a month, we could get someone to look after the kids so we make good on the promise we made yesterday.”

“Especially that. I have some thigh high socks on the way to our mailbox as we speak.”

“Oooooh, should I get a cheer outfit too? Something short and tight?”

“Mmm,” he moaned into the top of her head with his eyes closed. “Don’t tempt me, girl. I’ll make a call as soon as we land.”

The mere thought of living out his locker room fantasy set off a slow shift in the conversation, returning to the lusty haze that had characterized much of their trip. But, instead of letting their bodies become lost in the sensation of one another, husband and wife set off to make the best of their final day of leisure.

Niha arranged a guided tour of Male, the capital of the nation, opening their eyes to the customs and culture of the island. Two hours of stories from local business owners and working class members provided a tremendous amount of perspective that had been missing from the trip as they enjoyed life as tourists. A return to their tiny corner of the Earth introduced imassage therapists from the resort to greet them for a relaxing couple’s massage that added the figurative cherry on top of the vacation banana split.

As the early afternoon continued, Chadwick was grateful for the two-hour window of alone time during his wife’s nap that gave him the opportunity to revisit an old idea. A few short conversations and a package drop off quickly put Chadwick’s plan into motion, leaving time for more meaningful preparation on his end.

Chadwick, though normally conspicuous due to his height and star power, moved around the villa in stealth silence, retrieving items to place in carefully planned spots. Handwritten notes containing instructions one by one littered areas that were sure to fall along Tasha’s path when she woke up to find him gone.

If one were to ask his wife about her feelings toward surprises, they’d be met with a lengthy diatribe about her disdain for the “extra” practice. But, Chadwick knew his wife appreciated a well thought out surprise, and as he examined the tea lights lining a walkway from the bed to the bathroom and back to the sun deck, he felt confident that he’d receive a positive reaction.

Shortly after Chadwick disappeared from the villa to tie up loose ends in another location, Tasha’s eyes fluttered open in a fight to return from the clutches of her nap.

“Please, babe, don’t let me take another nap. I haven’t slept this much since I was pregnant.” CoCo continued to speak, giving a rundown of her dream as she ambled to the bathroom to relieve herself. Noticing a lack of response from her husband, she popped her head back into the main area.

“Aaron, are you listening to me? Chad? Oh hell, they done took my man!” Picking up the pace, CoCo made a dash for the bed to search for her phone. Her frantic search brought forth a small note scribbled with familiar handwriting.

“I’m gonna kill him,” she whispered to herself with a smile before reading aloud.

Here’s another one of those surprises you hate. Go take a shower. You need one.

Tasha scoffed at Chadwick’s implication that she stunk but quickly sniffed inside her shirt to find herself smelling less than pleasant. She made quick work of gathering underwear and other shower essentials before reaching the en suite to handle her business. Toni Braxton flowed from the small speakers of CoCo’s iPhone as she took her time cleansing with a glass of wine resting on the edge of the tub. Thoughts of what was to come made her giddy with excitement. Would he arrange another extravagant demonstration or would their last night be more intimate?

Reminding herself that the only thing holding her back from finding out was the time wasted in the bathtub, she quickly showered to move into hair and makeup. Another note greeted her at the “his and hers” sink across the room.

I’m sure it’s been an hour since you read the last one. There’s something for you in the closet. Don’t take too much time getting dolled up. I can’t wait to see you.

Always a lover of gift big and small, CoCo high stepped to the closet she hadn’t noticed up to this point and swung open the doors. On the only hanger available hung a flowing chiffon gown in a yellow hue that Chadwick knew would compliment his wife’s bronze skin. The structured strapless neckline accompanied off-shoulder sleeves and a ruched waist to accentuate her curves. A high slit added variation to the floor length garment, making CoCo contemplate ditching the panties she had planned for the night. Although the dress was the undisputed star of the show, Chadwick supplied the pair of Gucci sandals Tasha had been raving about for weeks.

A short and animated dance of approval broke out as CoCo stood in her towel shaking her ass in the nearby floor length mirror. That display of excitement continued in random spurts during her makeup and hair routine depending on the song playing in the background.

“I, too, hope to have sex on the ceiling,” she informed Sevyn Streeter in the middle of the song’s chorus. “The ceiling, the floor, the wall… I want it all!”

Tasha smiled at her unintentional rhyme and filed it into her mental library of reasons she should start a new career as a rapper before settling for the gloss in her hand over matte lipstick.

When she was zipped into her dress and preparing to pull her new shoes from their box, CoCo noticed a third note waiting for her.

I got these because you liked them, but I doubt you’ll need them for where we’re going. Go for something flat or no shoes at all. We’ll put these to work another day ; ).

CoCo was equally impressed and intrigued as she placed the shoes back in their box and opted for the pair of sandals she had stashed away for a more formal gathering. A short walk to the back deck presented Tasha with a note full of directions on how to locate her man.

“What in the hell are paces, Aaron,” she laughed while reading the instructions in her head. After a few feet, her path became literally etched in the sand. Hand drawn arrows pointed her in the right direction until the soft sounds of recorded string instruments grew louder.

At the end of the manmade runway stood Chadwick and his award-winning smile. Behind him, a lush dinner set up featured all the bells and whistles. Candles and red wine sat atop an ornately decorated table with a bouquet of the Maldives’ country flower, pink roses.

Tasha kept her eyes on her husband as she kicked off her sandals and sauntered closer to the man of her dreams. She was the first to speak.

“I told you I don’t like surprises.”

Chadwick caught the hint of a smile on CoCo’s face and returned it while reaching for her outstretched hand. “Punish me later, baby. I deserve it.”

“What you deserve is a kiss for looking so good and planning all of this.” Her hands slid out of Chadwick’s and up his forearm until they were anchored on his biceps.

Their lips came together for a sweet, lingering kiss before they pulled back to smile at each other.

“Happy Birthday, baby. Will you join me for dinner?”

“I’d be a fool not to.”

Chadwick led the way to the table, pulling the chair out for CoCo when they arrived before taking the seat across from his wife.

Together they enjoyed a light appetizer and sang along to the R&B playlist prepared for the night. When the main course arrived, the couple found themselves on a walk down memory lane as they recounted stories of their time as “platonic” friends.

“I’ll tell you this, Co. You were 5’9” and maybe 135 pounds soaking wet with weights on your ankles, but you were always trying to fight somebody.”

“Oh, please. I push a girl one time in the club and now I’m some heavyweight boxer,” CoCo questioned as she waved her hand to dismiss Chadwick’s claims.

“Baby...no. I’ve seen you go toe-to-toe with a guy you thought had a problem with me. That was a week after you threatened to beat up your team’s grad trainer.”

“She was a racist! She called me ‘girl’ every practice.”

“Taylor was white and from Wisconsin. She was trying to make friends and thought calling you ‘girl’, like your teammates did, was normal.”

Tasha took a long sip of her wine and shrugged, “Okay, you’re right. I should send her a basket or something to apologize. I’ve changed for the better since then.”

“You have and I’m proud of you. Cheers to mellowing out unless someone messes with the kids.”

“And my man.”

With a laugh, their glasses touched at the rim before they downed the remaining merlot colored liquid. Tasha handled their third refill while Chadwick watched her with a distant smile.

“You know we never talked about...the kiss.”

“Which kiss? We kiss a lot.”

CoCo was being intentionally dim which Chadwick noticed before kissing his teeth.

“Don’t play. The kiss in New York. We just let it happen when we should’ve discussed it.”

“Well, let’s discuss it now.”

Chadwick was taken aback by his notoriously resistant wife’s urging to discuss a sensitive matter.

“How did you feel afterward? When I saw you the next morning, you looked unphased.”

“I was far from that,” Tasha laughed over her wine glass. “I was terrified because I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

“Get your hopes up?”

“You had just broken up with your girlfriend of two years. I felt like the rebound. Then, when you didn’t say anything, I knew it was true.”

Reaching across the table, Chadwick grabbed both of Tasha’s hands to bring them to his mouth for a kiss.

“You have not been and will never be my second option.” Tasha felt her face heat up at her husband’s sincerity, her whole being tingling from the broad smile on his face. “I gotta tell you a secret though, baby.”

“I’m all ears.”

“After that kiss, I thought some absolutely filthy shit about you. Man, it was nasty. I don’t even wanna share because it was that nasty.”

Their shared laughter could be heard over the soft music and crash of the waves. CoCo used her napkin to dab tears from her eyes while catching her breath.

“Is this where locker room fantasy came from?”

“No, that came when I met you. Your practice outfits were a sight to be seen.”

Chadwick dove head first into a description of outfits that Tasha had long forgotten, obviously embellishing his favorite details to draw a laugh from his wife. Their flirting continued and intensified through a shared dessert and an invitation to walk to another location located further down the shore.

Hand in hand, the couple strolled along the wet sand, feeling the water splash against their feet and recede at a steady pace. The setting sun painted a beautiful mural of purple and pink in the darkening sky and the once humid temperatures began to cool into a bearable breeze.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be here doing this with you.”

Chadwick peeled his eyes from the waves to acknowledge his wife with a smile. “Are you happy?”

“I am...something I can’t even describe with words right now. All I can say is thank you.”

“You’re more than welcome, baby. I don’t think this could’ve been more perfect. Even with my original plan when we were dating.”

“Sounds like you have another secret to tell me,” CoCo teased as she allowed Chad to pull her closer to his body.

“It’s not much of a secret anymore,” he laughed. “I was going to propose to you here. I had it all planned out from top to bottom, but when I came to your place for dinner, I couldn’t wait. So, I asked you then and saved the trip for another time.”

“You were about to pull out all the stops for little ol’ me?”

Tasha’s exaggerated southern accent made Chadwick laugh a deep belly laugh, “And you wonder where Mikey gets it from.”

“Whatever! Now, tell me the whole plan! Start to finish.”

“Okay, close your eyes for me.” Tasha did as she was told while Chadwick moved behind her to turn her body toward the sea. “I planned for a similar setup. We’d eat and walk for a bit. Then, when the clock hit a certain time, I would stop and get on one knee.”

“Ooooh romantic! Keep going.”

Chadwick smiled and shook his head though his wife couldn’t see.

“Then,” he started as he took a knee. “I’d tell you how much you mean to me. I’d tell you how I fumbled countless chances to make us a reality, but asked God for one more opportunity to get it right. I want to do life with you forever. Will you marry me?”

Tears had long begun a slow descent down her cheeks, but Tasha was far from sad. The smile on her face could tell anybody with eyes that her tears were another outward manifestation of her joy. The question still made her stomach flutter after several years of holy matrimony.

Turning on her heels, she found Chadwick looking up at her with the same hopeful twinkle in his eye from years ago.

“Hell yeah, I’ll marry you!”

Excitement propelled her body into his arms as they shared short kisses interrupted by giggles.

“And then you’d jump into my arms and we’d make love on the beach. I didn’t think about the moments in between that, but you were definitely naked in my dreams.”

“Someone has a public sex fantasy! It’s way tamer than mine.”

“Corporate Tasha wants to get it in outside?”

“When I was in college, I may or may not have had this fantasy of being, erm, “taken” by a fine young man on a hotel balcony during Spring Break in an extremely graphic nature. You may know him actually. About 6’3”, slim, his first name rhymes with Had-zick.”

Tasha’s eyebrows wiggled suggestively, a gesture that Chadwick returned with a smile.

“I think I might know him, but he’s with the woman of his dream right now, so he’s a little busy.”

“Mmmm.” Tasha hummed as her husband took a moment to shower her temple in short kisses. “It’s probably best we don’t live out that fantasy. Can you imagine the headlines if we would’ve gotten caught on the boat?”

“Black Panther Beach Backshots or some shit. You know how Twitter likes to get.”

“I’d be ashamed, embarrassed for our family, but…” Tasha nodded to herself with a little smile, imagining the social media reaction, “Proud.”

Chadwick threaded his fingers through CoCo’s as they resumed their slow walk, their toes sinking in the soft sand. “Well, maybe we can live out the fantasy without, you know, the life-ending and career-threatening side of it.”

Tasha glanced at her husband, the little smile permanently affixed to her features growing even bigger. It was hard to imagine her heart feeling more full.

They could have been walking for a few minutes or an hour. With the magic grandeur of the sunset surrounding them and the mesmerizing rhythm of the waves, CoCo lost track of time. Words drifted away and lost importance as they both became focused on being in the moment, experiencing each other to the fullest.

Her hand locked in his, they continued along what seemed like an aimless course, until she spotted something on the beach.

“One final surprise?” CoCo broke the silence, earning a meaningful smile in response.

A square blanket was neatly stretched out over the sand between the ocean and the tree line, surrounded by lit candles that had to have been recently arranged. A pang hit CoCo’s heart and she came to a stop several feet away. She squeezed Chadwick’s hand, a surge of emotion making her blink away the prick of tears.

He released her fingers, walking a few paces to stand fully centered in her vision with an outstretched hand, his earnest gaze paired with the natural beauty of his smile making for a sight she wouldn’t soon forget.

“Sit with me?”

An ocean wave crashed over the sand at the very moment something similar occurred within her. She took his hand. Without disrupting the candles with their flickering flames in the gentle breeze, Chadwick guided her onto the blanket with delicate steps, both careful to shake off the excess sand.

A few seconds later, a pair of warm, familiar arms shifted around her stomach, bringing her back against his solid chest. CoCo couldn’t help the relaxed, blissful groan that slipped out as they cuddled close together. Silence returned as they both watched the ever-changing sky throw a staggering celebration for their last night, painting the dome above with violet purples and rosy pinks.

The changing colors of the sky were a bittersweet reminder of the impermanence of the moment. CoCo shivered not with cold, but with knowing it would be over soon. She felt it slipping away faster than she could think.

“Aaron,” she said softly, interrupting the soft, steady breathing at her ear. “This is going to be our last time together like this for a while, isn’t it?”

“Mmm,” he hummed, smoothing his hands over her arms.

“Then I want to make sure we did everything we ever dreamed of.”

CoCo shifted until she was facing Chadwick, disturbing the comfortable embrace in favor of looking her lover right in the eye so she could impart all of the passion and intensity that was building inside her with just her eyes.

Chadwick’s mouth hung slightly open, hanging on her every word and movement.

CoCo continued in a husky voice, “I don’t want to leave here thinking what-if.”

He wet his lips slightly, lost in her deep brown eyes.

“What did you have in mind?”

With a dancer’s grace, Tasha got to her feet, the yellow, flowing chiffon material stirring gently about her bare legs where Chadwick’s eyes were fixed until his attention was caught by her hands, delicately, slowly, teasingly drawing the dress up and over her body.

She stood, naked and proud, finally capturing his eyes that lifted up to hers after drinking her in.

“Let’s live out our fantasies. Under the stars.”

Heat burned in their shared gaze as Chadwick crawled up to his full height. To the soundtrack of crashing waves, he cast away his clothes one by one. The illumination from the flickering candlelight surrounded them and brilliant, silvery moonlight cast highlights and shadows on Chadwick’s skin.

He closed the distance with a single step. Their lips clasped in a small, but meaningful kiss and he rested his fingers on her cheeks, tilting her face up to him.

His words were barely louder than the ocean surrounding them, but the conviction and desire in his honey-timbered baritone shook her to her core.

“I want to make love to you.”

CoCo’s lips parted with the escape of a small breath. He touched her pillowy bottom lip with his thumb, rubbing it as he watched with the barest hint of a smile.

“Will you let me?”

He barely waited for her nod before she was surrounded by his arms, wrapping warmly around her as he guided her down. The sparks flying between them had her anticipating what would be something unforgettable. As their lips connected with slow passion, CoCo consciously had to reign herself in. She wanted to take her time.

Her hands roamed down Chadwick’s back and pressed him down, bringing their bodies tightly together. His chin dropped down to her shoulder at the feel of her hot, soft skin surrounding him, especially where he was most sensitive.

“You feel me?” His whisper in her ear made her shiver and arch up against where he was slowly grinding circles into her thigh.

“Yess, I feel you baby.” She gripped his face, kissing his lips over and over.

He allowed her needy kisses before breaking away, his breathy words sending her into a foggy haze. “I want you to remember this. How I’m loving you right now.” As he was whispering against her mouth, CoCo felt the tip of him grazing her entrance. “I want you to remember this when we’re old and can’t fuck anymore.” Her smile against his mouth quickly turned into a whimper at the feel of his size spreading her slowly.

“I love you. I will always love you.”

Her world turned into pure sensation, turning her speechless at the way he was filling her with his words, his love, his body, until she felt completely, breathlessly occupied by Chadwick. As natural as a choreographed dance, their hands clasped on either side of her head and gripped tightly as he began to move, each roll of his hips drawing sharp moans of pleasure.

CoCo drifted between savoring his touch and marveling at the sky full of glittering stars, twinkling like diamonds woven into the lush velvety black of the night sky. All around her, the sound of waves combined with his voice that never seemed to stop telling her beautiful words as he made love to her body.

With a burst of energy, she unclasped their hands and nudged him, moving fluidly together until she was straddling his lap. His warm palms rested on her ass, not disrupting her but moving with her. It was his turn to be speechless at the passionate look in CoCo’s eyes as she rode him. She gripped his face, her breath coming heavily on his lips along with grunts of pleasure and effort.

“That’s it Co, get what’s yours, baby,” he encouraged, the sound of his voice driving her wild.

“I never want to stop,” she whimpered.

“So let’s never stop.” He kissed her lips, his hands gripping her waist tight to take over the pace when her energy waned, and her thrusts became lazy. “You’ve got me forever.”

“Forever,” she echoed on his lips, before their lips and tongues entangled in a fierce kiss, battling for domination over each other while he continued to bounce her up and down, the candlelight casting shadows over his flexing arms.

CoCo broke from the kiss, her mouth opening in a silent scream as Chadwick gripped her in place and pounded into her. He anchored himself with his legs and grunted, the sudden action making CoCo’s body tremor and shake. With both hands around his neck, her head fell back in surrender.

Her cries mingled with the open, balmy night air. She didn’t care how loud she screamed, with only Chadwick and the beach they were fucking on to hear her, she felt truly free.

The sharp thrusts began to slow and she curved back into his embrace, returning her lips to his for a few brief kisses that were broken up by Chadwick’s panting breaths.

“Oh god, I love you baby,” she sighed, unable to stop saying the words, wanting to moan and scream them until she was hoarse and every square inch of the island heard her.

He repeated her words back and as his thrusts became sluggish, CoCo took over the pace with a slow grind in his lap. Chadwick clenched his teeth, the cords in his neck standing out at the feel of her tight, wet pussy working him over.

He looked up at her, the pools of his eyes shining with reflected candlelight. “I want to get deeper baby. Get on your knees for me.”

A shiver went through her, knowing the fullness that position brought her and her stomach twinged with anticipation. She nodded and separated from him just long enough to crawl down from his lap, her hands and knees sinking slightly into the sand beneath the blanket as she got on her hands and knees.

A firm hand pressed on the small of her back, pushing her into a downward arch until her tummy met the blanket. The sight of her breasts squishing down made Chadwick groan behind her, hastening the tease he was planning with the need to have her now.

She gasped, taking his dick in all of its thick glory at a depth and angle that made her clench the blanket, white-knuckled. His palm pressed into her arch kept her still, and with nowhere to go, unable to crawl away from his deep thrusts, she turned into limp putty in his hands, her moans muffled by the blanket. As Chadwick’s excitement grew, his hips smacked against her ample cheeks, creating the erotic sound of clapping skin to add to the sounds of their cries.

He reigned himself in, bringing the tempo back to a slow, sensual pace as his hands massaged her. As good as she felt, he wanted her back in his arms.

Chadwick smoothly shifted his body down over hers, encouraging CoCo to straighten onto her stomach and immediately easing the ache from her arched back.

She smiled at the intimate position they settled into, with Chadwick’s elbows on either side of hers, their arms and hands entangling with each other. She felt the hot skin of his stomach and chest all along her back to her shoulder where he brushed her hair aside to kiss her cheek, just as he began to rock into her again.

She gripped his hands and bent to cover them with kisses, licks, and little bites as he alternated grinding her and gently pounding her down into the soft surface. Every time he did, she lost concentration and could only gasp.

He sacrificed one hand to move beneath her body, where he could fondle her clit and the moment he did, it was game over.

CoCo arched her back, her nails digging into Chadwick’s hand.

“That spot… right there…. Don’t stop,” she gasped, an unstoppable force beginning to build inside her.

“This spot?” His deep voice vibrated in her ear, his thrusts hitting her deeper than before.

“Yes… yes!” She cried. Overwhelmed, she grasped his hand harder, biting down on one of his knuckles. His dick filled her fast and repeatedly, the mounting action making their skin clap once more.

“Relax baby, don’t fight it… come loud and hard for me Tasha.”

Her screams began as his words ended, the sound of her bliss making Chadwick clench his teeth and involuntarily pound her harder. A powerful force moved through her, making her overloaded nerves crackle and pulse with heat. He rode her through it, using the squeeze of her tight muscles, the pain of her digging nails to fuel his own building release.

She was still whimpering with aftershocks when he rose up onto his palms, digging deep into her as his sounds and movements began their familiar pattern. She knew what each moan meant, and as the space between them shortened, she felt the urge to see him force her to cry out, “Wait, baby… wait. I want to see you.”

Chadwick immediately stopped, hovering over her and as CoCo shifted onto her back beneath him, the wide smile on his otherwise intensely concentrating face made it all worth it.

There was an entirely different kind of bliss that came with holding him as he searched for orgasm in the depths of her body. A comfort and intimacy that couldn’t be found just anywhere. CoCo’s heart pounded as love for him shook her to her very foundations. They were in another part of the world, on a secluded beach, and yet, she was home.

He couldn’t have been more beautiful as he finally released inside her. CoCo forced her eyes open, trading the view of the milky way and the beach for the vision of him locked in his own paradise. His bottom lip trapped between his teeth, his eyelids fluttering and twitching as the eyes hidden behind them rolled. Sweat dripped down from his forehead and she traced it along his prominent cheekbones, patient as she watched him ride out the waves.

The last vestiges of orgasm were still fading, his hips still lazily moving when he finally opened his eyes to her expression of warmth.

“There he is,” she murmured.

“Nope, sorry. Chadwick’s not here. Chadwick’s gone to another plane of existence.”

