#feel free to replace it with any number of random stuff going on beside the soap

[oldtvandcomics]

Man, I love superheroes. It's like soap opera, but BETTER. You still get all the fun relationship drama, and then it will occasionally cut to Professor X and Magneto being chased around by dinosaurs.

[slashingdisneypasta]

Jack Bass x Younger!Reader || Oneshot

Title: Bass's.

Notes:

I have no idea when this is supposed to be set. Just go with it.

I have two things to say about Jack in this gif, though. 1. Does he not know how to carry a tray. And 2. I love this statement, here. Its like 'Bart's Dead, Chuck. I can barely contain my joy, Chuck. Its taking all my willpower, Chuck, to keep a monotonous expression. Also Chuck I am carrying a tray, do you see this?'

Plot: Bart Bass decides to be his creepy fucking self (Not that Jack is exponentially better in any way but whatever) towards you, Chuck's best friend- but thankfully, Jack accidentally walks in on the scene and gives you a get out of jail free card.

Good old 'lesser of two evils' shit. I love stuff like that.

Warnings: BART BASS being predatory, and a bit of age difference (You and Jack. I'm going by actors ages though so there's only a, like, 11 year age gap between him and Chuck which is not that bad if you ask me). Sexual references.

~~~

Chuck looks from his phone, that's flashing Blairs name, to you and your big, wide eyes and lips mouthing 'Don't you dare', then to his father quietly tapping away on his phone on the couch a few feet away... then back at his phone.

"Charles- " You hiss, prepared to threaten his very existence but he cuts you off first- slipping off the bar stool beside you and heading for the hallway.

"I'm going to go to the bathroom."

Why am I friends with him again!? You think, but stay quiet and hope that Bart doesn't realise that you're back there despite having said hello to you earlier when he came in. You think, if you stay quiet like a mouse, he will forget your existence and keep texting until Chuck gets back- although, who knows how long he and Blair can go on for.

Depends what its about, honestly. If its about revenge or espionage... well, the conversation could last quite some time.

Should I just leave?

The impulse to run away is a strong one, as you sit there with your cheeks heating up and you start to feel nauseated. You never liked Bart Bass, from the moment you met him. Before that, actually. You had heard Chuck talking about him to Nate before you even became friends with them, and none of what you heard was good. And then you did meet him, one day when Chuck invited you over to do a school project. Or 'school project' as he so obnoxiously put it. You really did end up just doing a school project, though. Hence your friendship nowadays. Bart was creepy towards you even then, at 16 with terribly died hair and the wrong eyeshadow.

You've been very careful since then to never be alone with him like this. You would talk to him at parties if you were forced to, say hello to him when Chuck had you at his place and the man walked by, but that is the extent of your communication with the creep. Always, always, someone would be around. Chuck, mostly. But also staff, or Nate, or random fundraiser ladies, or Jack who Chuck the bastard never left alone with all willy-nilly like this, unfortunately, or Lily, or literally anyone else possible on the earth.

You've even hidden away in the men's bathroom, which is disgusting no matter how expensive the restaurant, with Nate before to get away from this man when Chuck once ditched you both at a dinner with him. And that's the story of how you got your first kiss, too, and it was from Nate Archibald. Hell yes.

That's how much this man makes you want to grab your bag and flee.

But you don't. You stay glued to your seat, super still, listening only to the tap-tap-tapping noises that Bart makes and the bump-bump-bump noises your heart is making right into your throbbing ears.

Until it stops.

Not the bump-bump-bumping, oh no. The tapping. And, nightmarishly, it's replaced by a groan and footsteps coming towards your turned back.

"Y/N," As soon as he says your name, his hands fall on your your shoulders and you literally jump under his touch. Shit- Shit- Fuck- what's happening- "I've been meaning to speak with you recently but Chuck- ah. Well you know him. He refused to share with me your telephone number. But I knew you'd turn up here at some point, so not to worry."

"Uh... right." You cant even force yourself to be your normal, cheery, polite self in this position. You just want him to get. off. of. you.

"Did you want a drink?" He asks, in that possibly cheery (But only because its slightly louder then his usual husk level) but mostly still scary voice he uses to convey emotion, letting go of you thankfully and rounding to the other side of the bar. You shake your head, though. He raises his brows, picking out a scotch for himself. "You don't drink? Shocking, seeing as you're friends with my son."

Oh I drink. You think, giving him a shrug. Just not in situations like this one. Also, what must he think of Chuck? Jesus Christ. For sure, your boy likes debauchery but what's wrong with that?

"Well, I like that." Bart pauses before pouring his drink, to appreciate you. "Mature."

Damn it. It makes your skin absolutely crawl.

"So... " You take a deep breath, tucking your hair back behind your ears rather then ruffling it back like you usually would to get it out of your face- lest that be recognised as some kind of extremely subtle form of flirting. God, fear makes you think weird things. "What did you want to discuss?"

"Oh- Just, your future. Where are you going to school? Will you be sticking close to us?"

Us? US? No, I'll be far far away, from you.

You don't really want to tell Bart where you're going to be going to school, because in your fear addled brain you know that that will just lead to 'Which campus?', or 'Where will you be staying?' and you really don't want it to go there.

You're just taking another, shakier deep breath, when the front door of the apartment opens and shuts loudly and set of feet trample down the hallway towards you. Immediately total relief plashes over you and you wipe your face. Oh, thank god.

Jack Bass appears in the doorway to the living room, looking as put-together yet somehow simultaneously still totally relaxed, as always, and forces aa polite smile onto his handsome face. "Brother. Y/N? Its good to see you."

You have no idea. "Good to see you too Jack. Uh- Chuck's in the bathroom."

"Thanks. For that... enlightening, information, Y/N. I needed that." You cheeks flare up in embarrassment, but ultimately you just roll your eyes as Jack flashes you a subtle wink, and turns promptly to his - much, - older brother. "Bart."

The older brother in question looks less then pleased at his baby brothers appearance in his home. Right now. And he possibly isn't thrilled about that little wink, either. Like you two are in on some kind of joke together. "Jack... What are you doing here?"

"Simmer down, bro. Just visiting." Even you know that that excuse is weak, but anything that comes out Jack's own monotonous voice right now is blessed where you're concerned so you certainly don't say anything. Or make any faces, which would be more appropriate. "Y/N, I don't think Bart-man here's too happy about my presence." Hm, no. You'd have to agree with that observation- not that you've looked up at Bart since Jack came in. You wont risk it. Jack glides through the room with the practised grace of a man who's lived 3 quarters of his life in suits and the other, happier quarter in board shorts, and ends up right next to your chair, an arm resting on the bench in front of you.

If you weren't already so nervous about Bart, you would blush about Jack.

"At least tell me you're glad to see me."

You grin, which is less forced then you thought it would be prior to trying it. Damn, he's good. You think, realising he just swepped in here and made you comfortable in less then 50 words. "Always, 'Uncle Jack'."

"Oh," He groans, like it physically pained him to hear you tease him like that. A tiny smirk even slips through his usually emotionless - well, not emotionless. He has one standing colour, that being sly, - stone statue of a face. "'Uncle Jack'- Please, stop. I'm barely a decade older then you."

That's enough to make anything else possible, inappropriate. Unfortunately. "Hey, I said I'm glad to see you." You wink, a bit sly yourself. "Count your blessings."

His grin widens a bit, like the dangerously charming Cheshire cat-type that he is. Genes that Chuck inherited, clearly, if his track record with girls say anything at all, but that Bart obviously missed out on. "You've got a point."

"She's a remarkable young woman." Bart pipes up, making your stomach tie itself up in knots again, and you immediately revert your gaze to your lap. Remarkable young woman... you want to barf. "Who, I was actually having a conversation with before you burst in here, unannounced." He takes a slow sip of his drink, then mutters. "And uninvited."

"Well that's great." Jack straightens up, clapping his hands together and finally showing his teeth in a smile. They're really freaken white, compared to his skin, deeply tanned by the hot Australian sun. "A visit would be kinda uncomfortable without a conversation; I'll join. I can converse with the best of 'em, Bart. I assure you."

"It was private." The old man sneers, thinking that he's got the upper hand on Jack, and all you can do is hope to god that he's wrong.

Jack turns his head back to look at you, and you meet his gaze tentatively. Your eyes scream, 'Please don't leave me alone with that guy'. He promptly looks back to Bart. "Well Bart why don't we ask the lady in the room what she wants? We are gentlemen here aren't we?" Then Jack makes a face, all crumpled up and unsure, for a moment. "Err. Well actually... 'gentleman' might be a bold faced lie. We'll ask anyway. Y/N! Do you mind if I weigh in here?"

"Not at all." You say quickly, flashing a tiny, thankful smile. He gives you another wink- this time actually subtle. So Bart didn't see it. Your smile gets a little bit bigger, relaxing. He's got you.

"Great." You watch him pull out the stool beside you, that Chuck - who has still not returned from his phone call with Blair. You assume some, likely cruel vengeance must be involved. Possibly involving that Humphrey guy, - had vacated and settles down in it. He then sets his arms firmly on the bench and looks up attentively at Bart, not breaking eye contact with him. Boy these Bass's like their stare downs. "So?" He prompts, expectantly. And a little arrogantly- a Bass speciality that you truly don't mind at all. "What's on the agenda, today?"

Bart glares heatedly, back.

~

Throughout the awkward discussion between the three of you, which your good friend Chuck has yet to return to discover - at this point you're resigned to him having climbed out the window and scaled the building probably, - , Jack constantly, skilfully changes the subject for you whenever Bart rears to close to somewhere uncomfortable. He makes jokes that make you laugh, he nudges you with his elbow at times - but never touches you any more then that, although you honestly wouldn't mind it if he did, - and takes the attention off you a lot. At times you truly thought you saw steam come out of Bart's ears.

When finally Bart gives up and excuses himself, saying he as an early dinner with Lily, you feel exhausted and relieved. After the door swings shut behind him, you cover your face with your hands and deeply sigh.

"So, what was that about? You looked like a trapped mouse. I recognise that look, I invented that look." You pull back slightly from your hands and glance over at him, to see him thoughtful for a moment. "Well, not by making it. By... causing... it... Either way, it was not good." He shakes his head, taking a sip of his own drink - scotch, - that he made Bart pour for him; Raising his eyebrows at you for an explanation over the rim of the glass.

Jack's always been great, like this. Even when he was horrible, he was the lesser of two evils between him and Bart. Good for a laugh and quality eye candy in a pinch- and that counts for a hell of a lot when it comes to surviving Bart Bass and the Upper East Side. And he had the power and pull of an adult, but knew what the hell was going on like one of you.

So he always made you feel at ease.

You ruffle your hair back, and sigh, straightening your back finally from their hunched over position they live in when you're uncomfortable and pushing back your shoulders. "He was just, saying some weird stuff... and Chuck disappeared to talk to Blair." At that, Jack nods in total understanding. Like ah, yeah. Got ya. Finally, you shrug. "He just makes me really uncomfortable. No offence, but I hate your brother."

As you watch Jack's eyes don't even flicker; He's totally on board with what you've said. Then he finishes the rest of his scotch in one gulp. "Ahh- I hate him too."

"As do we all." Chuck's voice suddenly pops up, as he appears in the doorway like Jack had earlier. You have to practice some serious self control so as to not laugh, at Chuck so coincidentally turning up again at the perfect moment to proclaim his hatred for his father. Jack grins back at Chuck coldly, nodding. Yeah. "Anyway, Y/N, I apologise but I'll be having to abandon you. Blair's waiting for me at her, empty, apartment." He pauses for a moment for dramatic effect, in perfect Chuck Bass fashion, and you roll your eyes, grinning. Jack smirks. "But you're welcome to stick around a while and help yourself to the amenities All on my tab, of course. Good to see you again, Jack." Then he pockets his phone and heads toward the door. The second Bass of the day leaves the building.

"Bye, nephew!" Jack waives as the elevator doors close behind Chuck then swiftly turns around back to you, to which you raise your eyebrows. "So, what do we do now?"

"I dunno." Shrugging you grin and turn your stool to angle your legs towards Jack. "When Chuck says those magical words 'All on my tab'," Those words, oh; You speak them with just as much raw, breathy sexual arousal as the man himself would. As the words demand. 'All on my tab'. Good lord, sex if they were words. "I tend to take advantage."

"An easy girl to please; That's what I like to see." Your cheeks flame up at those words out of Jack's mouth as he turns to look down at the room service menu. Yes, Jack Bass has toed the line, between platonic and flirtatious since the very moment you met the man... but that seemed a little bit more then toeing the line.

And you get a far different reaction to him doing it then you do the other Bass brother.

You don't even really mind the implications of his words.

"You're staying back with me?" You ask, feeling hopeful at the idea.

"Yeah well, I cant in, uh, good conscience," He makes a bit of a show to you, of pressing his hand to his chest totally earnestly as those words 'good conscience' come out of his mouth. "leave you here unguarded in case Bart comes back, can I? Besides, the way you said 'All on my tab'- man, you could sell moonshine at an AA meeting with that voice."

"Ha," You laugh, rolling your eyes and shaking your head. "Well, thanks."

"Oh. Don't thank me. You're just using what uh, your mama gave you. I actually encourage you totally, to do that more often- "

"No!" You exclaim, sighing in exasperation; But there is still a smile on your face you cant seem to shake. "For not leaving, today. When you walked in. It would've sucked if you had, not that I would've blamed you at all."

"Hey, just call me your knight in shining armour." He doesn't look up from the menu, flicking through it. Then turns to you with one of those beach boy/politician, toothless grins of his. "Besides you were automatically, my favourite person in the apartment. I mean, anyone with... uhhh- different, appendages to what I have, instantly gets a one-way ticket access to my rare bouts of chivalry. Now come over here, pick out what you want off here."

You just gape at him and that comment, making him stifle a laugh and return to the menu himself.

Bass's.

[xxisxxisxxis]

Gateway Drug | Part Forty-Eight

Table of Content or Part Forty-Seven

Wattpad

Word count: 5.6k

Warning(s): explicit language, drug abuse, verbal abuse, explicit sexual situations, graphic mention of suicide

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"We can get your stuff up and drop it off later." Duff offers as I pull my shoes on and grab my car keys.

"Okay."

"Don't forget your purse." He adds, and I grab it from the coffee table.

"You alright going by yourself, Viv?" Steven asks me and I tuck a strand of wet hair behind my ear.

"Doc's meeting me there." I tell him.

"So, you don't know if he's okay?" He asks next and I exhale.

"No. I don't, and I really, really don't want to think of him not being okay so let's just not talk about it." I tell him, stepping to the door.

"Well, can you call us and let me know how he's holding up?" He follows me to the door and I nod. 

"I will." I assure him, grabbing his hand in mine and squeezing it for a moment. "Thank you for letting me stay with you. I love you, I'll talk to you later." I say to him.

"Love you, too." He replies, smiling a little.

I leave to my car and head home as fast as I can. 

I hate to be morbid, but every worst case scenario was flashing through my mind.

He had a plethora of all sorts of drugs throughout the house, plenty of sharp knives around, we had a pool, he kept a gun in our room...there was no shortage of suicide attempts or methods to use if he felt in the shock of Nona's death, that he couldn't go on.

And that's all I could focus on the entire way to the house.

I punch the code in the gate and as soon as I get in the driveway, I'm putting the Corvette in park, yanking the keys out, bursting out of the car and sprinting up the stairs to the front door, my shaking hands fumbling to unlock it.

The second I get the door open, it's pretty obvious Nikki hasn't kept the house up. At all.

Clothes are on the floor, empty cling wrap that obviously housed bindles of coke are scattered about, empty liquor bottles decorate almost every flat surface, empty syringes randomly placed throughout the living room and a bitter, familiar smell violates my nostrils from the kitchen.

I slowly make my way to our bedroom, looking around for Nikki.

His closet door is open, revealing a floor littered with needles, lumps of tar, pills and blow...and a crack pipe.

"Well, that's a new demon." I mumble, disappointed, before stepping to our bathroom.

I open the door, and sigh with relief at the sight of him in the bathtub, staring off.

I'm 99.9% sure he's stoned out of his mind.

"Nikki?" I ask him softly, getting on my knees beside the bathtub.

I notice a disgusting looking clumpy mixture is floating atop the water, and I realize it's vomit.

"Babe." I say more sternly this time, hoping to get a reaction. His dead, somber eyes shift to me. "C'mon, let's get out." I suggest, reaching into the water that's turned cold from him being in here for long.

"Just fuck off." He says to me, trying to stand up on him own, but he nearly falls out of the tub.

I just ignore him, helping him out, careful not to get the vomit that's clinging to his skin, on me.

"You need to rinse off in the shower." I suggest to him.

"Get me a shot of blow." He tells me slowly.

"I'm not getting you drugs." I reply calmly, moving his wet hair from his face as he holds himself up using the counter.

"Then what's the point of having you around?" He snaps.

"You're fucked up, covered in your own vomit. I don't think you're in any position to piss off your only help at the time you need it most." I tell him as politely as I can. "Please let me help you, Nikki. I think we've done enough damage to each other the past couple of months to last a life time."

He looks at me, a mixture of defeat and exhaustion cloaking his features.

He doesn't argue when I turn the shower on.

By the time he's rinsed off, the door bell's ringing, and I'm handing him a towel and going to the door to see Doc once I've got it open.

"Hey." He says. "How is he?"

"He just got out the shower. I'm gonna try to get him to go to bed. He looks like he hasn't slept in days." I explain.

"Alright." He nods. "I'll check back in later. Just call if you guys need anything."

"Thanks, Doc." I reply and he gives a sad look before going back to his car.

I go back the bathroom to see Nikki rinsing his mouth out with Jack.

I take the time to notice he's gained some weight back. I thought he'd lose more of it, especially since he's on crack now, apparently.

"Funeral's saturday." He says out of nowhere, and I bite my lip nervously, not saying a word. "My granddad gave me directions to get there but I forgot already."

Again, I don't say a word.

I don't have to. He can read my expression.

"I mean, that's why you're here, isn't it?" He asks, knowingly. "Pretty sad it takes the woman who raised me, dying, in order for my fucking wife to come home."

"You need to sleep." I ignore his comment, guilt reeling through me.

"And you just need to go back to your replacements for Mötley. I don't need you here." He argues.

"Pretty loud barking for someone who spent how many nights calling me, crying for me to come home?" I remind him as I cross my arms.

"I was fucked up." He states.

"Sober thoughts." I counter him.

