#found out like a week ago that you can just. buy scripts online

[asthe-crow-flies]

look what i got yesterday

I KNOW WHAT THE TALKING BITS ARE NOW

[adith513]

Script Writing

(Scene: A dimly lit college dorm room, cluttered with textbooks and empty pizza boxes. The roommates are sitting in a circle, discussing their lives.)

Alex: (sighs) What we getting for dinner, bruh?

Jordan: (checks the time) I can't believe it's already October. Time really flies man.

Taylor: (nods) Seriously, it feels like we just moved in a week ago. I need to find a job though I’m broke as shit.

Casey: (excited) Speaking of money, I finally found some time to organize my clothes. I sold some of that stuff online and finally made some cash.

Morgan: (shrugs) It be what it be. Money comes and goes. But, Alex, speaking of tough times, man, your team really sucks, doesn't it?

Alex: (defensive) Hey, leave football out of this! You know they’re gonna make a comeback this weekend. And, speaking of money, I can't wait to go on a Costco run next weekend. We really need to stock up on our cleaning supplies our dorm is starting to reek.

Jordan: (enthusiastic) Oh, I'm so in! Costco runs are the best, I love trying all their samples. Every time I go there I basically eat a whole meal! But, not gonna lie, I think I failed all my midterms.

Taylor: (concerned) Seriously? You're really smart, Jordan, you probably did great.

Casey: (optimistic) It's okay, you can probably still turn your grade around. We still have half the semester after all. Do you guys think I can still switch my major though?

Morgan: (laughs) You're already thinking about that? We're only a like two months in!

Alex: (changing the topic) Well, if you think Jordan’s having a bad time, wait till you learn that I skip my 8 A.M. lecture like every week. It's brutal.

Jordan: (mocking) Classic Alex! Seriously though, you might wanna consider going once in a while.

Taylor: (supportive) Yeah, Alex, attendance really does matter.

Casey: (grinning) So, back to dinner plans, are we ordering pizza again?

Morgan: (enthusiastic) Yeah, pizza sounds good, but let's switch it up and get some garlic knots as well this time.

Alex: (checks his wallet) Garlic knots and pizza it is, but you guys all need to chip in this time. 

Jordan: (pulls out a stack of coupons) Don't worry, I've got some coupons we can try and save some money.

Taylor: (relieved) That's a relief. I really need to save up for some textbooks. My biology professor is making us buy one that’s like $300!

Casey: (excited) And I need to save up for a new laptop. My old one is on its last legs I feel like it's about to explode any day now.

Morgan: (reflective) You know, as broke as we are, I'm grateful for our little family here. We've got each other's backs.

Alex: (grateful) You're right, Morgan. College life can be tough, but it's better with you guys.

Jordan: (raising his pizza slice) Cheers to us! And to more Costco runs in the future.

Taylor: (raising her soda can) Cheers, everyone! Let's hope I can pass my midterms next time.

Casey: (raising a garlic knot) And here's to not switching majors anytime soon.

Morgan: (raising a slice of pizza) Cheers to the late-night talks and early-morning classes we survive together.

Alex: (raising his pizza slice) Cheers to skipping that 8 a.m. tomorrow!

(They all laugh, clink their food and drinks together, and dig into their dinner. The dorm room fills with the warmth of friendship and the hope of better days ahead.)

[imaginetonyandbucky]

The Buy In

Chapter 3: Puzzle Wrapped in an Enigma 

by @dracusfyre

On the way back home after the brothel closed, Bucky logged into Discord and dropped into a channel labeled only with random numbers and letters. First day of work was :thumbs up:  but there were two dudebros who tried to jam up my shit. Wish they would back off, he wrote. The channel was monitored 24/7 in case of emergency or actionable intel.

He waited as the dots danced, then his police handler wrote, that sucks. who are they?

Bucky typed the last four of Rumlow and Rollins’ badge numbers and put his phone back in his pocket. This operation was way more important than those two swinging dicks; between the video from tonight, which was going to be a PR nightmare for the department, and his request, Rumlow and Rollins better be manning a desk for the foreseeable future.

He was pulling out his keys to his apartment building when he heard a car door opening nearby. His head whipped around and his other hand was already on the pistol in the holster at the small of his back when he heard, “Whoa there Blue Eyes,” in a familiar voice. The figure that stepped out of the car held his hands up and stepped into the light.  “Hard day at the office?”

“I’ve had worse,” Bucky said warily.

“How’d everything go today?” Stark shoved his hands in his pocket and leaned against his car, the streetlight casting harsh shadows on his face.