She curled her fingers into his back and they shared a laugh, both exhausted but happy and glowing, head over heels in love.

For a few minutes, they just held each other as the sweat cooled and their muscles relaxed.

CoCo’s cheeks were hurting from a grin she couldn’t wipe away.

“I’m still smiling, aren’t I.”

Chadwick kissed his wife’s upturned lips and made her giggle as he caught her teeth and kissed them too. “Yep.”

“Damn, do we really have to go back?”

“Afraid so, Cookie.”

Once again, that feeling of the moment being fleeting and about to end made her heart pang. She pushed the thoughts away, determined to enjoy the moment as long as she could.

After blowing out the candles, Chadwick got to his feet and they helped each other back into their clothes, with no concept of what time it was or really where they were, knowing only the direction they came in.

Hand-in-hand, they mutually decided to take a path back along the edge of the ocean, where gentle, warm waves trickled over their feet and the compacted sand sank under each footprint, quickly filling with shallow pools of water in their wake. The ocean and beach caught and reflected the moonlight, making the night seem dreamy.

At the end of their slow ambling walk, they returned to a location they both recognized but cleared of the elaborate dinner table and only a faint impression remaining of their earlier footsteps.

CoCo unexpectedly stopped in her tracks, a lump growing in her throat at how easily their romantic dinner spot had been packed up and swept away.

“Why does this make me feel so sad,” CoCo mumbled, tears shimmering in her eyes as she looked side to side, not finding even a crumb from their dinner left behind.

Chadwick turned, studying the face of his wife as he took both of her hands, squeezing them until she lifted her eyes up to his.

“Because something beautiful happened here and now it’s gone without a trace,” he remarked, pausing before he continued. “But it’s not…. not really,” the corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. “I still remember how good that wine tasted. Do you?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, a curve of her own smile beginning.

He clutched her tight to him, wrapping his arms around her back. “And that chocolate cake, mmmm that was good.”

She laughed, the memory of it coming back so vividly she could taste it, and all at once she got his point.

Grateful for how he always knew the right thing to say, she snuck her hands around his back, hiding her face in his chest and feeling herself rejuvenate in the comfort of his arms.

“If I forget a second of this Co, I won't want to live anymore.”

She pulled away and tilted her head up to his, finding his eyes glossy with tears. They shared a moment of silence and understanding, followed by her clasping his hand, filled with conviction to enjoy the remaining hours, minutes, and seconds.

As they began to wander back to the villa, she awaited the right pause in the serious moment to say,

“Don’t forget, those thigh high socks are on their way home.” Her lips quirked up, eyes sliding sideways to meet Chadwick’s who immediately broke out into a grin.

“Well, now I can’t wait to leave.”

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raybansandcoffee · 5 years ago

Text

Adventure of a Lifetime: Chapter Two

I quickly hit send on the email I'd been typing on my phone as soon as I heard the bell ring. I shut off the car, grabbed my purse and got out to go grab Ellie from the sidewalk where she knew to meet me. I slid my phone into my back pocket and pulled my sunglasses down from where they'd been resting in my hair. It wasn't long before the kids started running out. It wasn't the orderly filing I was used to. It was last day adrenaline rush running with a lot of yelling and talking added in. I remembered how the last day of school felt as a kid, I got why they were so excited. An entire summer to do whatever they wanted.

"Hey, there munchkin. How was your last day of school?" I asked as the five-year-old girl with brown hair and brown eyes who ran and jumped into my arms.

"It was fun and I'm so happy for summer!"

"I am too. We have so many exciting things to do this summer, Ellie Bellie." I squeezed her tightly before putting her back down on the ground.

"Hey Ellie, my Dad said that if it was okay with your Mom that you could come over tomorrow." The little girl was right about Ellie's height and had a smile that lit up her entire face.

"Uh...Mom, can I go to Ava's house tomorrow?" Her little eyes looked up at mine filled with hope, she'd hesitated when she spoke. This year had been extremely hard on all of us. For Ellie going through everything we had would've been tough enough but she had to start kindergarten and find friends at not only a new school but in our new town, it had been tricky for her.

"Well, I think we could do that."

"Daddy! Ellie's Mom said it was okay." Ava yelled as she had turned to look towards what I assumed was her father. He leaning against a very large black truck with a black leather jacket on and his eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses. As his daughter spoke his face broke into a giant smile.

"Great!" he replied as he started to walk over. "Hi, I'm Jeremy, Ava's Dad." He slid his sunglasses up into his hair and it was that moment that I put everything together. Ava Renner. Dad named Jeremy. Dad with gorgeous blue eyes. Her Dad is Jeremy Fucking Renner.

"Hi, I'm Ellie's Mom, Charlotte." Saying that still seemed odd, but it was becoming a little easier every time I said it. "I have heard so much about Ava from Ellie."

"Likewise, I thought with school being out that maybe the girls could have a playdate. Staying in touch over summer is always important."

"I would love that and I know Ellie would too. Being fairly new to the city and school she's still trying to get acclimated. Ava has been great to help with that."

"She loves Ellie. What works best for both of you tomorrow? I've got a pool, it would be nice to have you both over so they can play together and we can get to know our kids' best friend's parent." I grabbed my phone from the back pocket of my jeans and pulled up my schedule.

"Well Ellie has the day open after her piano lesson at 10 but I can do that with her tonight instead of tomorrow. I can probably get our nanny to stay with her little brother."

"I didn't realize that Ellie had a little brother. How old is he?"

"Axel just celebrated his first birthday last week." I smiled remembering his face covered in frosting as he shoved his cake in his mouth.

"Axel, that's an awesome name."

"Thanks." I often struggled to accept compliments like this one. I wasn't ever really sure I'd know how to either. Axel was a great name and I loved it so much, but accepting the compliment would always be hard as I didn't pick it for him.

"Well, why don't you bring Axel along. I love kids."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah of course. The more the merrier. How about 11:00? We can feed the girls some lunch and they can have the afternoon together in the pool. And that way we don't disrupt Ellie's piano lesson, music is important."

"Piano lessons with my five-year-old are essentially me trying to get her to pay attention and her pounding her fists on the keys or refusing to play anything but chopsticks for a half hour. It's great, let me tell you." He laughed as I rolled my eyes and smiled at Ellie and Ava who were looking in the bags their teacher had sent them home with today.

"You teach her?" he asked.

"I do. I have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea but I am evidently a masochist." He laughed again, this time slightly louder and loud enough that both of the girls looked up at us. "Ellie, you, me and Axe are gonna go hang out with Ava and Jeremy tomorrow. That's gonna be fun, right?"

"Yeah!" I loved how excited she looked. Her smile was one of the things that had gotten me through the last year.

"Here, put your number in my phone and I'll text you our address and see you tomorrow." He handed his iPhone to me and here I was entering my contact information into Jeremy Renner's phone. Hawkeye from The Avengers. Sergeant William James from The Hurt Locker. William Brandt from Mission Impossible. Aaron Cross from The Bourne Ultimatum. Then there was that one time he played Jeffrey Dahmer. I was going to focus on Hawkeye rather than the others for a moment. Being a "mom" meant that there were a lot of superhero things in my house, even if they were only 1 and 5 because I was going to raise my kids right and teach them that comics and superheroes were awesome. I created a new contact and entered my information in.

First Name: Charlie

Last Name: De Luca

Nickname: Ellie's Mom

Phone: 213.555.7643

"Text me your address and we will see you there," I said as I handed the phone back to him.

"Cool. Hey, 213 area code. You're from LA?"

"Yeah, I am. We moved here about a year ago. Needed a change of pace."

"I get that. I grew up in Modesto but moved to LA after college."

"I'm the rare person originally from LA. Not living there has been a pretty life-altering experience." That was putting it really fucking mildly.

"Well, we can talk all about that tomorrow. I'll text you once we get home."

"See you tomorrow." I watched as Jeremy grabbed Ava's hand and took off across the parking lot. I looked down at Ellie. "Well look at that Ellery, you have a playdate tomorrow." I held my hand up and she high-fived me.

"I like Ava. She's really nice." Ellie and Ava had bonded fairly quickly when the school year started. She'd even gone to her birthday party a few months ago, though I'd sent her with her nanny because Axel had been running a fever and I felt horrible leaving him at home.

"She seems really nice. So does her Dad."

"He is super nice! He was really fun at her birthday party." He was easy on the eyes so I wasn't going to be too disappointed about this playdate. The last few we'd had were with moms who feared the idea of a peanut butter sandwich or gluten more than the measles and I just couldn't handle that. I wasn't exactly cut out for the whole #momlife so we'd clearly not made it long with the crunchy mom group and hadn't quite found "our people" here yet. Luckily, Ava seemed like a totally normal and reasonable kid. I walked with Ellie back to my car, helped her climb into the back passenger side seat and buckled her into her seatbelt. We took off towards home.

The drive from school to home was short but incredibly scenic, it almost made me wish we had longer to drive on streets that wound their way around Lake Tahoe and up into the mountains. Today at least we had an excuse to stop at our favorite ice cream place for a treat on the way home, which made for more time to enjoy the landscape we called home. To go from living in a condo not far from Sunset Boulevard to living in on a mountain, in a forest, with the view of the most gorgeous lake, in what felt like the middle of nowhere Nevada had been culture shock for me at first. I think I called home to my parents crying daily for the first two months. Then Ellie started kindergarten, Axel finally started sleeping through the night, I found our amazing nanny, and I got back to work. It still didn't feel like I was living my life, it felt like I'd been written into a Hallmark movie, scenic location, tragic circumstances and all, and was living the life of someone else. If I thought long and hard about it I was technically living someone else's life. I finally made it to our way too long driveway and parked in the giant garage before grabbing Ellie and her bags from the back so we could head inside.

"Hey! We're home," I called.

"We are in the family room," the voice of our nanny, Savannah, echoed through the far too giant house. I watched Ellie drop her backpack in the mudroom, kick her shoes off and bolt for where she knew Savannah and Axel would be. I slowly picked everything up, taking a few moments to myself to breathe before following her.

"Did he nap decently?" I asked as I entered the room seeing Ellie and Axel on the floor playing together.

"He did. How was your afternoon?" she asked.

"Good. It was nice to get out for a while. Thank you." I'd done some shopping and spent most of my afternoon hiding in the basement to get work done.

"Of course," she replied. Savannah was the best thing that had happened to me in the last 9 months. She is the daughter of a friend who needed a job while she took classes online after graduating from high school. Despite getting into USC with scholarships she had dealt with some issues her senior year of high school and knew she needed time to figure out just what she wanted. So I offered her a free room and a well-paying job to her and thankfully she jumped at the opportunity. Her Mom, Alex, was happy that she'd decided to take classes at a local community college this spring after a semester of online classes there. But most importantly, she wasn't running around LA aimlessly, she was working toward something. She'd decided to start focusing on early childhood education starting in fall, she said living with the kids and helping me had helped her pick her path. Alex knew I'd watch out for Savannah, give her a safe home, and steady income. She also knew that Savannah was essentially saving my life by being here to help with the kids.

"I am going to get dinner started."

"Okay, I'll watch the kids." The kitchen looked into the family room which was one of the things I loved most about this house. I could cook and still keep an eye on the kids, though at 1 and 5 it was more of a contact sport than just sitting back and watching. I dug around the kitchen pulling everything out that I'd need to make dinner. I was stirring the spaghetti sauce I'd decided on when I heard my iPhone vibrate on the counter. It was a message from an unknown sender.

Charlie huh?

Yeah, most people in my life call me Charlie. It's a force of habit. Charlotte is only used professionally or by my family if I'm in trouble. There's still some residual trauma from having Charlotte Marie De Luca screamed at me followed by a string of words in Italian I barely understood by my grandmother.

That's great!

*Pin Drop*

Thanks for that. I've now got my Apple Maps ready to go for tomorrow. Ellie is super excited.

Ava is too. She was the new girl in town once, she knows how hard it can be.

Yeah, Ellie (and I) are both grateful for Ava. The first few months of school were pretty rough.

I can imagine. Moving from LA here was an adjustment for Ava and I. The privacy is nice though.

I 100% agree about that. It's part of the reason for our move too.

Do you want me to bring anything tomorrow?

Just you, the kids, and your bathing suits.

Fantastic. My nanny is pretty excited about having the day off now. She says thank you for giving me a life. She's lucky I like her or she'd not only be out of a job but also a house.

Live-in nanny? You must be kind of a big deal.

Far from it. A friend from college's kid who wasn't ready to completely grow up but needed out of LA pretty badly. The agreement was she could live for free if she helped me watch the kids and enrolled in online classes. The classes part was her mother's requirement. The downside of having a college professor as a parent I guess.

Well, you're a good friend to take your friend's kid in.

HA! If you only knew.

Well, I've got dinner ready along with a hungry 5-year-old and teenager. We will see you tomorrow at 11.

See you then.

"Alright everyone, let's get ready for dinner." Ellie came running into the kitchen and jumped up into her chair at the island while Savannah carried Axel in and got him strapped into his high chair at the end. I served up everyone's plate making sure that Axel's dinner was ready for him as well. He was at the point where he was really enjoying eating the noodles with a little bit of sauce with his hands, usually resulting in a baby covered in spaghetti sauce. Ellie was pretty great with silverware for being 5. Thankfully Savannah was nearly a fully functional adult so I didn't have to worry about her. I did my best to eat my dinner and also make sure that Axel didn't completely cover himself and the kitchen in spaghetti sauce.

After dinner and getting the kids cleaned up it was time for a bit of snuggles before they headed to bed. They both got books, songs, and tucked in bed before I quickly started laundry. These kids loved spaghetti, their clothing did not. I picked up my phone and went to the text messages with Jeremy earlier and added him into my phone as a contact in case I needed to call tomorrow while we were on our way. After changing clothes I headed downstairs to find Savannah doing the dishes.

"You didn't have to do that," I said as I grabbed a glass of ice water for myself.

"No worries, you had a long day." She was right. It had been a long day. "Did you get your work done?"

"Not nearly enough of it but I got a start on it."

"When is your deadline?"

"Thankfully, it's flexible," I replied. "But the goal is for them to have it in three weeks."

"Well, what I heard you playing that was coming from the basement sounded beautiful."

"Thanks. It's been tougher than I thought it would be but I'm enjoying it."

"Are you headed back downstairs to work?"

"Yup. I'll get the cameras turned on downstairs to watch and see if the kids wake up. You can go to bed or go out or whatever."

"I had thought about going out but I don't know."

"Savy, go meet that boy you've been hanging out with. You're 18. Have fun. I've got everything under control with the kids. I've got them all day tomorrow. Hell if I don't see you until Friday I won't be offended."

"Are you sure?" Savannah asked. She was really a good kid.

"I'm positive. Get the fuck out of here or I'll call your Mom and tell her you need a life."

"You're gonna call her anyway," she replied laughing. She was right. I'd go downstairs and call her Mom. It was a near-nightly ritual, especially when I was in the middle of a work project. She'd listen as I talked in circles about what was going on. "I'll check-in and let you know if I'm not coming home."

"Be careful. Use a condom!" I said before heading downstairs to the basement. It was the one change I'd made on the house when we moved in. Not being in LA and having access to my studio anymore I'd converted a large part of the basement that had been a fairly large guest suite and an office into my domain. The perfect studio. It was better than the studio I put together in LA because this one I could come to any time, day or night, in my pajamas and work. "Alright, Charlie. Let's figure out what is going on in your head with this." Before I could hit playback on what I'd recorded earlier in the day the predictable FaceTime call came in on my giant iMac screen. I hit accept. "Hiiiiii!"

"Working late?" It was my best friend, Savannah's Mom, Alex.

"Of course. The tiny humans are in bed so I'm monitoring their movements on one computer while trying to figure out what the fuck I recorded earlier today."

"Anything good?" she asked. She was in her pajamas in her house in the hills with a glass of wine. This was how she called me most nights. Her husband traveled during the week from Monday morning through Thursday night. Like clockwork, every night I got to talk to her while she was relaxing after Savannah's younger brothers were in bed.

Savannah had been a happy accident during our freshman year of college. Sam and I essentially helped raise Savannah until she was in school. I lived with them until Alex was done with her master's degree. By the time she was in school for her doctorate she was married to Max, Savannah's step-dad, and I was living on my own for the first time in my life. Sam had fallen in love after college and followed her love to England. When we hit 28 she realized her love was not that lovely and she moved back to LA and in with me for a few months until she fell in love...again, got married, and started making babies. We had been the three musketeers from the moment we met at orientation at USC. They were my everything.

"I'm not sure anything is good. I'm on the struggle bus. I should've had the first draft of this score to the director and producers at least a week ago. I should be working non-stop but today was Ellery's last day of school so tomorrow I'm taking the day off to celebrate the start of summer with the babes."

"What are the plans?" Her kids had been out of school for a few weeks. They were planning a trip to come to visit for 10 days at the end of the month to come to stay with us, enjoy the mountains and see Savannah. Alex had been able to fly in to be here for Axel's first birthday while her husband and the boys went on a camping trip that she was happy to skip to help celebrate her godson, and sort of namesake, as he turned one. We were just waiting on Ellie's end of school for the full family vacation, which seemed to just keep getting stretched out because of how much snow we'd had all winter.

"Ellie's best friend Ava invited her over for a playdate. Ava's very hot, I believe very single Dad invited me and the Axe Man to come with. He evidently has a pool and since the weather is FINALLY warm here I am fully prepared to take advantage of it."

"Very hot, very single, huh?"

"Yup. So, of course, I'll somehow end up fucking it up because I just don't know how to do this shit. Nothing in my life makes any fucking sense anymore."

"You've had an incredibly tough year, Chucky. It's totally fucking reasonable for your life to not make sense. You're going to be completely fine. You're getting better and stronger every day."

"Thanks. It's just starting to get really lonely here. I know that the move was the best decision I could've made for me and the babes but it's just hard. Being alone fucking sucks. I'm so used to being one-third of the three musketeers and now I'm a lone fucking wolf and a mess."

"You only have to be a lone wolf for two more weeks."

"I am so excited about that. Though I wish you could stay for more than 10 days. You aren't teaching a class this summer. You and the boys should just move here. Max can fly into Reno on Thursday nights and you can all just live with me all summer."

"As amazing as that sounds and as much as I'd say fuck yes, I feel like all of us in one house would drive you crazier."

"You've been to this house. I swear on my fucking life that there are full days that I haven't seen your child. It's way too big."

"It will be nice when the kids get older."

"I know. I tell myself that every time they are with their grandparents and I'm here alone because Savy is 18 and has more of a life than I do."

"Well, maybe you won't screw it up with the very hot, very single Dad of Ellie's best friend or at least maybe you'll get an adult friend out of it." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, I will. I 1,000% will. You know me. When have I managed to not be awkward in front of men without the assistance of alcohol."

"I don't know that I can answer that."

"See!" I took a drink of my water and leaned back in the chair I was in.

"Wait...are you drinking water?"

"Yes."

"This is supposed to be our nightly glass of wine." I rolled my eyes at her before standing up and walking out of the studio into the area just outside that was a bar. I grabbed the bottle of wine I'd opened last night and poured a glass before going back into my studio.

"This can be the only one. I sent your kid out so if something happens to the kids it's all on me."

"Is she still hanging out with that guy? What's his name? Theo?"

"She is. She told you that."

"I know but I feel like you know more about her than I do. But she's always felt comfortable talking to you about the uncomfortable shit because you changed almost as many of her diapers as I did."

"Sort of true. I think if I hadn't lived with you and Savy when she was a baby there's no way I would've remotely survived the last year."

"You would've," Sam replied. "You're one tough chick, Chuck. I've never seen you turn away from a challenge. Typically you look a challenge in the eye, wink and then kick that bitch's ass."

"The last year has been different. I'm a mess. An absolute fucking mess."

"No, you aren't. You're doing great."

"Thanks. I'd be lost without you or your kid. I'm literally only surviving because of you two."

"That's not true but I'll accept the compliment." We talked for a while longer before I needed to get back to work. I spent the night between the piano, keyboard, a guitar, and my computer trying to figure out whether I liked what I was writing. I'd done some small projects up over the last year but this was the first big project I was taking on. A full film score was always a massive undertaking for me. While it was nice to get back to work on something that gave me energy, I was also paranoid that I wasn't doing enough for the kids. I had a lot of guilt that I'd been dealing with since I started back to work and no matter how many times my friends, family or therapist told me I was doing the right thing, it just never felt right.

**********

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Thank you for giving "Adventure of a Lifetime" a chance. If you've read my writing before this is going to be a little bit different, not just because there are different characters.

Charlie has become something I really enjoy writing and I'm looking forward to diving deeper into her life, what makes her tick, and what the circumstances of the hard year were.

I hope you enjoy it and I can't wait to hear what you think.

xx. AM

#jeremy renner #jeremy renner fanfic #jeremy renner fan fic #jeremy renner fanfiction #jeremy renner fan fiction #fanfic #fan fic #fanfiction #fan fiction #marvel #mcu

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harryscurationproject-blog · 5 years ago

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What Inspired Mixed Signals?

If you know me, you know I love music. Recently, I released my first song, Mixed Signals. This was my entire year, because for the longest time, I wanted to delve into music myself, but I wasn’t really sure where to start. I spent months on end researching to develop a craft that I felt represented the pieces of me from now, and yet still encapsulate the sound and roots I had found and loved from when I was young. I started this in December or January, but took forever to finish it. I am nonetheless proud of it. I was inspired by a variation of artists, songs, movies, and just the world around me. Some of these songs have been longterm inspirations, or something that came out in the process and made me say WOW!

I feel like this one is very special to me. Not because I think it’s my best written song, or because the production or mixing and mastering is PHENOMENAL, but I think it marks a period in my life that says that things are real. I dedicated 4 months to learning how to produce better so that way I could get a closer sound, to my sound. That didn’t really happen with this one, but we’re on our way. The artifacts I used were songs that, I think, steered me in the right direction. Records, monologues, or visuals that when I see, hear, and feel, I say to myself, “I wish I was doing that. Well, maybe not quite that, but… similar.” These are things I first saw when I was in elementary school, first getting a feel for art-culture with films like Palo Alto, or things I discovered last November, like Sabrina Claudio’s “About Time”.