"Vivian. I'm not fighting with you. Fuck off or shut up because I've got enough going on right now and I'm not wasting time on going back and forth with you." He steps past me to the bedroom and I follow after him.

"Of course not. You'd much rather waste time shooting up and free basing." I scoff, and I'm quickly dodging an empty bottle of whiskey as it collides with our bedroom wall right beside my head.

"Go to hell!" He screams at me, shaking, angry tears sprouting down his cheeks. "I can't even grieve in peace because you just refuse to let me do what I need to do! You aren't happy or satisfied unless I'm fucking miserable! I'm in hell right now and you come in and start shit just because you can, and you know exactly what fucking buttons to press to get under my skin and suck the life out of me like a fucking leech!"

"Drugs don't help anything, Nikki. It makes things worse. You just need to let yourself feel everything and power through it."

"When your aunt slit her fucking wrists you couldn't keep yourself off my dick for weeks! You fucking avoided talking about it and kept yourself distracted with me! In fact, while they were having her funeral and burying her, you were face down on my bed begging 'harder, Daddy', so I don't want to hear shit from you, of all people, about how I should cope!" He doesn't hold back, his shaking finger pointed at me viciously and I rub my lips together, tears toppling from my eyes.

Nikki's coping mechanism was drugs. Mine was sex. That's why, once our marriage got so bad off we couldn't even be in the same room, let alone touch each other, I went to Duff because I couldn't get my emotional and physical fix from Nikki anymore.

Messed up. Sad. But true.

"Okay." I say lowly, sniffling a little from crying. "I'm gonna go call Tom and get the directions. We can leave early Saturday morning." I mumble, leaving him alone as fast as I can without making it look obvious.

I shut the door behind me and head for the phone in the living room, dialing Tom's and Nona's number.

"Hello?"

"T-Tom, this is Viv." I start, my stomach in knots.

"Oh, hey...how're you doing?" He asks me and I rub my lips together.

"I could be better."

He let's out a barking laugh and I hear the pain in his voice as he says:

"I know exactly how you feel."

"Well, I was just calling to get directions to where the funeral is gonna be held. Nikki wasn't paying attention the first time you told him, I'm sure he was in shock."

"Well his aunt and I have called a lot the past couple months to try to tell him Nona was getting worse, but nobody answered the phone until today." He tells me and I let out a breath.

"We haven't been at home much." I reply, grabbing a pen and a envelope from the stack of bills on the coffee table. "What were those directions, again?"

He tells me and once I finish jotting them down, I'm struggling to find what to say.

"Thank you." I tell him. "And I'm really sorry."

"I'll be alright. You kids take care, I'll see you soon."

"We will, bye-bye."

"Bye-bye."

I hang up, letting out a breath as I fall back on the couch, feeling a migraine coming over me.

I close my eyes for a moment before opening them, taking in our house that is in shambles currently.

"How am I gonna have him presentable in three freaking days?" I ask God, fear that Nikki won't be put together in time, cracks into my mind before I avoid thinking about it by deciding to clean the house up.

It's while cleaning that I realize the redecorating Nikki's done while I've been gone.

Some of our furniture throughout the house has been replaced with what seem to be antique versions of it.

He's gotten black out curtains hung in every window, and there's even freaky looking gargoyles he's put up in some corners that look like demons leering in the house. They probably praise him each time he takes a shot of heroin or a hit of his pipe.

I ignore the new look of the place, once he's sober and out of this hole he's dug himself he'll want to be more uplifting and light and change the place back to how it was. But right now he's dark and gloomy, so of course where he resides is going to match that.

By the time I've finished cleaning the kitchen, dining area, living room, and our bedroom, he's coming out of hiding.

"I talked to your grandfather and got the directions." I tell him from my spot on the couch, watching TV, as I hear him open a bottle of wine in the kitchen.

He steps into the living room and sits on the other end of the couch, an entire bottle of white wine in hand, his eyes hazy, nothing but unlaced leather pants covering him up.

"I talked to Doc and he's booking us a flight for early Saturday morning, and late Saturday night so we can come back so you guys can start on the new album as soon as you can."

I glance over, seeing a new tattoo on him I completely overlooked earlier when I helped him out of the tub.

"When did you get that?" I ask, leaning forward on my knees to trace my finger along the sharp leafing of a rose stem on the right side of his chest.

He tenses a little when I touch him, his eyes glowering at me for a split second before averting back to the TV ahead of us.

I just swallow my pride.

"Nikki, I'm sorry I came in and started a fight. I know you need as much serenity you can get right now and I shouldn't have said all that stuff to you." I let out, getting it off my chest.

At first I think he doesn't hear me, until he's exhaling heavily.

"I said fucked up shit to you about your aunt." He tells me. "I shouldn't have brought that into an argument."

"We haven't seen each other for two months and I immediately started in on you, not to mention you're going through a lot and don't need me dogging on you. You had every right to say what you did." I assure him.

It's clear in his facial expression that he doesn't agree, but he doesn't try to argue anymore than we already have.

He gives me a little smile, a dopey smile, something I didn't know he'd be doing much of since the situation with Nona. Then again, he's numbed himself pretty heavily.

His ring filled fingers come up to push my hair back over my shoulder, and my heart sputters wildly in my chest as he slowly coaxes me closer to him, hand beginning to gently grasp at my hair to pull me to him.

His lips are soon brushing against mine as if testing the waters, before he presses a small,  innocent kiss to my lips.

It's bizarre to think I haven't kissed him in two fucking months.

Apparently he feels the same, because the second our lips separate, he's going in for more.

I pull away a little, though and keep my hand on his chest as he looks at me, confused.

"I'm not sure if it's a good idea to do this right away." I tell him in a whisper, trying to keep myself at bay.

"Why not?" He asks in the same tone, his fingers leaving my hair so his finger tips can ghost over the skin down my neck, down my sides, catching at the bottom of my black tank top before sliding under the fabric to touch at my skin.

"Because we--" I stop talking, holding back a moan as his hand slides up my stomach and brushes over my breast.

"Because why?" He asks me, knowing what he's doing.

"Because we were just separated for a couple months and..." he grabs at my hips, pulling me onto straddle him before putting his bottle of wine down on the carpeted floor. "...a-and it's just not the best ide--ah!" A high pitched whimper escapes my throat as his teeth grasps at my nipple through the cloth of my tight fitted top, his tongue swirling around it before releasing.

He smirks at me, and I try to collect what's left of my composure.

Of course I want to fuck around. But I don't want to take advantage of him.

His hand slips between my legs next, rubbing back and forth a couple of times, causing me to squeeze my eyes closed as I can't help but to grind into his hand.

"Oh, shit." I swear under my breath, feeling slickness coat my panties with each movement against his hand.

My hands rest back on his knees, my head tilts back and I just grind against his fingers for as long as I can, electricity bubbling in my core.

Before long, I'm soaking through my shorts, causing him to chuckle a little.

"Stand up." He tells me and I do, keeping myself from rubbing my thighs together. "Take your clothes off." He says next.

I take in a breath, pulling my top of my head slowly, a wash of confidence hitting at me as his eyes stay glued to my tits, my nipples practically begging for his mouth.

My shorts are next, my hips swaying a little as I get them down my legs, and I nearly lick my lips at the sight of him with his legs slightly more spread, a toothy grin plastered on his face.

I don't touch my panties, crouching down and crawling to where he's sitting, the palms of my hands rubbing up his thighs before pawing at the bulge in his pants.

He just let's out a small hiss as I grab at him, before his hand is around my throat.

My eyes roll back, my legs shift to rub at myself and when I look back up at him he looks like he has an idea.

"Do you want it?" He asks me, still choking me enough to get me even more wet and I let out a needy sound.

"Please." I beg, that need to be filled starting to overwhelm me.

"Show me how bad you want it." He says, drinking some of his wine, letting my throat go.

I think I catch him off guard when I slide up his body to straddle his right thigh, moving my scanty making sure my clit is resting against the leather of his pants before I slowly start humping at him, riding him like I would his cock.

My soaked cunt makes it easy to move against him, a wet sound of me using him to fuck myself echoes in my ears.

"My dirty little bitch." He teases, his hand in his pants at this point.

"All your's." I say thickly, my hand meeting his at his prick, taking over as I start jerking him off the best I can while he's trapped in the skin tight confinement.

He tilts his head back, taking a deep breath as I work him while continuing to grind against his thick thigh that's proving useful as a fucktoy.

He's reaching in his pocket before long, pulling out his switch blade and sawing at the band of my thong, causing it to give way and pop off.

He greedily yanks it from me and tosses it away, his eyes taking in my pubic bone and spread, wet lips grinding against his leg.

"So fucking pretty." He says to me, bucking up into my hand, his hands going for my pussy to angle me where he can see my clit rubbing back and forth against him, leaving a trail of liquid in each go.

"Can I please ride it, baby, please?" I plead, the torture of feeling his thick, hard length and not being able to do anything about it is driving me insane.

He looks at me, fingers sliding between my legs, getting a coating of arousal on them before holding them up to me.

I wrap my lips around his digits, moaning at my taste, continuing to suck on his fingers like I'm giving them a blowjob, my eyes fluttering closed.

After a couple minutes, he's pulling his fingers from my mouth before getting me off of him so he can get his pants down.

I rest sitting on my knees, looking up at him as he gets himself freed, beads up precum dripping out of him, and I catch them with my tongue.

He gasps at the action, grinning as he grabs his bottle of wine.

I'm confused for a moment before he's pouring the alcohol onto my shoulder, causing it to spill down my back, my chest, and my legs, emptying the nearly full bottle, the warm wetness eliciting a giggle from me as he drops to his knees in front of me, pushing me onto my back.

His tongue licks up my pussy to my wine soaked stomach, biting at the rib he likes to bite at, before licking up my chest and neck, causing me to laugh and moan simultaneously, threading my fingers through his thick hair once his tongue intertwines with mine.

He grabs at himself, rubbing between my entrance and my clit before sliding just the head of his cock into me.

I arch my back, already preparing for the full feeling of him completely in me.

He pulls away from me, getting on his knees.

"Spread your legs." He says and I open them, spread eagle, giving him the perfect view of his goal.

He curses to himself under his breath, admiring me for a moment before grabbing my hips, lifting them up to meet him, and positioning himself at my cunt.

His eyes focus on my face as he slowly pushes into me to the hilt, pressing against my cervix.

"God I've missed this." He says, pulling out of me and pushing back in.

"I have, too." I breathe out, falling into rhythm with his demanding thrusts, my fingers pinching and rolling my nipples as he obliterates my swollen sex.

My juices drip down the both of us and joins the wine on the carpet, further turning me on along with the site of him looking down at himself going in and out of me while I lick my lips at the site of sweat beginning to appear on his chest.

One of my hands reaches up to play with my clit and he spits onto the bundle of nerves to further lubricate my fingers' movements, and I pull my lip into my mouth and arch my spine at the site.

He's leaning down in a moment to kiss me hotly, his tongue colliding with mine before I'm biting at his lip with my teeth, my nails clawing down his side before pushing him onto his back, climbing on top of him.

I'm licking the sweat off his chest as I sink down on to him, his hands holding at my hips while I move against him.

I slowly lift off of him, my breath catching in my throat as he moves his hips up as mine come down, burying him to the hilt.

His hands spread across my stomach to move up and down my sides, before grabbing at my ass, igniting hot flames through my skin.

My long hair is sticking to my body as the wine he poured over me is starting to mix with the sheen of sweat on my skin and getting sticky.

My thighs shake as our pace picks up because the need to reach the high over powers the need to savor the moment.

He's got my hips in a white-knuckle grip, thrusting up into me while pulling me down onto him in sync.

My moans, his grunts, and the sound of our sex fills the air as my toes curl, and I start tightening around him like a python.

"Good girl." He says, his hand smacking painfully onto my ass, knowing I'm about to finish and I arch my back and flex my hips, my tits bouncing with each powerful stroke he gives me.

I close my eyes as a  whimper leaves my lips, a tear rolls down my cheek, and my muscles spasm around him as I orgasm, unable to even moan anymore as my body pumps itself full of dopamine.

I ride it out, as he slows down our pace, opening my eyes to see him staring up at me with half-open eyes, more than likely about to come, too.

"You're so fucking beautiful." He tells me, and I lean forward, kissing him for a moment before grinning down at him mischievously, purposely tightening around him, feeling every vein and ridge of his cock, as my hand reaches to massage his balls while I fuck him.

"Ah, fuck, Viv." He groans to himself, squeezing his eyes closed as pleasure washes over his face.

I feel his thighs shake little and bite my lip as his hands grope at my breasts with the same rhythm my hand gropes at him.

"You drive me f--shit--fucking crazy." He breathes out.

"I know." I reply sultrily, imagining his load emptying out into me and how good it will feel.

He tenses up and I cry out softly as he harshly pinches at my nipples.

"I gotta--ah!" He takes in a rough breath, screwing his eyes shut. "I gotta pullout so you won't get knocked up." He gets it out choppily.

"I won't." I assure him, selfishness pushing clear-thinking out of the picture.

"Viv--"

"--Nikki, please." I beg, my voice thick with need and lust and he shutters out another breath. "Tell me you don't want to and I'll get off of you."

I squeeze at his balls slightly harder, his fingers gripping at my thighs hard enough to leave bruises before we're both looking down between us to see his prick glistening in my cum.

"Tell me you don't want to fill me up and remind me whose I am." I keep my thrusts steady and a slew of swears swarm past his lips in a low tone, one of his hands moving to grip at his hair for a moment as if he's trying to get himself together.

My other hand moves to pull him to sit up and he wraps his arms around my waist, his body giving way to euphoria as he groans out, hot cum shooting into me.

My eyes roll back and close, missing the feeling of us like this as a satisfied mew slips out of my throat, Nikki's lips pressing across my chest bone, up my neck and finally to my lips.

My fingers get lost in his sweat soaked hair, my wet, sticky chest against his as we hold each other.

We both fall back onto the carpet before long, and I get off of him, curling up beside him and laying my cheek against his chest, focusing on his heartbeat because it's miraculous that he still has one.

His hand runs up and down my back, and with the mixture of a natural high, satisfaction, and--for the first time in a long time--peace, coursing through me, I'm lulled to sleep.

He wanted to pull out that night because he didn't want to pass anything to me, because he hadn't gotten a penicillin shot since screwing around on me.

Being that he had the control of a twelve-year old boy discovering porn for the first time, I don't know what the hell he would have come up with had I actually contracted something the random groupies he'd fucked in my absence, or Vanity, had accidentally given him.

I had no clue, but my high and optimism was blown a few minutes after we had our makeup session, anyway.

I open my eyes, seeing myself in the mirror on the ceiling of the living room, naked, Nikki nowhere to be seen.

I stretch, soreness spurring between my legs and I wince some, but smile at the fact Nikki and I are okay now.

Grabbing a throw from the back of the couch, I wrap it around me, stepping through the house to find Nikki.

Maybe he's in the shower.

Our bathroom's empty, and I furrow my brows, before hearing something moving around in our closet.

I swallow the lump forming in my throat and open the door, seeing Nikki shaking with wide eyes, naked, holding his gun straight at me.

He was so fucked up. He'd get loaded on crack and think someone was out to get him, he'd scream and cry and wave his gun around, hallucinating people crawling under the front door, coming to kill him, or the cops coming to arrest him.

He'd flush his own drugs, every last one, out of paranoia of the FBI finding him. Then he'd come down from his high and be pissed at himself.

There were times he would actually shoot his fucking gun in the house.

I couldn't step foot in the living room for over a month because we had to get the mirrored tiling replaced and the ceiling patched because he shot all of the mirroring out.

I bet who ever had that house after us was still vacuuming shards of glass out of the carpet.

I shut the closet door back without a word, leaving him to himself to come down.

I lock myself in the guest bedroom and try to keep from crying.

I realized then that it didn't matter how good of a wife I was, how mind blowing the sex was, how much I worshipped the ground he walked on, how much I tried...it would never be enough.

Drugs were what he was truly in love with.

I guess Vanity and I both had that in common.

We were both, simply, the other woman.

Wednesday passed with Nikki too doped up to barely roll over in the closet floor on his own.

Thursday he had Jason come over, while I went to the grocery store, so he could get some more blow to counter the heroin symptoms and nodding off.

Friday he overdid it while freebasing and was convinced "Mexicans and midgets" were "after him" (a reoccurring theme, I would soon learn.)

And Saturday...

"Nikki, babe, c'mon. We're gonna miss our flight." I put in my second earring as he stands up from the couch, stumbling forward, and falling onto the carpet, spilling his drink all over himself. "Nikki!" I rush to his side to make sure he's okay, and he's not.

Despite being clear of physical ailments, his eyes tell it all. "Have you even slept?" I ask him, helping him sit up before sitting on my knees in front of him.

He doesn't answer and I sigh, closing my eyes.

"Do you just not want to go her funeral, Nikki?"

"I'm gonna be fucked up, I'm gonna have to face my family, my mother...and I'm gonna have to accept the fact she's dead." He admits bitterly, angry at himself for not pulling his shit together in time but also angry at the fact she's gone in the first place. "It isn't fair. You know how many people--disgusting people--deserve to be dead? I can name five or six just off the top of my head alone, Viv. But do those people die? No. The people who deserve to live the most, the people who love their lives and don't take it for granted are always the ones that get the fucking short end of the stick." His eyes get teary and I just listen. "I--" His voice cracks, his teeth baring together for a second as he regains himself. "I should be dead. Not her. Not Nona."

I try not to overreact, mustering up the words of comfort my dad use to tell me when someone in our family passed away.

"Nikki, who lives and dies isn't suppose to be in our hands. And it's not unless we just decide to end our lives prematurely." I start, taking his hand in the both of mine. "You can't think that way because the plan God has for you and the plan he had for her are two completely different things. And you're still alive because you aren't done with what he has for you, yet. Nona's work down here is finished. Your's isn't. So don't think this is all for nothing because I promise you, it's not."

He doesn't even sneer at the word "God" this time.

"If there even is a God the only thing he has planned for me is to send me straight to hell." He states coldly, his tears drying.

A sick feeling of nausea rises in my throat at his words and I force myself to calm down before calling Tom to tell him we won't make it.

We watched Gilligan's Island the remainder of the day, while Nikki shot coke when I'd get up to use the bathroom.

And then Saturday night came.