“Fine. Didn’t KT give you a debrief?”

“Yeah, I heard his side. I wanna hear your side.”

Bucky thought about it, wondering if he should put a shine on it or be honest. “KT and Hawkeye’s play tonight was clever and would have worked perfectly against a different set of cops. But I think those two won’t give up until they get back at the person who embarrassed them. Might have made more problems than they solved.”

“Yeah?” Stark tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “You sure about that? KT's been on the job for a few years now and thought it was a good call. It's your first day and you saw the cops for all of fifteen minutes.”

Bucky shrugged. “I’ve met guys like them before. Don't strike me as the type to know when they're beat. Best thing would be for them to be encouraged to take a long walk off a short pier.”

Stark made a thoughtful noise. “But KT explained office policy on that?”

“Yeah. Only as a last resort.” Bucky tried to sound neutral, but something of his skepticism must have bled through.

“You don’t agree?”

The note in Stark’s voice put Bucky on high alert. Higher alert, since his heart was still racing from before. “I get the logic, it’s just…different,” Bucky said. “Makes sense though. Bodies attract attention.”

“Is that the only reason you think it's a good policy?” Stark asked neutrally.

Bucky hesitated. He got the feeling there was a right and wrong answer to this and wished this conversation had happened six hours ago when he was less tired. “Killing people changes things,” he said finally - honestly - hoping he wasn’t about to touchy-feely himself out of this operation. Between the military, the police, and then undercover work with organized crime, he had been so steeped in machismo that it had become second nature – to those guys, life was one big dick measuring contest - but Stark didn’t seem to work like that. Or at least, he didn't want people to think he worked like that. “Not just changes people, but like…it sends a message to everyone else. ‘This is what a life is worth.’” Bucky took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing himself to maintain eye contact with Stark.  “People respond to that. Makes them…mean. Hard. So if you can avoid that...” He ran a hand over the back of his neck, feeling like an idiot. He probably sounded ridiculous. “So, yeah. Anyway. Guess if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right? Seems to be working for you.”

“We do alright,” Stark said slowly, and Bucky figured he must have said the right thing because he straightened and held out a hand for Bucky to shake. Bucky looked at it with surprise and took it, feeling acutely aware of the strength of Stark’s grip and the callouses on his palms. “Welcome aboard.”

                                               ***

Tony got back in his car as Blue Eyes continued into his building, cranking it and pulling away from the curb on autopilot. If Blue Eyes hadn’t been a cop, Tony would have told himself that he was too good to be true; as it was, Tony wondered if it was possible that the police or feds or whoever had profiled him well enough to give “Brooks” a gold plated script to work from. But it hadn’t felt like the new guy was playing him tonight; his comments had been too rambling and inarticulate to have been prepared in advance. Rhodey was going to think he was an idiot, but he really though Brooks was being honest with him tonight, which had the potential to change things.

At the first stoplight, he pulled out his phone and texted Rhodey.

I like him.

Rhodey sent a rolling eyes emoji almost immediately. Blue Eyes?

Yeah I want to keep him. he’s wasted as a cop.

The three dots must have started and stopped a dozen times; Tony was almost back to his own place when he finally got a response. You’re playing with fire.

Tony smirked. I know, he wrote back. It’s what I do.

Yeah, but this time, if you get burnt, we all do. Tony pulled into his private garage and turned off the car, listening to the engine tick as it cooled. Rhodey was right. As much as he was intrigued by Blue Eyes, he couldn’t put his people at risk by tugging on that thread. “Dammit,” he said out loud, scowling as he got out of the car. “Ten years ago I wouldn't have thought twice.”

                                             ***

A few weeks into the operation Bucky and KT were making the rounds, checking in with the businesses and people on their beat, and Bucky was suddenly struck by two things: one, just how much this gig felt like being a street cop, walking the sidewalks just observing the neighborhood; and two, how no one was ever this happy to see him when he was a street cop. People saw KT and more often than not, they were smiling, chatty about business and local gossip. Most of them greeted Bucky (“Oh, this must be Blue Eyes,” which had yet to stop making Bucky’s ears burn) and were happy to introduce themselves. The ones that weren’t smiling were the ones that had something to complain about: permit not going through, shipment delayed, broken equipment that insurance wasn’t paying out for. KT took notes, nodded and commiserated, and when they left almost everyone looked at least mollified, if not cheered.