I wonder if one day I will get to be in someone’s curation. That one day, someone will look up to me and my work, the way I look up to these people’s. The way I capture my life, the way they capture theirs. All I know, is that these people changed mine.

Sincerely,

Harry

I never understood Sabrina Claudio the first time I listened to her. I didn’t get it - who was she? And why was her sound so... different... from my expectations of who I thought she was.

I can’t really remember why I even listened to this song, or how I even found it, or why I even revisited About Time, the record it’s from, considering I really only liked maybe 3 songs. I just remember instantly falling in love with this particular song - her voice sounding different than usual, the lyricism, and the all around different sound from her. I followed up with that by going to read about it on Genius. What caught me was that she said it reminded her native land of Miami, and how she was challenged by her producer to step out of her usual comfort zone. I have never once visited Miami in my life, but for some reason, I could imagine it. The palm trees, warm air, and atmosphere of a permanent heat so blazing you forget to feel it. With records about Miami, they typically highlight drug use, or some sort of vacation, so this was so confusing (Miami - Kali Uchis, Miami - Nicki Minaj). It sure as hell drove me to listen, and fall in love with her other music.

I could almost feel her personal connection. I could feel the energy shift, compared to the other 11 songs. I was a fan before, I had even seen her live at the cancelled-midway Panorama festival. But things just never really clicked, with all of her projects, I felt like the standouts stood out, but while they were beautiful, bold, and vibrant, the other tracks felt like going nowhere on a rollercoaster, waiting for things to shoot up again. But this finally put all the puzzle pieces together.

I remember instantly opening up Logic, wanting to capture those feelings. I looked through my Notes app on my iPhone, wanting to see if I had anything. Unfortunately, the first song I made for it, didn’t really cut it. So, I opened up a file I had, looking to see if I had anything that sounded better. Instantly, the two were begging to be together, like Romeo and Juliet. I knew what I had to do. This was the main basis of the song I put out as my first song.

You know, the first time I had ever heard of Emma Roberts was when I was like 5 years old. I hadn’t really thought of her, like at all, until I had heard about “American Horror Story: Coven,” which changed that perception. She had grown up, and all of a sudden, I loved her attitude, style, and her as a person, all because of some character I had seen her play.

When I first heard the words “I wish I didn’t care about anything. But I do care, I care about everything too much,” I was taken aback. I had to find out who said that! Where was it from? It wasn’t even the words themselves, just more so the way they were said. They had a particular sadness to them.

10-year-old me did some research and found that they were from a movie called Palo Alto, which had no significance to me. At all. What the hell was a Palo Alto? I looked it up, and results for some place in California showed up. I was so confused, and then searched up “palo alto movie”, and then found out it was based on the town itself. I didn’t really care for the movie, but I still loved the audio from the particular clip itself.

In 2017, I took an audio production course, so that way I could advance in my audio production career. I kind of just sat there for a week of the two weeks, from 9-5, because I had no idea where to start. I couldn’t commit to an audio, I had no lyrics I liked, and wanted a fresh start, so I couldn’t recycle any Garageband projects. I was fooling around on the MIDI keyboard, and then I heard this really pretty ambient sound. I stacked a few chords on one another, and then you had it! But it was still missing something, and I was stumped what. But it HIT! I needed to use that sample.

Sadly, it didn’t really amount to much. But I still wanted to put it in something, the sample. It’s really beautiful to me. So, I loaded her voice into “Mixed Signals.” I couldn’t use it in the song because I don’t have the license, but I kept the file so I could reference it for later. Without it, I wouldn’t have had a clue where to go with the song.

The timing for Beyoncé to put Lemonade on streaming platforms (Apple Music, Spotify, etc.) was weirdly appropriate. I had just finished paying homage to that album for my art class by doing some sort of piece for it, which kinded consisted of me collaging the stills from the film and using writing and just kind of splattering it on the pictures. Then, in the midst of it all, Homecoming (her live Coachella film) was announced. I loved Lemonade a lot. I remember the day it was announced in 2016, dropped the following week on HBO, and watching the film and being in shock. It was an event! So 3 YEARS later, after all the Grammy hype, for it to drop, especially after she essentially said “I don’t need Spotify” on Everything is Love, it was incredibly random.

I was in the mixing stages of my song when this all happened. I remember getting the text that “SORRY ORIGINAL DEMO. HELP.” from my friend Angelo, and being kind of confused because we already had the 12 tracks. However, a gift came. When I first heard the demo, I was shocked, mainly because it was kind of the sound I wanted. I hadn’t really done that though. So I went back to change my final mix. Maybe I needed a synth somewhere, or a swell of some sort? I compared the two, the original and the demo. I also took the live version from Homecoming into consideration.

This demo really helped me get a clear vision for my own demos. I realized that although you could have a very drastic difference, as long as sonically you know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter as much as you may think it does, because where you start isn’t where you’ll finish. If you have a vision, execute it. That’s what she always does, and the final product is always flawless. (Homecoming has a 98 on Metacritic and Lemonade has a 92). Also, time isn’t a real constraint. She takes her sweet time to perfect things, but she always perfects them, real well. And that taught me ethic, which inspired me toward the end to make sure things are perfect, and what I like, always. No matter how long it may takes.

Iggy, Iggy, Iggy. Such a polarizing figure to the general public, from the time I was 9 or 10. I always liked her. At this point, when I got inspired by her, her “glory days” of number one hits and diamond singles like Fancy, Black Widow, Problem, were long gone under some “she’s whack” guise, but I didn’t care at all. Music is music. Whether it be her stellar visuals, or her live shows, I’ve always been inspired by her work ethic. I remember I sat in the audience for a live interview for AOL Build that she had to promote her EP, Survive the Summer, where she talked about how she has nineteen hour studio days.

Part of my ethic is that I do everything myself, which in itself is really time consuming. I am my own producer, mixing engineer, recording engineer, mastering engineer, and I am definitely my own vocals. I would always listen to this song to remember that. She talks about how she moved out at 16, all alone in the middle of Miami with no money, and just hustled and worked until her dreams came true. I’m obviously very fortunate to not be in that exact predicament, but I remember that if I work really hard at something, anything is possible. Although they say “the sky's the limit” is cliché, clichés exist for a reason, and I’ll never stop following that motto, because I wanna go past the sky.

With “Work”, I will never forget watching the video of Iggy performing at The Observatory in Orange County, and not only was the crowd SCREAMING her words and story back to her, but the video had over a million views. Over a million people wanted to see what they missed out on in the flesh, and wanted to relive it through someone’s lens. If she could do it, I can do it too, is what that video taught me. She pushed through her hardships, and although having to do everything by yourself makes things only about 5x harder because of all the hats you have to put on, I can push through something less demanding and circumstantial. Without her, maybe this song would have been done and put out, but maybe it would have taken years to put it out. This song taught me to always push through, and also taught me a way of brutally honest storytelling which I would have thought before was too literal.

The most common advice I received from every person in the music industry was to write from your experiences. Whether it be from singers, A&Rs, managers, or just people who have genuinely been in the music industry for years, they constantly said the same thing. But when I began writing, I didn’t have any experiences, until 2018. I paused making music as a producer, I paused writing, I paused THINKING. I had juiced my mind out of any ideas I had! I needed to live.

2018 was easily the most rewarding years of my life. In every area of my development as not only a person, but an artist, I had grown so much. I had a lot more friends. My personality was more developed. And best of all, I had more to talk about, whether it had been about being featured on an iHeartRadio show with one of my favorite artists, partying every weekend in Bushwick, or traveling to Chicago for a music festival with my best friends and being basically unattended, free to roam around and do ANYTHING (Lolla pics), I felt like I was finally where I wanted to be. The teenage experience I had dreamt about for years, that I had seen glamorized everywhere I looked when I was in preschool and elementary school was in my hands. I had my own sense of consciousness.

How this all ties in is funny, because the last thing on my mind was music. It was around me all the time, with concerts (confirmation receipt), events I would go to, and just my friends always blaring it wherever we would go. It was constantly surrounding me, and I channeled all the leftover energy I had from the summer into my own music when I had finally winded down enough to sit down and decide what I really want. How badly I want to be in that position, where people include me in their own curations.

So all the friendships I made and broke, the music, the parties, the sounds around me, it all went into a big mixing pot, and it spewed out with this song. My friends were the bane of my existence in 2018. I was never without them, every step of the way. Everything I did, it was for them. I could never have written anything, came up with another melody, or even thought of anything without them. They changed my life, so now I can change someone elses with my work. They are Mixed Signals.

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word-stacks-cheat-2o · 2 years ago

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word stacks cheat PC 2947%

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Enter your level or your hint into the search box above. This cheat works for Word Stacks on all levels. Here are the answers for all previous Word Stack. Find out all the popular Word Stacks Answers, Cheats & Solutions for iPhone, iPad & Android. Simple search! Find all Word Stacks answers, cheats and solutions on this page. Playing Word Stacks 10 mins a day sharpens your mind and prepares you for your daily life and challenges! Would you like to relax. Word Stacks answers and cheats to all the levels with hints updated regularly. We are adding daily solutions to all the levels and updated. Its easy to play, only need focus to letters. Word Stacks will let you make brain exercise. Here we want share with you all answers to every level of Word Stacks Game. Also you can check daily answers for the Game. How many bonus words do you need to gat a bonus? What do the highlighted gold and green letters mean? Are there any setting for this game? What does the lightbulb actually do? All that happened when I tapped it was a little spyglass showing up on one of the word spaces at the top…. It lets you know what the first letter of an available word is, and also how many letters the word has. I hope I explained it ok! Please explain. We added answers for Level Also we still updating all answers and will publish soon. Thank you! Word Stacks is a really hard game. We are spending much time for solve levels. It is taking time but will publish all levels soon. Sorry for delay. I loved the background choices I had at the beginning. Is there a way I can I go back to the old menu? I find the puzzles keep repeating themselves. In addition, I went to the offers list and because I had Matchington Mansion on my phone, I chose the offer for coin rewards for completing level in Matchington Mansion. Also, why do some letters turn gold when using them? Where can I find this info? Have tried to google but with no luck. Hi Ronda. We can explain our experience with Word stacks game. Spyglass will show you first letter from next correct answer for your puzzle game in letters sheet. Lightbulb will show you first letter from correct answer in hidden sheet and you should find this letter and word between all letters. Another one feature — mix letters and will give you new style sheet of same words. If letters become gold means you will use this letter and it is correct letters for the next correct answer for the game. If you have any more questions we will try to help you. Enjoy the game! How do I get back to MY game. I am locked out after level ! Very frustrating as I love this game and am in the middle of a Touney! Please let me know how to unlock it. I asked for the rules of the game and did not find them anywhere. Please give me the details so I can understand what all the details are. Love the game. Love winning the tourney too! Am I misunderstanding the rule? Or am i missing out on points? I notice when i play the tourney some people move up by thousands of points as if they are getting those multiple letter scores. I can take a screenshot if needed. How many bonus words does it take to get points? What happens if you get not quite enough bonus words? Does it go back to zero? Yes you can change the theme. When you open the game before play right side down at the screen you can check and choose themes. Hi…I know stars are used for the tourneys but are they used for anything other than that? Why do some of the letters turn green? There is no hint.. In level challenges the hidden words give you coins…. Is this going to clear and start over at 1? I got a new phone so how to feel lost game again. How do I get back to the level I was on? Hi Peggy, my phone took a dump on me so when I logged back in with my new phone I had the similar issues you are having unless you have figured it out by now. Plus I had missing coins. I hope you got the feedback from the support staff that you was hoping for. Good luck with all…. Since yesterday I have tried to get a simple answer. I really want to play and have enjoyed the game for over a yr. It has said that for months now. Do I have to reach a certain level to release more? Now it will only give me coins instead of money. Today I came second in your Word stacks competition. Now the app has crashed and all there is is a small cross in the right hand corner of my screen I cannot bring it back. I was over. I would like to switch playing Word Stacks from my tablet to laptop and keep my points and playing level. What steps are necessary to do that? Do you have cheats for the daily ones? Thank you for comment. All that happened when I tapped it was a little spyglass showing up on one of the word spaces at the top… Reply. Please explain Reply. Hi meg, thanks for message. Propably developer changed answers. Can you share screen shot? Where are the answers for puzzles and after? Puzzle answers has an error. The first word is EMU and it is not listed in your answers list Reply. When are you going to update the solutions past level ? Can I change it? I know!!! Have you gotten chicks popping out of Easter eggs? How do I get back to MY game Reply. Please let me know how to unlock it Reply. Colleen Reply. Thanks Reply. Can I have help plz? Which level you are stuck in? How do you access the tourney? Seems to be a weekend problem which is when I have time to play. Unlocked for one game and back to locked. Good luck with all… Reply. Hi Karen, which phone you are playing with? Hi Valerie, Word Stacks not a game that you can earn money. Maybe you mixed with other games? My word stacks has been frozen for hours. Did you try to reopen?

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dedalvs · 7 years ago

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Does it bother you that your work (or at least the work you’re best known for) is to supplement other people’s creations and not your own?

I guess this question would be more appropriate for an actor, since nothing they ever do is their own. Of course everyone working in Hollywood knows this and doesn’t care. There are hundreds of people that work on every single television show and movie. There may be only a handful of people that get the praise or blame for any given project, but nothing that anyone sees is free of influence from someone other than the creator. The very notion is kind of up in the air. Look at Defiance, for example. The original “creator”—the one who came up with the names “Stahma” and “Datak”, for example—never wrote an episode of the show (this is Rockne O’Bannon). He gets credit for co-writing the pilot episode, but what happened was he wrote the pilot then left the show—and then a new showrunner (Kevin Murphy) came on and rewrote the pilot. And the whole thing was an adaptation, anyway, of a property developed by a video game company, Trion. I guess no one who worked on the show really created anything, if I’m following the logic of the ask correctly, since it was all done to supplement Trion’s game. I don’t think anyone working on the show cared much about that fact.

This is one of the main differences between Hollywood and, say, fiction writing. Everyone working in Hollywood looks at each endeavor as a team project, whereas writers write a book that others help them with (i.e. this publisher is publishing my book; this artist is doing the cover art for my book; this publicist is working to advertise my book, etc.). You can see the difference in attitude when it comes to language creation. A producer/director hears about language creation and says, “Ooh, cool! We’ll have to hire someone to do that!” A fiction writer hears about language creation and says, “Ooh, cool! I should do that! I’m probably great at it!” (Or alternately, “Oh, brother… I guess now I have to do that too so my readers don’t complain…”)

Anyway, there are lots of different aspects to this question, so let me try to address all of them.

First, in case it’s ever seemed like I’ve indicated otherwise, I really love what I do. I may not like deadlines, and translation is not my favorite aspect of language creation (and translation constitutes 90% of my job), but there’s really very little difference between what I’m doing now and what I was doing ten years ago, vis-à-vis conlanging. Really, the major differences are that there are deadlines, I get paid, and some people outside the conlanging community care about what I do. It’s still language creation. It’s always fun to come up with a new project, and I’m certainly doing that more now than I would have been otherwise. So the simplest answer is no.

I guess, though, you might think I was just putting on a positive face publicly…? I mean, no. In creating a language, there always has to be some pretext—some reason for the language to exist. If you’re creating a language you want to use in your own life, the pretext is very simple: I want to use this language in my life, therefore I’m creating it. The pretext is less simple when creating a naturalistic language. After all, if I’m creating a language for my daily personal use, why would I bother with a fictional history and sound changes, etc.? I’d just create something simple whose sound I like and whose grammar corresponds to what I find easiest to use. For those of us who find naturalistic conlanging interesting, though, the pretext is a necessity. I never liked conworlding or conhistories (or fantasy, to be honest), so in the early days when I would conlang, I’d basically pretend like I had a conworld/conculture, when in fact I didn’t. Really, though, what that amounted to was that I had a lazy conculture: One I didn’t think too much about and didn’t write down. It’s funny. The same attitude a lot of writers have about conlanging (that it’s a timesink that takes away from their story) is the attitude I had about conculturing. Once I realized what a huge role that plays in the lexicon, though, I came to think of it as a necessary evil. And if I had a language project I was really excited about, I would frankly find it very daunting to have to come up with an entire world and people and systems of government and clothing, etc. Seemed like a drag, to be honest.

Creating languages for other stuff is great because I can cut out all that nonsense and let someone else do it. The resultant culture may not be very good (”Oh, sure, that social model is totally sustainable! I’m 100% sure that patriarchal fantasy is super realistic!”), but (and this is the important part) I didn’t have to do it—and I don’t have to take credit for it. Instead, I can just play around with the language. It’s just delightful!

Like right now, for example, I’m running this D&D campaign, and it is so exhausting to have to come up with every single little detail! It’s fun to act out the characters, and there are other parts I like (like coming up with flags and names), but figuring out exactly how many towns and of what size there should be in a given area is just too much! My hat is off to all DMs out there. It’s a lot of work!

Anyway, as for what I’m known for (the parenthetical part of the ask, which may be the main part of it), I might have had a different answer ten years ago, but now, I honestly do not care. I figure if someone cares about anything else I’ve done ever they’ll find it. Those that don’t, why would I care what they think? About anything? I don’t know them. I’ll probably never meet them. And honestly, have you seen some of the stuff that people talk about wrt conlanging? “What’s a better ConLang: Gallifreyan or Tengwar?” The ones who only know me for what I’m best known for are probably not very discerning. But if they don’t care, why should I?

It took suffering through the George W. Bush economy for me to really figure out what I want in life, but I did, and it’s fairly simple. I want to spend as much of my life as possible financially stable and with my friends and family—while pursuing my interests. Previously I thought I also wanted my friends and family to also care about my interests, but I’ve come to learn that that actually isn’t important to me either. No one else needs to care about what I do so long as I think it’s worth my time and effort. Honestly, with the internet and digital file storage, if there’s someone out there who desperately wants to know every little thing I’ve ever done in my life, that will likely be possible. It’s not like last century: That stuff will probably be available indefinitely (barring societal collapse).

Even if you filter all this out and just focus on language creation, I care much more about the status of conlanging in general than I do what I’m known for or not. It bothers me that it’s been almost ten years and neither Hollywood nor the general public really gets conlanging. It’s gotten better, but since conlanging has gotten a lot of widespread attention, it’s also amplified the ignorance. I feel like I get the same questions over and over again and give the same answers over and over again but there’s still the basic assumption that the quality of a conlang is equivalent to the fame of the conlang. I guess language itself is always going to be something that’s fairly opaque, but it just bugs me that very few people have any idea what they should be looking for in a conlang. It’s like watching someone pick up one of Picasso’s really abstract pieces and also a drawing by a four year old and trying to judge which one is more realistic by comparing the colors in each one to the colors of the shirts worn by their family members in the pictures in their iPhone photo album. Like you can try to say, “Hey, maybe realism isn’t the best thing to look for in either of these,” but there’s just so much nonsense in here that why would you even bother?

The only thing that gives me hope (and not just about this, but in general) is that the younger generation seems really amazing. I’ve said that before about the generation before the youngest generation (I think there’ve been two since me…? I honestly don’t even know how you count these things), but honestly, it gives me hope every day seeing the amazing things that even teenagers are doing. It’s an awesome thing to witness. If you’re a part of the 25 and younger crowd, you should feel really good about what you’ve done and the lives you’ve led thus far. (And that’s an in general type thing. If you’re 26, you didn’t miss the cutoff, or anything.) From someone who went to school in the 80s and 90s, do you know how cool it is just to see teenagers be cool about friends and classmates that are LGBT+? Because that so didn’t happen when I was in school. That’s what you did by just living your lives the way you’re living them. That’s awesome. Really makes me believe that we can actually fix the things we (my generation) were told had already been fixed in the 90s.

Not sure how I got there, but I hope that answers your question. Again, the tl;dr answer is no—no matter which way you meant it.

#conlang #language #Defiance #Anonymous

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questload814 · 3 years ago

Text

Why Is My Macbook Pro Sierra Download So Slow On The Internet

How many times have you seen the spinning beachball lately while browsing Safari on your Mac?

I have been seriously struggling with my WiFi every morning in my new office and could not figure out why. Speedtest was 'very slow' on my Macbook Pro 2015 and super quick on iPhone 8, it has been painful and driving me nuts!! It usually got quicker throughout the day, but unbearable in the morning. So how to fix a slow Mac. All Macs begin to slow down with age — MacBook Pro, iMac, it doesn’t matter. Performing several heavy tasks at a time, your Mac may get slower, and it’s okay. Although, when you’re facing unresponsive windows and slow load time more often these days, your Mac definitely needs a boost. Why is my Mac running slow? Actually, Mac becomes slower and slower with the age you use it, no matter it is MacBook Pro, Air or Mac mini. To speed up your Mac, you had better find out the reasons why Mac is so slow. In this article, we will show you 5 reasons that explain why Mac is running slow and give you corresponding advice to. Check your Internet connection. For many Mac users, a slow Internet connection is synonymous with a slow computer. That’s because almost everything they do—from surfing the Web to checking. From app downloads to emails, a lot of Mac’s performance depends on the network connection — a slow Internet can spell trouble across the board. I live in The Middle of Nowhere, where the maximum speed I can get is 4 Mbps, so I need to make sure my MacBook isn’t bringing that speed down even more.

For example, Safari is slow loading pages, it stops loading halfway with text strewn across the screen and images in the wrong place. Or some webpages are loading forever before you’re able to actually read the content.

Other times, it may be just that Safari runs extremely slow after Catalina update (remember the pitfalls of a shiny new macOS?)

All of these behaviors are typical symptoms related to Apple’s signature Internet browser. While Safari is a light-weighted browser optimized for use on all Mac machines, issues like above might force you to resort to third-party browsers (perhaps Chrome, stay away from Firefox) that tend to be faster.

But for those of you who are real fans of Apple and decide to stick to Safari, we’re going to help you get to the root of your Safari issues in this guide, starting with the possible reasons why Safari is slow.

Hopefully, you’ll have Safari back to normal in no time, and be able to use the browser flawlessly.

Note: if Safari is not just slow, but keeps freezing and crashing, read this post instead for more troubleshooting tips.