"Thank you." I say to Tansy as she helps me get the last of my stuff out of my car.

I just got back from meeting Duff at their rehearsal space to get the last few things I left at their apartment. "How was the meeting?" I ask her, pertaining to the very reason she had to fly back to New York.

She gets quiet for a second before faking a smile the best she can.

"They did some test shots and are sending them to the magazine for review and they'll let me know if I got the job." She tells me.

"They called you, did they not?"

"Yeah, they did, but since it's been over a year since I was last photographed, they wanna see what they're working with." She explains and I raise a brow, getting a bad feeling as we walk to the front door of my house.

"Tansy, you can know you can talk to any of us if something's not right, right?" I remind her and she nods.

"If something weren't right I'd tell you." She assures me. "I'm just going through some stuff. It doesn't have anything to do with work."

"Tansy--"

"--Viv, I'm okay." She states, looking at me with a weak smile. "Now, go get ready so we can go out with the guys, and bombard them with album ideas because 'Theater of Pain' was not what it needed to be and we're gonna help them avoid mistakes like that again." She sighs out as I open the front door, chuckling.

I step in to the living room, about to head to our bedroom to get ready, but I'm caught off guard by Sparkie talking to a woman I've seen before.

Then I recognize her in a split second.

The raven hair, the smooth, darker skin, perfectly proportioned features and contagious smile.

Her brown eyes catch on me, her face shifts into an oddly joyous expression and she's standing up to greet me.

"How are you?!" She asks me excitedly, knowing who I am because of that night on the balcony in Tansy's New York apartment.

Tansy's expression let's me know she wasnt expecting to see her here.

Which means...

"Nikki invited me out with you guys since he knew I was friends with Tansalyn and she was gonna be back in L.A." She states, probably reading my confused look.

"Nikki?" I ask, raising a brow.

She blinks at me, unsure of something before saying:

"Well, y-you remember me, don't you, we've met before? I'm Vanity."

[ripspaghet]

bff | 03

↳ series m.list | 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 |

→ pairing: yoongi x reader

→ word count: 4,062

Prologue Summary; Your best friend’s boyfriend takes an unhealthy interest in you and just as he shows up something from your past starts to creep up on you again. Could this strange and mysterious man have something to do with it? And should you trust him, or your instincts to run far, far away from him?

→ warnings: none yet.

“____, come on. I know I can be boring when I teach but, please, at least act like you’re listening?” The odor of old books and dust wafted through musky air. Rarely any students come here anymore, opting to study elsewhere or not at all. So, it’s fairly quiet except for the few crickets jumping around outside the glass doors of the stuffy library. 

“Ah, uh, sorry.” You pull your attention away from the tiled floor to look at your friend. He’s leaning over the table your both sat at. His long body looks awkward scrunched up in the small library chair, almost like he’s a grown man sitting in something made for a toddler. 

 A sigh passes his lips, “Let’s just call it a day. If you can’t focus it’s better to just get some sleep and study another time.” You nod along with his suggestion. He was beyond right. There’s no way you’re gonna be able to focus any time soon. Not when those dreams are still looming around in your mind and you remain unable to properly remember anything, which is no surprise but only furthers your annoyance.

“Oh, that reminds me! Sorry, I almost forgot to tell you. I’m going to be out of town for the next few days and won’t be able to help you study. Don’t panic though, I have a friend that agreed to help you until I’m back. He knows all about this stuff. He took it last year.”

Your shoulders fall limp, “You what?”

He began sliding his textbooks back into his bag with his other belongings, “I know, but it can’t be helped. My family is having a getaway and my parents wanted me to take a break with them.”

You click your tongue, “Only Kim Namjoon’s parents would want their kid to take a break from school. My mom might have my head if I ever even thought about taking a break. She’d think I was trying to drop out.”

Namjoon chuckled heartily, “I’ll be back before you know it. Don’t stress. My friend probably knows more about this stuff than me anyways. I’ll text you his number.”

“Is your friend Einstein??”

“Something like that, I guess.”

“Seriously,” You groan, losing your composure, and leaning back into your chair, “how could you do this to me? What if this guy tries to assault me or something? You can’t just leave me with some random.”

“You know, the more you hang out with Jimin the more you start to sound like him. This guy isn’t like that, trust me.”

“Jimin? What’s that supposed to-” A fist slams down on the table and you and Namjoon nearly jump out of your seats, “You’re leaving?!”

“Oh, Taehyung,” Namjoon laughs nervously, regaining his composure. 

“Who’s gonna help me with my creative writing class?! I came here to ask you for help.” 

You raise an eyebrow at the boy, “What the hell are you in a creative writing class for?” Taehyung doesn’t spare you a glance, keeping his eyes fixed on Namjoon, who’s checking twice for all his belongings.

“____ can help you with creative writing. She’s good with that stuff.”

Taehyung’s head whips over to you his eyes widened, “Really?”

“What?“ You adjust yourself to sit up straight in your chair, "Namjoon, don’t tell him that, I’m too busy as is. I can’t help him. Absolutely not.”

“Surely you could squeeze in a minute or two.”

“Namjoon,”

“It can’t be helped.”

“Namjoon.” 

He just smiles at you knowingly, “I’ll be going. The weekend calls. Have fun you two.”

“Wait-”

“Bye, ____. Get home safe.” Your eyes flicker over to Taehyung and you squint up at him in irritation. He’s looking at you expectantly, tapping his foot.

"I’m sure Jimin can help you." 

"You-”

“I don’t have the time.” You gather up your belongings, not sparing Taehyung another glance as you make your escape.

You’d made a habit out of avoiding Taehyung since you’d met him, as you did for all the frat guys at your university. It wasn’t anything personal - it's just that the whole school knows that they're bad news. In other words, party every night until we can’t walk straight anymore and mess around with as many girls as we want, types of bad news.

Your feet drag lazily across water-covered concrete once you make it outside. It had stopped raining for the time being, but that didn’t change the fact that it was now below freezing out due to the sun being replaced by a moon that was hidden behind dull rain clouds. The streets were empty aside from the few people making their way home from a late shift at work. 

“You will soon.”

You grimace. Why is it so familiar? A voice very gravelly and intense, where have heard it before? You purse your lips in thought. Just at the remembrance of a voice, red begins to color your cheeks and your hands grow clammy. What is this? You’d never felt this way before. Except when reading something similar to a thrilling romance book. The dream had been so seemingly real, the voice so close to your ear that it was impossible to deny how intimate the situation had been.

You groan in frustration. Jimin can’t possibly be right about it being a wet dream though. “Right, because you never talk with any other man besides me.” You roll your eyes. You should’ve punched him in the gut right then. Plenty of guys talk to you, it’s just that you’re so obviously uninterested that they grow bored easily. You’re not interested in just some fling.

“Excuse me?” A tap on your shoulder drags you out of your whirlpool of thoughts, “You dropped this.” You turn, a bit startled to see a gold necklace dangled from elegant fingers, the gold clashing with the pale skin it rests on. 

Deja vu.

“Oh, thank you.” You take the necklace from his fingers. It must have fallen from around your neck without you noticing.

“Oh,” 

You lifted your gaze up from the gold now resting in the palm of your hand and meet brown orbs, that almost come off as black under the harsh yellow-toned street lamps. His dark hair hangs just above his eyes in unruly waves.

“Yoongi, ” 

An expression of slight uninterest bores into your eyes despite his surprised tone, “What are you doing out so late?” Your hands attempt to bury themselves deeper into their pockets, a knot forming in the pit of your stomach as a familiar feeling of warmth consuming your chest.

“It not that late, is it?” You force a small smile that probably ended up looking a nervous cry for help. 

He glances around at the dark city surrounding the two of you, “Seeing as it twelve o'clock at night, I’d say it is.“ 

"I was studying at the library with a friend. Lost track of time I suppose.” Another awkward smile.

“I’ll walk you home.”

“N-no, I’m fine. You don’t need to do that. My place isn’t too far and I always walk home late. I’ll be fine.”

“I insist.” His voice is firm and strict, making his words come off as more of a demand, rather than a suggestion.

“Ok, I-I guess it’s fine, ”

The walk home is quiet. You don’t spare another glance in Yoongi’s direction despite the taunting urge to. It didn’t help any that it felt like his eyes were constantly glancing over. How had the atmosphere between the two changed so much in such little time? How come you felt so utterly scandalous under his gaze? You can’t help but feel your insides coil as silence settles over the two of you and remain in it for the rest of the way to your dorm. And despite a nagging feeling telling you otherwise, nothing happens.

The next day is another cold one, but instead of there being snow, there’s a thin layer of ice stuck to the ground as gentle rain pats down against it. Namjoon texted you his friend’s number and address this morning and informed you he’d already talked to him about it. And as per usual, decisions were made without your consent. It was bad enough you had to get up early on a weekend for work, but now instead of head straight home to bed, you have to rush off to study with some random.

"I’m so sick of the smell of coffee. I go home, my clothes smell like coffee. I go to bed, my bed smells like coffee. Drag my ass out of bed and come here, to smell what? Coffee. It’s not even nice smelling coffee either. It’s bitter and too strong, like diesel gasoline.” You keep your eyes fixed on the coffee shop’s glass doors, opting to wait for the next custom rather than acknowledge your babbling coworker. 

Namjoon told you that his friend had no other free time to spare. So, it was in the morning, or never.

“I mean, can’t they at least make it smell good? Heaven knows it already tastes like crap.” You learned rather quickly after taking this job that entertaining this man’s ranting would only add to the flames. You pity the people who walk in unknowingly and spark up a conversation with him simply for his good looks, to later find out that his mouth never shuts while doing something he despises, which would pertain to his entire job. 

“____, are you even listening to me?” His voice goes up an octave, bringing his eyebrows along for the ride.

Reluctantly you turn your head away from the doors and stare blandly at his wide rounded eyes and parted lips, “Yes, Seokjin, I’m hearing every word of what you’re saying.”

He studies you for a moment before speaking again, something he rarely does, “Ah, that’s right, you’re not a morning person. I’m sure you have it much worse. I can’t imagine already being in a bad mood and having to come here.”

“Mhm,”

“And the customers are always so rude in the morning. I don’t know how you manage." 

You don’t know how you’ve been able to keep yourself from shoving a bag of coffee beans down his throat, "Yeah,”

Work drags on as normal and as soon as the clock strikes 9:40 am you hang up your apron and fly out the door with the speed of light, completely ignoring Seokjin who calls after you, nagging about you not bothering to even tell him goodbye. 

Once outside you follow your phone’s navigation down multiple streets, your hood up while you grip an arm around your waist in a sad attempt to retain even the smallest amount of body heat. Winter, what a season that you hated to love.

“You have arrived at your destination.”

You halt. Well, that wasn’t all too far. Looking up your gaze meets a tall luxurious building.

“Madam, may I assist you?" 

You startle not realizing the man standing next to the building’s entryway, "Uh, yes? Maybe? I’m meeting a friend of mine. Would you happen to know someone by the name of Namjoon?” In your awestruck confusion, you figured that maybe the mention of Namjoon’s name would help in some way. You mean, Namjoon is the one who recommended the person who supposedly lives in, what appears to be, a tower of silver and gold.

“Ah, yes, follow me, Madam. I will show you to the floor." 

"Ok,” Your voice turns into a small whisper as you look up the building again, feeling the sheer intimidation it radiates. This can’t be the place. 

You follow the doorman inside as he leads you to an elevator at the center of a spacious lobby. Seeing as how early it is in the morning it’s not unprecedented that the whole place is empty. Most rich people probably leave as early as five in the morning to get a head start for the day, you’d assume.

“The Master is in the penthouse so we will be going rather high up. If you have a fear of heights I’d recommend avoiding the windows.” Your stomach turns as the elevator doors shut and you’re lurched up. The elevator dings each time it passes a floor and eventually you start to think that, maybe you’re going to hurl out of the top of the building and fall all the way back down to the ground because how could there be this many floors?? You supposed it was a fitting fate for one as tired as you. At least then you be getting some kind of rest.

“The Master?”

“All will be explained by the Master himself.” The doorman doesn’t even spare you a glance, his attention remaining on the rising floor number. 

“Oh,” You nod and look away wondering what exactly Namjoon had signed you up for this time. Perhaps you were about to mean a famous business leader or a master of the arts? Knowing Namjoon had set this up left nothing off the table. That guy could probably arrange a meeting with the president of the United States with his whole family’s well regarded social status.

“Here we are, Madam. Be sure to push the doorbell before entering. The Master treasurers his privacy."  The doorman bows his head and you step out of the elevator before closing the doors with the press of a button and ascending back down. 

You turn to face the other way and push the doorbell to a pair of tall smooth wooden doors as instructed. But as you wait nothing happens. You hear nothing as a whole minute ticks away and you debate just going back down in the elevator to head home for your bed. Failing any of your classes isn’t an option for you though. You hesitantly ring the bell again and pull out your phone double-checking the address just in case. It wouldn’t be all too surprising if you were in the wrong place. What kind of person around your age, that just finished school a year ago, could afford a place like this?

Once again no one comes to let you in and your impatiens begin to teeter. You swear, if this guy made you come all the way out here this early in the morning just to stand you up, you’d kill Namjoon. So, with that thought in mind, you place your index finger back on the doorbell and let it have a piece of your mind. The dinging rings out over and over again. And finally, after what felt like a thousand dings you hear a door slam from somewhere inside the penthouse, then muffled swear words and stomping just before the large door is swung open so fast you feared it might be yanked off its hinges.

"What the hell do you want from me?!” A familiar head of messy black hair, that’s even messier than normal is laid over the wrong side of his head makes you gasp. His eyes are squinted and puffy as they stare back at you in an uncouth manner.

“Uh-”

“Wait,” He’s eyes get bigger and he reaches up to rub the sleep out of his eyes almost like he’s seeing things, “____?”

Your eyes dart away awkwardly as you try to find words to say in response, “I’ll be leaving now.” You turn on your heel to run for the elevator.

“Shit, are you Namjoon’s friend that needs tutoring? Fuck, I completely forgot about that.” You could tell from the sound of his voice he was running his fingers through that messy black hair of his, but you continued walking. Fuck that guy for being attractive. You’re getting the hell out of here. No more coincidental run-ins.

“Quite alright, no need to apologize. I’ll be going now.”

“No!” He ran out in front of you to block the elevator buttons, nearly falling down in his haste to stop you, “I mean, ” He paused hardening the expression, “I promised Namjoon I’d help you. You can’t just leave.” You looked him up and down. It was strange seeing this, a side of him normally only a girlfriend or best friend would see when you’d only just met. And you barely being qualified enough to be called an acquaintance made it so it shouldn’t have been a problem to feel so awkward, if it hadn’t been for a tiny part you that was thinking about how good Min Yoongi, not only looked in casual clothes but looked without a shirt in black baggy joggers, with bedhead, sporting a sleepy voice. In fact, the more you looked at the man the more pissed off you became. How dare he tempt you in sullying your friendship with Mina by looking like that.

Suddenly taking notice in your lingering gaze Yoongi tried composing himself, putting his hand atop his head in an attempt to hide his mess of hair, “Namjoon will kill me if I go back on my word. Just come inside.”

“Put some clothes on.” You spun around in annoyance, striding into the penthouse. In all honesty, you’d rather jump from this floor to the ground than stay here, but Yoongi had reminded you why you were here. Namjoon is gone and won’t be back until the day of the presentations and you know there’s no way in hell you’d manage on your own with an unfinished project that you knew would remain that way if not given a helping hand. You know yourself well enough to know that being uninformed and out of ideas would lead to you throwing in the towel without having even tried to make a fully finished piece.

Yoongi was close on your heels, shutting the door behind him, “Actually, I thought I’d tutor you naked. Just to switch things up a bit.”

“Excuse me?!” You spun again almost sure you’d get whiplash. Yoongi was just watching your reaction in amusement and it dawned on you he was being sarcastic.

“Just a joke, ____.”

You glared, “Yeah? Well, I’d appreciate if you didn’t joke about such things with me.”

He chuckled almost endearingly, “Why?”

“Why? What do you- You know what? This is inappropriate. I’m leaving.” Judging from this conversation you had no doubt in your mind that this man had the capability of cheating on your best friend. 

You went for the door but Yoongi grabbed your upper arm before you could get past him, “You really shouldn’t take me seriously, ____. Now, stop being a child and let’s get this over with.” He removed his hand from around your arm as if it had never been there, to begin with, and walks away from you. “I’m going to put a shirt on and I’ll meet you back in here. Make yourself comfortable.” You feel like you’ve just undergone a full 360 in a short amount of time since you entered his home. Why are you here again?

Surveying up his home you walk further into what seems to be a rather cozy living room. All the colors in the room are either warm or extremely dark, except for the occasional white pillow or blanket laying around. Even the floor is tiled with warm reddish wood. The pitch-black walls contrast against the brightness flooding in through a window that covers the whole outer wall of the room. It’s similar to homes you’d only ever seen in magazines or movies.

“Wow,” you breathe out and take a seat down on a long black leather couch in the center in the room. The place has probably been professionally decorated just to Yoongi’s liking.

“Would you like something to drink? Have you eaten?”

You jump, startled, “N-no, I’m alright.”

He nods and holds a notebook out to you now sported a baggy black sweatshirt and unruly combed hair, “Here,” You hesitantly take it from him as he takes a seat next to you, “these are my old notes from when I was in school. They should be helpful. Is there anything in particular that you’re having trouble with?”

“Ah,” Right that’s what you came here for, “I’m not very good at this music stuff which is why I needed Namjoon’s help. Its extra credit for me is all. I’m majoring in film.” You pull your bag from your side, taking out all your own notes, a few hefty textbooks, and your laptop.

“What is your focus for the project then?” He leans over you watching as you open up all the proper program on your laptop. You nervously fidget, feeling your skin heat up and try leaning away from him without it being noticeable, “I want to present a completed song.” Yoongi gives you a look of ‘You can’t be fucking serious right?’ And you sigh, “Listen, I know I don’t even major in music and don’t really know what I’m doing, so it’s dumb of me to try this. But, I have a great love for music even though it isn’t my major. If I do something with this,” You point at your laptop screen, “I want it to be my very best. I really wanna try at it and I think I can hit all the points, I just need the opinion of a professional.”

He looks at you for a while before finally speaking, “You know, me helping you with this is kind of cheating.” You rose an eyebrow at him, gesturing that he elaborates. “It wouldn’t be fair to all the other students. Can’t you just choose a different route? Like, I don’t know? Doing a piece you’d put into a film or something? Something a little more down your alley?”