“You know, for us playing the bag men today, we sure aren’t picking up any money,” Bucky commented. A couple of times KT had taken a store owner to the side and Bucky, straining his ears, heard something about loans; these people always had the look of someone explaining why they couldn’t pay but it wasn’t their fault, honest. Like everything else, KT made notes and listened politely.

“That’s not what we’re doing,” KT said. “This is check in. We do it every two weeks or so. Money stuff is all handled online.”

“Yeah?” Bucky knew for a fact that the FBI had been working with the Treasury to trace Stark’s money, and, failing to find any signs of dirty money or money laundering, had concluded he must be operating with cash only.

“Yeah. Boss didn’t want to tempt anyone or make them a target.” That was smart, Bucky reflected. Ripping off other gangs was an art form in organized crime. Still, he had to wonder how Stark kept the money transfers so well hidden from the best financial analysts in the US government.

“No targets except his accountant,” Bucky joked, fishing for info. “Like with Al Capone.”

KT just shrugged at that, like he didn’t know and didn’t care, so Bucky left it alone. “So what do we do with that stuff?” Bucky said, gesturing at the notebook KT had been writing in all morning.

“We take care of it.” He took the notebook out and flipped through it. “Not too much stuff this time.”

Bucky turned that over in his head. “So under the Mechanic, fixers actually…fix things,” he said. “You’re really going to call a shipping company and an insurance office and everything?”

“Yep. Well, we are.”

Made sense; if businesses were paying Stark for protection, he could also throw in other services to sweeten the pot and keep people from rolling on him. Bucky shoved his hands in his pockets and was lost in thought while he mostly followed KT around the neighborhood. Granted he’d only been here for less than a week, but so far nothing was adding up to what he’d read in the case files on Stark and his organization. It was making him uneasy. He’d come here with a picture in his head, and a goal of filling in the holes so they could make a case against an organized crime boss; but now he was increasingly realizing that something was wrong with the picture. So when KT told him one night that they had the next two days off, Bucky sent another message on the Discord channel and when he got a confirmation, he went to the New York Library, the big one with the stone lions and millions of tourists. He went to the adult services desk and asked for a laptop. The librarian studied his ID, went to a safe, and handed him a laptop from inside. Bucky found a study carrell in a quiet spot and logged on with an 8 character name and 16 character password, established and memorized before he’d started this operation, and opened up the case files on Stark.

Scrolling through, Bucky felt some of his disquiet ease as he re-read the laundry list of crimes Stark was reportedly involved in: racketeering, tax fraud, illegal gambling, high-end car theft. Armed obberies; he opened up the file on robberies and realized with morbid amusement that even while Stark protected his own people from being targeted, he had no problem targeting bagmen from other gangs, making off with hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. Tax fraud, obviously; if Tony was hiding all of his income from the FBI, he was definitely hiding it from the IRS. Though as he opened up Stark’s tax statements, gotten from a subpoena to the IRS, and noticed that the document for just one year was hundreds of pages long, Bucky reflected that a good accountant could hide a lot of money in his legitimate businesses and all the assets that Stark had inherited from his parents.

At the back of the file was sex trafficking, which was based on a handful of reports that said that prostitutes were disappearing from other parts of the city and showing up working for Stark. Bucky put a note next to that one recommending the line of investigation be dropped. After spending hours and hours at the brothel chatting to the Widow and the ladies there, waiting to see if Rumlow returned, he knew none of the men or women there were being forced to stay, not even for lack of other work. Widow recruited from all around the city, helping people get out of the business if they wanted to and offering others a chance to work for her. Turns out, most of that building was devoted to the people who worked in the brothel: everyone got their own apartment, which was separate from the suites they entertained clients, and there was an in-house doctor and even childcare in the basement. All the money went straight back to the sex workers, except for this mysterious buy-in that no one had explained yet, and they were using it for a bewildering array of side projects that the women were more than happy to talk about during their down time.

After a few hours, which included writing up his reports from the past few weeks of working for Stark, Bucky sat back and closed the laptop. It was his first month, he reminded himself. No one was going to let him close to the real work of the organization after just a few weeks. He sent another message to his handler on Discord, and when he got a confirmation back, he stood up and walked away from the carrell; when he was about twenty feet away, he saw his police contact, dressed like a soccer mom, come by and spirit the laptop away.

His next stop was the gym; by the time he was done, shirt soaked wet with sweat and muscles aching, his head felt clearer.  He didn’t know why Stark was trying so hard to seem like a good guy, but if Bucky was patient enough he’d scrape past all the pseudo-philanthropy and get to the real man underneath. Stark wasn’t the first guy to be handsome and charming and charismatic while hiding a dark side.