Important Tips

It’s normal for Safari to run slow on certain websites – By certain websites, we mean “heavy” sites that are loaded with flash or video ads on the pages you browse. Worse yet, some even auto-play without you clicking on. They tend to have your MacBook heat up quick. The best option is to close those pages immediately when you finish reading the content on it, or you could install AdBlock Plus (Safari compatible) to block the ads from displaying.

Stop excessively multitasking – You’d be surprised how much better 90% of programs work when you don’t try and use them at the same time as a dozen other apps. It seems like a simple solution, but it is often the best one.

Take care of Safari – Some methods are a matter of habit, such as regularly clearing your cache or making sure the app is up to date. Imagine your computer as a car that needs regular maintenance to run well.

Don’t neglect the computer – Macs are not immune to viruses, despite the common perception. They also aren’t immune to file corruption or errors. Make sure you haven’t picked up anything unwanted while browsing that could be affecting Safari’s performance.

Below are some common causes directly or indirectly related to those Safari performance issues. Also, we’ll show you how to fix it step by step.

Possible Cause 1: Overworked Cache

The cache is a location on your Mac’s hard drive where Safari temporarily stores data that you use frequently. Macbook pro download folder more info. The cache allows Safari to reference this information quickly and therefore execute actions such as loading a specific page more quickly.

However, if the cache becomes full then Safari cannot add newer, more relevant material and is forced to use slower methods to respond to your demands.

Here’s how to erase the data in the cache so that Safari can work smarter rather than harder:

Start by erasing your history from Safari by navigating the menu bar along the top and choosing HISTORY > CLEAR HISTORY AND WEBSITE DATA.

Once you click this, you’ll be shown a small pop-up window. Choose “All History” from the bottom of the drop-down, and then Clear History.

The next thing you can do is clear the cache using a more advanced method. First, go the Safari menu and open Preferences.

On the preferences panel, choose “Advanced” and then look for the checkbox at the bottom of the page that says “Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar”. Make sure this box is checked, then close Preferences.

You’ll notice a new tab has been added to your menu bar, called “Develop”. Click on this, and then choose “Empty Caches” from the list. You won’t be given any confirmation, but it will clear the cache and you can restart Safari and see if this has solved your problem.

Possible Cause 2: Bad Extensions

Most people are aware that Apple doesn’t play well with Flash, but this isn’t the only plugin that could be causing Safari to lag. Any extension or plugin that is outdated or not correctly optimized could be the “culprit”, and you should disable or remove as many as possible.

The easiest way to do this is to use CleanMyMac X, go to Extensions > Safari Extensions (the screenshot below), here you just select these unwanted plugins, and click the “Remove” button at the bottom to clean them all at once.

Of course, you can also get this done manually, though the process will be a bit time-consuming if you have a list of extensions to disable or remove.

First, start by opening Safari, and then navigating to SAFARI > PREFERENCES

In the preferences menu, choose “EXTENSIONS” icon. You’ll be shown a list of all your extensions.

If you don’t use an extension, you should uninstall it with the button on the right side. If you use it but infrequently, simply uncheck the “enable” box. This should significantly speed up Safari, especially if you have been running a lot of extensions in the background.

Possible Cause 3: Outdated Version of Safari

Because Apple makes Safari, it usually receives updates when macOS has a new version released or when there is a necessary patch. If you’re running an old version of Safari, this could be part (or even all) of your problem.

If you aren’t on macOS Sierra or higher, your Safari is definitely in need of an update (all MacBook Pros made after 2009 are compatible with at least macOS Sierra). To check what you’re running, go the Apple Menu in the top left corner and choose “About this Mac”.

If you’re on an older version, your window will look something like this, displaying the version of OS X you’re running:

If you’re already on macOS Mojave, it will look like this instead:

If you aren’t on the latest macOS yet, open the App Store from Finder, and navigate to updates. There will be at least one software update available, which you can expand. This will show you the update for Safari, which you can update separately or with any other updates you may have available.

Issues Related to your Network or Computer

Possible Cause 4: Your Network

You might argue that the problems inside Safari are simpler to deal with, but sometimes it’s surprising that Safari isn’t necessarily the “culprit”. Your network can have a significant impact on Safari’s performance.

To find out whether your Mac has network issues, the best way is to use this app called Advanced Network Care — run a quick scan and it’ll display the network issues (if they exist). Vmware fusion free download for mac.

To test the Internet speed, you can also use Google Fiber. First, open the link on your Safari browser, then press the blue “play” button, and watch as your internet speed is tested. The site will first test your upload and then your download speed.

Once you have your results, you can compare them with this link, which contains charts detailing what you should expect based on the connection type. If your results are below expected, it might be time to contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP), especially if speeds fall far below what you’re paying for.

Note: if speed seems normal and falls in the expected ranges, then this probably isn’t your problem, and you should try some of our other solutions.

Possible Cause 5: Your User Account or Mac Drive

Sometimes the issue runs a bit deeper than just a full cache- you could have a corrupted user account or your macOS version isn’t operating correctly. To determine if this is your problem, start by creating a second user account on your MacBook. Fl studio mac os catalina download.

On the new user account, open Safari and try using it as you normally would. If Safari suddenly runs faster, it’s time to repair your normal user account.

Use spotlight (top right corner of the screen) to search “Disk Utility” and open it.

Inside Disk Utility, select your account’s disk and make sure you’re on the “First Aid” tab. Then select “Repair Disk” from the bottom right corner (if this is unavailable, choose “Verify Disk” first).

Note: if your MacBook Pro is with 10.10 Yosemite or earlier, you have two buttons to click on like below.

However, if your MacBook Pro is with 10.11 El Capitan or later (including latest 10.15 Catalina), just click “First Aid” and run it to check and fix any issues it may find.

The Disk Utility will repair any problems with your account. If it isn’t capable of fixing the problem, reinstalling macOS is always an alternative if a bit tedious to do.

Final Words

No one enjoys staring at the colorful loading pinwheel when they just want to browse the web or access an important page for work. Hopefully, you won’t be experiencing the Safari slow issue anytime soon with our solution guide.

Still not able to solve your problems even after using the methods we’ve outlined? A good resource is the Apple Community forum, where you can get advice from other fellow Mac fans. You may also find bug reports and similar questions from other users.

Why Is My Macbook Pro Sierra Download So Slow On The Internet Download Manager

Alternatively, if you’ve already fixed the Safari problem, write a comment and tell us about it below.

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daveinediting · 3 years ago

Photo

I was at Small World Productions yesterday indulging a little more hands-on with the latest Avid Media Composer. The nice thing about the system is that it's a lovely polish of our ten year-old Media Composer. There was nowhere near the shock of moving from any edit software to FCPX. Not even close. In fact, everything makes sense so far. No real surprises. I think that's the most important thing:

No.

Real.

Surprises.

So instead of taking further time to learn a system I understand well enough (I can always learn more, right?)... I'm taking this time to walk through process. Think of it as a kind of mental walk through what's gonna happen in three weeks and a handful of days. The production crew's gonna return from Europe with, among many other things, a bunch of media cards and portable hard drives containing all the footage from the shoot. Once all that media's in-house, we're gonna transfer it, all of it, onto a hard drive that serves as a central repository and defacto backup of that media. After that, all of it's imported into our Avid Media Composer. Which is right where I run into my first challenge along this mental walk-thru.

You see, the step after transferring is organizing all that footage. And the purpose of that organization is to be able to locate everything, every byte of footage from all camera sources, that relates to each paragraph of script. 'Cause you see there are Sony FX cameras, one, maybe two, Sony Alphas, two, maybe three, GoPros, a pair of drones, and who knows how much footage from random cell phones.

And.

At any given point, for any given paragraph, I wanna know how many and which cameras are shooting roughly, if not exactly, the same subject.

Now, the simplest way would be through the date/time metadata of the original camera files. For technical reasons, however, we're importing that footage, not linking to it. Which means... no original metadata. No date information. No time information.

Fortunately, I have a workaround for that lack of data... but it's not as elegant and simple. But it will get me there along with the shoot’s official itinerary.

And while I'd failed to figure out a simpler process for a basic question ("how many and which cameras are shooting this one thing right now?) what I remembered and what I told my boss was

"Organizing is editing."

Organizing.

Is.

Editing.

Because the process of organizing, to some degree, is a kind of forensic recreation of the shoot and the essential step of gathering the pieces of this sort of vehicle you're building. It’s seeing what’s there. It’s understanding what each shot was meant to do. It’s determining what each shot can do or will do before setting out to build a full show and then a series.

It's step one of the process. It’s a fluid first imagining of the show... an incomplete one of course, but one I can mentally iterate as I familiarize myself with footage from the FX cameras, the Alpha cameras, the GoPros, the drones, even the occasional iPhone.

Puzzle pieces all.

But puzzle pieces that are the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells because what they can do... remains to be determined by me depending on how I put it in play and what I put it in play with.

At this stage, all of that footage won’t be in Media Composer but in my brain. All these puzzle pieces that are able to form infinite impressions... I’ll be actively thinking about what I can do with them over and over and

Over again.

Anyway... yeah.

Organizing.

Is editing.

:-)

#Small World Productions

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kokobussy · 7 years ago

Text

The New Guy

summary - you don’t know anything about computers, but what you do know is the new guy is pretty cute.

warnings - dom!minseok x reader, humiliation, breath play, exhibitionism, deep throat, sloppy blow job, consensual light slapping

Finally got around to making a sequel. It’s here

“Have you seen the new guy?” Sehun leans against your desk with a glint in his eye and a steaming mug of coffee in his hand. Not too long ago the two of you were interns at the company, grabbing coffees for your supervisors and meticulously filing away important documents together. As your careers advanced and old co-workers left, the two of you were nearly inseparable.

“New guy?”

“He’s the new IT guy. A little on the short end, but his eyes are to die for?”

You’d heard this one before. It’s not that Sehun is the office slut, he’s just...the office slut.

There’s no shame in sleeping around as long as safe sex is thoroughly practiced. At this point in both of your careers, Sehun’s slept with almost everyone in the office including you. It wasn’t planned at all by either side, just a spontaneous fuck during a Queer as Folk marathon on Sehun’s couch.

Sure the sex was great, but your friendship was even better and you wanted to cherish that.

“What’s his name?” you ask feigning interest as you scroll through a colorful Buzzfeed quiz. Sehun rolls his eyes,”How the hell should I know? I saw him. He’s cute and he just might be your type.” Your co-worker and best friend stares at you pointedly before you can even dismiss him altogether. “Look, I know you better than anyone else and you’ve been going through a lot lately. Just... treat yourself.”

Once you realize Sehun isn’t going to let this go, you sigh and finally turn away from the computer once the quiz reveals you’re more of a Ross than a Joey. “He just started working here, Sehun, it’s inappropriate.” Sehun scowls in response and takes a sip from the mug,”You sound like Junmyeon.”

“That’s Mr. Kim when we’re in the office, Sehun, you don’t know who’s listening.”

Kim Junmyeon is one of the top dogs that works here at the company. You’ve only seen him at huge holiday parties from afar, in passing in the elevator a few times, and once when you picked up coffee in the lobby of your building a little earlier than usual. You mostly “saw” Junmyeon through impersonal mass emails clearly written by his secretary. He seems like a natural born leader, an intelligent man with charisma and a great smile. Someone who-

“Actually he prefers daddy.”

There’s a pause as Sehun looks around the office to let that statement process and takes yet another too long sip of his coffee, eyes pretending to find interest over at Byun’s cubicle once he reveals he’s blown up his own spot.

“Sehun.”

“Hmm?”

“You slept with Mr. Kim?”

“Uh,” and before you can berate him or ask him any more questions Sehun is gone, suddenly finding interest in getting those reports sent out at his desk.

Before you can throw staples at him and demand more information, your supervisor makes her way around the office to check up on everyone’s work progress. So instead of drawing attention to yourself or starting another quiz, you bring up the spreadsheets that you should’ve been working on and pretend to work diligently for the next few minutes.

Those next few minutes actually end up being on solid productive hour, the spreadsheets actually completed before the end of the day. You decide to reward yourself with a few more Buzzfeed quizzes and just as you’re about to start clicking, you hear a soft,”Is this computer #425?”

You look up to see a shirt tucked into grey slacks. You look up further to see a man with long black hair and large excitable eyes hidden behind thick rimmed glasses. The man smiles once you stare up at his face, “I’m Minseok! I’m with the IT department and I got a call about a virus being on this floor’s servers. I just need to look over your computer for a second.” Virus? IT department? Your computer is being a little slow, but not virus slow. You look over to the pink sticky note on the cubicle wall, reading the numbers “411”, and look back at the cute tech guy. He’s too cute to pass up. Way too cute. “Yeah,” you say slowly,”this is 425.” Minseok smiles, trusting you entirely,”do you mind scooting over?”

You stand promptly, moving out of the way so he can sit down in your seat. “I’m Y/N by the way. I’m not sure what I did, but my computer is super slow,” you say desperate for small talk,”A lot of other people have been complaining too.” Have you talked to anyone today besides Sehun and now Minseok? No. Were other people actually complaining about the lagging computers? Probably.

He nods solemnly, typing things you’ve never seen before into a small black window now on your computer with green colored font. It’s only then that you notice the 16 Buzzfeed tabs just behind that black window and you know in your heart Minseok has seen them, but isn’t saying anything. “We think someone accidentally uploaded a Trojan that spread throughout the serves. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

You huff as you lean against your desk to get a better look at what exactly Minseok is doing, not that you’d understand anyway,”Probably Kris. He watches porn on his lunch break when he thinks no one is paying attention, but you didn’t hear that from me.” Minseok stifles a laugh, covering his mouth to hide his grin before returning to the keyboard.

That laughter makes Sehun look up to see what’s going on at your desk. Once he sees who is it, he waves his hands in a subtle yet jerky way that immediately grabs your attention from across the office. Sehun holds up a hand to cover his mouth from Baekhyun’s prying eyes over at the desk next to him and mouths,”That’s him.”

This goes on for a few minutes, you trying to figure out what exactly Sehun is saying and Sehun getting more and more aggravated by the minute, but when Minseok suddenly gets up and grabs his messenger bag your attention is entirely on him again.

“We’re gonna be working on all of the computers tonight so this’ll be fixed by tomorrow morning.” Minseok says his goodbyes, eyes lingering on your form little too long, and heads back down the hallway.

As soon as he's gone, Sehun jogs over from his desk and smacks you on the shoulder,"You stupid asshole, tell me everything."

It’s around 10pm when you rush back into your office building. You'd been out getting drinks with Sehun when you remembered the important documents you left on your desk for your presentation at the end of the week. As you walk into the office space and make your way over to your cubicle, you see a figure sitting there typing away furiously at the black screen. "Minseok?"

He nearly falls out of his chair from the closeness of your voice, just behind him, and shouts almost accusingly,”Y/N?”

You blink before laughing,”yeah sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The two of you talk for a while, nonsensical things and general topics that lead to heated conversations about how underrated frozen yogurt is, and you soon lose track of time. Somehow in that time, you didn’t notice Minseok’s flushed face or his slightly unbuttoned shirt. You didn’t notice it until Minseok shifted just a little, fingers fidgeting with the buttons on his iphone and consequently turning the sound on.

High pitched moans and the unmistakable sound of skin slapping skin fill the once quiet office. Minseok’s horrified, scrambling to get rid of the porn playing on his phone, but you can’t help squeezing your legs and trying to ease the ache between your legs. It’s hot. Him blushing his hardest and giving you apology after apology is hot. Maybe Sehun is right, maybe you do need to treat yourself.

Minseok keeps apologizing, unable to even look you in the eye and realize you’re taking off your jacket and kicking off your heels. By the time he notices, finally looks at you, you’re kneeling on the ground and spreading his thighs so you can settle between them.

Minseok looks at you in confusion as he tries to understand your intentions,”What are you doing?”

You run a quick hand through your hair, tucking as much of your bangs as you can behind your ears and smirk up at him. You lean up and kiss him, soft and sweet. Soft enough to give him a chance to pull away and say no to the whole thing. Sweet enough to reassure that you’re okay with it on your end. Minseok kisses you back tentatively and keeps his hands in his lap. Your tongues wrestle for a while, getting more and more aggressive as Minseok gets more comfortable. He groans into your mouth, struggling to figure out where to place his hands until you guide them to your chest. But the ache between your legs gets to be too much and all you can think about is sucking him off, helping him with his little problem.

So you get back down on your knees and unbuckle his belt, maybe pulling off pants a little more rougher than you should’ve.

Minseok shakes his head, trying to look past you for any movement in the office,”What if we get caught? My co-workers are in the break room on this floor.”

“We won’t get caught.”

The confidence in your voice makes him relax slightly, but only slightly, and you kiss his knee for some extra reassurance. Even with a few more kisses, your affection and vague explanation aren’t enough and the nervousness in Minseok’s voice rises.

“Y/N-”

“Minseok do you want this or not? If you don’t, I’ll stop right here.”

Minseok looks at you, really looks at you, trying to decide whether this is a good decision or not. You stare at his tented briefs peeking out of his pulled down slacks, biting your lip at the small spot of precum there, but you wait for him to voice any unwillingness first.

You look up at him, smiling as genuinely as you can, and Minseok finds some sort of comfort in it. Suddenly he nods very quickly, hands going to pull his briefs and pants down a little more. While the idea of minseok wearing tighty whities is precious, you need to get a verbal okay before you go any further.

“Hold on, Romeo, I need to hear you say it.”

“I...want it. Yeah I want it.”

After hearing his consent you’re ready to go, grabbing a hold of his cock and pumping it to full hardness. You try not to stare too long at it, smiling when it twitches from being out in the cold, but your eyes always find their way back.

Minseok watches you watch his cock, worry weighing heavily on his brow. Were you disappointed? Was the magic over so soon? He’s a small guy, a whopping 5'7 if he stands on his tippy toes, and his... size reflects that. Just as he's about to tuck himself away and die from embarrassment, you blow on it gently and look up at him with absolute awe in your eyes. Minseok chokes out a moan, hands hovering over your head before going to the sides of your chair for safe keeping.

With each kitten lick you give, his cock twitches more and more. He continues gripping the chair, glasses slightly askew, and letting out breathy moans. You can’t help but coo at the display,”You’re so cute!” Before he can reply, you suck roughly at the patch of skin just below his tip.

Minseok bites his lip, trying his hardest to hold back a groan whenever your tongue flicks particularly hard, but then you gently rub the tip of his cock along your bottom teeth and he whimpers especially loud. “Please,” he begs more to himself than to you,”They’ll hear you.” But then the break room door opens and a figure jogs down the hallway yelling,”Xiumin!” Before Minseok can even process he’s about to be caught and consequently fired, you’re under your desk with a finger pressed to your mouth when he looks down at you in pure panic. He shuffles the chair towards the desk, making sure to hide you as well as his dick, and continues to finish up the code he was working on.

The figure jogs up, revealing a bubbly yet winded chen,”Minseok, are you sure you don’t want to play? Minhyuk’s gonna be the Dungeon Master instead of Kyungsoo. We voted him out.” Minseok smiles up at his co-worker and tries to hide the quivering in his voice,”I should probably finish up here first before I join you guys.” He makes it through sounding pretty okay and because of that Chen wants to talk. He talks about things you don’t know at all, about LAN parties and Dungeons and Dragons. Minseok starts getting comfortable, enjoying Chen’s company as if he forgot you’re under the table ready to blow him.

At the sight of Minseok’s cock softening and the realization of you being ignored, you grab Minseok’s balls and roll them in your hand with a practiced ease. They’re soft in your hand, smooth and lightly tanned, and you can’t help but take one in your mouth. He continues talking and sort of triumphs despite the breathy air he leaves on certain words. Chen is none the wiser, still talking to Minseok about Magic the Gathering or WOW or something equally nerdy. You can see his cock twitch from the slight stimulation, a jerky bob that seeks some sort of friction as it comes back to life. You suck at the tip gently, digging your tongue into the slit and only stopping when Minseok lets out a startled moan at the sudden change in sensation.

Chen picks up on this and frowns uneasily,”You okay?”

You pull him out of your mouth, pulling his cock to full hardness, and Minseok panics like he’s been caught. Chen gets curious, leaning over just the slightest to see if Minseok is really okay. The smallest tech guy nods quickly, a light flush claiming his cheeks,”N-no I’m okay! I’ll meet you guys there in a sec!” A second goes by. Then two. Then three. Chen shrugs and grabs a handful of jelly beans from the bowl on your desk before heading back to the break room and closing the door behind him.

Minseok pulls away from the desk and stares down at you, blushing when you smirk up at him. "Fuck my face, Minseok." "W-what?" You don't make any attempt to repeat yourself or even look ashamed of what you said. You love this, the flustered stammering as Minseok tries to wrap his head around what's happening.

Before he can ask anymore questions, you open your mouth and stick your tongue out and wait. Minseok can only stare on at your gesture, a bead of precum bubbling out of his tip at the display. "Hands in my hair," you mumble before sticking your tongue back out. But something changes in Minseok so suddenly you almost miss it.

There's a glint in his eye now, an overwhelming darkness that makes your core ache. He grabs your hair roughly, shocking the both of you at the aggression, and places his cock in your mouth. He holds you in place, small fist grabbing with all his might, and watches you moan around his cock. But he doesn't let you bob anymore, doesn't let you tease him with kitten licks and soft moans. He does keep a firm hand in your hair, does let the weight of his cock rest on your tongue so you're familiar with the length, does let the tip lightly touch the back of your throat just enough to make you subtly wince.

You rest your hands on his thighs just to have some sort of leverage as he holds you there, but that small hand in your hair let's go and slaps you before grabbing your chin and squeezing. "Hands behind your back." Oh? You blink once, twice, trying to understand where the hell this attitude came from. This new confidence that Minseok gave off makes you wetter than you've ever been. His shy demeanor is completely gone now as he waits for you to follow his command.

But that soft kind nature comes back briefly and checks in to make sure you're alright,"Green means go, red means stop. Where are you?" He pulls his cock out of your mouth, waiting for you to fully and verbally respond to the situation. You bite your lip, way more turned on than before at the sudden kindness,"Green."

Minseok looks over you, one hand grabbing your hair while the other unbuttons your blouse down three buttons, and nearly cums in his slacks at the sight of your smeared lipstick. "Minseo-"

There's another sting at your cheek, your head turning to the side before you truly realize what happened. "Sir," he corrects, eyes never wavering from the swell of your breasts peeking out of your blouse. You arch your back slightly, making your breasts swell even more in the open top,"S-sir..."