You shake your head, “I’ve already started. I don’t have the time to scrap anything and restart. Here,” You turn your attention back to the laptop and plug in a pair headphones then hand them to Yoongi, “Just listen and give me your thoughts.” Reluctantly he takes the headphones from you and puts them on. You press play and watch him closely, gauging his reaction as his breathe hitches not even five minutes into the song.

You quickly pause it and he takes off the headphones confused, “Was that you?”

“Was it bad? I suppose I can use auto-tune. That’s not breaking any rules right?”

“No, no, I mean,” He stops mid-sentence staring at you.

You turn away, facing your laptop, “You’re right, maybe I should just scrap it and start over.”

“No!” You flinched away from Yoongi at his sudden outburst, “No, you shouldn’t do that.” He’s to the laptop this time, studying all of your work, “It’s very good. It caught me off guard.” He puts the headphones back on then presses play again. You stare at him, in a loss for words. It was one thing to have Namjoon tell you your work was good when he was still in school, same as you. Yoongi, on the other hand, is already a music producer and judging by your surroundings he’s a very successful one.

“Is this all you have so far?” Yoongi slides the headphones back off, eyes on the screen of your laptop.

“Yeah…This is more of the ending rather than the beginning. I have parts written out and I’ve tried doing them myself like this but it just doesn’t sound the way I want it.”

Yoongi nods, “This has lots of potential. I’d like to see the beginning half. I think you can make an amazing piece with just this alone. I like how you’ve mixed the two genres. I can understand that it wouldn’t translate when using only your voice. With the way it flows, you’ll need to almost flip back a forth with two voices. Doing that will also add to the overall emotion in the song seeing as it’s a romantic piece. You’ll need someone with a lower octave that balances while with your own sound. Finding someone to do that should be hard as your voice is pretty enough on its own to captivate any listener. The difficult part is blending the just right amount of both that’s not overdoing it.”

You nod trying to ignore the flush you feel in your cheeks as you watch him flip from line to line on your recordings. 

“I’m impressed.” He looks up to you and instantly looks away.

“Thank you.”

.

.

.

tags

@im-emo-motherfuckers @team-wang-puppy @seokchella

[spencerreidreads]

Room for Two part 1/?

a/n: never really sure how I feel about my fics, but I have a feeling that this one will have a lot of arguing and tension. we’ll see where it takes me

Spencer Reid. Your coworker. The man you had somehow fallen completely head over heels in love with. You’d been working with the BAU for a little over a year now and since you walked in the door you were immediately enamored with the man. At first it was just the pure sexual attraction you felt towards the man since you didn’t really know him all too well yet and everything he did turned you on, but the longer you were with the team and the more you got to know him you finally came to terms with your feelings. 

You and him became fast friends due to your eagerness to hang out with him during your free time, and the gesture wasn’t unnoticed by the genius. You even had to remind yourself sometimes to cool it because you were afraid of coming on too strong, but Spencer never said anything to you to make it seem like he minded. You became fast friends, staying up late talking about anything that came to mind, and more often than not the conversation turned to the topic of romance and relationships.

There were countless nights where you fell asleep at his place after a movie night and you would wake up in the morning on his couch with a blanket on top of you, you would go on your lunch breaks together to different cafes and places you wanted to try, he brought you coffee just the way you liked it most mornings of the week, knowing that you typically ran late and didn’t have time to get your own. When you looked up from your desk, sometimes you would find him already looking at you, causing you to blush and look away. 

Everything he had been doing for months on end had made you sure that he had feelings for you too. You were sure of it. No guy had ever treated you so nicely and just wanted to be friends. But you were wrong.

“Hey Spence wanna go grab something to eat tonight? Then maybe a movie at my place?” You asked walking up to your desk that faced his. 

You could tell that he was in a bad mood after this last case, so you were hoping that you could help him unwind a little bit. 

“No Y/N that’s okay, I’m not really in the mood.” He said pretty coldly, while packing up his bag not looking at you.

“It might make you feel better to just relax and forget about the case…”

“Y/N stop, I said no. I’ve been trying to be nice, but I don’t want to lead you on,” he looked up at you, “I’m just not looking for anything right now.”

“Is it me?” you looked down at your feet then back up at him. “No..no why would you say that?” You just shook your head and couldn’t give him an answer, “I’ll see you tomorrow Spencer.” That was just a week ago, and besides the first night where you cried yourself to sleep, you were fine. Or at least you told yourself you were fine. You started waking up a half hour earlier so you could get your own coffee, something that Spencer had definitely noticed. The team had noticed that you weren’t really hanging out with him as often anymore which sparked confusion.

“Hey Y/N is everything alright with you and Spencer?” JJ asked walking up and sitting on your desk. 

“Yeah why wouldn’t it be?” You asked confused.

“It just seemed like things were heating up between you guys, but I haven’t really seen you talk much this past week…” JJ eyed you knowingly.

You sighed and gave in filling her in on yours and Spencer’s conversation from last week. “Sooo, that’s that and I’m over it,” you stated like it was a fact.

“You can’t be over it that fast…” JJ looked at you concerned.

You shrugged, “Watch me be.”

In an attempt to make it seem like you didn’t care about Spencer ending whatever you had going on, you spent the next few weeks resorting to using other men. It had become a joke that you were now the replacement for Derek on their team, and after hearing many stories about his love conquests, you couldn’t argue with them because that was the new side of you that they saw. 

So here you were walking into the BAU in yesterday's makeup, hair in a messy bun, but a fresh outfit due to your go bag being in your car, but you were sure the team would notice anyway. It wasn’t the first time you’d walked in after one of your one night stands. 

“Morning,” you said loudly enough for Spencer, JJ, and Luke to all hear as you set your stuff down by your desk. 

"Long night?” Luke chuckled, making JJ shake her head, but also earning a little smile. 

JJ was your best friend on the team and she knew you were being safe so hearing about your nights out was fun for her.

Spencer was never a huge fan of hearing about anyone’s sexual conquests, he never had been, but when he saw that you were about to speak he leaned into the conversation actually interested, you weren’t sure why though. The only thing that seemed to please Spencer was that you were acting as if nothing had happened between you, as if you had never had an ounce of anything resembling romance between the two of you.

This was all about trying to forget about him, eventually you had to find someone you liked better than him right?

“Well I mean you saw me leave with him, he was hot wasn’t he JJ?” you looked over at her with a smirk.

“Oh yeah he was definitely one of the hottest guys there last night, you got really lucky. Are you going to see him again?” 

“Yeah about that--”

“He wasn’t that good looking,” Spencer butted in with a weird look on his face.

“What?” You focused your attention on him.

“Yeah it happens every time you go out Y/N. You have a few drinks, you find a tall guy with decent features and suddenly he’s the hottest guy in the room THAT night. Until we go out again and then you do it all over again.”

All four of you were sitting there quiet, with everyone's eyes on you. You never felt bad about sleeping around, in fact you told yourself if you acted like you didn’t care long enough about Spencer you eventually wouldn’t care.

All you could do was look at him, he had no right to judge you for how you chose to deal with your feelings. He was the one who said he didn’t want to be with you.

Instead of saying anything snarky back like you normally would, you just stood up and quietly muttered, “I’m going to go get some coffee.”

Once you were out of sight, JJ looked over at Spencer again, “What the hell was that?”

“What? It’s the truth!” he defended himself. 

“Spencer, even if it is the truth you shouldn’t say it, that was beyond messed up what you did. You obviously hurt her feelings,” JJ explained quietly afraid that you’d come back into the bullpen at any moment.

Spencer hadn’t even considered your feelings when he started speaking, he was merely just stating how you seemed to form a pattern in your night time excursions, it just happened to sound harsh. He had to admit though that he didn’t like seeing you leave bars all the time with random men. He didn’t want to lead you on that was true, but he told himself he was just protecting himself. 

He loved spending time with you and there was no doubt in his mind that you were beautiful, but if he decided to give himself to you fully, that meant being vulnerable and he wasn’t ready to do that. So instead he decided to cut things off with you, and just like he predicted you didn’t seem to care. 

When you hadn’t come back to the bullpen ten minutes later, Spencer decided to go looking for you. He walked towards the break room and heard laughter coming from Penelope’s office. You had quickly grabbed your coffee and found comfort in the safety of her office away from the judgement of some. 

Penelope missed Derek dearly and having someone giving her dirty details of her weekend was the highlight of her morning, always making them break out into fits of giggles.

“...So you snuck out before he woke up and he doesn’t have your number? It was that bad?” Garcia asked holding back a laugh.

“You have no idea! It was so hard not to laugh in his face...I already have plans though for tonight with someone else,” You both broke out into more giggles, only stopping when you heard the knock on the already open door. 

Of course he had to hear more about your night just to judge you more.He had originally come to apologize to you, but after hearing the nature of your conversation he just got himself more worked up at the situation. 

“Wow you really get around don’t you?” Spencer leaned against the door frame.

“What did you just say to me?” You stood up angrily, still on the opposite side of the room, not really caring that Penelope was in the room with you.

“It’s pretty unforgivable Y/N,” Spencer remained calm, knowing exactly what to say to push your buttons.

“That’s funny because I don’t remember asking you to forgive me!” You were walking closer to him now.

“Who’s next? There’s so many guys to choose from here, why even waste the energy of going to the bar? I hear a lot of them like to sleep around too.” He smirked, as if he was proud of his snide comment, and started to walk away.

You grabbed his arm and pulled him back not allowing him to have the last word, “You ended things with me Spencer! You don’t get to say all these awful things to me. I was done with all the boys when I met you, but you didn’t want me so you don’t get to call me a whore.”

“Whatever this is, is done.”

“Finally.”

—tags—

@fandomblitch @literallyprentissstwin @marvelouspotterhead @skrrrrrrrrrrt @detectivebourbon @itwaswhileyouweresleeping @canipetyourdog3 @mantlereid @well-itsbeenfun @forcingsmiles247 @answer-the-sirens @smilechannie

[hallelujah--lock-and-load-blog]

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[sunevial]

The Followers: The Adviser

Part four of my DMP fanfic, set in the same universe as @internetremix​‘s games. Enjoy!

“I…I just don’t get it…he was supposed to be here an hour ago,” a woman in a black sweatshirt mumbled, hugging one arm around her stomach and scrolling through her phone with the other. Slightly off balance, fidgeting with the cloth in her free hand, lips pursed, eyes shifting back and forth; well, at that point she was just lying through her teeth. This obviously wasn’t the first time this had happened. Taking another look at the woman, a small image faded in and out of existence over her head: a man kissing a woman who was most certainly not the desperate one on the phone. Oh what a pity.

“Excuse me, miss, pardon my interruption, but I couldn’t help but overhear,” the young man said, tapping the other woman on the shoulder and offering a small piece of paper. He smiled sympathetically. “I’m terribly sorry to tell you this, but I think you might want to call this number. Oh, and just so you know, it’s not her fault, she has no idea what’s going on.”

The woman hesitated, gingerly reaching out for the slip of paper. “I…I’m not sure I understand...” she stammered, her words trailing off once her fingers brushed the fresh ink. She furrowed her eyebrows, darkness spreading out from her irises and swirling within her pupils. Snatching the paper out of his hands, she stormed out of the library with fire just about bursting from her shouts. “That son of a-”

The young man just sighed and shook his head, his long white hair brushing across his face as his footsteps carried him into the endless rows of bookshelves. He blended in with the other academics roaming the aisles, his long white jacket draping over a crisp dress shirt and brown slacks. Well, he was fairly certain she wasn’t going to do anything that rash; she seemed to have a fairly good head on her shoulders and this was just the last proverbial straw. Then again, it would be far more interesting to see just how far off the rails she could go, see if this action would lead her to something more…drastic. But that wasn’t precisely his job. Besides, he had more pressing matters to attend to.

His fingers trailing along the book spines, images faded in and out of his vision. The Lieutenant with the Captain, the Witch at her potions, the Huntress stalking her prey, the slaughter at the clearing, the screams of the newly damned. He smirked, waving the scenes away with a hand. A fight? Without him? Well, he wasn’t too terribly upset about missing the fun; his place had never been on the battlefield proper. He was The Adviser, after all, the one who brought Her information that no one else could ever dream of discovering.

Maybe he had once been mortal; the details had always been somewhat up for debate and all anyone could discern is that at one point he did not exist, and at another point, he did. Whatever the case, he had never been precisely normal. Whereas most living things with any ounce of sense were drawn to structure in one way or another, he was always drawn to whatever option opposed that of the masses. He had a hunger for the contrary, for the strange, for the weird, and he sought it out whenever he could, twisting the universe in strange ways that seemed to ignore the laws of reality.

It was really inevitable that he would come across whispers of the Infinite Game, an endless cycle of death and rebirth lead by a woman no living mortal could really describe. Even rarer still were the whispers of people who had seen the games but did not play themselves, saying they had watched from the sidelines while the doomed played on for the audience’s twisted enjoyment. While he had first dismissed the rumors as nonsense, he slowly felt his curiosity get the better of him and felt every fiber of his being pulling him towards the games. So, the young man did what he did best and scoured the earth for information, pouring through tomes and asking anyone with connections to the worlds beyond. When he had exhausted them all, he was approached by a woman with short blonde hair and beckoned through a door he was certain had not been there before. She spoke rapidly yet in great detail, explaining how she had heard of his wish to see one of the games, and how she could very easily fulfill that wish if he so desired. To this day, he still blames lack of sleep for agreeing as quickly as he did.

He would give credit where credit was due; She did hold up her end of the bargain. He did indeed get to see one of the games. As it turns out, however, the easiest way to see one of the games was to become one of the players.

That is how he found himself standing in a strange mystical landscape with nine other people he could clearly see were irrefutably dead. While annoyed, and more than a little fearful of what would happen to a living player who died among a sea of the damned, he was not about to play entirely by her rules. As it turned out, though the majority of his powers were sapped by the rules of the realm, he still had one left at his disposal. Each time the sun dipped below the far horizon and the moon rose into the starry sky, he reached out into the minds of his fellow players and peeked at what She had assigned them this time around. Each time the moon fell beyond the clouds and the sun shone down upon the bodies, he stilled his tongue and carefully interjected when needed, steering the other players away from the innocents and towards the ones he knew without a doubt were causing this madness. Each time he did, he could feel Her increasing frustrations and Her unending curiosity. As the games had already begun and there were technically no rules in Her favor, She could not stop him.

In the end, they ended up losing just four members of the game between clever guesswork and a heavy heaping of luck. The young man simply breathed a sigh of relief and watched as the other players were swallowed up by the earth as the world collapsed, fully expecting the wrath of the Murder God to drag him down into the abyss alongside his new companions. Instead, he watched as a slender hand reached down out of the unending sky. Faced with the certainty of death or the uncertainty of whatever lied ahead, he knew he had really only one option.

He jumped and grabbed Her hand.

He stopped at the last tome on the shelf, gingerly removing a large red book bound in leather and emblazoned with five pointed stars. Out of place for a modern place such as this, but no one seemed to really notice it was there at all. A smile crossed his face. So, the wards had worked after all. Opening the book to a seemingly random page, he ran his finger along the words as the library bubbled away and was replaced with the bustling sounds of a street corner cafe.

Satisfied, he closed the book and turned the corner. Of all the tables outside the busy cafe, only one had any people at all. Weaving through the maze of chairs, he took a seat at the last open chair at the table. It was even set with silverware and a glass of ice water.

“You know, we were going to get you something else once she was done doing her witchy stuff,” the Lieutenant said with a smirk, pointing his head at the Witch and setting down a cup of coffee.

“I even got the good mint tea,” the Witch said with exaggerated sarcasm and a smirk, slowly sipping from the steaming mug.

“What can I say, I got bored,” the young man said with a smile, setting the book down on the metal table. “Besides, I figured I save you all a few dollars.”

“And us a trip out,” the Huntress replied, taking a large swig of what was presumably fruit juice. “Well, now we’ve got our Lieutenant, our Witch, our Adviser, and of course, our Huntress.”

“Just one more to go,” the Lieutenant sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Well, normally I’d say let’s go and find our remaining lovely lady. But since we’ve got you on hand and you’re actually good at this stuff, I’m going to defer to you on this one, Adviser. So, what’s it looking like?”

The young man simply picked up the glass and plucked an icecube between two of his fingers. Holding it up to the light, a vision sparked in the back of his mind. Starting out as not much more than garbled nonsense, the message quickly became clear as the sunlight pierced through the frozen crystals. A strange smile split his face as water dripped down his fingers and into his palm.

“Oh, we should go and find her alright,” he said, tossing the melting ice into a nearby bush and opening up the book once again. “I think we’re going to be in for a most interesting surprise.”

[agoddamnsupernova]

Emily is delighted to see an envelope waiting for her on her pillow when she gets home and she briefly wonders if Chloe had brought it up or if it had been one of the other girls. She greets Bun with some ear scratches before she settles down on her bed.

“It’s been a few weeks but look, she wrote back,” Emily hums, leaning back against the wall as she opens the letter carefully.

Emily,

Sorry, it’s taken me a little longer to reply than I would have liked. Lincoln and I got a little banged up on our mission. I’m happy to say he’s perfectly fine, if not a little more protective of me right now. I’m a little worse for wear, but I promise I’m in one piece. I’ve even included pictures as proof.

I want to thank you profusely for the phone, I’ve been needing a replacement and you just have really good timing. Your taste in music is fantastic. It’s so rare to hear music here that isn’t classic rock or country (fuckin white men, I swear.) David Guetta kills me man, his stuff is so good! And you included a lot of mixes which just makes my heart sing since I used to play with mixing stuff all the time.

So, I am an awkward fucker, if you couldn’t tell already, but the idea of calling you out of the blue is terrifying as shit so I wrote my number on the back of one of my pictures. If you want to text or actually call, feel free. I’m in the hospital for a few more weeks while I do physical therapy and get cleared for field work again. Lincoln also has to do some therapy but it’s to try and help chill him out. I love him a lot but he needs to understand the difference between a hostile stranger and someone trying to help.

The Cheetos are fucking amazing, I had almost forgotten what they taste like. I had to stop myself from demolishing the entire bag the first night. Pretty sure they would have rotted my insides if I had. Everything else was so thoughtful and just so nice. How did you know strawberry was my favorite scent? I’m beginning to think you’re psychic, Miss. Junk. And I suppose since you did come through, I’m just going to have to come and see you to hold up my end of the bargain. I should get some knee pads, I can’t say I’m on my knees very often these days.