[nickrobinsondaily]

Nick Robinson Was Done Playing High School, Until He Met A Teacher

The actor opened up about voicing his opinions online, his celebrity crush, and shooting sex scenes with Kate Mara. By Isabel Jones

You could be forgiven for assuming Nick Robinson is years younger than his true age of 25. The actor has been playing high school students for a full decade, beginning with a four-season run on ABC Family sitcom Melissa & Joey and concluding (or so he hopes) with FX on Hulu miniseries A Teacher. 

In fact, Robinson vowed to end his journey as a perpetual teen after playing the eponymous Simon Spier in coming-of-age film Love, Simon. “I’ve graduated, hopefully,” he told Ellen DeGeneres in a 2018 interview, “and won’t be going back.”

Well, it wasn’t long before A Teacher nullified Robinson’s promise, returning him to the world of pep rallies and study sessions. 

“I hoped that no one would watch that interview where I said that I would never play high school again,” he tells me over Zoom with a laugh, looking rugged and definitely over-18 in an unpretentious 66˚North beanie and flannel shirt. “I'd made that ultimatum, and then I read the scripts for the series, and I met with [creator Hannah Fidell] and Kate [Mara], and I kind of went, ‘Shit, one more.’”

Robinson joins our call from British Columbia, where he’s currently filming miniseries Maid opposite Margaret Qualley. We delay the interview for 15 minutes so he can get a COVID-19 test — a process he must undergo three times a week while in production. He tells me he had a mild case of the virus earlier this year, back when he was living in Williamsburg and “doing a play.”

That ever-so-casually-noted “play” happens to be Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway, aka the “highest-grossing American play ever.” Judging by our 40 minutes together, 2,500 miles and a computer screen apart, Robinson doesn’t strike me as the type of actor who eagerly name-drops his prestigious projects or A-list co-stars. He greets me by name when he comes on screen — a simple act of courtesy that feels largely forgotten in a year marked by hate crimes and awkward interactions made from beneath face coverings. From his unfussy style to his nearly-dormant Instagram account, Robinson seems like an actor committed to just that: acting (and also maybe being a pleasant and approachable person). He takes questions and answers seriously (even when they’re about bagel toppings), pausing to find the perfect articulation for the words in his head. The celebrity of it all doesn’t appear to be on his radar.

On the rare occasions when he has updated his 1.5 million Instagram followers over the past few months, it’s been to encourage them to vote. 

“If there's a time to say something, it's now,” he tells me, his passion for the topic evident in the minutes-long monologue of sorts that follows. “To be honest, I feel like I should be doing more. There have been a million times where my finger has kind of hovered over ‘post’ or ‘share’ and not done it because there is this thing where people would be like, ‘Oh, just stick to acting, we don't need to hear your opinions,’ but fuck that.” 

With A Teacher, Robinson is able to participate in a project that not only highlights his acting skill, but furthers a conversation. He plays Eric, a high school student who has an affair with his teacher, Claire (Mara). Unlike many of the predecessors who have tread this same cinematic territory, the series is as dedicated to drawing the viewer into the illicit relationship as it is to immersing them in the brutal and enduring aftermath.

“The show does a little bit of a bait-and-switch on the audience, which is intentional,” Robinson explains. “It makes them complicit in Eric and Claire's relationship.” 

Ultimately, though, A Teacher’s stance on its subject matter is clear. “Everyone involved in this production took this story very seriously. It wasn't to make light of these kinds of relationships. It wasn't to glorify them. It really was to make a character study on what happens to these people after the headlines,” he says. “There are a lot of headlines, a lot of clickbait, and there’s not a lot of follow-up.” 

The role of Eric wasn’t an easy one to play, and the emotional toll was heavy. “That's something that I'm trying to get better at,” Robinson said of shrugging his character off at the end of the day. But this particular journey compelled him.  

“I was really interested in exploring how male survivors internalized this kind of trauma,” he says. “And oftentimes it's really suppressed for years.”

“The relationship is often used as a kind of social currency for the survivors. They're given high-fives and told ‘you're the man’ and all that. So, the push and pull of that, of wanting that to be true, but also dealing with some very complicated emotions internally, I think was what a lot of the second half of the show is about: Eric grappling with the reaction of his peers versus what he's actually feeling inside.” 

That said, Robinson’s research would be for naught if he and Mara didn’t have chemistry. Luckily, their connection was instant. 

Robinson extolled Mara’s “wicked sense of humor,” which came in handy during some of their more “intimate” scenes.