Minseok nods, pressing a harsh biting kiss on your lips before saying,"I only say orders once. If you don't obey the very first time you get punished. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Minseo~ah!"

He doesn't slap your face this time, but he does slap your breast, squeezing it harshly until you say,"Yes, Sir! Ah~ I'm sorry, Sir!"

The threat of another slap makes you put your hands behind your back immediately and the gentle caress of his hand on your cheek is what makes you keep them there. For a brief moment Minseok kisses your forehead just to let you know how well you're doing.

He holds his cock, smearing the precum collected there across your lips,"You look so filthy, baby. I bet you'd look so pretty covered in my cum." You greedily suck at the head, bracing yourself when he pulls you off his cock with a pop. The lingering taste of salty bitterness makes your daring move worthwhile. You need more and you'll do anything to get it.

"God look at you," Minseok starts as he slowly but surely slides his length into your mouth,"you're so desperate for it. I bet you're the office's little cockwhore huh?"

He sets up a brutal pace, not really giving you a chance to catch a breath or even comprehend what's going on. For a minute you're taken aback by the sheer force behind his thrusts. Despite his shy demeanor this definitely isn't Minseok's first rodeo. You can only moan around his length and try not to choke as his thrusts grow faster and more accurate, making you gag and spittle. "I bet all you do is suck cock all day long in this office with a belly full of cum," Minseok grunts as you look up at him with watery eyes,"Keep looking at me, baby. This is what you wanted right? To be treated like the dirty slut you really are?"

Tears stream down your face as your gag reflex is tested beyond what you've experienced in your past sexual endeavors. It isn't the size of Minseok, but the accuracy of his hips and the ability to pivot at a speed you've never seen. Minseok pulls you onto his dick until your nose is buried in a nestle of neatly trimmed black curls and watches you closely. You cry out of reflex, your body tenses and flexes as you're pushed on the tippy top of too much, and yet you still try to flicker some part of your tongue against some part of his cock.

Something happens that you never thought could happen.

While Minseok avoided touching you (entirely on purpose) you'd managed to feel the blossoms of orgasms anyway through this sloppy as ever blowjob. And now with Minseok seemingly ensuring that he makes you pass out with his cock, you can't help but moan as an all too familiar pleasure racks through your core in waves. You shudder through each wave, a long moan muffled by weight on your tongue. "Did you cum from sucking my cock? Well," Minseok smirks,"You're gonna be my little cum dump from now on. You like the sound of that? You're gonna be my little cum dump now. My little cock sleeve."

With several more thrusts Minseok is coming down your throat with a grunt. Wave after wave of his cum fills your mouth and you can't help but moan then slowly swallow when he pulls away. "Open your mouth," he hums as he holds onto your chin. You obey him immediately, sticking out your tongue once again to show that the substance is all gone. Minseok kisses you fiercely, pulling you into his lap and holding you close,"You did so well”.

You're kind of a mess, boobs hanging out of your half opened shirt and completely dazed. There isn't much Minseok can do in an office for aftercare, but he tries his hardest. He fixes your clothes and orders takeout to be delivered to the building. While waiting for takeout to come, Chen returns to find his D&D partner,”Are you ready y-...oh.”

You instinctively runs your fingers through your hair, just to make sure everything is in order, but when Chen motions to your mouth you're a little confused. Minseok glances at you too, a blush dusting his cheeks as soon as he sees what Chen is slowly smirking at. Then it clicks. Your lipstick. “When did you get here, Y/N?”

You grab the compact mirror in your desk and wipe off the smeared lipstick while Minseok explains. “We...we got food and...it got all over,” he gestures to his mouth in a circular motion.

Great. Thanks Minseok.

“So,” Chen starts as he looks between the two of you,”you came over and got food in the span of 30 minutes when I visited you and asked you to come hang out with us.” Minseok nods with a nervous smile,”Y/N is working late too so she brought food with her. Go figure.”

Chen’s smirk soon grows,”I’m glad you're settling in well, Minseok. You already making friends. Anyway, I'll leave you guys alone. We're heading to the next floor in 20 minutes since this floor is entirely wiped,” and when you make a face of confusion Chen answers without really looking at you, his eyes staring directly at Minseok with a hint of a mysterious emotion behind them,”the computers have different servers on each level. I'll see you in a bit Minseok.” With that Chen leaves, not really giving Minseok much time to respond, but the nerd answers with a soft yet excitable “Okay!” anyway.

You stand up right after he leaves, grabbing your coat and the files you had long forgotten. Minseok blinks up at you, his innocent eyes behind those thick glasses almost making you stop entirely,”Where are you going?”

You ruffle his hair, too busy making sure everything you need is in your purse before putting on your jacket,”I'm heading home, babe. I'm not gonna get any work done with you here distracting me.” Throwing your purse over your shoulder you lean down and place a gentle kiss on his lips, giggling at the way he subtly follows you when you pull away,”I'll text you okay?”

Minseok nods and tries his hardest to hide the disappointment on his face as you jot your number down on a bright yellow sticky note. You kiss him again before making your exit, the click of your heels following you down the hall to the elevator. Minseok still can't believe any of this happened on his second week of work, still can't believe that someone as hot as you would just randomly blow him after hours.

He hopes, really really hopes, that his texting you as soon as you leave his sight doesn't seem desperate. But as excited as he is, Minseok can't help but be a little confused at your behavior. You had every intention to stay, taking off your heels and cuddling with Minseok as much as you could in your office chair, and you seemed fine. As soon as you started speaking with Chen, you suddenly left in a hurry almost running out of the building. Were you simply embarrassed because the two of you had been found out or was there something else?

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crissle · 8 years ago

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transcript of the speech i gave at Vassar’s black baccalaureate service

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, and the Vassar class of 2017. Just saying that aloud made me feel old. Class of 2017? Most of y'all were born after dark-skinned Aunt Viv left the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. That’s wild.

I want to first thank you for allowing me to be a part of such a special moment in your lives. I am honored, privileged, and a bit in disbelief that you asked me of all people to give this address. I try not to have feelings, and I’m going to do my best not to cry today, but no promises.

I’m here to stand in the gap between you and your parents and guardians and any other elders in your lives that you stopped listening to because you thought they were wack and out of touch. I remember being in your shoes not TOO long ago, and it is my fervent prayer that something that I say here today will help you avoid some of the mess I went through. To be honest I’m a little nervous, but I figured there was no way could this be worse than when Betsy DeVos went down to Bethune-Cookman, so let’s get started. As you transition to life after Vassar the changes will be both inevitable and swift, so I’d like to begin by giving you some well-intentioned advice and warning you about the continued process of becoming an adult.

It means I frequently feel simultaneously overwhelmed and very bored. It means forcing myself to go to work even when I’m depressed or my anxiety is through the roof because I’m the grown up now, and the bills don’t get paid unless I do it.

It means sometimes sitting in my room alone and feeling like I’ve done nothing significant with myself.

It means going through bouts of just being unhappy and not having any option but deal with it.

So no, adulthood is not the “I can do what I want” paradise that it may have appeared to be when we were young, and I’m sure you can all see that clearly now, but there is even more growth ahead. Sorry if you thought the hard parts were over.

Many of you have likely never worked a full time job or completely supported yourselves before, so as you prepare to enter the professional workforce please understand that as a young person of color your biggest asset will likely not be your intelligence, work ethic, or creativity. It will be your ability to make the white people around you feel at ease. You’ve probably already been honing this skill during your time at Vassar. No shade. Lord knows my years in college in Oklahoma prepared me in the same way to deal with my bosses and coworkers. You will be tested the first time a colleague complains to your supervisor about your “unfriendliness”, when really you were just trying to meet a deadline and didn’t care to hear about Susan’s cat and its vomit. Or the time you collaborate with a group and when the work is presented to your boss, your contributions have been conveniently erased or “mistakenly” attributed to someone else.

There have been many times that I had to sit back at work and bite my tongue while a white male coworker skated by with few responsibilities and even fewer repercussions. This is what it’s like for most of us playing the corporate game. Keep the white people at work comfortable in your presence, and things are magically easier. Force them to see the blackness in your humanity, and watch the complaints to HR pile up.

If you feel like you are being unfairly targeted or punished at work, put those in feelings in writing and back it up with some proof before emailing it to the people who need to know. That’s right - I’m telling you to go full White Woman in the workplace. Learn now to trust your gut. Know that if something FEELS off, it probably IS off.

When things were getting rough at a previous job of mine and I suspected something shady was going on, I started carrying my iPhone all over the office and using the Voice Memo app to record what was being said when I wasn’t in the room.

I kept my own meticulous records of what was going on and those files ended up saving me in a major way. I’m thankful every day that I didn’t ignore my intuition about that job. Sometimes we get those sneaky feelings and think we’re being paranoid when it’s really God (or the universe, or your personal higher power, whatever you believe in) trying to warn us about the dangers ahead. There have also been plenty of times that I didn’t listen to that intuition at all and paid the price dearly. Please learn from my mistakes.

I dated a girl back in 2008 or 2009 (the years all start to run together after a certain point) that we’ll call Ashley. Ashley was fine, played basketball, had a nice car, great job, and most importantly - was taller than me. But there were lots of things about her that didn’t add up. Like how she claimed to be an engineer for Apple, but we lived in Oklahoma City which had only just gotten an Apple retail store at all the year before. Or how she claimed to be my age, but her driver’s license said she was born three years before I was. (She claimed it was a mistake at the DMV that she never got fixed). Or how she constantly gave away fancy things like Louis Vuitton purses and Gucci and bought an SUV back when gas was like $5.32/gallon and not even rich white people were buying SUVs. The list goes on and on.

There was a lot about Ashley that should have been a red flag, but I didn’t care. She was fine! She took me out all the time and seemed head over heels for me and opened doors and held my umbrella so I looked past the sketchy job thing and the fact that she was blatantly lying about her age and everything else. The universe gave me so many chances to walk away from that situation, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. If I am honest with you now, it’s because I never thought someone who looked that good could be attracted to me. If I lost her, I’d never get anybody that fine again. When she got a new job as an “engineer” at a bank, she asked me to come there one day and open an account so she could deposit a check into it. Now don’t get me wrong, I was definitely a fool back then, but that just felt like it should be a no. And so for the first time in our relationship, I told her no.

She let it drop, and I pretended that nothing was wrong and kept dating Ashley despite the millions of warnings the universe was tossing in my direction until I couldn’t ignore them anymore.

A few weeks later, I was home asleep when she pulled up at my house at 3 AM (problem number one) and told me she’d been arrested for embezzlement and her dad had just bailed her out. She claimed that it was all a big misunderstanding, but when I put two and two together I realized that she’d asked me to come to the bank that day so that she could pull off her little stunt and blame me if she ever got caught. To say that I was hurt by that betrayal would be a massive understatement. I couldn’t believe someone I loved and trusted so much could have treated me that way. Had I been even just 2% dumber I’d probably have a record right now because of that girl. I let the idea of loneliness and solitude keep me in a situation that I should have left months earlier, and it almost ruined me in a permanent way.

I tell you that story because my friend Kid Fury and I give out a lot of advice on our podcast, The Read. Most of it is about relationships and I get a lot of feedback from younger women who say things like “Wow, I wish I was as reasonable as you are about relationships” or “I wish I was okay with being single like you guys seem to be”. But I didn’t always make smart decisions when it came to love. I wasn’t always okay with being by myself and I didn’t get to this place overnight.

What I DID do was learn from all the ways that I messed up and spent time alone after every relationship to work on myself. From Ashley in particular I learned to always trust my instincts, and these days I spend a lot more time vetting people before I decide to date them. That’s not foolproof either, because love is always a gamble. You never know how things will turn out. The difference now is that I listen to the warnings the first time I hear them.

Since we’re already on the subject of relationships, I want you to know that sometimes you will have to un-break your own heart. Sometimes what you thought was the perfect relationship ends and you don’t get any real answers or resolution or closure. Sometimes you will have to sit alone in your heartbreak and just feel every bit of that misery. Sometimes you will have to know when it’s over and be brave enough to end things before they can get worse.

I want you to know that because if you decide to not feel those feelings… if you decide to throw yourself into sex or dating or selling laxatives on Instagram instead of processing the entirety of what you are going through… all you are doing is delaying the inevitable. Your future relationships will crumble under the weight of your unresolved emotions. You are not doing yourself a favor by pretending that you aren’t bleeding. It is fine and good to develop hobbies to distract yourself from the pain and loneliness of a relationship ending, but make sure you take the time to really get through your breakup.

Remember that never getting married isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you, but marrying the wrong person could be.

For young women in particular, I want you to learn to put yourselves first. Learn to prioritize your needs. There is so much to be accomplished in your personal life when you are happy with yourself alone. As a wise woman once said, there is an essential part of who you are that only becomes alive in the place where romance ends. Women are so conditioned in this society to take care of others that choosing yourself can feel unnatural. It can be isolating, because believe it or not lots of people don’t think women have the right to see themselves as truly equal to men. Weak partners will not know how to handle a woman who puts her happiness above anyone else’s but choose yourself anyway, and never compromise just for the sake of not being single.

When I was around your age, LiveJournal was a big deal on the internet. If you aren’t familiar, LiveJournal was a site for keeping personal blogs and participating in communities with like-minded people and I loved it. I blogged on LJ for years and made internet friends that I still keep up with on Twitter today, and when I take the time to go back and read what I was going through in my mid-twenties I am always blown away.

An excerpt from September 6, 2004: “I figure, why break up with him for being a liar (and probably a cheater) when everyone I’ve EVER dated has been a liar/cheater. Obviously I am destined to be either alone or with a liar/cheater. No sense in breaking up with this one when all I’ll be doing is waiting for the next one to come around.”

YIKES! I read that now and see a person whose self-esteem was so low that she should’ve been single and in therapy. It’s hard for me to reconcile that girl with who I am today, but I got here. The things that felt fresh and dangerous and new back then are old roads to me now. You will get there too. But you gotta keep going.

Another quote from my journal, this one dated November 5, 2008: “I don’t even try, anymore, even though I want things to be better. I want to do and be better. But I don’t put forth the effort that I know is required of me and I don’t know why. I just let things get worse and worse and worse and one of two things happen: It’ll get so bad that I’m forced to do something to change it or it’ll blow up completely in my face. If I do eventually change, I never manage to keep it up so either way it goes my life is a constant cycle of fail. I wish I knew why I couldn’t be one of those people who learns to make it right.

P.S. What is up with Rihanna having all these good songs lately?”

I remember feeling that way A LOT - sometimes for days and weeks at time. But it’s funny to me now that I remember those feelings but not the daily work it took to get out of it. I just know that I kept moving. I talked to my friends about what was going on and faithfully asked the church to pray for me every Sunday and Wednesday. When that didn’t fix it alone, I broke down and found a psychiatrist. (Which I highly recommend, by the way. Mine have saved my life twice. #NoShame.) If you’ve never been in therapy before, it might surprise you how helpful a stranger can be when you feel stuck dealing with life. And of course, I kept my journal. I kept writing. When my depression drove me to the point of feeling suicidal, I wrote my way out. But my journal wasn’t all tears and desperation and sadness. I laugh a lot too when I look back at who I used to be and what the world was like then.

Like this post from September 3, 2005: “Kanye West just got on TV and said ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’. Kanye West is officially my baby daddy.”

Or this one, from August of that same year: “I bought two fish, one male and one female. I named them Brad and Angelina. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that they hump constantly.”

I encourage you to keep a journal and write in it as much as possible. I read a story on Humans of New York last year about a woman who has kept a journal every day since she started it as a class assignment in elementary school. Y’all, I would spend Beyoncé ticket money to be able to go back to 1996 and read my thoughts on being in 7th grade and what the Oklahoma City bombing was like for us living 90 miles away. I would spend VIP Beyoncé ticket money to be able to go back to high school and read the daily thoughts of a girl who was struggling with bisexuality and living with a very religious family in the middle of the Bible belt. So yes, please keep a written record of your life. One day it will be invaluable to you.

Take a lot of pictures of yourself and of everything around you, even when you think you look terrible. I don’t mean that you have to post them on Instagram or Tumblr every day, but no one ever grew older and thought “Damn, there’s too many photos of me lying around from when I was young.” The moments you are experiencing now will layer themselves into the person you grow to be. It’s a lot of fun to look back on trips that my best friends and I took in our mid-twenties and cackle together over the memories. When I was your age, camera phones were only just starting to become mainstream and it was a bit of a pain to hold onto lots of photos. So take advantage of the times we are in now. Save all those snaps to your camera roll. Record videos when you and your friends are just hanging out being goofy. Take those selfies, even if you think they’re ugly, and know that one day you’ll look back and touch the pixels of your 23 year old face and wonder where the time went.

One day, if it hasn’t come already, it will really hit you that you’re not one of the kids anymore. One day you will look around at your family and you will now be in the position that was always previously occupied by your parents, aunts, and uncles. Those kids that your siblings and cousins have? They get old fast! It is a cruel trick of life that childhood seems to drag on forever while adulthood flies past. Nothing prepares you for the realization that your parents are whole, complete people who had entire lives that existed before you were ever considered.

You will know in a way that young people are not capable of knowing that time continues to move and the world keeps turning no matter what. Children cannot quite understand that the games and technology and places and people they build their memories out of will all change one day. When I was your age, MySpace and BlackPlanet were more popular than Facebook and George W. Bush was the dumbest president America ever had. So yeah, the world will change in ways you cannot begin to imagine. You will realize that if you are fortunate you will be old one day, but also that growing older means learning different ways to say goodbye. One day it will be you turning up the brightness on your phone and increasing the font size on your MacBook and looking confused at whatever new app or machine the children of the future have invented.

Everyone won’t leave Vassar this weekend with a great job lined up in the career they’ve always dreamed of and go on to live happily ever after. If you’re like most of us, you will spend a significant amount of time being overworked, undervalued, underpaid, stressed, and tired. I want to encourage you today to hold on through the times when life will frustrate you the most. Understand that you WILL mess up, and the way you respond to making mistakes shows your true maturity. Hold on to the friendships you’ve had for years. Take the time to figure out who you are and how that person is different from who you want to be. Learn when to cut people off and how to genuinely apologize.

Ages 22 to 32 were by far the hardest I’ve gone through in my life. Imma just be real with y’all about that. I had a lot of terrible relationships. I had knockdown drag-out fights with roommates and best friends. I had terrible jobs and even worse bosses. My health wasn’t always great and I stopped trying to take care of myself. Depression and anxiety seemed to rule my days more often than not.

But if I hadn’t held on, I never would have worked up the nerve to move from Oklahoma to Harlem. I never would have started doing The Read with Kid Fury, which changed my life completely. I never would have been able to travel the world doing the work I love. I never would have found the real happiness and true peace that come with both loving and liking yourself.

Understand that your next steps into adulthood begin now, and that you cannot get to the rewards life has in store for you without walking the journey. (Unless you were born a cis-straight white man, and then the world is your oyster.) When I look back over the past decade of my life, I see a lot of struggle and heartache and days that I had to collect coins from the bottom of my glove compartment to scrape up enough money to find dinner. And now that I’m on the other side of that mountain I see how every last one of those days I spent hurting and miserable led me to being right here. I had to learn to trust the process laid out for me. I had to learn to let my dreams shift into my destiny. Like Oprah says, I learned to lean in with the universe instead of fighting it. So as you prepare to tackle the changes heading your way, do your best to hold your head high and remain true to yourself. Remember to hold onto your values, your ethics, and your purpose. It is these qualities that will successfully guide you through life.

I’ll leave you with one last excerpt from my journal, dated January 20, 2007: “My ex-boyfriend just moved to Harlem and he gets on my nerves talking about how great the east coast is. I really don’t give a damn about the east coast. I would never move to NYC, but maybe that��s just me.”10 years later, I can tell you that 24 year old me couldn’t have been more wrong about what she would or would not do and how her life was going to turn out. So have your dreams and goals, but don’t be so attached to them that you miss out on your purpose.

Congratulations to you, the Vassar class of 2017, and to the parents, family and friends who have helped you arrive. Good luck to you and thank you for listening.

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ravetaper · 5 years ago

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Svdden Death Live Set - February 2020 at the Hollywood Palladium (Full Set)

Svdden Death live set recorded February 14, 2020, at the Hollywood Palladium. 90-minute audio recording. The set began at 12:30 am the following morning (Feb. 15).

Every year, someone puts together a spreadsheet of all the artists performing at EDC, with links to various live sets. In the weeks leading up to the event, I do my due diligence and try to preview as many of those live sets as possible, to discover new artists and decide which sets I want to hit. Svdden Death was on last year's list (EDC Las Vegas 2019). I scanned his live recordings and thought they sounded good – I would try to make his set. And since he would be playing the Basspod stage immediately before Snails – who I wasn't going to miss – the plan made perfect sense.

The only question was if I could get to the Basspod on time. I had only 15 minutes to get there after Chris Lake's set ended at Cosmic Meadow. I would have to circumnavigate thousands of bodies and literally jog across the Speedway to catch the beginning of Svdden Death's set.

Unfortunately, I encountered a problem. I thought I dropped the battery cover for one of my cameras, and I felt compelled to retrace my steps and search the ground for it. Of course I didn't find it. I forgot I had slipped it into a small pocket in my backpack – which I only discovered once I was back home. That delay would cause me to miss the beginning of Svdden Death.

When I finally reached Basspod and moved into position, I realize how bad I screwed up. Svdden Death was playing some really heavy tracks, and I instantly regretted I wasn't recording. But I wasn't only moved by the music. I was struck by the unusual visuals displayed on the huge LED panels.

The imagery included computer generated skulls, skeletons, demonic-looking warriors, pagan symbols, horned figures. Quite frankly, a lot of the imagery looked satanic in nature! I was intrigued. Not because I'm attracted to Satanism – I'm definitely not – but because the whole production was a novel approach I hadn't seen before, at least not in any genres of dance music. Such imagery had been used by several hard rock and heavy metal bands – Ozzy Osborn and Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Metallica, to name a few, and helped create many memorable – and financially successful – brands. Furthermore, this was the imagery of Dungeons & Dragons – one of my childhood passions! To be sure, videos of demons and devils and skulls contradicted the PLUR vibe that characterizes EDC, but that was one of the reasons I found it so endearing. It was so different, and so unusual in that context.