Lincoln loves the dog treats, they usually don’t get treats around here, we focus on positive verbal ‘rewards’ with the dogs, keeps them focused on the job and not just the treat they could get for doing it. But I won’t tell if you don’t. Beside’s he needs a little pampering after getting launched in the air, right?

And now that you’ve read that, you’ll want to know what happened and I can tell you that mistakes were made and an accident happened, but we’re safe. Don’t let my ugly ass in the photo’s worry you, I promise I’ve had worse.

We don’t have much here in the way of shops but I could get you an official army t-shirt if you wanted one, I just need your size. I think they’re good sleep shirts, super soft cotton. Aubrey says it’s against the rules to send actual army issue shirts, but I’ll just buy one, wear it a few times to throw her off and send it your way. (I hope you like the smell of strawberries too, cause the shirt will end up smelling like them)

Also, I just really want to thank you for how you wrote about what normal is to you. It really made me smile. My normal used to be something like that but some shit happened and now sand and bullets and a unit full of sarcastic assholes. Oh, and ya know, Lincoln’s furry ass in my face.

I’m being yelled at that I need to get to therapy, I hope you haven’t worried too much and I really do hope you call...or at least text. Uh, anyway, have a good day.

-Beca

Emily isn’t sure how to feel by the time she finishes reading the letter. Beca was hurt so badly she was in the hospital, but could it be so bad if she was making jokes about it? She shakes her head a bit, pulling the pictures out of the envelope.

The first one is of Lincoln curled up at the end of a hospital bed, his head resting on Beca’s feet. He seems peaceful, a tight (not so) little ball of fluff, content to be by his master’s side while she heals. She flips it over and finds there’s no number so she lays it down on her bedding.

The second one is clearing a picture taken by someone else and Emily briefly wonder’s if it had been this Aubrey girl Beca talks about before she’s focusing on Beca’s face. She’s frowning in it, her middle finger raised to the photographer. She’s got a black eye, the bruise blooming out around the edges and past the stitches that show clear as day against Beca’s fair skin.

“Ouch,” Emily whispers, brushing her fingers against the picture. The wound curves from Beca’s brow bone to her cheekbone. “That will leave an interesting scar.”

She seems rather in one piece in the photo, even though she’s banged up and bruised, she’s still beautiful and all Emily wants to do is talk to her. So, without looking at the other two photos, she just flips them all over until she’s reading off the number on the back of one.

After a moment’s hesitation, she types the number in and hits the video option, biting her lip as FaceTime’s familiar ring plays. She’s ready to hang up when Beca finally answers the phone, her face a little less bruised than in the photos. “Hi,” Emily says softly.

“Hey,” Beca breathes out, noticeably fidgeting in her bed. “I didn’t actually expect you to call. Not that I mind, I just always assume the worst, ya know?” The soldier says a little too fast and it makes Emily smile.

“I get it,” Emily hums, shaking her head a bit. “I just finished reading your letter and looking at your pictures and I just...I don’t know I wanted to make sure you were okay,” she shrugs, letting out a nervous chuckle.

“I’m fine, we’ve had worse,” Beca smiles, patting the bed next to her for a moment before Lincoln is shoving his face into frame. “Huh, buddy?”

Emily grins at them both, leaning back against her pillows. “Just because you’ve had worse doesn’t mean this is okay,” she says softly, scratching Bun’s ears while she speaks. “Hey, Lincoln, how’s my favorite pooch?”

Beca giggles softly and Emily thinks it’s the most beautiful sound in the world, next to Beca’s speaking voice of course. “He’s good, been harassing the nursing staff, but we’re working on it.”

“Aww, he’s just trying to keep you safe,” Emily teases, tucking her phone between her knees before hauling Bun into her lap. “Say hi, you fat thing.”

“I am not fat,” Beca whines, a smile on her face. “Hey Bunbun,” she coos, snorting when Lincoln snuggles closer. “He’s not even here to take attention away from you, stop it.”

It’s Emily’s turn to giggle now, grunting when Bun decides he’s had enough of being held. “Look, Lincoln, he’s gone.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Beca chuckles, shoving the dog’s muzzle away from her face. “I don’t want kisses right now, bud.”

“He’s just trying to make you feel better,” Emily says, running a hand through her hair. “Speaking of, how are you feeling, really?”

Beca shrugs her shoulder, wincing a bit when Lincoln moves off of her completely. “I’m sore, that’s for sure, but my MRI has come back clean so I don’t have any brain damage from the blast. I’m getting these stitches out tomorrow and my cracked ribs are just gonna have to hurt for a while.”

Emily frowns a bit, wishing she could take the other girl’s pain away. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just keep being you,” Beca says softly, a slight smile on her lips.

“I think I can do that,” Em replies, trying to ignore the way her cheeks burn. “I have a random question.”

“I have a random answer,” Beca teases, leaning back against her pillows. Emily can tell it hurts but keeps the apology that’s on the tip of her tongue to herself.

“How old are you?” Emily asks, resting her head against the wall. “I’m going to be twenty-one in a few months.”

“Funny enough, I’m going to be twenty-two in a couple months,” Beca chuckles, brushing her fingers through her hair to tie it up in a loose ponytail. “When’s your birthday?”

“December eleventh,” Emily replies with a yawn, trying to resist the urge to pull her own hair back. She always thought she looked better with it down. “What about you?”

“Pft, that’s like half the year away,” Beca snorts, yawning herself. “Mine’s August ninth,” she says, eyes flickering away from the camera for a moment.

“I’ll have to get you some more Cheetos it seems,” Emily smirks, watching the way Beca’s cheeks go pink. “And maybe a set of knee pads.”

“God, you’re an ass,” Beca breathes out, shaking her head while she avoids looking at Emily. “I can’t believe I actually sent that to you. I should have just rewritten the whole thing.”

“Nah, I liked it,” Emily admits, biting her lip as Beca’s eyes snap back to her. They’re so blue, Emily feels like she’s drowning in them. “Gotta get you used to being on your knees somehow.”

Beca does a fairly good impression of a fish out of water, her mouth opening and closing a few times before she lets out a frustrated little sound. “You’re cockier than I thought you’d be.”

“I could make so many jokes right now...” Emily chuckles, brows raised at the blushing soldier.

“That’s gay, Em,” Beca snorts, trying to save face and it just makes Emily chuckle.

“Pretty sure that’s the point, Bec,” Emily replies, butterflies erupting in her chest when Beca uses her nickname. “It’d be pretty sad if we weren’t a little gay, huh?”

Beca does her fish impression again before she’s huffing softly, her lower lip poking out a little. “I mean...I guess!”

Emily laughs hard at her reaction, blushing when she snorts in the middle of it. Beca seems to find it amusing though, laughing right along with her. “Fuck.”

“You can say that again,” Beca wheezes, an arm around her middle. “I haven’t laughed in a long time and I’m not sure right now is the right time...but I liked it.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Emily says quickly, biting her lip as she watches Beca breathe deeply through her nose.

“Not your fault that I fucked up, Em,” Beca replies, thumping her head back against the mattress.

They’re quiet for a moment before there’s a soft bang in Beca’s room. “Hey, Bree,” Beca says, lifting a hand in a half-hearted wave.

“What are you doing in here?” Bree asks and Emily cocks her head to the side as a blonde woman comes into frame. “Oh, hi! You must be Emily.”

“Yeah,” Emily replies with a nervous chuckle. “And you’re Aubrey, right?”

“I am indeed,” She grins, her smile a little too big, a little too bright. “And I’m sorry to break up this chat, but it’s getting late and Beca has to be up early tomorrow.”

“Fuck’s sake, Bree, you’re not my mom,” Beca whines, flicking the other woman’s arm.

“I am not, but I am your commanding officer,” Aubrey says sternly and Emily smiles at the way Beca pouts.

“It’s okay, Beca, I have a shift to get ready for soon anyway, you should try and get some sleep,” Emily says softly, smiling when Beca caves.

“Fine, fine,” Beca huffs, throwing her hands up. “I’ll go to bed then.”

Emily chuckles softly, trying to hide the fact that she wishes their conversation had been a bit longer. “Goodnight guys.”

“Goodnight.”

Emily is a few hours into her shift when her phone buzzes, a text from Beca showing up on the screen. She glances around to make sure no one is paying attention before she unlocks the screen.

Since I couldn’t say it properly earlier (and I couldn’t text til Aubrey left my damn room) I wanted to actually say goodnight. And I also wanted to thank you for calling, it really made my day. It’s been a rough time and you made it a lot better.

Emily smiles softly, shaking her head a bit as she starts typing back. You don’t have to thank me, I’m glad I could help even a little bit. Call me when you can tomorrow, I have the day off. I hope you manage to get some decent sleep tonight.

She tucks her phone away to help out a customer, forcing her smile and polite tone. As soon as she’s free she checks her messages.

I’ll say thank you as much as I want. But in all seriousness, you’re one of a kind, Em. I hope you have a good shift, I’ll text you in the morning. Goodnight, beautiful.

Emily blushes slightly, biting her lip as she sends back a simple. Goodnight, Beca, sweet dreams.

The rest of her shift is spent thinking of her blue eyed soldier and what might await her the next time they spoke. Perhaps Stacie had been right that day she picked up that pamphlet.

[alilybit]

Steam Scam Documentation

improved readability + table of contents on my website: https://phal.io/hackers/stean (free easter egg included!)

——————————————————————————————

TLDR – What To Do

Prevention

- Never sign in using Steam anywhere unless it’s a well known site that you navigated to yourself, preferably by manually typing the URL into your browser and saving that URL as a bookmark for later, NEVER sign in on links others sent you, even your significant other whom you would trust with your life because their account could be hijacked or they don’t know they’re sharing a malicious link

- Optionally send the link to an internationally approved computer expert you trust (me?)

- When you confirm trades in the app, always double check both trade contents AND the person you’re trading with (level, friend date) because hackers can automatically replace outgoing and incoming trade offers to go to a different account with the same name and pfp as your original trade partner

When It’s Too Late

- Warn your friends not to click on any link that might be sent on your behalf, check active chats for messages you didn’t send, send/tell them this

- Change your password (if you use your Steam password elsewhere, change those as well, you should be using unique passwords and a secure open source password manager like KeePassXC)

- Log out all sessions in the Steam desktop client by clicking on your name in the top right corner next to notifications and navigating to account details -> account security - manage Steam guard -> deauthorize all other devices

- Open https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey in your browser (if you don’t trust my link, which you shouldn’t, simply find out if steamcommunity dot com is the real domain for Steam and then manually type the complete link into your browser), revoke any API key there is if you haven’t created them or don’t know what they are, if you did make them replace them

- Optionally report the link at https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/?hl=en to make all common web browsers display a warning before loading the malicious site

(Source + further info: https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/hijacking/)

When a Friend Sends You a Malicious Link or Acts Suspiciously

- Try to contact them somewhere outside of Steam and send/tell them this to save their account and to prevent the hijack from spreading further through their friends list

- Warn their friends

Pro Tip

The interwebs are full of malicious links/downloads, even/especially search engine results. To make sure you get the proper installer for programmes/the proper link to log into/purchase something, ALWAYS use the Wikipedia Technique™:

- Open wikipedia.org

- Search for the programme/site/shop/whatever

- Look for the website link either on the right in the summary box or by navigating to the external links section at the bottom

——————————————————————————————

I will now describe and show how a friend of mine had their account hijacked. I’ll also keep adding other forms of scam attempts to this post/site as I come across them so you can look at examples and be prepared for when it happens to you.

——————————————————————————————

Incident 1 – Can You Vote for My Team?

It was the night before my first vaccination. I was still doing something on my PC, I don’t remember what, even though it was past bedtime, when I got a message from a Steam friend. I’ll call them Ingeborg. My brother, Ingeborg and I had met a month earlier on a TF2 rocket jump server and we added each other. We played together a couple more times but beside that I didn’t know Ingeborg that well. You can see the chat from that day in the images below.

The first cropped message from Ingeborg at the top is “hey u free rn?” or something. I assumed they just wanted to ask about playing a game of TF2 with me, as it has happened before. When they dropped the question about voting for their team and getting keys in return, I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know of any competitive team they were in and I also didn’t know Ingeborg well or that alleged tournament at all. It also didn’t seem like they could just throw expensive keys around. I took some time to process the information and to think about what I should reply, but Ingeborg didn’t leave me much time to think, following up with “?” and “u here”. So I asked, feeling stupid for not knowing what they’re talking about.

Then, they also set a time limit of less than 30 minutes and kept asking why I’m not immediately replying or “voting”. I have to admit, I nearly fell for it. I want to help people and I can’t think clearly under pressure, especially when it involves other people. And, for the Permanent Record, I of course wouldn’t have taken anything in return for helping a friend. I wanted to tell them that but they didn’t even give me the time to type that. I had already put my name and password in the form, after a lot of thinking, but something prevented me from pressing enter, it just didn’t feel right. I had even briefly searched the web for that tournament and didn’t really find anything. But what finally made me realise that there is something wrong and what made me think clearly again was the border and title bar of that alleged pop-up window. (Edit: Thanks for 1 likes. I compared genuinely signing in through Steam on scrap.tf and it did not open a pop-up window, it simply completely sent me to steamcommunity.com. I guess that means pop-up Steam sign ins are always fake.) I already tried clicking on the HTTPS information earlier which didn’t work for some reason but which still didn’t make me 100 % realise that this is a fake site. Until I noticed that the title bar is a Windows 10 default light theme title bar. I’m on Linux and I use dark themes, the title bar should look completely different. I tried moving the window around and it moved choppily and I could only move it within the Firefox window. I checked the source code and it was true: It was merely an iframe within the site that contained a fake Steam login form from a different URL that’s not steamcommunity.com. This is the site in the iframe:

As you can see, it’s the Steam login form, but the address at the top is not a Steam address. I took a look at its source code and found that it was a lot longer than the original and also contained a lot of dialogue lines about removing the Steam mobile authenticator. This apparently didn’t come up when actually putting in password and username, but you should look out for fake sites telling you to remove your authenticator, they could get complete access to your account that way.

I confronted Ingeborg with this and they stopped replying. But they didn’t immediately remove me from their friends list, like that one time I was actually scammed. I wasn’t sure what to do now. Was Ingeborg really a scammer? Was everything we did together so far just to gain my trust to scam me? Like that one time I was actually scammed? The funny thing is that out conversation before this was about scammers. Some usual random scammer put a usual comment on my profile and Ingeborg warned me. But I believe in the good in everyone and I didn’t want to just assume they were a scammer without making absolutely sure. I thought about what else I knew about Ingeborg. They gifted my brother some items because he barely has any. They invited me to their Steam group. They subscribed to me on YouTube and put my channel on their home tab. Coincidentally, earlier that same day, I also took some time to take a look at their YouTube channel and subscribed. So I thought that me subscribing to them was the sign they were waiting for, signalling that I trusted them enough to fall for the scam. I checked their channel and I was still on their home tab and subscriptions. I checked their Steam group and was still a member. This convinced me that there really is a possibility that this wasn’t actually Ingeborg trying to scam be but that they’ve also been phished and someone else is now trying to also gain access to their friends’s’s accounts.

Ingeborg’s friends list and profile comments were now set to private, so I couldn’t comment or directly message their friends to warn them. But there was the Steam group. One other member was online, one with a Pokémon profile picture and I believe I also remembered noticing them on Ingeborg’s friends list because of the Pokémon theme. So I put a comment in the group and added the Pokémon person, who unfortunately had their comments disabled as well, so I put an explanatory message into my profile to let them know why I’m adding them. I warned them and asked them to tell Ingeborg that someone has access to their account, should they know Ingeborg better than me. On YouTube, Ingeborg had their Discord name listed. I tried to add them but friend requests were disabled. There was also an Instagram name. I technically don’t have Instagram but I made a test account a while ago to test a YouTube scam comment with a link to an alleged Instagram password hacking site. I logged in with that account, changed my profile picture to my real one, added an explanation to the bio and added Ingeborg. But they didn’t react. So I wrote a comment on a YouTube video. I think it took three attempts for the comment to pass the automatic spam filter. It could of course also have been Ingeborg deleting my comments exposing them for being a scammer. But the third castle stayed up. And a while later, they actually responded. I then tried to tell them to add me on Discord, that also took many attempts and extremely careful wording to get through. Not even my Discord tag with numbers spelled out and 1447 speak, as Jeremy 900 800 500 would say, went through, but a carefully camouflaged link to my website did. By then, they also messaged me on Steam, asking for help and asking me to temporarily take their valuable items to secure them. I told them to add me on Discord so I know it’s actually them I’m chatting with. As it turned out later, it was really good that they didn’t trade me their stuff.

Apparently, Ingeborg wasn’t home at the time and only had access to their phone. And they allegedly fell for the exact same scam a day before. The obvious first thing that had to be done was changing the Steam password. But it seems that the password can’t be changed in the app itself. So I had the idea that Ingeborg could log into Steam on their phone’s web browser and change the password there, which worked. We kept chatting and I kept researching. I still wasn’t sure if this was still part of Ingeborg’s ingenious plan to regain my trust to scam me again, but I believed in them. Eventually Ingeborg got home, and I stayed awake gladly until 3:47 in the morning, I… I sang as time went off. Because as long as menly men like me are prepared to give their time, a flower grows. And that flower, that small, fragile, delicate yellow flower, shall burst forth and defeat interwebs criminals. On the “next” day, the vaccine had a side effect of making me a little tired. Strangely enough, that side effect already started before the injection itself.

I also kept thinking about what the actual purpose of this series of hijacking accounts is. Ingeborg’s Steam wallet and inventory seemed to have been untouched but there must be some way for the criminals to profit off of this, if only to pay for the costs of the website and domain. On Vaccinator day, I finally found an article on https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/hijacking/ that explains it. When you give them your password and current authenticator code, they obviously get access to your account, but you still have the authenticator, so what they can do is limited. Apparently, they use the opportunity to create an API key that allows them to keep accessing your account even after you changed your password and they use it to immediately replace incoming and outgoing trade offers with ones that go to a fake version of your original trade partner with the same name and profile picture. You might then not notice the difference when confirming the trade in the app and give them your items, unknowingly and without them having to have access to or remove your mobile authenticator. A brilliant idea. You might as well check if you have any API keys which you usually shouldn’t, the details are explained on the steamrep link and in the “when it’s too late” section at the top of this piece of medium literature.