“You kind of have to laugh at some of those scenes when you're doing it,” he told me. “If you did a macro view it would just be two people with a bunch of burly grips around and camera operators and lights on you. So it's not actually an intimate experience.” 

Though Robinson’s still playing high school, the rules have changed. The laugh-tracks have fallen away and the happy endings once found at, say, the top of a ferris wheel, are just out of reach. His performance in A Teacher is a departure from a body of work that tends to skew “teen,” but it’s a defining one. 

Read on below as Robinson tells us his favorite “long and bad” joke, recounts his first kiss, and names his favorite Robert. 

What's the last thing you do before you fall asleep? 

Honestly, especially recently, the last thing before I do before I fall asleep is check the news and check social media. Probably not healthy. 

If nothing else, can we please just end this to change the news cycle? Because it's crazy-making. The whole thing is just, it's constant turnovers. I'd just like some peace and quiet.

The plotline of 2020 is really insane and implausible. It jumped the shark a long time ago.

Who’s your favorite villain?

Don Draper.

You see him as a villain?

I do. But that's the best part — most of the really good villains have some humanity and are maybe slightly ambiguous, but I think ultimately, yeah, he's a villain.

What was the first album you ever owned?

“Who Let the Dogs Out” is one of the first songs I really remember having playing, in like kindergarten, so I didn't buy it. But I had a portable CD player, which was really cool. And I had a Roy Orbison Greatest Hits CD that I liked a lot.

Do you still listen to that?

Sometimes. Yeah. I was also a big Elvis fan growing up. A lot of the oldies. And I do still listen to that, but there are  newer folks now that I prefer, I guess.

What's your favorite cheesy pickup line?

Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?

A classic.

It's a classic. It's really the first one that popped into my head.

I'm going to assume you've never used it in real life?

Never.

If you ran for office, what would your slogan be?

I don't think I would ever run for office. It's not something that appeals to me, but I did see a good hat the other day that said “Make Orwell Fiction Again,” that I thought was kind of funny.

Name one place you've never been but have always wanted to go.

Vietnam, I would say, or Thailand. Southeast Asia generally. Egypt ... I'd like to go to North Africa as well sometime. A friend of mine shot a movie in Vietnam and fell in love with the country and it's been on my to-do list for a while.

Read the rest of the interview on Instyle

[greatfay]

since ur answering asks and shit can u explain what u meant by generational differences in communication

Damn it’s like 2015 tumblr when my inbox used to be WET. So if you’re talking about the controversial opinions post, YES, like I totally understand where people are coming from when they say that generational divides aren’t real (because they aren’t, they’re arbitrary) and distract us from real problems and yes they paint past generations as collectively bigoted when Civil Rights protestors in the 60s (who are in their 70s and 80s now) are mirrors to BLM protestors today, who could be of any age, but the most vocal and famous (at least online, especially irt to the founders, like Patrisse Cullors who is 37.

But how we communicate is sooooo different. I really point to the Internet and Social Media as a major influence in how younger millennials (more Tom Hollands and less Seth Rogans—see even there, I feel like there are two different types of Millennials) and Gen Zrs/Zoomers and even Generation Alpha behave and communicate. We live in a world where we grew up either knowing right out the gate or discovering the hard way that what we say and do has permanence, the kind of permanence that prior generations have never experienced until today. The dumb things kids have been saying since forever can now follow them... forever. We have an inherent understanding of how online spaces work. Compare that to, idk, let’s say you posted on your Facebook (for the first time in 18 months) “All these big and bad grown ass Senators going after actual child Greta Gerwig lol ok, you’re so brave for attacking a CHILD over climate change” and then your aunt, who’s turning “forty-fifteen” in May replies to your post with “So happy to see my passionate niece! Much love from us, hope you’re doing well. Paul is doing great, waiting on his screening results. Tell your mom I said we miss her, we need to get together, we forgive her for last Christmas.”

Like... ok there’s a lot going on there, but your hypothetical aunt is oversharing on a publicly accessible post. And even with the most strict of privacy settings, she’s oversharing where your other Facebook friends (which may include classmates, coworkers, etc.) can see. But she’s saying things that would only be appropriate in a 1-on-1 conversation. This Aunt doesn’t have an understanding of such boundaries, she’s not as technologically literate and hasn’t grown up in a world of Virtual Space, she still gets most of her news from TV, she trusts what a reporter on Channel 4 will read off a script more than what actual video footage of an incident might reveal on Twitter, and she has no clue that she’s been sharing her location data with every post she makes.