Of course, video alone doesn't make a great set. But Svdden Death was dropping tunes that were extraordinary, hard riddim and dubstep that perfectly complimented the eerie visuals. The whole experience really left a positive impression on me. To me, it was the most unique set of the weekend.

Indeed, not recording Svdden Death's set was my biggest regret from EDC 2019. I vowed to catch him again, as soon as possible.

So I was elated when I saw that Bassrush would bring him to the Palladium in Hollywood. Tickets were a bargain - $40 for GA if I recall correctly. This was a no-brainer. I secured my ticket and waited for the days to pass.

Originally, I hadn't planned on recording. I figured trying to sneak in some kind of gear would be a hassle and cause unnecessary stress. I thought I would just go to the show and enjoy the music.

But my compulsion to record got the best of me!

I can't stand the idea of missing an opportunity to record really good music! Going to a show and enjoying the moment, living in the present, sounds reasonable – I get it. But there is something in my DNA that makes me want to document things. I just love capturing the good moments of my life and having the freedom to enjoy them again and again.

So with only a few hours before show time, I decided I would go for it. But I wasn't sure what gear I would use. I could try to bring in one of my Zoom cameras. At the security checkpoint I would have to put it in the tray along with my cell phone, wallet, and keys, and hope the security guard didn't think it was a "professional" recorder, which is prohibited by the house rules. In reality, the Zoom cameras do not qualify as pro gear – they are designed for armature use. But, I didn't want to risk getting denied and having to do the walk of shame back to my car.

I had another option. I had an old Tascam mic that attaches to older iPhones. I would have to use an awkward Lightening adapter and find an app that worked with the mic – the original Tascam app was no longer supported. After searching Google, I found an app that supposedly was compatible with the mic. I downloaded, tested it...and it worked! I quickly freed a few gigs of memory on my phone and headed out the door.

I arrived at the Hollywood Palladium not long after the doors opened. Suffice to say, I got the mic through security – I was in the clear!

There were several opening acts: AHZ, Neonix, Aweminus, Phiso, and Marauda. AHZ was cool live band that played dubstep. Neonix and Phiso were good. I decided I would get into position and do a test run of the app by recording Marauda's set. The app seemed to work, no crashes or any other issues. Marauda's set was pretty good, too.

Finally, it was time for Svdden Death!

The set started strong, the music was like what I heard at EDC – deep, dark, and powerful. Sure enough, the massive screens showed images of red and white skulls, barbed wire, and ominous figures. YES!

Let me take a moment to describe how I capture the audio in situations like this. Selfie sticks are not allowed, so I have to literally hold up my arm high enough above the crowd to get a clear line of sight between the mic and the speakers. Every few minutes, as one arm gets tired, I have to switch hands. Now, if I was doing this at a nice classical music concert, that would be easy. But this is the opposite that! I am positioned in a sea of tightly-packed bodies dancing and jumping to the music. And of course, there's another interesting phenomenon seen at many dubstep shows: the mosh pit.

Every few songs, a pit opens up and the sweaty bros (and a few brave gals) do their thing – pushing, flailing, and bouncing off each other as if they were human pinballs. I myself am not into mosh pits, but I can tolerate them. If others enjoy moshing, good for them – have at it! The problem for me is that I'm standing in the middle of the floor, with my arm up in the air, trying to make a recording. More than a few times there were two pits happening, one in front of me and one in back. I'm a pretty sturdy guy, so I can usually keep my balance and stay stable. But a few times a mass of bodies slam into my area causing me to stumble. You'll be able to hear it a couple times on the recording. Luckily, I didn't get hurt, and the recording never stopped. And a few times a few observant fellows noticed what I was trying to do, leaned in and told me they "had my back", and made sure no one came crashing into me.

By the end of the night, I was covered in sweat...other people's sweat! LOL.

I guess I just want my followers to know what I have to go through to get some of these recordings – it can get pretty extreme at times. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Despite the fact that I'm twice the age of most of the audience, I love getting down there into the mass of bodies and fully experiencing the energy of the event. At least once in a while. ;)

About 45 minutes into Svdden Death's 90-minute set, there was a noticeable change. Whereas the first half incorporated some uplifting tunes by Marshmellow and other "poppy" artists, the second half had a darker and more underground sound.

And then, it happened...

For a moment, Svdden Death disappeared behind the table. Then, he reappeared...wearing a sinister-looking mask! I guess it's an elk's skull complete with horns! Seriously, it looked like something out of a Netflix horror series. It was freaky, but somehow completely appropriate. Think about all the artists that use some kind of headgear – Deadmau5, Marshmellow, and of course the dance music robots, Daft Punk. So for Svdden Death, a satanic-looking animal skull worked perfectly.

A few minutes later, I was in the throes of a particularly intense mosh pit. I had to fully concentrate just to stay upright while keeping the phone in the air. Then, I looked up and had to do a double-take.

There he was, with the animal head mask on, floating 20 feet above the DJ table, looking like the incarnation of some kind of pagan deity. He had hooked into a high wire rig and was hoisted into the air. With the lights and lasers running full blast, the sight was surreal and amazing! This was a fantastic show!

Again, I take such imagery with a grain of salt. Is Svdden Death really caught up in the world of Satanism or pagan rituals? I have no clue and I really don't care. And I doubt he is. I think it's just brilliant marketing, and it makes for a very entertaining experience.

During this second half of the show, another logo was broadcast on the screens that I didn't recognize. The text wasn't easily legible – the font looked like a mess of tangled tree roots. It wasn't until I got home that I learned about Voyd, Svdden Death's alter ego who wears the mask and plays darker variations of riddim and dubstep. So this show featured both sides of Svdden Death, and it was a perfect mix.

I consider myself very lucky. I was there that night in Hollywood, when Svdden Death sold out the Palladium. I got to see a "regular" set and a Voyd set. And I predict that Svdden Death's career is just beginning. Wait and see how he gets better timeslots at EDC and other festivals. But I was there is the early days, when he was still young up-and-coming. I was lucky.

Fortunately, the recording came out pretty good. The raw file sounded rather flat, but with a bit of tweaking and massaging, the final product sounds decent. In fact it sounds really solid. I'm listening back to it right on now on headphones, and it brings me right back to that special night. My obsession for recording live events has paid off big this time. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do.

Listen to Svdden Death on Spotify!

Follow Svdden Death on Twitter!

Buy Svdden Death music on Apple Music!

#svdden death #live set #hollywood #2020 #voyd #hollywood palladium #riddim #dubstep #rave tapes

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phancystuff · 7 years ago

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Trying to Remember How it Feels (To Have a Heartbeat) 2/7

Pairing: Dan/ Phil (Phan) Summary: Dan moves into a new apartment in London and, though it’s a step up from his old apartment, his landlord gives him strange warnings while he’s touring the place– something about the last renters leaving because of ghost sightings. But, Dan doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He quickly changes his tune when he meets Phil Lester, the ghost haunting his apartment. Well, if haunting means quickly becoming the best friend he’s ever had. (Title from Harry Styles’ song Two Ghosts) Notes: Part 2 of my Spooky Week Special! This fic is almost 100% already written and I plan on updating it every day until Halloween. Please note that, although this fic has the warning of major character death, it is not in any way graphic. Tags/ Warnings: ghost au, Halloween, major character death (obv. it’s a ghost au lol), depictions of panic attacks, angst, fluff, HAPPY ENDING, mentions of suicide (it happens in a movie they watch)

Read it on A03 Part One

When Dan woke up, it was completely dark outside. Dan pushed himself up on his elbows, momentarily reflecting on what a weird dream he had. There had been an emo ghost, a panic attack, a viral video. It had all felt so real.

“Good morning sleeping beauty!” Dan jumped and his head snapped up to the source of the voice. So it wasn’t a dream, then. Phil was sitting at Dan’s computer chair. Hovering over his computer chair. Despite the hovering, the office chair was spinning around and Phil was giggling gleefully. “Or should I say, good night?”

“I thought you could only manipulate electricity?” Dan adopted a cool voice, deciding the only course of action was to hide his fear. Phil didn’t seem dangerous at any rate.

“Oh, no! Objects are a little harder, but I’ve had tons of practice over the years. From what I understand, ghosts get stronger the longer they're around. Of course, I’ve only learned this from experimenting. When I first, ah, became a ghost, I couldn’t even manifest myself physically.”

Dan looked thoughtfully at Phil, considering his physical form. “So, you have to purposefully manifest yourself?”

The spinning stopped and Phil looked back at Dan. “Yeah. It used to take a lot of concentration and I could only do it for a couple minutes at a time. Now, I don’t really have to think about it. After that, I started experimenting with electricity. I can strengthen wifi signals, too.” Phil grinned, “I’m a pretty handy roommate!”

Dan pinched the bridge of his nose, “I can’t say I’ve ever wanted a roommate.”

“What?” Phil’s eyes widened comically. “I’ve only ever wanted a roommate! It’s been so boring to be alone in this place! I love when Paul brings new people around.”

Dan’s stomach growled loudly and he thought about what was in his fridge at the moment. It wasn’t much; mostly various sauces and condiments. Dan took out his iPhone and opened up the app to order Indian takeaway. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Phil disappearing from the office chair.

“Meep! that iPhone is so thin and the screen’s so big!” Dan flinched and whipped his head to look at Phil, now sitting cross-legged on the bed next to him. His first thought was a panicked string of swears at Phil’s sudden appearance. His second thought was that Dan couldn’t believe there was a ghost in his apartment that said ‘meep’ unironically. “Oops, sorry! Transporting is another bad habit I have. I’ll walk around like an alive person.”

“S’ok,” Dan mumbled, thumbing around on his app. “But, yeah, I guess you haven’t seen an iPhone in a while.”

“Not up close! Oh man, look at it! May I?” Phil held out his hand and Dan looked at it nervously.

“Will you be able to hold it?”

“I think so! It’s not really hard for me to hold objects anymore, but if I drop it, it’ll just go on the bed. Just don’t give me a baby!” Phil giggled and Dan slowly placed the iPhone in Phil’s palm. The ghost looked down at it and scanned the app that Dan was interacting with. “Indian food, huh? Yum.” Dan scrutinized Phil’s face. It looked sad. “I used to love Indian food,” he whispered.

“Do you want to order for me?” Dan asked, trying to get the smile back on Phil’s face and not really understanding why he cared.

“Can I?!” Phil’s eyes were round, all sadness had been obliterated from their depths. Dan couldn’t help but chuckle, albeit a little uncomfortably.

“Of course. It’s nothing special for me, but you haven’t hand a phone in your hand since--” Dan cut himself off, realizing he had no idea when Phil had died. Was it polite to ask? If their places were switched, Dan would probably find his own death to be a sensitive point of conversation.

“2010,” Phil murmured back, completely lost in the application. If he thought a food app was captivating, Dan couldn’t wait to show him Crossy Roads. Dan thought back to 2010. What was he doing then? Starting his first year at uni and working on a law degree. That had only lasted a year before Dan had realized how miserable he was. He had taken a year out and never gone back.

“2010 was when I made my first YouTube video,” His channel had steadily taken off to Dan’s complete surprise. At first, he had worked other odd jobs to be able to afford his crappy first apartment, but as his channel grew in popularity, he was able to rely solely on YouTube. Dan smiled fondly; all in all, 2010 had been a beginning for him. The smile dropped off his face when he realized that it had been an end for Phil.

Phil nodded politely. “That’s really cool. What year is it now?” Phil held the phone back out to Dan. The food had been ordered and the estimated time of arrival on the screen read 30 minutes.

“Oh! It’s 2017. It’s May.”

“Hmm. Almost summer? Autumn is my favorite, though, mostly because of Halloween.” Phil gripped his feet and rocked back and forth on his bum. The ghost was growing on Dan. He might even call him adorable; but it was pretty weird to find a ghost to be endearing, wasn’t it?

“I love halloween, too. I’ve always wanted to do a baking video or something for my channel. But it doesn’t really fit the Daniel Howell aesthetic.” Dan did air quotes with his fingers. “So I’ve never done one.”

“You should! That would be something I’d wanna watch.” Phil flopped back on the bed, pulling his feet up with him.

“Maybe,” Dan said, knowing full well that he probably wouldn’t. He probably wouldn’t even put it on Daniel Howell 2, his second channel. He might livestream him trying something that he had baked on YouNow, but people probably wouldn’t be interested. Dan had always felt like there was a specific video that his viewer wanted to see from him and, if he wanted to stay relevant, that was the type of video he would put out. Wanting to change the subject, Dan pulled up Crossy Roads on his iPhone. “Now, Phil, do I have something to show you!”

The two boys, one alive and one dead, played Crossy Roads back and forth until Dan’s food showed up. Dan had always been competitive and it didn’t help that Phil had declared this to be a “DAN VS PHIL! 3 ROUNDS EACH, BRING IT ON, DANIEL!” Dan’s head was in his hands after immediately killing his korean barbeque character by jumping into a bus, and getting a score of three, when his doorbell rang. He left the phone with Phil and ran to get his food, stomach grumbling loudly. He set everything up on the dining room table and only jumped a little when Phil was suddenly there, sitting at one of the chairs.

“59! Hah, I win!” Phil proclaimed, placing the phone on the table and spinning it around for Dan to see.

Dan glanced at it and huffed. “Fine, I call hacks.”

“Sore loser!”

“Sore winner!”

Phil giggled and watched Dan eat. “God, I miss eating. Or being able to smell it, at least.”

Dan nodded sympathetically, mentally filing away the detail in his folder labeled ‘ghost facts.’ He figured that it was easier to learn about Phil and live with him, rather than try to ignore him. The fear he had for the ghost was slowly draining away, only leaving the recognition that he seemed like a cool guy. Dan was open-minded. Sure his whole concept of reality had been shaken to the very core and he would probably have an existential crisis about it later, but for now, he was contented to make conversation. Dan suddenly remembered the video he had made this afternoon that brought them to this point. He groaned. “Phil, we have a problem.”

“What’s that?” Phil looked at him anxiously, the iPhone spinning in front of him. Dan tried not to stare at the supernatural trick being done way too casually right in front of him.

“Well, the video you showed up in is going viral. Everyone is tweeting me, expecting that I’ve been viciously murdered.”

“Oh, um, that is a problem.” Phil bit his lip, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “Hey! I know! You could reveal to everyone that it was a hoax? A clever editing trick?”

Dan nodded thoughtfully. It was a pretty smart idea. It was totally unlike Dan to do anything of the sort, but he could bullshit another video, claiming that it was a social experiment about virality and people’s belief in the supernatural and blah blah blah. Dan told Phil his idea and the ghost nodded enthusiastically. “Perfect! That way, you’ll have your viral hit, your fans won’t feel too betrayed, and you don’t have to explain that there’s an actual ghost in your apartment.” Phil giggled. “Imagine that video!”

Dan laughed with the ghost. “Yeah, I’d do it like a vlog! A Day in the Life of Dan and Ghost Phil.” Dan reached across the table and grabbed the spinning phone, holding it up over his head and pretending to vlog: “Hey internet! Dan here! And I’m joined by none other than the late amazingphil. He’s decided to collab with me beyond the grave.” Phil’s giggles turned into body-bouncing belly laughs and Dan could have sworn he saw tears leaking down the ghost’s cheeks.

“What can I say? I’m was just dying to collab with you, Dan.” Phil forced the pun out between gasping breaths and chuckles.

Dan dropped his phone and groaned loudly into his hands. “Nooo, that’s was so bad! I hate you.” Dan peeked through his fingers to watch Phil’s tongue poke out between his teeth. The two boys’ laughter slowly died down and Dan shoveled food into his mouth. “I’m making puns with a ghost right now.” Dan blinked a couple times, wondering if the image of Phil would disappear.

Phil looked on sympathetically. “It’s gotta be weird.”

“It is.” Dan looked thoughtful. “But not a bad weird.” Phil looked hopeful. Dan wondered how he-- someone whose biggest fear was of the supernatural-- could be so cool with this. Only a few hours before, the apparition had given him a major panic attack. Dan looked back at Phil’s shining eyes and decided it was because Phil was completely harmless. It was silly to have fear for something harmless.

***

Dan’s video explanation of his “hoax” went over relatively well. Only a few of his viewers were really angry, commenting that he was only using them for views. Dan wanted to reply to them and say that most YouTubers made videos in order for people to view them, but decided that he didn’t want to feed the trolls. He was able to continue with life as normal.

Well, as normal as living with a ghost could get. Dan didn’t leave the apartment very often-- why would he? His whole life happened inside the internet. Other than visiting a few friends and grocery shopping, Dan mostly stuck around the flat. This meant that a lot of time was spent with his new roommate.

Dan had been learning a lot about Phil. They surprisingly had quite a few similar interests. Muse, Studio Ghibli, video games, horror movies, punk pop, Kill Bill. Dan had a blast showing Phil all the movies, shows, and video games he had missed in the seven years that he had been dead. Dan could never get tired of the look of awe on Phil’s face when he commented on the graphics of Fallout 4 or the animation style of Big Hero Six. He was especially interested in how much the internet and YouTube had changed. The fact that people made a living on the video-sharing site. He watched a ton of YouTube, catching up on all the old people he used to be subscribed to and getting acquainted with new YouTubers. Phil expressed his sadness to Dan when he discovered that some of his favorite internet personalities were no longer making videos.

Dan noticed that Phil didn’t watch any of the ‘goodbye amazingphil’ videos that had been made by fans or fellow YouTubers. Dan had watched a few, but they did nothing but make him sad. Dan was actually surprised that no one had recognized Phil from his Quick and Dirty video, but apparently Phil had been hidden in the shadows just enough for anyone to notice how much the apparition looked like the late amazingphil. Dan was glad; he didn’t want to deal with the wrath of sad fans wondering why Dan would be sick enough to fake edit amazingphil in the corner.

Dan also watched all of Phil’s old videos, finding him very endearing. Phil was a fantastic storyteller and Dan found himself captivated by Phil’s silly life. The videos were obviously old-- the camera quality, editing style, music, and genre. Despite this, Dan still watched every single video. He told himself that it was to get to know his ghost friend better.

It had been a couple months. Dan had noticed that the two boys talked about everything, except the gigantic elephant in the room. Dan still had no idea how Phil had died. The goodbye videos Dan watched told him nothing; no one seemed to know what had happened to amazingphil, other than an untimely death. It made sense that none of Phil’s family members would think to update a YouTube audience, especially when dealing with their own grief. Dan had googled around a little bit, still finding nothing about the mysterious death of Phil Lester. Dan figured it was rude to ask, but it didn’t stop his curiosity gnawing at him, especially when he discovered that the last video on the amazingphil channel was one shot in this very apartment. Dan had been waiting to watch Phil’s last video because, when he finally watched it, it would mean that there were no more amazingphil videos to watch, which made Dan feel almost empty in a way.

But, eventually, one day in mid July, he couldn’t take the curiosity. Dan pulled up the video on his phone, put in earphones, and clicked play. He smiled at the title, “The Jellybean Centipede” and the opening shot of Phil biting a balloon. In the video, Phil explained that he had finally gotten his very own apartment. Dan watched the tour of Dan’s current apartment, noticing the differences and similarities. The video wasn’t different from Phil’s others ones-- the lion was still there, Phil still made heart hands at the camera, and he still said lolrandom things. Knowing it was the last video ever on his channel made Dan incredibly sad. He watched the last shot, of Phil sitting on and popping the giant balloon that one of his viewers had given him, over and over again. It was a ridiculous thing to leave YouTube with, but it was so fitting of Phil. Dan scrubbed at a tear that threatened to leave the corner of his eye. He didn’t dare look at the comments.

“Dan! Hey, Dan! Where did you put your copy of Mario Kart for the switch?” Phil floated into Dan’s room, standing at the foot of his bed. Phil had been better about not transporting randomly, moving around more naturally for Dan’s sake. Dan slammed the phone face down onto his bed. “Oh, are you ok? I didn’t interrupt something did I?” Phil looked embarrassed and looked down at his multi-colored, mismatched socks.

“Phil, how did you die?” Dan slapped his hand over his mouth, eyes widening in shock. Phil’s head jerked up to look at Dan.

“Dan…” It almost sounded like a warning. It was the only time in these short months that Dan felt nervous around Phil.

“I’m sorry, it’s just, you can’t expect me not to be curious. You were 23 when you died, right? That’s so young. You had just gotten a new apartment. You finished school. Your YouTube channel was doing really well. What happened?”

“Dan, really, I--”

“You were 23! Only three years younger than me now. That’s scary, Phil. So fucking scary. I think about dying all the time. I think about what I’m contributing to the world and I stress about what I’m doing with my life--”

“--Please, Dan--”

“--but I only ever think about dying when I’m really old. And then you come along and you were 23 and you won’t even tell me what happened! I thought we were friends and--”

“Dan!” Dan jumped, looking at Phil. His voice had turned loud, deep, powerful, and a little bit unhinged. The lights in Dan’s bedroom flickered and papers swirled around the room, surrounding the ghostly figure in a whirlwind of paper. He slowly rose higher and higher off the ground, until he was looking down at Dan. Phil sounded and looked every bit of the ‘scary horror movie ghost’ in that moment and Dan was practically shitting himself. “I’m serious, I don’t want to talk about this.”

Dan started shaking, not recognizing the eyes of his ghost friend. They had gone dark, emphasizing the paleness of Phil’s undead skin. Shadow patterns danced across his unnatural face. “Y-yeah. S-s-sorry Phil. I’ll stop, p-please, don’t hurt me.”

Papers fluttered down to the floor and the lights came back on. Phil dropped to the floor, his eyes cleared, and the shadows left his face. He looked guilty. “No,” Phil whispered, staring at Dan with shining eyes. “Please understand this, Dan, I’d never hurt you.” Dan pushed off the bed, trembling violently. He wasn’t going to have another panic attack. He wasn’t going to have another panic attack.

“Of course you won’t. It’s ok, Phil. I’m going to just, just.” Dan ran out of the room, grabbing his keys and wallet from the dining room table. He threw open the front door and rode the elevator down into the lobby of the building. Outside, he immediately felt sweat spring to his skin in the hot London summer air. Desperately, he tried to reign in his lungs and breathe evenly. He never knew that Phil could get so scary. Maybe Dan should be careful with the ghost. Maybe he should be afraid of him.