And the moral of this story: Always be careful, educate yourself on how they trick you and on digital security in the sense of safety, never assume you won’t fall for it, don’t shame people who fell for it and don’t feel ashamed if you fell for it. And always have an internationally approved technical support character on your team.

——————————————————————————————

Incident 2 – Simply Building Trust AKA Social Engineer

We write the distant year of 2016. Two… œ… six… one. Oh, I’m an idiot, I held the pen upside down. Never mind. I don’t recall the incident in as many details, but I still know the most important things. It started on a TF2 tdm_hightower community server, rocket jumping and Market Gardenering around. I don’t remember exactly how one of the other players started conversing with me, I just remember that they, I’ll call them Wincohn, added me, chatted with me and wanted to trade one of my items that was not yet tradable. We chatted over the course of multiple days. Eventually, we also chatted about bad things that happened in our pasts, like the divorce of my parents and how their dad allegedly died when they were young. And we comforted each other. They also asked me if I was religious at some point, I guess because religious people are easier to scam. When I took a look at their inventory, I saw TF2 competitive matchmaking beta passes. I don’t remember exactly how that worked, but I was excited about matchmaking and you could only get in if you have the beta pass item, but having it also gives you some invites to give to other people. So I offered to take a beta invite in exchange for the item they wanted. My item, a festive Rocket Launcher was still not tradable though, so they offered me to temporarily give them something else and they would immediately give me a beta invite. Since the beta invite is not an item, I had to trust them they would actually invite me in return. We were on the aforementioned community server again and they agreed to make our trade public to the server members so they could witness it and report one of us, should we not keep our side of the bargain. So we opened a trade and I gave them one cosmetic drop I didn’t need, one cosmetic I used and two non-strange festive weapons so I don’t lose my stats, which were apparently in total about equal in value to the Rocket Launcher. Right before the trade went through, they left the server, which I only noticed when the trade window closed. And they removed me from their friends list. No beta invite. I told the others on the server that we traded but he left before it went through and he scammed me but nobody cared. The chat where we agreed that I would get a beta invite was also gone. I lost my items and I didn’t even have proof that it was a scam and not just a gift or tax dodge. Steam rightfully doesn’t return scammed items, because the scammers of course immediately sell them and taking them away from the buyer would be unfair for them and giving the victim a duplicate would be easily exploitable, but getting them banned would at least prevent further scams. The worst part, though, is that everything they told me was a lie and only served the purpose of gaining my trust. Fascinating.

After it happened, I was of course sad and angry. But only temporarily. I don’t hold a grudge against them, I’ve long since forgiven them. Quite on the contrary, I’m even thankful because I didn’t lose that much virtual material value (like 3 $) and it was a valuable experience. I only hope that they have changed since then and don’t do this anymore. The comments on their profile are disabled to this day, not the best sign. They also don’t have a Steam or third party ban. Either them scamming was not a common occurrence or nobody was ever able to prove it.

——————————————————————————————

Incident 3 – Wanna Join Our Tournament Team? (Incomplete)

I got another one of those friend requests on Steam from a suspicious looking profile. One of those that have TF2 comp stuff in their profile description. This time, I accepted it to see what they would do, to document more methods used by interwebs criminals.

This account had 1200 hours of TF2 playtime. So it looked like they’re an actual player, or maybe a hijacked account. Their inventory was public as well, but nearly empty, not even regular weapons or anything. They were playing TF2 the entire time and when I checked the server they were on, it always said no server. I guess that means they just have TF2 open the entire time to farm playtime that is publicly and prominently displayed on their profile to appear like a real player.

I tried to go along with their chat but it didn’t go well. I even prepared my long unused Gibus Cap Discord account that I used to use to test roles on our server. But apparently, I asked too many questions. I was too eager to get a nice phishing link into my net. After that last message, they removed me from their friends. Next time, I won’t ask questions.

[avelera]

Avelera’s epic “Why I Love Boromir” post aka

Boromir. So much more than a meme. 

Agarlandoffreshlycuttears asked me to talk about my love of Boromir since I have a few Aragorn hate posts out there and boy does this topic of discussion take me back. 

(For the record, a lot of my earliest opinions of Boromir was formed as an impressionable 14 year old experiencing her first head-over-heels male crush (I mean seriously, look at this guy:

) but people aware of my love of Thorin have probably noticed I tend to have a thing for complicated characters who experience a fall from grace. I find them much more interesting than characters who never need to struggle with morality or see a serious risk to their soul. I don’t hate Aragorn as such, but I have a lot of issues with the way his character was handled, so I hope the negative stuff comes across as more tongue-in-cheek and critique-oriented rather than bashing.)

So let’s begin from the beginning with some very Nuanced and Intellectual™ reasons to love Boromir.

- In Rivendell, Boromir first shows us how awesome he is by riding in on a horse like a goddamn Disney prince *swoon* 

(damn-you-why-can’t-i-find-a-gif-of-this.jpeg)

With that out of the way, let’s list his many virtues:

Boromir is practical. 

During the Council he proceeds to bring up some rather valid points about the risk of the whole “the Hobbits are bringing the One Ring to Mordor” thing. We, as viewers, know they’re the main characters so the hobbits will probably succeed. But from an objective viewer within the Middle Earth universe, this plan to destroy the Ring is batshit crazy from the outset and it only gets worse when we decide hobbits are the ones to do it. We’re literally going to take some of the weakest, smallest, least experienced creatures no one has ever heard of in the world, give them a super weapon, then have them go with an honor guard of 5 effective fighters (including Gandalf who has been known to fuck off at random intervals when escorting hobbits on dangerous quests) to the only place in the world where, if the Ring goes there, Sauron wins. Game over. He gets his lich-y phylactery back and gets super powered like it’s goddamn Mario Star Power. Everyone dies. Boromir’s people in Gondor (and Aragorn’s people, if he ever gets around to it) will die first. Horribly.

But, y’know, the power of love and friendship will somehow win the day so once literally 4 guys decide that this admittedly horrendous plan is the only one they’ve got, Boromir gamely comes along. He can’t even pledge his sword because Aragorn took that line already, thanks Aragorn. 

Why not just take my kingdom I’ve been training to rule my whole life while you’re at it. OH WAIT.

Boromir is kind. 

As the Fellowship cross Middle Earth, climb the mountain, the shots of Beautiful New Zealand are endless, we get the freakin adorable scene of Boromir training Merry and Pippin to fight (thanks for nothing Aragorn, I guess giving them swords was as far as you thought out how helpless these guys are). If this smile doesn’t melt your heart I’m not sure we can be friends anymore. 

But seriously, everything about the friendship of Boromir with Merry and Pippin gives me happy smiley tears.

Boromir is human. 

They climb some more mountains, Boromir has one of the most freaking amazing scenes in the whole movie where he picks up the Ring and is clearly hypnotized by it, illustrating its danger and the danger he poses to the Quest as a result. 

I’m going to leap ahead here and say why I love this scene, and that’s because Boromir actually faces the threat of the Ring, unlike Aragorn. We do have a moment between Aragorn and the Ring later when Frodo (recently traumatized by Boromir’s freak out) asks Aragorn if he can protect Frodo from himself. The fear of being like his 2,000-years-dead ancestor flashing in his eyes, Aragorn sends Frodo along (to almost certain death). 

But the thing is, the Ring was never really a threat to Aragorn, we never really got a scene of him struggling with it at all. It’s what makes his “fear of being like Isildur” so baffling and annoying. At no point does Aragorn actually struggle with that risk. Unlike Thorin (and I’m gonna have to Thorin-stan here for a moment because my love of Thorin is intimately tied into my love of Boromir) who fears the hereditary madness of his family for good reason because he does succumb to it and then break free, Aragorn’s fear comes across as whiney (and even carrying borderline internalized hatred of Men given to him by movie Elrond) given its lack of justification within the films. Told to us as Aragorn’s main emotional motivation and fear, besides that of annihilation if the Ring isn’t destroyed, it ends up being extremely weak that he supposedly fears this ancestral corruption which never has any tangible impact or risk to him. Frankly, the only time it really comes up that Aragorn is related to Isildur are both times pretty freakin’ awesome for him because they involve raising a ghost army to Deus Ex Pulverize Sauron’s forces and becoming king of a frickin’ wedding cake of a multi-tiered beautiful city that Boromir had to talk him into liking in the first place.

*Ahem*

But anyway, that scene on the mountain is super creepy and gorgeous and I love it. 

Boromir is hilarious.

Boromir is empathetic. 

Boromir is the one who spots the trauma that the Fellowship has just gone through by losing Gandalf (and Gimili is no doubt still reeling from the revelation of his family members’ deaths in Moria) and calls for a quick rest now that they’re out of the mines. If I hadn’t already been in love him from the training scene with Merry and Pippin, I probably would have fallen even harder at that scene. He’s empathetic in a way a good leader should be. While Aragorn’s point is valid about the arrival of the orcs and their lack of time, he comes across as kind of a dick about it and I can’t help but be uncharitable in my view of him as a result. It feels like the threat of the orc’s pursuit is set up just to make Aragorn right and Boromir wrong, since without that threat Aragorn would very clearly be the bad guy in that scene. Would 5 minutes have really made that much of a difference?

Boromir loves his people. 

Probably THE moment that won me over about Boromir was the moment in Lothlorien when he gives his worshipful account of Gondor to Aragorn.  In the extended edition the scene continues to one where he chastises Aragorn for not showing more interest in Gondor. 

(Also, look at him in that scene, GAWD)

I think this pinged me at a young age for several reasons. 

- First, a love of the wider “off screen” world. LotR is a sprawling book, but a film can’t always show what’s going on outside the narrator’s view. Through Boromir in this scene and several others, we get a sense of what our characters are fighting for. It would have been easy for the stakes of LotR to remain the lives of the Fellowship members, certainly they are the ones in the most immediate peril. But Boromir’s speech reminds us of the wider world and the threat it faces, the nations that will fall and the lives that will be ruined if Sauron wins. It re-frames his reasons for wanting to use the Ring - he feared the argument against using it was just a matter of moral purity, at the risk of Gondor falling and with it that everyone he knows and loves will die. 

Can Boromir truly be blamed for not understanding the threat of the Ring? I think even the most ardent fans are sometimes puzzled over exactly what the Ring does, and what it would do should it fall into the wrong hands. Throughout a story based around the threat of the Ring, the Ring itself and its powers remain strangely abstract. So I don’t think Boromir’s view of the debate as an unconvincing one between the very tangible threat of lives lost vs. the more abstract risk of moral corruption that even Elrond and Gandalf never clearly express is understandable. We as the audience have greater perspective on the threat of the Ring, and by the end Boromir understands that threat too, how at the very least the Ring will turn friend against friend in the pursuit of its power, and he fully repents. 

- Second, Boromir’s love for his people highlighted Aragorn’s failing, which lead me to the heart of much of my dislike of Aragorn’s character. As someone who read the books before seeing the movie, I was rather annoyed by the whole “reluctant king” trope that was shoved onto Aragorn for a modern audience. It is a rather cliche moral imposed by PJ that we see throughout his Tolkien works, that those who want to be king will be necessity be bad kings, and that tropes annoys the fuck out of me throughout fantasy in general. 

(Certainly there is the risk of the power-mad, but I think that puts us at risk of one of our current issues, the paradox that those who want power in order to good are therefore under suspicion and those with greater experience at governing are seen as a threat so we should only allow the incompetent BUT ANYWAY)

Aragorn in the books wanted to be king. He worked hard to be worthy of the people of Gondor by serving in various militaries such as Rohan’s throughout his younger days. He wanted to be king in part to be worthy of Arwen, but also because he loved the people of Gondor. His avoidance of the throne was about building up the necessary skills to be worthy of it. By throwing out that aspect of his character, and replacing it with a nebulous fear of being like Isildur, an ancestor that died two thousand years ago (which is like someone fearing they’ll be just like their ancestor, Julius Caesar, or Elizabeth II fearing she’ll be just like Henry VIII if we want to take Numenorean life spans into account by which I mean completely batshit crazy example of a fear BUT ANYWAY). This alteration to Aragorn wreaked quite a number of consequences. 

For example, it kinda makes his attitude towards Arwen seem kinda shitty because instead of working hard to be worthy of her he’s kinda just a smelly ranger who is actively avoiding his responsibilities in order to traipse around the wild and serve in random militaries like Rohan for funsies and while I respect Arwen’s choice to love whoever she wishes, it kinda makes Aragorn the deadbeat in that relationship.

But the major consequence of reluctant king Aragorn is that, yeah, I kinda gotta agree with Boromir - his lack of interest in the people of Gondor is really troubling. It wouldn’t be hard to see Aragorn as someone who prefers the elves (who raised him) and generally from his actions and his words sees Men as a lesser people. That’s not someone I would want as my king, quite frankly, if I were a Gondorian. 

In addition, we have the fact that Boromir’s family the Stewards have been ruling Gondor for centuries. It would literally be like the aforementioned descendant of Julius Caesar showing up in Rome today and saying they have an ancestral right to rule there, ie it’s batshit crazy but we’re living in a fantasy world SO ANYWAY. Boromir (and Faramir) have more experience and arguably a better claim that Aragorn in the films. Denethor was a good ruler until he got his hands on a Palantir, but even if Denethor is now a poor ruler, I still have a lot of sympathy for him because this was done to him by evil forces beyond his control (in parallel to what happened to Gollum and to Bilbo and Frodo through the One Ring. Literally. The Palantir and the One Ring are both connected to Sauron who is actively corrupting them. So anyway, all the Denethor hate makes me sad and I’m probably the only person in the whole fandom who actually has a soft spot for him.)

So to recap, that conversation in Lothlorien to me showed that Boromir 1) cares about a wider world than the Fellowship, and that the Fellowship isn’t the only thing going on. 2) That he’s a pretty damn good leader who cares about his people, in contrast with Aragorn. Even if we accept that “Learning to love the people of Gondor” was part of Aragorn’s character arc, and Boromir’s fridging death demonstrably pushed him in the direction of “learning to love the people that he’s “destined” to rule” can I just point out Holy SHIT Aragorn why do you need your friend DYING to figure out why maybe you should care about the people you’re supposed to rule????

But back to Lothlorien: Boromir feels the increasing presence of the Ring. He is shamed by Galadriel’s scrutiny, she scares the shit out of everyone, particularly him but the reason she so quickly identifies the threat Boromir poses is because she feels that threat as well. Both Galadriel and Boromir share the quality of protectors of their people who have a Ring freakout in front of Frodo (though Boromir gets a lot more flak for it than Galadriel). 

I don’t think that point can be overstated. Boromir’s vulnerability to the Ring comes from his love of his people, not from personal ambition or love of power, except in how that power can protect others. It’s one of the evils of the Ring that it takes that which is good in people and twists it to evil purposes. (One could even argue that the Ring did this to Frodo as well, using his love and protectiveness of the Shire to make inroads into his mind and heart, when as a result of agreeing to carry it to Rivendell to get it out of the Shire he ended up being that much more exposed to it.)

Boromir is remorseful.

To be honest, the scene of Boromir succumbing to the Ring’s call is one of the greatest emotional beats in the films. I don’t feel any need to defend Boromir’s actions, they’re obviously terrible there, but godDAMN do they drive home the threat of the Ring. And here’s the thing, that threat wouldn’t be nearly so scary if it didn’t happen to such a demonstrably good person who clearly cared so much about the hobbits that he was willing to die for them. Even without his guilt over his attack on Frodo, you know he still would have gladly died saving Merry and Pippin’s lives.

Let’s not even go into how fucking heartbreaking everything about his death is because I might burst into tears right here. Suffice to say, Boromir’s death was heroic. He didn’t need to die to redeem himself, he deserved to live, that argument in general is stupid. His death is tragic because of what a great person he was, and the Ring is terrible because of what it did to such a great person.

Boromir was a hero.

We do get that one shining, gorgeous moment in The Two Towers EE with the retrospective on Boromir. Standing by his brother, surrounded by his men, we get a glimpse of the leader he was before he faced the corruption and deprivation of the quest. For all that Boromir is often used as an example of the corruptibility of Men in the narrative, it is clear that he was always a hero, and that the reason the threat is so fearsome is because of the heights he fell from in his moment of doubt, and how brief that fall was speaks to the strength of his will. 

Boromir for me into the category of fascinating Tolkien characters who truly struggle with evil. Frodo, Bilbo, Thorin, Galadriel, Theoden, Denethor, and Boromir all go head to head with the corrupting powers of Sauron (and Sauron-like forces) and risk losing their soul to them. Some fail. Some do terrible things while they’re fighting off that influence. But for them the risk is real, what will happen if they don’t throw the influence off is clear, and the avenue into their hearts is often their love of their people and those dear to them in life. That makes them complex, interesting characters. It’s the reason I find Aragorn’s flirtation with corruption to be unconvincing, because he never seems truly at risk and there was never a real moment where it seemed he might give in or what the consequences would be if he did. By contrast Boromir did show us the risks. He was complex, he showed us the world beyond the narrow scope of the nine members of the Fellowship, he showed us what was at stake both on a global scale and on a personal one. As a result, he was one of the most fascinating characters in the film trilogy and I love him to this day. 

Some Boromir fic recs, if you made it this far 

(Both are non-shippy/Gen because the only person I ever wanted to ship Boromir with was me, and goddamn the LotR fandom had some great gen fics)

Boromir’s Return, by Osheen Nevoy - in which Boromir returns to life and must struggle with his own redemption, and the strange creature that resurrected him (not a Mary Sue), one of the most complex and well-written fanfics I’ve ever read.

Veiling of the Sun, by @thegraytigress​ - Boromir succumbs to the Ring for more than a few moments, joining forces with the orcs sent to collect Frodo, and everything that can go wrong does go wrong. He eventually wakes from the haze to see with horror what he has done, and must set out on the road of his own redemption while the Fellowship tries to put back together the broken pieces of a quest gone horribly wrong. Heart-wrenching, one of the greatest LotR angst fics I ever read. 

And the greatest gif ever made:

[neferukaen]

Prime numbers!

Dude, i had to go look up what prime numbers were again because I could not, for the life of me, remember...and that’s alot to answer...but here goes.

2. Who was your last kiss with? Was it pleasant?

Lol was with my ex awhile ago and yeah it was nice...been awhile so can’t quite remember exactly perfectly XD

3. What color shoes did you last wear?

Pretty much always either wearing no shoes, black slippers, or the blue/grey/white skechers i have5. What is your favorite scent?

linen and water/beach/cotton type scents7. Can you do a handstand or cartwheel?I do not think so.11. Are you happy?For the most part yes, especially right now. Accomplished something long overdue today. There are a few things missing to improve that but yeah I feel happy.13. Dogs or Cats?Dogs! I do not mind cats, even like some, but always prefer dogs.17. Are you in a relationship or single?