There’s such a huge difference. I think it even affects how we experience and express stress and frustration. I think growing up partially in online spaces has made me more accustomed to conflict and consequence-free arguing than someone who never had to worry about that. I’ve been exposed so much to harassment and bullying, triangulating and echo chambers in forums and threads, and vastly opposing point of views at such an early age that it’s had an effect on how I see the world. Compare this to a customer I helped two weeks ago who was looking for a specific type of supplement for children. I found it for her, I handed her exactly what she was looking for, even though her description of the product actually matched several different products; to make sure I’d done my job thoroughly and that she leaves happy and satisfied and doesn’t bother me again, I then show her more products that match her description so that she knows she has options. And she proceeds to freak out, saying “NO, NO, I’M LOOKING FOR [X] AND IT HAS TO BE [XYZ]” and when I say freak out, she looked stressed and PANICKED. And being a retail employee wears you down bit by bit, and add COVID on top of it and little shit like this makes you snap, sometimes. So I have to cut her off like “Why are you screaming and freaking out, jfc you’re holding what you said you wanted. It’s in your hands. I gave you what you wanted, I’m just showing you more things.”

That customer is not an exception, she’s not a unique case. She’s representative of a frightening percentage of her generation, the kids who watched Grease and The Breakfast Club and Ghost in theaters when they were originally released. This is how they communicate and process information. She could not, for some reason, register that her need had been fulfilled, and defaulted to an extreme emotional response when given new and different information.

I’ve yet to deal with someone younger than 35 act the same way, the exceptions being the kids of very wealthy people at my new job who reek of privilege I gag when they walk in—but even they are like *shrugs* “ok whatever” and understanding when there’s something I can’t do for them.

Me: “sorry, we are totally out of that one in your size, but I can order it for you, it’s 2-3 day shipping at no cost to you and we ship it straight to your house”

A rich, white, attractive 22-year-old who’s had access to organic food, a rigorous dermatologist, and financial security since she was born: “mmm... sure, I’ll order it”

A 47-year-old of any socioeconomic background, of any race, in the same situation: “AHHHHHHHHHHH”

I just think it’s crazy how three generations of kids and young adults raised in a world where everything moves so much faster, where knowledge and entertainment and communication can be gathered so much faster, are often so much more polite and patient and understanding. Yesterday I told an older man (mid-50s) whose native tongue is the same as mine, as clearly and succinct as possible, that what he’s looking for is “in aisle 4.” He proceeded to repeat back, “Aisle 7?” four time before I dropped everything to show him what he needed in aisle 4, despite his insistence that he didn’t need me to walk him there. 4 and 7 sound nothing alike in English. There’s just something going on up there 🧠 that’s different.

Oh, other generational divides!!! We have different approaches to labor and working. Totally different! I’m a “young” millennial where I’m almost Gen Z, and I’ve noticed an awful trend among my demographic where people actually brag about working 90 hour work weeks. Or brag about how they skip breaks and live on-call to get the job done for “the hustle” like this “hustle, become a millionaire by 30″ culture that’s dominated these kids, idk where tf that came from. Like why are you proud of being a wage slave, getting taken advantage of by your millionaire/billionaire overlords. Compare this to my mother’s generation (she’s a borderline Genius X’er, she and her best friend were a year too young to watch Grease when it came out and had a random older woman buy tickets for her; she went to Prince concerts, took photos of him, then sold the photos on buttons at school, that’s her culture and teenage experience), where she’s insistent on her rights and entitlements as an employee, and these things she instilled me: “whatchu mean they didn’t schedule a break for you and you’re working 12 hrs today? oh no, you’re off, don’t answer your phone cuz you are NOT available!” There are Gen X’ers who entered the workforce at a time that America was drifting toward this corporate world, with more strictly defined regulations, roles, and understandings of labor rights (and also, let’s talk about how the 80s there was so much more attention on workplace harassment, misogyny and gender divides in wage gaps, etc. etc... not that much has changed, but at least it was talked about!). There are young people today who are taken advantage of because they aren’t as informed or don’t feel as secure and valuable enough to claim what belongs to them.