Dan walked aimlessly for hours, going nowhere in particular, but relishing the occasional breeze against his face. His apartment had been feeling like an alternate reality, lately. It felt nice to be reminded that nature was still its wonderful, albeit cruel, self. Dan looked around for the first time since leaving the apartment, noticing his surroundings. His feet had taken him to a closeby park. Dan sat down on a bench and stared out at the trees, which were a little creepy in the encroaching dark of the evening. His breathing slowed. He knew that, sooner or later, Dan would have to return to the flat and face Phil.

He thought back to the conversation that had made Phil so angry. Of course it had made him angry. Dan had asked the ghost about his most painful, personal memory, without even warning Phil that Dan had been thinking about it. Phil had purposefully been skirting around the information and Dan had rudely barreled past his hesitations. Dan felt like a dick. He remembered the flickering lights and whirlwind circling Phil’s rising form. That had been a little unnecessary. And a lot terrifying.

He sighed and heaved himself off the bench. This was silly; he couldn’t run from Phil. They hadn’t had any problems yet. In fact, it had been incredibly nice to finally live with someone, even if that someone had a non-corporeal form. Everyone had their moments, right? Everyone got angry from time to time; of course Phil would have those times as well. It just so happened that Phil had a little more power over the world than the average human. Dan shivered, thinking about Phil flashing him those lifeless eyes again.

They had already discussed the extent of Phil’s powers, though, and Dan was pretty sure there was nothing Phil could do to hurt Dan. In fact, from what they both understood, Phil could only successfully interact with things that weren’t alive. Things without a heartbeat. Although, Phil hadn’t told Dan what he meant by “successful.” Dan rubbed his arms, the cool evening air chilling the remaining sweat on his skin. He began to trudge back to his flat-- their flat. Dan knew Phil wouldn’t hurt him. Phil was a good person. He was a good friend. Dan had been silly.

Dan arrived back and rode the elevator up to his flat. He pushed the key in and prepared himself for anything: Phil could have completely disappeared, choosing to abandon his physical form for the moment. Phil could be right there waiting at the door, wanting to apologize to Dan. Dan breathed deeply and opened the door, only to be enveloped by the delicious smell of Italian food. Dan looked over into the kitchen to find Phil stirring at a pot on the stove. Ok, Dan wasn’t prepared for that. The ghost turned around at the sound of the front door opening. “Dan! Thank god, I was so worried!” Phil turned down the temperature and bounded over to Dan. Dan would never get used to the way Phil moved; he floated but that didn’t stop him from skipping, running, dancing, and shuffling. His feet just never touched the floor. Phil stopped in front of Dan, reaching out his hands to Dan’s face. “You didn’t have a panic attack did you?” He seemed to catch himself, realizing that there would be no use in trying to touch Dan. His arms dropped to his sides.

Dan melted at the sound of Phil’s concern. “Fuck, Phil, I’m sorry for running away. And I’m sorry for bringing up such a sore subject like an absolute twat. I didn’t have a panic attack; don’t worry.”

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am for going ghost on you.” Phil’s eyes shined and his bottom lip stuck out in the slightest of pouts. Dan focused his eyes on the lip, wondering if Phil even realized how adorable he was sometimes. “I will never ever hurt you. I will try really hard not to be a moody ass.”

“Did you just make a Danny Phantom reference?” Dan whispered, eyes drifting up from Phil’s lips, finally.

“Yes!” Phil clapped gleefully. “Now, I made you dinner to make it up to you. The only thing is you’re gonna have to taste test for me because food tastes like nothing when I put it in my mouth and I want to make sure I put enough garlic in there.” Dan followed his friend into the kitchen, marveling at how the best friend that he had ever had was dead.

Chapter Three

#phanfic #phanfiction #ghost au #phan #halloween #spooky week #fluff #angst #happy ending

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benbarnesescape · 7 years ago

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Un Moment à Paris - Part 2

A Missed Chance

Permanent Tags: @la-fille-en-aiguilles, @ladyblablabla, @starless-skyox @livelearnandtravel

New to the series? Catch up here: Part 1

Warnings: Language and angst. Nothing naughty yet kids

You sat at the small table, the oblique wood shining against the bright lights of the building. You rubbed your head, the makings of a migraine biting into your brain and you groan as you see the next group of international diplomats walk into the room.

It was a long day and you had only been at work for four hours.

When you had shown up that morning, thirty minutes late as you slipped into your cubicle, you had been rewarded with a large manila folder full of profiles. A lot of ambassadors had been streaming in and out of the French embassy and thus the French UN was the first filter of passing the delicate documents, which meant you were charged with lots of translating. You specialized not only in the romance language, but had been dumb enough to learn Arabic and Mandarin and then move to a country where no one spoke. For the challenge you had told your mom.

You were one of three people who could fluently speak and write the language, causing you to get bombarded with work.

Not that you got a chance to finish typing the documents. It was half way through deciphering through pages of policy that you were called to translate between two important diplomats. You had been in meetings ever since, sustaining yourself on coffee and water. You barely had time to visit the bathroom.

You feel a soft rap on your shoulders to find your colleague, Jean smiling down at you before saying,

“I’m here to save you from more meetings. Boss needs you to finish those policy papers.”

You give him a grateful smile, eagerly picking up your note pad and pen as you throw your thin blazer back over your shoulders.

“Thank goodness. I honestly can't figure out which i hate more right now. Verbally translating or typing and translating.”

He laughs, giving a knowing nod and you walk out of the room, a grateful sigh passing through your lips as the natural light of the modern building bathed over your skin. Finally, a moment of peace where you could allow your brain to wander.

Ben.

Whether you wanted to admit it or not, you knew why you prefered to hide out in your cubicle, typing mindlessly as your eyes skimmed over pages of information. It meant that you could also allow your mind to wander, to think back to how supple Ben’s lips looked as he sipped his coffee, his chocolate brown eyes peering over the porcelain cup, watching you with intent. You could think about the way his long fingers casually laid on the table, occasionally tapping against the worn out wood as he concentrated on you as you babbled about restaurants to visit. The way his muscles moved against the dark grey cotton Tshirt he was wearing, watching as they strained and relaxed underneath the sheer fabric as he shifted in his seat.

Fuck you had it bad. And the kicker of it was you never got his number. Nor he yours.

You were sure that you were to blame for this minor discrepancy. You started moving toward your office, nodding and smiling at random people who passed by. In fact you were positive it was your fault. You had bolted out so fast from him that you never gave him a chance to ask, though you were pretty sure he was into you.

Well...as time had passed your pretty sure was at kinda sure. You wondered where you would be at by dinner.

You walked into the light offices, noticing that most people were out leaving you to work in silence. You found your desk easily, sliding into your chair as you smiled down at the salad placed on your small work space.

“You need to learn how to eat lunch. You’re my best translator - I can’t lose you to starvation.”

The sound of your bosses voices carried over the small space, and you smiled as you swiveled in your chair and watched her walk over to you. Jeanette was a 50 year old woman who was sharp. That was the only way to explain her. She knew what she wanted and she went after it. She knew how to recover from a comeback easily and happily challenged the male higher ups.

Didn’t help she could also speak over 15 different languages. The woman was brilliant.

“Sorry. It's been one of those days.” you laugh at her and she nods, dropping another heavy manila folder on your desk.

“I get that but I texted you an hour ago that you were relieved before your last meeting with Istanbul. You obviously didn’t get it so I sent Jean.”

You groaned. Your phone. You had thrown it in your bag this morning and hadn’t looked at it since. There were probably tons of messages you needed to catch up on. You dug into the brown bag, easily finding your captor and pulled it out for her.

“Haven’t been connected to this little guy all day.”

Your thumb skims over the single circle on your iPhone and your phone vibrates, a message indicating to Try Again. You frown, placing your thumb over it once more and it repeats the message. You close the screen and reopen it, trying to be patient with the technology when you catch the photo on the background. It was of a quote you were unfamiliar with,

Remember that you are a wolf. And you cannot be caged.

“That's an interesting quote.” Jeanette is looking down at you and you frown,

“This isn’t my phone.”

She raises a brow and you groan, placing your head on the desk.

“Its Ben’s.”

“Ben? I thought you were snogging Lorenzo.” your head snaps up at her and she smiles as another voice chimes in,

“So did I.”

You weren’t surprised to see your best friend Natasha walking toward you, her mouth full of some pastry as she neared the two of you. Now if Natasha had bumped into Ben, he would for sure have her number. Her number and her cup size. When Natasha wanted something she went for it, no hesitations or regrets.

As she neared the both of you, Jeanette rose a curious brow at her.

“Speaking of Lorenzo, thought I sent you and him to deal with that disaster happening with the Italian ambassador.”

Natasha snorted, pushing a file into Jeanette’s hand.

“Handled. Now, before my friend drowns herself in documents, can I ask who Ben is?”

Jeanette sighs, shaking her head and walking away. She normally wasn’t this lax with employees but both Natasha and you were her top workers. When you were given an assignment it was done, usually days before the deadline and done well.

She allowed small instances of gossip like this to happen as a result.

“I’m off ladies, Y/N please have those document done by tomorrow morning.”

You nod as Natasha sit on the desk, playing with your ball of rubber bands.

“I hope Ben is some guy who’ll punch Lorenzo in his smug, Italian nose.”

You groan as you lean back in your seat, popping open your salad and taking a bite.

“What did he do?”

Natasha rolls her eyes as she leans against your desk,

“Complained about how you ignored his calls last night - drunk calls I'm assuming. That's the only time the asshole can make time to talk to you lately. ” she looks at you expectantly and you nod, a mouthful of salad in your mouth.

“He then continues to bug me when you start ignoring his texts. Whining about how you never ignore his texts.”

Her eyes flit over to the black iphone sitting on your desk and a sneaky smile starts to spread on her face.

“So I repeat - who is Ben? And why do you have his phone.”

You swallow, trying to debating where you should begin your tale when you hear,

“Well, I can happily answer that question.”

Ben was antsy. He fidgeted as he sat through his meetings all afternoon, his eyes always flicking back to her phone. He was relieved when, after the three hour discussion about project next steps and character development, he was released to temporary freedom for the day.

The focus he had was waning - the events of the morning distracting him. He kept checking his phone - rather her phone - to see if she had called. Of course she hadn’t, probably immersed in her work. He sighs as he walks into his hotel room, flopping onto the poster bed and looking up at the ceiling. The perspective was different. Instead of wanting to immerse himself in a city, to distract the time between shooting getting lost in the life of what made this city breathed, he found that he wanted to discover you. He wanted to know more about your history - what motivated you. He wanted to get lost in your eyes as they shined with excitement as you spoke vividly about new places to visit or Parisian music artists you were into at the moment. He wanted to know what it would feel like to taste you, run his fingers through your hair as he drew your body closer to him.

He had only spent two hours with you and he was absolutely smitten.

He sat up, reaching for his laptop and logging into the apple website for the “find my iPhone” app. It only took the system a minute to hone in on his device and he debated his next move, before grabbing the contents of his wallet and key from his night stand.

Fuck it. If life had taught him anything it was that if he wanted anything to happen, he’d have to make it happen himself.

Through the help of a cab driver, he was able to find the large, modern structure easily. He walked into the sleek steel building, taking in the buzz of life as he walked to the front desk.

“Hi I’m looking to return a phone to Y/N and was wondering if you could direct me to her office? She’s a linguist here.”

The security guard who had been sipping a small cup of espresso looked up at him lazily, before shaking his head and returning his eyes back to the security screen.

“Last name?”

“My last name?” Ben asks confused and the security guard rolls his eyes.

“Of the person you are trying to say. What is her last name?”

Ben frowns. He didn’t know. In fact, he hadn’t thought to ask it when he was chatting her up. The amount of fails he was experiencing on the dating front was piling up.

If he could sum up his day in a meme, it’d be a series of facepalms.

“I'm not sure...we met at a coffee shop and she accidently grabbed my phone. I just would like to return it.”

The security guard takes another sip,

“I’m sorry - if you don’t know your party and you don’t have an appointment I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Leave?” Ben asks incredulously and the man nods.

“Or you can leave the phone with me. Your choice.”

The hell with that. And lose the only way to connect with her. He’d be damned.

“I’ll…...just wait for her.” he sighs and the security guard shrugs, returning to his position.

Dick.

He’s barely turning on his heels when he hears a crisp, female voice ask,

“I’m sorry, but are you Ben?”

His eyes snap to the older woman as she walks toward him, her crisp suit complimenting her hard eyes. Her accent is obviously french and he racks his brain as he tries to place her.

Nope, had no clue who she was.

He gives a short nod confused,

“Yes. And you are…?”

The older woman smiles at him, extending her hand out and he takes it, noticing the power behind her grip.

“Jeannette Capeo. You have something one of my employees needs.” she nods to the phone in his hands and his eyes perk up.

“You know Y/N?”

She smiles, though the action doesn’t seem to catch in her eyes as she nods,

“Oui. She was confused when a few minutes earlier she dug into her bag to find that she did not have her device. If you’d like, I could escort you to where she’s at. I need to get to a meeting but if I can get you past security you should be set. To walk to her office.”

Ben smiles, eagerly nodding and Jeanette turns on her heels, walking back in the direction in which she came. Ben followed her eagerly, hoping he wasn't walking into an awkward situation. With his luck the chances were high.

You and Natasha both snap your heads toward Ben who is walking toward you, a smile on his face.

“Holy shit Y/N,” Natasha whispers as he gets closer and you know, you know what she’s thinking. You just pray she doesn’t say it in front of him, in front of you while he’s standing there. “You didn’t tell me that you had accidentally changed phones with a model.”

“Natasha…” you mumble as Ben nears, catching the last part of her comment and giving a small chuckle.

“Not a model necessarily but thank you.”

Natasha flips her hair, flashing her best smile as she extends her hand out. You roll your eyes. You know she can’t help it, to turn on her charm when she’s in a room with an attractive man.

Doesn't make her flirting that less obnoxious.

“I’m Natasha. Y/N best friend and colleague.”

“Pleasure to meet Natasha. I’m Ben.” he shakes her hand but his eyes are flashing toward you, taking you in and you try to contain the blush you know is spreading across your cheeks.

Natasha doesn’t miss this, catching the tension between the both of you but doesn’t say a word. She just retracts her hand and watches. Because if she can’t be a part of the chase then she sure as hell wants to be able to observe it.

Curse her.

“So first you charm me,” Ben says walking closer to you and taking the empty seat across from you, “and then you steal my phone. I know a pickpocket when I see one.”

You laugh, rolling your eyes and grabbing for his phone, placing it by you on your desk.

“And I know a stocker when I see one. How did you find me? And how did you get past security? Leon is a dick and usually doesn’t let anyone pass.”

Ben chuckles, nodding his head before saying,

“May have had some help with the find my iphone app. And your boss.”

You nod, biting your lip and shaking your head. Silence. Natasha rolls her eyes, watching the both of you stare at each other. Of course you’d find someone just as bashful as you.

“Well I have to go and finish up some documents,” she didn’t. You both knew that she didn’t but you were grateful for the break in tension. “But it was a pleasure to meet you Ben. And Y/N, Vas y fance. C’est un joli petit cul.”

You heard her words loud and clear.

‘Go for it. He’s one fine piece of ass.’

Then she was gone, the smell of her perfume lingering leaving you a red cheeked mess.

You could just kill her.

“What did she say?” Ben asks curiously and you turn to him, shrugging.

“That I better convince you to get my number or I’d be an idiot.”

“Really?” Ben asks, chuckling as he leans back in his chair and you nod laughing.

“....in so many words.”

He looks down, playing at his jeans before his eyes find yours again.

“I was actually going to ask you out to dinner tonight. So a couple of steps ahead of you there.”

You roll your eyes, turning to place your salad on your desk before crossing your arms.

“Hardly doubt that. Seems you’re always three steps behind when its comes to….anything.”

You're both smiling at each other as he shrugs, bending close to you and placing his fingers together.

“I'm just not used to gorgeous strangers saving me from my bad french. You caught me off my game.”

He’s close to you, closer than he has been since you met. You can smell his cologne, a fresh and spicy scent that has your knees going weak and you lick your lips, trying to maintain your cool. You could do this.

“If your A game is anything like the sad way you charmed that waitress, think I saved you some embarrassment.”

He laughs at this, standing up and stretching, exposing a bit of his navel as he shirt rises with him. You don’t miss the toned V line that teases down to his jeans.

Double fuck. If this was part of his A game he was doing well.

“Dinner tonight? You can take me to one of those fantastic restaurants you mentioned earlier and I can prove to you that I'm naturally witty and charming.” he bends down and places your phone on your desk before grabbing his and you take in another whiff of his cologne.

God he smells good.

“I can’t tonight. I have to tackle that bad boy.” you point to the stack of papers beside you and he nods.

“Thats fair. I have a company dinner thing I have to go to tomorrow night…..” he frowns as he racks his brain before snapping his fingers, smiling and grabbing the sticky note beside you.

“How about I leave my number and you text me. Maybe we can at least grab a coffee until I can properly take you out.”

You watch as his fingers quickly scrawl out his name and number, leaving it beside the pile you're working on. He's’ still leaning down, inches away from you when he turns to you, his chocolate eyes going soft and you know you both are smiling stupidly at each other.

This could either end in tears or great sex.

You were hoping for the latter.

Ben is looking at your lips now, his eyes betraying what you hope are thoughts about kissing you. He bites his bottom lip, his teeth snagging on the soft tissue as though he’s having an internal debate before he leans in slowly, those dark eyes never leaving yours. Trying to get a read on you.

You know your heart is beating out of your chest as you lean in, eagerly awaiting the feel of his lips against yours.

You’re never given that pleasure.

“Y/N - did you finish that report? Jeanette called and said she needs it...”

The deep voice breaks you and Ben of whatever thoughts were passing in your brain and you jump up, pulling away from him.

You were at work, what the hell were you thinking. Oh you knew. That a sexy, humorous man was into you and you wanted to see where this could go.

Boy was he trouble.

You turn to whoever had intruded your peaceful moment, not missing the slight tinge of pink on Ben’s cheeks. It's only when your eyes lock on Lorenzo’s that you give a loud groan, ignoring theformed scowl resting on his face.

“Now what do we have here?”

#reader x ben barnes #ben barnes #un moment a paris series #benbarnesescape

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tanoraqui · 8 years ago

Note

can i has more cr sense8 au percy pls? (if your up for it of course)

*slams 2,000 words on your desk five months later* MY HOBBIES INCLUDE PROCRASTINATING FOR FINALS BY WRITING SCENES FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE HYPOTHETICAL PLOT OF NICHE CROSSOVERS WITHOUT GIVING YOU ANY CONTEXT SAVE A COUPLE OLD POSTS OF BULLET POINTS (posts here. Take this fic as the inter-seasons holiday special, basically.)

“I’mstill not certain we should be doing this.“

Itwas a meaningless statement even before he said it. With her arm in his, withthe warmth of her against his side and the tinkle of her laugh fading in theair, Percy thought he would trust Vex to lead him down any icy path through thewoods, with any blindfold on or off, even if he had never known her moreintimately than he knew himself. Even if they had just met, somehow, one day,and she had smiled and beckoned, he would have followed.

Exaggeratedgagging noises broke into his thoughts—Vax, visiting as almost always, makingVex laugh in the cold Northern darkness. The drugs all but gone from his veins,Percy could feel him again, that knife’s edge of sarcasm prickling overdevotion deep enough to fill the sea.

Two(one? three?) months of isolation was turning him poetic. It was horrifying.

“It’llbe fine,” said Vex, tugging him forward. “Turn right—”

Percyfollowed her instructions obediently. “I don’t know where you get theconfidence that she won’t be looking, just this one night. It’s not like theholidays have stopped them before.”

“Becauseshe’s loony, Freddie,” Vax said with overwhelming fondness.

“BecauseI don’t care!” Vex proclaimed, and Percy felt her toss her hair within herselfbefore it smacked him on the cheek. “We’re taking Christmas back. What they didto your family was horrible, yes, and we willkill them for it, I promise—”

Theothers nodded in agreement, the heroin finally losing its grip.

Vexput her hands to his face—cold, calloused, but the kindest Percy had felt—andpushed up his blindfold.

“Buttonight,” she whispered, wild and soft and fey in the moonlight, “let’s justnot be afraid.”

Theplace she’d led him was beautiful. Vex was beautiful, already shrugging off herbag and dropping down to swap her boots for skates, lithesome and lively as theswaying trees and stars above. They shone down on the iced-over pond, in the centerof the ancient forest, just as they must have in Jerusalem two thousand yearsago. There wasn’t another human being for miles, Percy knew without asking.

“Doyou even know how to skate?” he asked, amused, watching her fumble with thestraps.

“No.”She grinned up at him, entirely impish. “But you do. And Scanlan, I think.”

“Ido,” the man himself confirmed with a smile, making hot chocolate in his LosAngeles apartment.

“Ifyou’re getting gross, I’m leaving,” Vax announced, and vanished—as if thatmeant anything, as if they couldn’t all feel him and see him as well in hiscell in Osaka, or Los Angeles or the Outback or wherever Percy and Vex were.(He didn’t know and she wasn’t telling, and that was how they were safe.)

“Allright!” Pike chirped to her choir straggling into line in her little woodenchurch at the eaves of the Amazon, so newly rebuilt it still dripped tar. “Youready?”

“Let’sdo this!” said Scanlan, bringing two frothing mugs into the living room, whereKaylee was doing her best to scowl at the bright tree and heap of presents.Tary echoed it, squaring his shoulders for a much less amicable familybreakfast, and Grog smashed a beer bottle as he shouted, because it was aChristian holiday but fuck it, it was a holiday, and the peace was still goingand the dirty thugs and criminals of Ankara were going to have a fuckin’ party.

Asfar as possible from any gritty urban party, and more importantly any evilbrain surgeon, Keyleth sat by her campfire and took out her guitar, andlaunched into an offkey rendition of “Jingle Bells” on the warm Australianevening. Across the fire, Kashaw stared at her like she had to be kidding, butwithin a verse she’d smiled enough to draw out his surprisingly rich tenor.