LOLOLOLOL single....19. If you could replace your partner/best friend with a celebrity of your choice, would you? Who with?

Nope! My best friend, even though she is quite busy, is such an awesome person and we sync so well.23. Were you ever in a school play?Nope, not a theater kid really, not my thing. 29. What is the best thing that has happened to you this week?

I got my learners license today after not being able to because of one reason or another, somewhat me but not mainly.31. How long was your longest relationship?Just over 3 years, was a long while ago now37. Name someone pretty.

All of my followers, my mom and sister, my best friend, Keira Knightley, most asian chicks XD

41. Do you trust your partner/best friend?

Oh yes! Even though we rarely speak during her college semester I know she thinks of me and misses me some and that I’ll hear from her again when she is available.43. Would you rather live in the countryside or the city?

I’m kind of a somewhere in the middle person with a lot of things. I would prefer to live sorta in the countryside, but not super far from a main hub/city area. I grew up in a pretty big city, so I do like the wandering about and such that comes with one. Countrysides are quiet and nice for living, but when you want/need to get something in particular its nice to have a city to find things in nearby.47. What kind of music do you listen to?

Mostly metal and rock music. Sometimes I listen to electronic/techno goth type stuff, disney songs, some pop/rock or soft rock, some classic and oldies, and a little bit of alot of random other stuff.53. Ever had a poem or song written about you or to you?

I’ve had poetry written about me, but that was back in like early college, 10 years ago now....no songs ever though.59. What top 5 things always brings a smile to your face?

- Small animals, especially puppies and kittens

- Hanging out with friends, especially being messaged first, people showing interest/effort in general

- Going exploring places, like museums, libraries, bookstores, awesome parks, etc.

- Concerts!

- Cuddles and hugs, though its more of an internal warm/happy/smiley feeling61. 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?a - I would not advertise it to the world probably, but I would start out telling those closest to me. I might even ask what they think I should do. But I am unsure who exactly would have or take the time to see me beforehand or whatever. I would like to enjoy that last bit of time as well and not experience pity or sadness from people who were never really involved or showed any concern beforehand.

b. Purely just have fun and do as many things I’ve always wanted to do as I can really. Donate belongings to the less fortunate, make sure any of my affairs are in order, etc.c. I think almost everyone out there would be afraid and so would I. It is a scary prospect in general. But also don’t want to waste the whole time being afraid. If I’m gonna go out I want to know I enjoy it as fully as I could.67. Do you talk to yourself?Well sometimes I need expert advice XD For real though, I sometimes talk through a situation or something I can’t figure out. The act of saying it out loud helps kickstart my brain with ideas and solutions alot of the time.71. Do you want to get married?Um, if I met someone who I synced with amazingly well then I might want to, but I am not really in a hurry for that piece of paper/union. I am fully capable of loving and being loved and loyal and all that without the formality, but the formality might be nice if the right person came along.73. Like or dislike your family?I like my mom and sister and a few other family members, but I can take or leave the rest. Much of my family has not been there for me or my mom or sister throughout all the crazy times and almost being homeless on several occasions, so I am not exactly enthused with them typically.79. You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, is that a problem?He can be a bit of a dick and very judgmental about aesthetics and certain other things that he thinks are or should be a certain way and there is not compromise or variation really acceptable to him. So not a huge problem but not a pleasant situation either.83. Do you like when people play with your hair? LOVE, love, love it. It has not happened almost at all. I, if possible, love playing with someone else’s hair even more I think. Something very soothing and comforting about the experience.89. If money wasn’t an issue, what top 10 places would you travel to? (You get to stay at each place for a week) 

LOL

Cairo, Luxor, Karnak, Egypt in general

Japan

England/Scotland/Wales/etc

China, mostly Beijing for the forbidden city, etc

Petra possibly

New York

California

Texas

Orlando

Tampa97. How much free time do you have?

Almost all my time is free time currently. I am looking for work and so besides getting a job, applying for jobs, chores/cleaning, I spend the rest of my time doing personal projects.

Thank you for the ask @paramud

[reshaaaxsimmies]

Chapter 2.1~

After roaming downtown to look for places I could work and make decent money, I just decided to grab a coffee, head home, and shop online. I saw these cute ass jeans on sale for $25 the other day and they were calling my name. I turned on my shitty TV that would soon be replaced and browsed the web for a bit. Of course, I wasn’t expecting any of the places I’d applied to this morning to respond, and to be honest I was getting bored being here on my own. I needed a quick way to make some good cash, and not through Sugar Daddy.

Of course, he was the perfect Daddy, gave me whatever I wanted, didn’t want me to do shit but please him when his *ahem* girl *ahem* didn’t. (Yes, I know I’m a homewrecker and I don’t give two shits about how y’all feel). And up til now, that life was a-okay with me, but I was getting bored. So we’ve been texting and calling for the past week, and he said I had potential to be a dancer with this body. But guess what? Right after he texted me that, a commercial on TV pops up about female exotic dancers, some expo being held in town this weekend.

My ass got right online and signed up for amateur hour. The way I did shows for Reuben, I bet there was a chance for me to get some quick cash. Plus, this expo was a “Pole-dancing championship” with a money reward. That’s not the part I’m going for though, I’m just going for the pre-competition amateur try-outs, because whoever won first through third place got free classes at one of the local dance studios. I probably shouldn’t tell Daddy, he’ll be pissed, I thought, finally clicking the “Submit application” button. Right then my phone beeped twice, a text from Reuben fine ass.

So I’m rushing around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, because I wanna go downstairs lookin fly as hell, but he texted me again with an impatient emoji and the red angry one. I’m just standing in the middle of my floor, looking down at what I had on, and couldn’t think of anything else to wear in such short notice. I wanted to be a beautiful piece of arm candy for him, but I guess I was just missing the mark. Since I don’t get as much ‘allowance’ from Reuben, I haven’t been investing in myself too much, and besides when I ran away, I had to leave most of my belongings because the choice to leave was a quick-second decision.

I’m still unsure, but eventually just said “Fuck it,” and hauled ass out the door and to the elevators. I love surprise trips like this, they make me feel so special and cared for and I love that feeling! Right when the doors closed and I started moving downward, my phone beebed again. This message was from a random number. “Who in the hell is this?” I swiped it unlocked and went to my messages. I stood there shocked as hell, because it was the pole dancing people! “Damn, that’s fast..” I muttered, looking up in time to catch Sugar Daddy eye. “What was?” he simled, curious. “Oh nothin’, just these clothes and stuff I ordered.” I lied so smoothly I almost believed myself. I just kept thinking about that message.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HOW TO THE SEGWAY

Tip: avoid any field whose practitioners say this. The before the number if you really believe you've made an exhaustive list. If free copies of your content are available online, then you're competing with publishing's form of distribution, and that's pretty easy with digital content. Boston ones. The answer, I realized, is that my m. Why didn't better content cost more? He didn't. You could read the list in any order. At the time any random autobiographical novel by a recent college grad could count on more respectful treatment from the literary establishment. But Wodehouse didn't give a damn what anyone thought of him.1 Facebook, his default expectation was that he'd end up working at Microsoft.

You can see how much things are changing from the examples I've mentioned. This is not a messaging protocol, although there is a trick you could use the two ideas interchangeably.2 Startups are more like science, where you go looking for problems without knowing what you're looking for. That makes him seem like some kind of progression.3 Imagine what it would do to you if at mile 20 of a marathon, someone ran up beside you and said You must feel really tired. Closely related to poverty is lack of social mobility. So how do you deliver drama via the Internet?4 Because they come at the end of a long and unbelievably distracting process. How are we to develop new technology if we can't study current technology to figure out where to live. He wrote exactly what he wanted. Blogger got down to one person, and they were absolutely honest.

You can be a professor, or make a lot of squawking coming from my hen house one night, I'd want to go out and get a job doing B, and then they come back and say their boss has vetoed the deal and won't do it for more than half the agreed upon price. That kind of title is the same sort of reflexive challenge as a whodunit.5 I want them to be doctors than who want to get rich now you don't have to do it mainly to help the poor, then you should probably take the organic route, because it will have a wave of secondary effects. And not just in its beautiful lines: it was at the edge of what could be manufactured. Do we want to fix the underlying causes. People in Florence weren't genetically different, so you have to assume there was someone born in Milan with as much natural ability as Leonardo couldn't beat the force of environment, do you suppose you can?6 They have an answer, certainly, but odds are it's wrong. I'm British by birth.7 If the founders know what they're doing, it's better to have half their attention focused on the product than the full attention of investors who don't. For example, in 2004 Bill Clinton found he was feeling short of breath.

If anywhere should be quiet, that should. In the more common case, where founders and investors are down on advertising at the moment, San Francisco's message seems to be the same as the cause of poverty is the same as Berkeley's: you should be making this for consumers instead of businesses?8 If that's true, most startups that could succeed fail because the founders don't devote their whole efforts to them. What I like about this idea is all the different ways in which we'll seem backward to future generations that we wait till patients have physical symptoms to be diagnosed with cancer.9 Conversations with corp dev work. If you have a day job you don't take seriously because you plan to be a startup.10 I realize now that was because I'd always implicitly understood it to mean ambition in the areas I cared about.11 I was very excited at first. They didn't sell either; that's why they're in a position to pick and choose among projects. So far the complete list of messages I've picked up from cities is: wealth, style, hipness, physical attractiveness wouldn't have been there 100 years ago, but now we advise founders to vest so there will be an orderly way for people to quit. When I thought about it all the time.

He knew a lot of users, there won't be a long term.12 It might be a good idea to spend some of the most powerful forces in history.13 It's not necessarily evidence readers are lazy; it could also mean they don't have much confidence in the writer. Startups are almost entirely a product of this period. And if it's not impossible but simply very hard, it might be helpful to be in a very limited way in a list of n things is easier for writers as well as consuming your attention they undermine your morale. I had a design philosophy. Ambitious people already move halfway around the world to further their careers, and startups can operate from anywhere nowadays. Often your information will be wrong: I tried living in Florence when I was about 9 or 10, my father told me I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1970s were a pretty dull place. When someone from corp dev wants to meet, or send us an email proposing we grab coffee. It is no accident that Silicon Valley is in America, and not just intellectually, but the way he composed them into molecules was near faultless. The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

How did she get into this fix?14 The way medicine has always worked is that patients come to doctors with problems, and the content was what they were selling, and the bureaucratic obstacles all medical startups face, and the essay will still survive. I wouldn't bet on it. What if there was a kid is that much of the best stuff isn't made for audiences, but for oneself.15 But only graduation rates, not how to convert that wealth into money. It's legally a company, and that grows exponentially. But hunter gatherers didn't treat land, for example.16 But it will happen, and it will be at the end of my working day, and I asked him if the people now running the company would be able to.17

That was not a natural move for Microsoft.18 And this is not an irrational fear: it really is hard to bear.19 The stick-to-your-vision approach works for something like winning an Olympic gold medal, where the problem is to start from the symptom and hope to fix the underlying causes. It wasn't so bad. You can of course build something for users other than yourself.20 If you run out of money you'll become increasingly pliable. An essay can go anywhere the writer wants. I once asked a physicist friend if Einstein was really as smart as his fame implies, and she said that yes, he was. Why is it conventional to pretend to like what you do? The books I bring on trips are often quite virtuous, the sort of poking around that leads to new ideas.21

Why the pattern? For me the list is an exhaustive one. You'll probably have to figure out where to live by trial and error.22 And managers prefer popular languages, like Jane Austen's novels, continue to survive at all. Tip: avoid any field whose practitioners say this. Or the would-be successors both directly, as Roger Bannister did, by showing how much better you can do something you'd never want to do something. If we had a national holiday, it would be hard to tell exactly what message a city sends, you sometimes get surprising answers.23

Notes

But one of the growth rate to impress are not all equal, and would not be able to. An earlier version of Word 13.

The person who wins. But while it makes sense to exclude outliers from some central tap. So it's not the original source of difficulty here is Skype. When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the actual server in order to win.

But there's a continuum here. I learned from this experiment: suppose prep schools do, and this is a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and the restrictions on what interests you most. Fortunately policies are software; Apple probably wouldn't be able to fool investors with such abandon.

Then you'll either get the money invested in a signal. But not all are. So for example, America's abnormally high incarceration rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you term sheets. More often you have to be room for another.

That makes some rich people move, and as an idea where there is no external source they can be done at a time machine. Not only do they decide you're a loser they're done, lots of potential winners, which have remained more or less, is to try, we'd ask, what would our competitors hate most?

99, and that modern corporate executives would work. Galbraith p.

We think of the 3 month old Microsoft presented at a 30% lower valuation.

CEOs in the comment sorting algorithm. If I were doing Viaweb again, that alone could in principle is that their local network infrastructure would be reluctant to start a startup, and thereby subconsciously seeing wealth as something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing badly and is doomed anyway.

And while they tried to combine the hardware with an associate is not such a baleful stare as they seem to be able to claim that their local network infrastructure would be far less demand for unskilled workers, and a few critical technical secrets. Could it not grow just as he or she would be to advertise, and that's much harder to fix. I could pick them, just that it would be more alarmed if you sort investors by benevolence you've also sorted them by returns, and Foley Hoag.

The continuing popularity of religion is the most common recipe but not the distribution of good startups, because you have the same time. I had zero false positives caused by blacklists, I can hear them in their early twenties. They have no idea what they give with one of the incompetence of newspapers is that parties shouldn't be too conspicuous.

The proportions of OSes are: Windows 66.

Though you never have to preserve optionality.

For example, the initial plan and what not to feel uncomfortable.

According to a partner from someone they respect. I make the hiring point more strongly.

Presumably it's lower now because of some brilliant initial idea. Peter, Why Are We Getting a Divorce?

It's much easier to get the money.

Ditto for case: I once explained this to realize that in fact they don't yet get what they're wasting their time on is a bridgehead.

If I were doing Viaweb again, I'd open our own startup Viaweb, which parents would still want their kids to them. At the time 1992 the entire cross-country Internet bandwidth wasn't enough for one another indirectly through the founders: agree with them in advance that you wouldn't mind missing, false positives caused by filters will have to watch out for a sufficiently identifiable style, you need but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. We think of ourselves as investors, but suburbs are so intellectually dishonest in that sense, if the statistics they consider are useful, how do you use that instead. Others will say I'm clueless or being misleading by focusing so much attention.

Cascading menus would also be good.

But it turns out to be considered an angel-round board, there are already names for this. We try to write great software in a more powerful version written in Lisp, though. Heirs will be out of loyalty to the customer: you post a sign saying this is what approaches like Brightmail's will degenerate into once spammers are pushed into using mad-lib techniques to generate all the East Coast.

Ii.

They're so selective that they probably don't notice even when I first met him, but I wouldn't want the valuation of your mind what's the right startup. So in effect what the rule of thumb, the police in the world. This is isomorphic to the same reason parents don't tell the whole. This is not whether it's good enough at obscuring tokens for this point for me, I advised avoiding Javascript.

It would be a lot of the advantages of not having the universities in your classes, you need to fix once it's big, plus they are bleeding cash really fast.

[stone-man-warrior]

July 30, 2018: 10:10 pm:

July 30, 2018: 4:00 PM:<br><br>Early this morning, I made a post here. It&#39... StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-07-30T19:00:21-0400 - Updated: 2018-07-31T01:10:15-0400

July 30, 2018: 4:00 PM: Early this morning, I made a post here. It's gone. It was erased. It vanished. It was redacted. My post was eliminated, exterminated, washed from Google + and disappeared. It was removed,  vaporized, moderated, examined, refused, repulsed, rendered unworthy, buried, killed, it's gone and there are no traces of the post I made here at 4:51 AM on July 30, 2018... today. I will try and regurgitate what my thoughts were, because my thoughts at the early hours that come from careful thought and meditation are very important to me, and yours should be important to you as well. As follows: I am wondering if the Diary of Ann Frank could possibly be a fictitious work. I am wondering if the Diary of Ann Frank is fictitious and if so, what implications would such a notion expose? Even though my post was deleted by Google, I was not deleted. So, my thoughts are the same, my words to explain now are different. It's not 4:51 am, so it's different, it's the same, it's different, it's the same. I was taught in school as a young boy, that the Diary of Ann Frank was written, authored, created, by a deaf and blind girl. I remember that the idea was troubling, it did not make sense, it seemed so miraculous that a young girl in such horrific conditions could possibly write such a well written account of circumstances, and, that those circumstances supported by the Diary could be so important to the world to such an extent that the lives of millions of people were impacted, changed, redirected, and possibly, manipulated. I remember that when I learned about all of the things associated with the Diary of Ann Frank, the importance of it, the outcome of it, the usefulness of it, and the very existence of it empowered me. Learning of all of the implications that followed after the Diary of Ann Frank was discovered made me, a young boy of age eight in the fourth grade, made me understand that every single person on Earth has something that they can contribute towards the betterment of all people. It was confusing, amusing, alarming, and empowering knowing that a young girl, who was blind, and deaf, could have such an impact on the World. But was it real? Fifty years later, I still am thinking about the Diary of Ann Frank. My fourth grade teacher said it was real. She said the it was written by a deaf and blind girl. and so did my fifth and sixth grade teachers. Later on in school, no one ever talked about the Diary of Ann Frank. After somewhere around 1972, there was no more discussion about the deaf and blind girl who wrote The Diary of Ann Frank in school. So, my thoughts at 4:51 am, this morning are still available to put right here in words. The Diary of Ann Frank was, and is so important that it changed the lives of millions of people forever, Important decisions made by world leaders were made resultant of this one single Diary, that is what I was taught at school. What if it turned out to be a false document? What implications would that produce? And, most importantly, if the Diary of Ann Frank was proven to be false, or fictitious, could such a notion provide a solution, an end, to the extermination of people in Oregon USA, and in fact, the extermination of the people of the entire United States of America, and even perhaps, the people of the Earth as a whole? (My computer is being high-jacked in the midst of writing this entry. Cursor is froze, erratic performance, my internet connection had been terminated prior to starting this entry and had just come back online at 4:00 pm, I saw my post was gone, and began to rewrite my thoughts. CenturyLink internet service provider and Google don't want me to write this. Norton Internet Security by Symantec is used by CenturyLink ISP and is offered for free to their customers. They use the free Norton to spy on, and manipulate the connections of the customers. I did not like the free version when it was given to me after I noticed the spying many years ago, so I purchased my own Norton 360. They continue to spy on my computer from CenturyLink, and the computers of all of the Americans who use CenturyLink ISP. Besides all of that, the Monroe family Screen Actor Guild terrorist cell members are playing terrorist games with me at 434, and it's fucking dangerous around here. No help has come. I will finish my thoughts later. It's 5:16 PM and the Baby is on fire.) It's 5:38 PM. I will try to wrap this up so I can move on to the next thing. This post entry has proven challenging for me to enter, and aggravating , or perhaps threatening to those who don't want us to understand the truth. The high-jacking of my computer that I mentioned above was also accompanied by a short, but alarming presence of large helicopters hovering over my home. I did not go outside to greet them. If the Diary of Ann Frank were proven to be a work of fiction, then, who were the people who were exterminated in Germany by Adolf Hitler in the years preceding 1945 or so? I have done zero research on this with the exception of trying to find some indication that Ann Frank was indeed blind or deaf, I could find no information to support either. This post is one hundred percent memory based and that is the goal, to write about what I remember, and how I feel, or what I think, about those memories associated with learning about the circumstances surrounding the Diary of Ann Frank, and most importantly, to find out if the solution to the extermination of the people of Oregon, and beyond, that is currently underway, can be found in the notion of the falsification of the Diary, for reasons unknown, that could have been presented by people with ulterior motives. If the Diary is false, then who were the people who went to Israel, formerly known as Palestine? If the Diary is false, then from where did the people who went to Israel come? If the Diary is false, or true, then why were the people of Palestine singled out to leave their homes, and why was there country eliminated from the map? If the diary is false and the people who were exterminated were found to be people other than those of Jewish faith, then who were they, and why were they exterminated? If the Diary is false, then what role did the Vatican play in the events that surround the Diary and the consequences that followed? If the Diary is false, then why did the United States of America get involved in a war that included so much manpower, equipment, and desire, to travel so far away, with so much stuff, and so many American Men to warrant such involvement? If the Diary of Ann Frank were proven to be a work of fiction, and then presented to the world leaders for their consumption, then by whom was it presented and to what desired outcome? If the Diary of Ann Frank were proven to be a work of fiction, and those circumstances surrounding a notion that the Diary is false, could such information and knowledge be used productively to put an end to the suffering of the people of the United States of America, and by extension, to people of the entire globe. If the Diary is proven false, then what involvement, if any, was carried out by American media of all kinds, including but not limited to, the Movie industry, the Music industry, the televised News industry, the Newspaper industry, and the Live performance industry, or any other industry that brings forth mass communication of any, and all kinds? These are important questions. They are so important that my original post entry of the matter early this morning was deleted, my internet connection was cut-off, my computer was high-jacked and rendered un-operable, helicopters were sent to threaten me, and my terrorist neighbors threatened me... with cotton that turns to stainless steel if I am not vigilantly defensive. The baby is on fire: its July 30, 2018: 6:13 PM.