At the same time, those generations (Gen X and older) have a different viewpoint of hierarchies in the workplace and respect irt our direct supervisors. That’s how you get this blurring of boundaries between Work Life and one’s Personal Life that leads to common tropes in media written by their generations, where oh no! I’m having my boss over for dinner and the roast beef is still defrosting :O is such a “relatable thing” for them... meanwhile us younger generations are like I don’t even like that you know where I live, and if I see your 2017 Honda Civic pass my place one day, we’re going to have a problem. I think older generations have a different relationship with the word “Respect” than we do. Like, my grandma, who’s turning 87 (?) this year, and the other seniors in my area, they have a different concept of honor and an expectation of professional boundaries that I, and my mom and her generation, just don’t see (so then there’s something in common with Gen X’ers and the rest of us.) My dad grew up in a world where talking and acting like George Bailey and knocking on someone’s door with a big smile could get you a job, a job that could pay for college and rent no problem. My mom grew up in a world that demanded more prestige, where cover letters and references could get you into some cushy jobs if you’re persistent and ballsy enough. And I grew up in a world where potential employers literally don’t see your face when you apply unless they lurk on any social media profiles you have publicly available and they hold all the cards, and you need all those CVs and reference letters just to make minimum wage... so I feel like I am powerless in the face of such employers.

[lunawho47]

Buzzfeed Unsolved: The Mysterious Doctor and the Omen of the Blue Box (Part 1)

Fandoms: Buzzfeed Unsolved and Doctor Who

Genre: Total Crackfic, Humor

Rating: 16+ (for language)

Summary: A script for Buzzfeed Unsolved, in which our two favorite jackasses, the Ghoul Boys, discuss the various internet theories surrounding the identity of various mysterious figures known only as “the Doctor” and the blue box that tends to appear around them.  Well, Ryan wants to discuss the theories; Shane thinks it’s all urban legends and bullshit.

A/N: So, I’ve read a lot of these mock scripts going around for Unsolved discussing CW’s Supernatural as though it was real, and I thought they were hilarious.  So, my brain started wondering what theories the reddit and conspiracy boards would think up about mentions of the Doctor, the Doctor’s companions, UNIT, and Torchwood.  And to be honest, my brain came up with A LOT of theories that would make sense, and this format seemed a fun way to discuss all of them.  It was originally going to be a one shot, but as I started writing, Shane kept interrupting in my head about how stupid all of it sounds, and that kept making the script longer and longer.  So, it’s now going to be a few parts long cos the history of DW (even when seriously truncated) takes a long time to go through when you try to use the serials to make arguments about the Doctor’s potential identity(s).  

So, here’s part 1.  Please let me know if you like it and would like to see more.  And if Shane and Ryan sound anything like themselves because if they don’t then the whole thing is nowhere near as funny as it should be.

Ryan: Today on Buzzfeed Unsolved we're looking into the puzzling mystery of an entity known only as "The Doctor" and the corresponding omen of a blue box.  It's a mystery that, in its more comprehensive moments, is whimsically strange and, most of the time, is just plain batshit bizarre.

Shane: Okay, so I can hear the air quotes around the name, and you called it an entity.  Are we talking like, cryptid creature that is based in reality or am I going to be sitting through theories about zombie plagues and Ant-man Ax murderers again?  Just what am I in for here?

Ryan: No zombie plagues, and the Doctor has never murdered anyone with an ax.  At least, not in any of the records available. It's just...well, it's hard to explain here, so let's just get right into it.  Just bear in mind this is Gene Wilder Willy Wonka levels of weird when it's at its most sensical.  And it's rare that this story makes any sense at all.

Shane: Alright, I'll confess I'm...intrigued.  I'm ready to listen.

Ryan: Alright, here we go.  *opens folder*

Ryan (in his Unsolved VO):  The first documented evidence of a being calling itself "The Doctor" is in the files of now deceased British UNIT officer Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.

Shane:  Wait.  UNIT?  What's that? Sounds like something out of a video game.

Ryan: (wheeze) It does a bit, yeah. But there is paperwork evidence that verifies this group -- lame as the acronym is -- actually existed.  They were set up in the mid-1960s by the United Nations to look into unexplained phenomena and for a long time they were a covert operation.  The British Prime Minister knew they existed, and they answered to Geneva, but they weren't known to the wider public until after they shut down three years ago.

Shane:  I'm sure that meeting went GREAT.  'Hey, everybody, thanks for coming down this Monday morning. Erm...thanks for protecting us from alien invasions for the last 50 years and for keeping such a great secret about it.  Here's your reward: you're all fired, and we're going to tell the entire world what your names were and let you deal with the press about it for the rest of your life.  Have a great rest of your Monday!'  (Wheeze) What a bunch of shitty bosses.

Ryan: I mean, based on what little there is to read about how UNIT operated, the Brigadier we'll be talking about really had to go to bat for the organization in front of the Prime Minister a lot over the years in order to keep the operation going.  After the Brigadier died, they were able to keep going for awhile, but as you'll see from some of these stories we'll be looking at today, the organization was considered obsolete long before it was disbanded.