Scanlanblew them both out of the water, of course, and Kaylee didn’t blink as she toreinto a box that she would soon find contained mostly just increasingly smallerboxes, because Scanlan singing was like the sun shining. It just happened. Halfwayaround the world, Turkish pop music blasted out of the bar and down the street,and Grog jumped up and down with Zanror and Worra, mostly on the beat.Tremulous voices strengthening as the sun slipped through the high window andthe rest of Puentamáre’s congregation filed in, swelled by all those coming tovisit the “little angel,” Pike’s choir sang the day in, and Vox Machina stoodand sang with them.

Theydanced in the bar in Turkey, bright lights and pop music pounding against theancient sandstone walls. They laughed over brunch in New York, until Lydiaasked if something was the matter and Mary-Anne kicked Tary under the table,and both his parents shot him dirty looks. They clambered over rocks in theOutback and Tary squealed in fear at a giant spider as Vax laughed and held itup to his face.

Theyjust managed to hold onto the iPhone to film Kaylee furiously flinging sevenlayers of boxes and wrapping paper at their heads, in retaliation for spendingten minutes unwrapping a single guitar shop gift card. But she was laughing,too, so it was okay. Turning state’s witness earned Vax a couple extraprivileges; he spent one on a phone call to Zahra, left bear-sitting, and Vexcried on Percy’s shoulder while they all made kissy noises at the phone andassured a confusedly lowing Trinket that his mama would be home as soon as shecould, and she loved him very much. Percy hadn’t ice-skated since he wassixteen, years before That Night, but they did waltz steps and figure-eights ona moonlit frozen pond somewhere in Siberia, and held each other tight. It wasChristmas and Vox Machina laughed and sang and cried, and held each othertight.

“Whata lovely way to spend the holiday.”

Percyslipped before she finished speaking, eyes clenched shut; he didn’t know whenthe ice was coming until his hands hit, hard, and the spray his face.

“Percy?”Vex.

“Really,Percival,” Ripley said, “You don’t have to so childish about this. I’m not hereto hunt you down, tonight.”

“She’shere,” he gasped, pulling himself across the ice. Eyes shut, don’t even look.Don’t even think. “Vex, she’s here,you have to– get the–”

“Shit!”Vex fumbled for her bag, still on the shore. “Fuck, fuck! Fuck her!”

Ripleyclicked her tongue in disapproval. She stalked silently across the ice, inlight boots rather than heavy winter skates—but then, she wasn’t really there.

“Ithought you might like to go on a trip, actually.”

Andthen they were standing in a corridor, and Percy was the one mis-dressed forthe occasion, bundled up for the frigid wilderness. He had half a foot inheight on Ripley, and he’d worked to keep his machine shop muscles while pentup in…wherever he and Vex were. None of it did anything to ease the way hisstomach turned as Ripley eyed him up and down, judging him for the failedscience experiment he didn’t need to be in her head to know she deemed him. Shelooked almost identical to how she’d been that week starting eight years agotoday, staring down at him. A few more streaks of grey in her bun, but the sameslim glasses, the same purse to her lips, the same damn style of lab coat,sleeves stained red at the end of each day as she peeled him apart. He knew whyshe’d done it, now. It didn’t help.

Thebarest hint of a smile curled up her lips as they both remembered. Then sheturned and strode down the corridor, calling over her shoulder, “Come along.”

Percyfollowed, scanning the hallway for clues as to Ripley’s location. He wasn’tsurprised to find none. The walls were stainless steel and the white-and-blacktile floors were sanitation-clean. It was another Vecna facility, but god onlyknew where in the world.

“Ireally thought you’d be doing better at this, Percival,” Ripley chided, withoutgiving him so much as a backwards glance. “I’ve gotten so much informationabout you and your little group, and you’re just lagging behind.”

“Whatdo you want, Anna.”

Hewas lagging behind, as they walked, but not so far that she’d think he wasn’tplaying along. Every extra second here bought more time for Vex to get theneedle and knock him out.

“I’mgoing to share a secret with you,” she said, with a much younger woman’s senseof mischief. “Just to liven up this little game.”

Theyreached a door at the end of the hallway, steel and locked with a keypad.Ripley smiled at him as she entered the number, sickly sweet. “After all, it’sthe holidays—it’s only right that you be with family.”

Fora long, horrible moment as she swung open the heavy door, Percy thought he wasgoing to see corpses, or worse. A freezer of strung-out piles of tissue andorgans. Eight brains in tanks, still with electrodes attached. He’d seen, onthe opposite side of the laboratory, what they’d been starting to do to hisfamily.

Itwas a teenage girl’s room. The walls were unpainted, but they were decoratedwith posters, of scientific infographics and famous historical women and acouple people Percy vaguely recognized as famous actors. There was a carpet, anelegant shag thing, and a pair of stuffed bookcases, a desk with a very nicecomputer, and a bed with at least two dozen stuffed animals, all of which Percycould name. At least one of them had been his. The girl on the bed, lying onher stomach and reading a book with her legs kicked in the air, was even morefamiliar.

“Cassandra.”

She’dlooked up when the door opened, polite coolness chasing annoyance chasingwariness from her eyes.

“Dr.Ripley. What do you want?”

“Iwas in this wing and I thought I would check on you, my dear.” Despite theendearment, Ripley’s tone had reverted to the crisp professionalism she seemedto show everyone but Percy.

Cassandraclearly didn’t buy either façade. But she rolled to a sitting position withonly a faint sigh, and held out her left arm. There was something attached toit, a cuff with a small screen that flashed first her blood pressure then, asRipley pressed the buttons on the side, several other measurements—BPM, neuralconductivity, and things Percy didn’t recognize. A slim wire ran up from it toa handful of electrodes attached, clearly permanently, to the side of hertemple.

“I’llkill you. I’ll kill you.” His voiceshook.

“Ihaven’t noticed anything unusual,” Cassandra said as Ripley checked thereadings. A bored patient answering unasked questions by rote. “The new anxiety meds are doing fine.”

Ripleymade a non-committal noise. “Look at me.”

Cassandramet her eyes obediently.

“Leaveher alone. What are you doing?” Percytried to put himself between them, but there wasn’t room. And he couldn’t touchhis sister, couldn’t touch either of them—couldn’t drag Ripley away andcouldn’t take Cass in his arms and just run.(Like that had worked so well, last time.)

“Doyou feel anything unusual right now?” Ripley asked, still holding Cassandra’sgaze. “Physically or emotionally. Really search.”

Awrinkle appeared between Cassandra’s eyes as she frowned. There was a widestreak of white in her hair, family to Percy’s complete bleach. That hadn’tbeen there before. When he’d last seen her, when she was bleeding in the snowfrom bullet wounds as he ran— She was 23 now, the spitting image of Vesper whenshe’d died, except for that streak. The room was still decorated for a teenagerbut Percy’s youngest sister was an exasperated 23.

“Cass.”

Ripley’seyes sparkled at his anguish, but Cassandra remained impartial.

“Nothing.Should I?”

“Youknow better than to ask questions that could influence an experiment,” Ripleysaid. But she stepped back, letting Cassandra’s gaze fall. It returned to herbook.

“Don’tforget,” Ripley added as she re-opened the door, which had automatically lockedbehind them. “The Briarwoods will be expecting you for Christmas dinner.”

IfPercy had thought Cassandra’s expression polite before, when she looked up asecond time it was utterly impassive.

“Ilook forward to it. Was there anything else?”

“Oh,no.” Ripley smiled thinly at them both. “I think everything I need will bearriving soon enough—”

AndPercy was back on the bank, in the snow, in the woods, and everything but Vexfaded as she thrust the needle into his arm and released, the familiar,dizzying haze of cheap heroin washing him clean. Ripley disappeared. Cassandradisappeared. Keyleth, Vax, Grog, Pike, Tary, Scanlan disappeared. Safe. Percystayed as freezing and alone as eight years ago, running from his sisterbleeding out in the snow, assuming she was dead.

“Percy?Percy, are you alright? Is she gone?”

Vex’swarm hands tugged at him and he rolled over obediently, and opened his eyes.She was still beautiful, bright and concerned and fierce. The moon above wasalmost as lovely. Percy lifted a hand to her cheek and caught his breath whenshe held it—no, choked on a sob. That was what his body was doing, now.

“Cass.She– they– I don’t know. She’s alive.” His whole body shook, drugs and cold and every ounce of adrenaline racing through his veins. “They have mysister.”

#critical role #sense8 #hm...#vox machina #percy de rolo #anna ripley #cassandra de rolo #perc'ahlia #the hellbound gunship #(i don't care if no one else uses that tag; it's my tag and i love it)#my fic #fanfiction #i haven't watched s2 yet but i'm very excited to do so #i might rewatch s1 first #quartus saeculum ascendans #quartus saeculum irruens #nivis saxi sol

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movietvtechgeeks · 7 years ago

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/bella-hadid-insists-no-feud-rob-kardashian-sues-blac-chyna-now/

Bella Hadid insists no feud and Rob Kardashian sues Blac Chyna now

When you’re a female in the spotlight, it is not uncommon to be pitted up against your fellow female celebrity peers. Whether it’s the tabloids or people on social media, celebrity women are constantly being accused of feuding with one another, whether it is true or not. Inevitably, you can imagine supermodel Bella Hadid has dealt with her fair share or female feud rumors, including some involving her older sister Gigi Hadid. Both Bella and Gigi have established themselves in the modeling industry in their own ways. However, that has not stopped people from pitting them up against each other. In the October issue of Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Bella opened up about working in the same [inherently competitive] industry as her sister. Fortunately, she told the publication that she has never felt that she was competing with Gigi. The 20-year-old model explained, “Most of the time our markets are completely different and if we get booked on a job and she gets it or I get it, we’re both happy for each other. There are enough jobs in the world for both of us. There’s no reason for us to be mad at each other or competitive. So if she gets it, then good for her.” Later in the interview, Bella also talked about the importance of using her platform for good. The young starlet gushed, “If I can’t talk about something that I’m passionate about, why even be here? Why even do any of the stuff that I’m doing if I can’t make a better purpose for the world, or make a difference, or try to put light on a situation that is obviously so dark? It’s all really scary…If I’m able to change something in the world for the better, then I’ll be ecstatic.” For the past few years, Bella has been helping her mother Yolanda spread awareness for Lyme’s disease. Bella, Yolanda, as well as Bella’s younger brother Anwar have all been diagnosed with the condition. The Kardashian clan has certainly had a busy week. Now, on top of all the pregnancy rumors, reality star (and the sole male member of the Kardashian siblings) Rob Kardashian is reportedly suing his baby mom Blac Chyna. According to brand new reports, Rob is looking to recover damages, accusing Chyna of assault, battery and vandalism. The details of Rob’s court case were uncovered by TMZ, who obtained the documents. More specifically, Rob’s latest legal filings against Chyna claim that she tried to choke him with an iPhone charging cable, as well as hit him in the head and face during a violent fight back in December of 2016. In terms of the vandalism, Rob said that Chyna completely trashed the house that they were previously living in, which they happened to be renting from Rob’s little sister Kylie. The documents claim that Chyna caused over $100,000 in damages to the home. Crazily enough, the accusations against Chyna didn’t stop there. Rob went on to detail an incident in which Chyna supposedly threw a chair at his car and hit him with a metal rod. Rob writes in the legal documents that this particular situation played a pivotal role in the cancellation of his reality show (with her), Rob & Chyna. At this point, neither Rob nor Chyna have commented any further on the allegations made within the newly filed legal documents. Fans of Hollywood glamour have snapped up mementoes from the collection of the late Audrey Hepburn at a London auction. The star’s personal shooting script for “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” sold for 632,750 pounds ($846,619) at Christie’s on Wednesday — seven times its pre-sale estimate and one of many lots that smashed expectations. A Tiffany bangle that was a gift to Hepburn from director Steven Spielberg — inscribed “you are my ‘inspiration’” — sold for 332,750 pounds. Hepburn’s wardrobe proved a big draw, with a bidder paying 68,750 pounds for a Burberry trench coat. A black satin Givenchy cocktail gown worn during the 1963 film “Charade” sold for 68,750 pounds. A satin sleep mask which had been expected to fetch up to 150 pounds sold for 6,250 pounds. Christie’s said Thursday that the sale fetched a total of 4.6 million pounds ($6.2 million), seven times the pre-sale estimate. The chic star of “Roman Holiday,” ″My Fair Lady” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” died in 1993 aged 63. Hepburn’s sons are selling about 500 items through live and online sales at Christie’s. The online sale runs to Oct. 4. U.S. rapper Macklemore is wading into Australia’s gay-marriage debate by vowing to sing his marriage equality anthem “Same Love” during a weekend rugby final. Benjamin Haggerty, whose stage name is Macklemore, will be headlining the pre-game entertainment in Sydney on Sunday at the National Rugby League Grand Final, the Australian version of the Super Bowl. But with the nation in the midst of a two-month postal ballot to gauge public opinion toward legalizing gay marriage, some opponents of change want “Same Love” censored. Macklemore told Los Angeles Radio KPWR before flying to Sydney on Thursday that he was aware of the controversy but would not change his song list. “It’s interesting actually because I’m playing ‘Same Love’, and they’re going through right now trying to legalize same-sex marriage in Australia, so I’m getting a lot of tweets from angry, old white dudes in Australia,” Macklemore said. “I think there was a petition today to ban me from playing,” he added. “I’m gonna go harder.” Some senior government figures who oppose gay marriage and other high-profile rugby fans accused the league of politicizing the game. League chief executive Todd Greenberg said his organization had to take a position on same-sex marriage as part of its diversity policy. “I think it is one of the bravest and best decisions we have made for pre-match entertainment, but people will be the judge of that on Sunday,” Greenberg told reporters. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a gay marriage opponent who determined two years that his government should ask the Australian public to decide the issue, tweeted on Wednesday that rugby fans “shouldn’t be subjected to a politicized grand final. Sport is sport.” “Everyone has a right to express their opinion. The opinion that I expressed yesterday was that the NRL had made a poor call in doing what they did,” Abbott told reporters on Thursday Attorney-General George Brandis, who supports gay marriage, supported Macklemore’s performance of “Same Love” in a stadium filled with 85,000 people and to be broadcast nationally. “It is one of his most popular songs, and for Mr. Abbott or anyone else to say that it should be banned, I think is a bizarre thing to say,” Brandis told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “I thought Mr. Abbott believed in freedom of speech.” More than 16 million Australians have been asked in a postal ballot whether they think the law should be changed to allow same-sex marriage. The result will be announced Nov. 15. If a majority of mail-in responses support marriage equality, Parliament will consider a bill to legalize gay marriage within a month. Some lawmakers have said they will vote down a same-sex marriage bill regardless of public opinion. Debra Messing has been told to “cut it out” by NBC bosses after she bad-mouthed fellow NBC star Megyn Kelly after appearing on her show. The “Will & Grace” star was so put off by Kelly’s question to an audience member — “Is it true that you became a lawyer, and you became gay, because of Will? . . . I don’t know about the lawyer thing, but I think that ‘Will & Grace’ thing and the gay thing is going to work out great” — that Messing posted on Instagram, “Regret going on. Dismayed by her comments.” While NBC insiders defended Kelly’s comments as “tongue-in-cheek,” Messing got a stern warning. One exec told media outlets, “Debra was told to cut it out by someone high up in the NBC Entertainment division run by Bob Greenblatt, via her agent or publicist.” Messing’s rep declined to comment, but a source close to the actress said, “NBC has been nothing but supportive of Debra . . . No one asked us to do anything.” Kelly also got on the wrong side of Wednesday’s guest, Jane Fonda, who snapped when the host turned the topic to plastic surgery. “We really want to talk about that now?” a displeased Fonda shot back. NBC didn’t comment Wednesday night. The iconic residence the late Hugh Hefner called home since 1971 is about to undergo some serious changes. As media outlets previously reported, the Playboy Mansion was sold to Hefner’s neighbor Daren Metropoulos of Metropoulous & Co. for $100 million in August 2016. At the time, the condition of sale mandated Hefner would live out his days in the plush pad before any renovations would begin under Metropoulos’ eye. Under the agreement, Hefner also agreed to pay $1 million a year in rent. Hefner died Wednesday at 91. “The Playboy Mansion is one of the most iconic properties in the world and the crown jewel of Holmby Hills and the platinum triangle,” Metropoulos said at the time of the purchase. “For the last 45 years, Mr. Hefner has imbued the estate with a rich and storied legacy. The property’s heritage is not only that of a famous address; it is a true masterpiece in design, constructed by a noted architect for a family who played an important role in the development of Los Angeles in the early 20th Century.” Now that Hefner has passed away, the property will undergo a massive renovation and will be reconnected with a neighboring property creating a massive 7.3 acre compound in Holmby Hills. It will be a private residence for Metropoulous. “Hugh Hefner was a visionary in business, a giant in media and an iconic figure of pop culture whose legacy will leave a lasting impact. I was fortunate to know him as a neighbor and friend and I extend my deepest sympathies to his family,” Metropoulos told Page Six in a statement. He did not provide details as to when renovations will begin or how much time will be given to the Hefner family to remove valuables. Meghan McCain has officially joined “The View” in the conservative chair — and media outlets have been told that ABC is excited about snagging the outspoken daughter of Sen. John McCain — sparking Jedediah Bila’s announcement that she was leaving. Insiders hope that she’ll create some positive headlines for the show, instead of the regular reports about the revolving door of talent. McCain starts next month, joining Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Paula Faris, Sunny Hostin and Joy Behar. On Thursday, Serena Williams flaunted her athletic frame less than a month after giving birth to her first child. The captionless shot featured Williams, 36, posing in front of a mirror in a one-piece, with her enviable closet in full view. Williams and fiancé Alexis Ohanian, 34, welcomed daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. on Sept. 1 in West Palm Beach, Fla., where she weighed in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces. The couple is set to wed later this year after getting engaged last December. She is expected to return to the tennis circuit next year. After five successful seasons, one of HGTV’s most-watched shows, “Fixer Upper,” is coming to an end. Chip and Joanna Gaines announced the news Tuesday, shocking some fans of the show. While the Gaineses promised they would continue renovating homes in Waco, Texas, the future for HGTV is less clear. “The end of ‘Fixer Upper’ is a very big deal for the network. HGTV is a channel that depends on blockbuster, talent-driven shows to drive audience for their lesser content, new content, magazine, furniture line and overall brand,” Rebecca Lavoie, host of the upcoming podcast “HGTV & Me,” told Fox News. “Before ‘Fixer Upper,’ ‘Property Brothers’ was probably the channel’s most valuable property, which is why the brothers are at the center of several spinoffs, but even that show has probably seen its peak, while ‘Fixer Upper’ is arguably very much on the upswing and there are no other shows that touch it in terms of quality, charm, and sheer watchability.” The last season of the show garnered over 3.19 million same-day viewers, according to Deadline.com, and was HGTV’s highest-rated program followed by “Flip or Flop,” leaving a gaping hole in the network’s programming. But not everyone agreed. Geoff Skinner, an LA-based TV producer, said it’s a wise move to end a series while it is still at the height of its popularity. “There is great honor and integrity in going out on a high note,” he argued. “I wish more shows would follow suit. ‘Fixer Upper’ has an outstanding team both in front of and behind the camera, and really great showrunners, and I’m sure they know what they’re doing.” As for the Gaineses, some predict they will go to a larger network and possibly try their hand at a less niche program, like a talk show. “Joanna and Chip Gaines have outgrown their original show. A lot has changed since ‘Fixer Upper’ first premiered in 2013. They’re now instantly recognizable celebrities, immensely likable, and a trusted brand name in home repair and interior design,” explained branding expert Scott Pinkser. “Just like Rachael Ray eventually outgrew the Food Network, the Gaineses are clearly ready for a platform that’s more visible than HGTV. In fact, the Rachael Ray business model of TV talk shows, magazines, endorsements and product lines might make a lot of sense.” The handy couple issued a statement on their official site on Tuesday, writing, “It is with both sadness and expectation that we share the news that Season 5 of ‘Fixer Upper’ will be our last. While we are confident that this is the right choice for us, it has for sure not been an easy one to come to terms with. Our family has grown up alongside yours, and we have felt you rooting us on from the other side of the screen. How bittersweet to say goodbye to the very thing that introduced us all in the first place.” The final season will begin in November. Liam Neeson‘s latest film takes viewers into the life of a key player in the Watergate scandal, and he says there are clear parallels between presidents then-and-now. Neeson plays the high-ranking FBI official who was a key source for Washington Post stories that helped lead to President Richard Nixon‘s downfall in “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House .” Felt was the No. 2 official at the FBI and his identity as the source known as Deep Throat was unknown until 2005. Neeson told media outlets that he sees similarities between Nixon’s distrust of critics and President Donald Trump‘s actions. “Nixon felt: let’s circle the wagons. Everybody was an enemy that wasn’t on his side. We’re certainly seeing that with President Twitter in Chief. If you’re not with me, you’re against me,” the actor told media outlets in a recent interview. Trump’s administration and several of the president’s allies are entangled in investigations into whether the billionaire’s campaign sought help from Russian operative during last year’s presidential campaign. Among those investigating is former FBI director Robert Mueller, who has been appointed a special counsel to investigate several facets of the campaign and Trump’s associates. Mueller was appointed in May to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign and his team has sought a broad batch of records and interviews with current and former White House officials. The exact scope of his investigation is unknown. Neeson said he expects Mueller’s probe will be successful. “I do think the truth is going to come out,” Neeson said. “I think it will be Robert Mueller. He’ll just keep chipping away.” “Mark Felt” is out in limited release on Friday. Firebrand Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) predates the Tea Party movement — but he likes the Gadsden flag and its “Don’t Tread on Me” motto. At a private meeting on Sunday at the Press Box on Second Avenue in Midtown, Gohmert, when presented with the yellow flag, wore it as a cape. The congressman said he has pleaded with President Trump to appoint a special counsel to “investigate the collusion between [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller, [former FBI director James] Comey and the Clintons.” Gohmert told the gathering, “Trump said, ‘Can I do that?’ and I told him, ‘You sure can, you’re the president!’”

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#Bella Hadid #Blac Chyna #Debra Messing #Donald Trump #Featured #Gigi Hadid #Macklemore #Rob Kardashian #Serena Williams

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