Shared with: Public

StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-07-30T21:21:09-0400 - Updated: 2018-07-30T21:21:51-0400

July 30, 2018: 6:17 PM: I am the last American in Josephine County Oregon. All of the 70,000 or so inhabitants of the County have been killed, and replaced, with impostors who have assumed the names of the American citizens killed. This work of killing and replacing has been done by the people who's phone numbers and addresses are contained with the pages of the Rolodex of David Letterman, and Jay Leno. Think about that while watching the Tonight Show reruns on television.

StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-07-30T21:46:42-0400 - Updated: 2018-07-30T21:51:55-0400

July 30: 2018: 6:43 PM: Where are they going? Are they accounted for in current inventory list? are they lost or stolen? Is the United States Military insured for theft of equipment? Is the United States of America insured for theft of the population of the United States of America? Search: American Military Equipment on a Train: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAW8U3N3C30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXb2uCcldqc

StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-07-31T00:19:15-0400

July 30, 2018: 9:17 PM: They put my original post back! Ha! Boy was I upset that they took it down for the day. Wow!

StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-07-31T00:50:52-0400 - Updated: 2018-07-31T00:51:57-0400

July 30, 2018: 9:42 PM: It's quiet on "MyStreet". I came back from a short walk, and the deer were exactly where they are supposed to be, the birds were moving around in the trees and in the creek, and there were six members of "The Queens Guard" running a muck and huddled in a  small group of playful motion. The Queens Guard... six baby skunks with tails up high all scurrying down the gravel road in random  motion like marbles down a concave incline. Peace is where you find it.

StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-07-31T04:12:00-0400 - Updated: 2018-07-31T17:51:21-0400

July 31, 2018: 12:15 AM: Carrying on with my thoughts of the Diary of Ann Frank and trying to find a way to end the slaughter of Americans in Oregon at the hands of the Screen Actors Guild, I remember that Bernie Sanders had visited the Vatican and met with the Pope Francis, and so did Donald Trump just before the election in 2016. I looked into the matter online for about three minutes, and found that Pope Francis seems to have endorsed no less than three Presidential candidates for the 2016 Presidential Election. I also recall that one of the things that I liked about Donald Trump, the candidate, was that he did not bring much religious zeal to the table with him, I remember because I was looking for that quality in a Presidential selection. Many of the candidates brought with them religious baggage that in my view is too heavy to carry into a term of Presidential power over a nation that is rich in constitutionally religious diversity. In my view, to favor one religion as a national leader, is to alienate all religions, and therefore, alienate the entire population of the nation, excepting those who are non-religious. No good can come of a religious preference by a President in the United States of America. That is not to say that a president must be non-religious, but rather, should keep the religion in the church or in the  house he lives in without carrying it around in public. With that said, both Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump met in person with Pope Francis. The result prior to election was that the Pope would be giving his blessing to not one, but three Presidential selections. What does this mean? It means that the Vatican has it's own bank. The Vatican bank has more money than all of the banks in all of the world combined. The bank has more money than God can print, but the Vatican does not do charity work. So what exactly does the Vatican do? One of the things that the Vatican does is change people from one thing, to another thing if you consider that shortly after the election, suddenly and from nowhere, President Donald Trump turned from showing very little outward expression of religious bias, to showing a great deal of religious bias. Donald Trump even had a Easter Bunny in full costume at the White House for Easter celebration. The Easter Bunny, by the way, in full costume is a performance by an entertainer for a fee, and as such, would need to be a Union member if the entertainment were to be televised. The Easter celebration, with Easter Bunny in full costume was indeed televised and the Union that the Easter Bunny performer belongs too must be the Screen Actors Guild, or a live performance sub-union under the Screen Actors Guild umbrella. So the question is not how much money does the Vatican provide Mr. Trump, but rather, to what end is the money paid? The Vatican does not do charity work. The Pope did not care who would have been elected as President of the United States of America, he made that clear. All he needed to do was wiggle his Easter Bunny Cotton tail around in the faces of all of the candidates so that they would be reminded of the shear size and scale of the Vatican Bank. Who can resist Easter eggs filled with gold? We have seen the Easter Bunny in full costume at the White House before under Obama, and Bush, and Clinton, and the other Bush. The existence of that Bunny is less of an entertainment quality and more of an advertising scheme. Like the Energizer Bunny is powered by batteries, the White House is powered by the Vatican. The advertising is present, and the citizens are subject to it, we don;t have a choice in the matter of the Easter Bunny at the White House, Donald Trump made that decision for us. Would the world be so horrible without the Easter Bunny at the White House? Why don't we see a full size live action entertainer portraying Jesus Christ on a crucifix at Christmas time? That too would be a Union gig and require a Screen Actors card or equivalent. The Diary of Ann Frank is somehow connected to the Easter Bunny at the White House as a Guilded Union member, but I just can't seem to put my finger directly on the connection. I'll keep looking. Maybe you can help look for that connection too. It's important. What drives the Vatican, under the direction of Pope Francis to endorse three presidential candidates if he is to b viewed as neutral. He cannot be neutral because he did not favor one candidate over another candidate, he demanded a presence in the White House. The absence of Freedom is the presence of captivity. If the statement above does not make sense to you, please research the years between 800 AD and 1300 AD regarding Christianity, the Catholic Church, and the importance of the Choir in the churches around Europe during that time. Be especially mindful to look into the individual singers, who they were in the regions, their ages, and the vocal range demanded by the choir masters. Look into the methods by which those vocal ranges were achieved. Do that please. Research the period of time that ended the Gregorian Chant era and began the polyphony era in the music of the church choir and the competition for tithings that existed between the individual churches during that time. The Vatican under Pope Frances is in the White House, they are a fixture there, captivating, and they brought with them a giant White Rabbit. President Donald Trump put the United States Embassy for Israel in Jerusalem. Now, the Easter Bunny is in the Manger, and Queen Elizabeth still waits for a bus on the porch outside of Windsor Castle on occasion. I cannot help but wonder if the Queen is on a Quest for The Holy Grail, and is that her rabbit at the White House? The Queens bus stop is a sight to see. The architecture is a miss, it does not fit, it's outstanding in a way that makes it appear out of place. The architectural elements of it are intentionally out of place. Not all architecture is built of stones or timber, but rather, built of organized ideas feathered and layered on a bed of shared values etched in granite and marble , or clusters of men and women crafted in such a way as to provide strength of structure and provide longevity and growth built on a sturdy foundation of golden integrity... and strong swollen flow of adhesive currencies. Or, ideas and people, served blended over the rocks of time, encapsulated, eternally entombed in the eye of a pyramid. Ponzi. Sarcophagus. Pharaoh. Phire. Pyre. The Queen learned from watching television that the contrast and brightness knobs are useful for different viewing conditions that exist day verses night, dark verses light. She learned that the perception granted by the use of the knobs could achieve a desired result of perception of clarity by the viewer, and thus, incorporated those elements into the architecture of the bus stop. The contrast in design is apparent. The queen is crafty, she plays chess, she has a destination in mind, and carries a purse. A wallet. A method of payment for the driver of the bus. All of these elements combined are as useful for conveying the unspoken message of a desired destination as are the brightness and contrast knobs on the Queens television for dialing in the darkness, or the lightness, and the shifting inclination of saturation towards either of the two available directions in the binary spectrum between black, and white. The Queen prefers a black and white television. Grey-scale. The Queen makes fine adjustments to the Brightness/Darkness, the Inclination of Contrast, and the Volume of her Bus Stop television as she awaits the arrival of her invited guests at Windsor Castle. Only those who enjoy the same kinds of Programming are ever invited to Buckingham Palace... the Queen's Sacred Stone. Q: Whyyy... Hello Mr. Trump, such a pleasure to meet you. Do you enjoy architecture? Please allow me to introduce you to my Guard." P: "Such a lovely hat Your Majesty, the pleasure is all mine. Wherever in the world there is architecture, so am I. Is there a particular style of architecture that interests you" Q: "Brilliant, we shall get along splendidly. There is a barn I would like to redecorate, especially the sleeping quarters, it's just across the creek, your thoughts on materials and craftsmanship considerations are welcome." P: "I have a special place in my heart for that western shore over there, it's the climate... I always suggest that you simply cannot go wrong with gold, it's so... shiny. Guilded beds provide the security that helps me sleep at night. Do you have access to gold to work with?" Q: "Security is the best way to get some rest. Agreed, gold is nice in a barn decor. My purse is heavy but small. I have a Vat of gold in my boot. Guard! Show Mr. Trump the Range, and ready the Boatman." P: "Range?" We need to be mindful of our P's and Q's, lest we Pray to Wind-up Poor-ed from a Party Mixer to a Gelded Gray-All and served Over the Rocks with Swizzle Styx, and an O-live. The absence of Brightness, is the presence of Darkness. Don't get on the bus, never get on the bus. StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-08-01T21:16:37-0400August 1; 2018: 5:59 PM: In what country on Earth can anyone who is interested learn about the intricate details of the various branches of the United States Armed Forces, it's personnel, It's leadership chain of command, it's protocols, it's equipment and how the equipment is operated, delivered, deployed, built, maintained, managed, lost, stolen, and where to purchase spare parts? The answer is the information is available, complete with video, instruction manuals, charts and graphs, names and phone numbers of top brass, where and how bullets of all shapes and sizes are made, and the favorite places that enlisted men and women enjoy eating... it's all available anywhere in the world to anyone who has a internet connection and a phone. A small computer wouinfiltrate Uld be extra, bonus viewing, but is not necessary to get the blue-prints for an Aircraft carrier, or for a barracks building. Anyone. Anywhere. For free. How do we know that that Tesla in space is not a spy satellite designed to infiltrate US Military. Elon Musk is just the kind of guy that could arrange such a thing, if anyone could spy from above or below... he could. Also, what nations of the world make available to media outlets their military secrets and locations and whatever? The answer is none other than the United States of America. Who in the world is in the position that best completes a circle if the circle includes leadership, media, structure, wealth, ego, an agenda and gold? You know the answer.

[mycraftylittlestitches]

Disclaimer: I may use affiliate links in the attempt to keep my blog advert free and also these items were freebie samples. However the fact that I didn’t have to put my hand in my pocket won’t change my opinions in the slightest. The good will be celebrated like realising that there is good quality chocolate lurking in the back of the cupboard that hasn’t been munched on by an overly enthusiastic (and cheeky) 2-year-old. The bad will be met with the disgusted disdain of discovering that someone ordered pineapple on the takeaway pizza! AGAIN! I mean Dude…. No…

I might be slightly hungry while writing this… I’m always slightly hungry in fairness, the joys of breastfeeding! *Le sigh… With that random ramble of foodie thoughts done and dusted we shall begin.

About three weeks ago I was sent some shiny, pretty and frankly very useful things by the folks at Burton McCall. Thanks guys, I’ve had great fun! I was hoping to get these reviews completed more than a week ago (sorry!) but my brain had other ideas and my epilepsy started to act up. No screen time for me without the fear of making the seizures worse but now I’m back in business again. Wooo!

I recieved six items in total from four different brands. From Zoku we have: two thermos flasks and a ‘Dino Pop’ ice-lolly maker. From Victorinox, we have a Swiss army knife. From Nite Ize we have the PetLit LED and from Humangear we have the GoTubbs. I will be doing one review per brand as I would rather not have a review post of over 7000 words as I don’t really do the whole, dreaded ‘wall of text’ thing. Let me start the first of four reviews into my epic few weeks of playtime and squealing (perhaps even louder than the Toddler) at the concept of Dino ice lollies; with the PetLit LED Light.

PetLit LED Light This was sent as a little treat for Rosie my adorable but slightly stern looking kitty. Unfortunately she gave me the look (that almost all cat owners will know oh so well) that threatened death and lacerations, if I dared even consider placing the light upon her most sacred of collars. I swear she thinks this is ancient Egypt and we are her most humble of servants… She is probably at least half right in fairness.

Anyway I improvised and decided that the toddler makes a great stand in for a cat. Let’s face it; both suffer from convenient bouts of deafness, both like climbing and it’s definitely a kind understatement to claim that they are both mildly obsessed with cardboard boxes. See the below photos for cuteness and proof..

See it’s still a fair review… Even if the helper is a tad excitable at the thought of being a cat and won’t stop meowing. Please stop her meowing… Pretty please? Thanks.

What is it?

Basically it’s a tiny, little and very bright LED light that you place on your pets collar (or in my case my toddlers zip). It helps you see them in the dark and know where they have wandered off too, giving pet owners some reassurance that ‘Mittens’, ‘Fido’ or in my case ‘Toddle’ isn’t going to wander off into the night-time abyss and not return. Which I honestly think is a fabulous idea. Unfortunately I couldn’t test this in pitch black darkness, just in a slightly darkened room because there was no way in Hell Toddle was staying up past her bedtime. Nope, no, please don’t even suggest such tantrumy madness. Besides, mummy needs flop out and do grown up stuff (read: play on Twitter). Also a free range Toddle in the dark seemed like a bad idea at any rate. Call me crazy…

Sleepy Toddle helping her mummy with the review.

Another picture showing how bright it is.

It’s a very bright light as you can see here.

The things that I like: It is a surprisingly bright light considering it’s small, compact size and the fact that it is just a single LED inside a pretty jewel shaped case. It’s easily turned on and off by simply rotating the light either clockwise or anti-clockwise which is obviously an ideal feature but I have to question if this would prove to be a difficult task if the creature wearing it was particularly wiggly. It attaches to the collar of your pet/child/spouse with a simple clip and the back comes off for easy battery replacement. I can’t comment on the battery life having only had it for a short period of time, but I can wager fairly safely that with it being LED the batteries should last quite a long time (the manufacturer states 24 hours of continuous light). Even if it should run out it’s a very simple task to change the batteries as you just twist it slightly further than you would so to turn it off and the back simply comes off ready to insert the new ones.

I like that there isn’t much packaging, as I feel that this is a positive step towards being more environmentally friendly, which is something that in this day and age should be applauded and I have no doubt that this also helps in keeping the price low at a modest £6.17 on Amazon UK (as of 3/9/18).

We do not have a dog and our cat doesn’t go outside and doesn’t enjoy being messed with other than the occasional brush and ticked ears (PTSD-suffering rescue kitty) so I can’t use it for its conventual purpose, but I have placed it on my keys to assist in putting the key in the lock at night and for finding things in dark cupboards ect. It isn’t insanely bright but it has made a practical addition to my key rings.

Lighting the way on my keys.

Things that I didn’t like: While I like that the on/ off mechanism is very simple I found it quite stiff to turn. At first I thought that this was a fault with either my useless co-ordination (thanks Dyspraxia) or my particular item but after reading the reviews on Amazon I found that this seems to be quite a common problem which does ultimately lesson with time. The other issue that I have had is the fact that the light was slightly scuffed when it arrived. This could either be caused by one of three things: 1) the box was bumped during transit, 2) the plastic is quite poor quality and was easily damaged or 3) it was a fault during manufacturing that wasn’t picked up on. As it feels quite flimsy I am leaning more towards number two but as I think it’s a very handy little thing it will be remaining in its new home, keeping my keys company.

Would I advise you buy it? Yes, if you either need a light up key ring or your dog/cat/significant other regularly goes out at night, it is a fantastic idea and incredibly useful. I wouldn’t advise it for people who have poor grip or coordination as it was very difficult for myself, who has dyspraxia, to turn it on or off until it loosened slightly with use and fiddling. Overall a great idea, blemished slightly by production on a relatively low-budget.

Stay tuned for the reviews of all of the other items, coming up in the next few weeks. If you enjoyed this post then please consider following me on Twitter and Facebook and subscribing to my blog. Thank you for reading!

Review of the Nite Ize PetLit LED light. @burtonmccallltd @NiteIze #review #blog #lifestyle #mumlife Disclaimer: I may use affiliate links in the attempt to keep my blog advert free and also these items were freebie samples.

[wonderwallofthesoul]

Trove Hack

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