Shane: Okay, so the Doctor first appears in conjunction with this UNIT?

Ryan: Right, so in the 1960s, there was some weird circumstance that led to the London Underground shutting down and the Brigadier, who was only a Colonel in the regular British army at the time, ran into what he described as a "(quote) man with a foppish haircut, ratty waistcoat, and tartan patterned clown pants; a young teenage girl; and a full Scotsman (end quote)."  

Shane: So which is the Doctor?  

Ryan: In this case, it's the first description.  The man with the clown pants on.  (wheeze)

Shane: (wheeze) Do you think he had clown shoes on, too?

Ryan: See, I know exactly what you're picturing right now.  You're thinking of a guy with a depressing Beatles haircut and complete clown regalia, including the extra large shoes.

Shane: I am.  100%  And you know, given some of the things we saw when traveling around London, including on (*with a terribly fake posh Oxbridge accent*) the Tube, a man dressed as a clown running around the platforms underground wouldn't even register as weird on a normal day.

Ryan: (Conceding) That is true.  And on a normal day, I'd agree with you.  But, bear in mind, this was the 1960s -- not the modern day -- and the Tube at the time was closed to the public because of this unknown threat the army was trying to deal with.  And what's even more notable -- the reason why the future Brigadier apparently wrote about it in his official report to the Prime Minister -- is that the man who called himself the Doctor, together with the two other civilians, saved the day.  The details are sparse, but the Brigadier makes it clear that the Doctor is the one who figured out what was really going on and managed to deal with whatever the situation was with minimal casualties.

And that's just the first time the Doctor and the future Brigadier crossed paths.  There are later documents that report the Brigadier -- now promoted from Colonel and officially a Brigadier -- came across the same man and Scotsman, but a different young girl in London just weeks after the military organization known as UNIT was founded.  And AGAIN, whatever the situation actually was, the Doctor and his friends were the ones that helped UNIT save the day.

Shane: Am I the only one who finds it suspicious that the details are always missing?  Like, shady organization set up by the government to look into extraterrestrial happenings?  Sure. (*puts hands in the air in surrender to argument*) I'll buy that.  Governments do shady shit all the time.  But, I mean, things like shutting down the London Underground and alien happenings in the city of London itself.  People are going to notice, right?  And how shitty are the Brigadier's write ups that no one remembers or knows any of the happenings in Britain's capital?  "Dear Prime Minister, stuff happened.  Doctor did some other stuff.  Stuff stopped.  The end.  TTYL."  Sounds like someone was crap at his job and when things just luckily worked out, everyone just swept it under the rug.

Ryan: You see, I would agree with you there.  BUT...there are pictures.  We can't show them to the audience because of copyright, but if you know where to look online, people love to discuss the Doctor and all the people who have gone missing while looking for the Doctor, so.  Investigate at your own peril. But, Shane, here you go.

*the audience can't see the photos hidden by Ryan's open folder, but we see Shane's expression.*

Shane: (*laughs*)  That Doctor looks like a moron.  I mean, I still think the Brigadier must have been crap at his job, but he was bang on his descriptor of the Doctor looking like a clown.  And I take it the guy in the kilt is the Scotsman?

Ryan: Yeah, I looked up what full Scotsman means when I read the description and apparently it means a guy who wears a kilt with no underwear on underneath it.  Before that, I just assumed that it meant this other guy was wandering around the Underground, playing bagpipes and singing songs from Highlander or something.

Shane: You thought this guy was wandering around singing Who Wants to Live Forever over a decade before the film came out.  (wheeze)

Ryan:  Well, when we get into the theories that idea won't seem entirely out of place, I don't think.

Shane: Well, I'm going to go ahead and call a preemptive bullshit on that theory.

Ryan: Noted.

Ryan: (back in Theory VO) The next record of the Doctor's appearance comes about in the 1970s when a man is admitted to a local hospital after collapsing outside of a blue box in the woods.

Shane: There was a blue box in the woods?  Like, human sized or was he scrunched up in it like Shroedinger's cat?

Ryan: We'll get back to the box in a minute, but it's larger than a human, yeah.  In fact, it was something called a Police Public Call Box, which were common to see on city or town street corners in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. The idea was that if police or citizens saw a crime being committed, they could either phone the police from the box or shove the criminal in the police box and go fetch a policeman.  But what's weird about the box in this case is: 1) it's in the middle of the woods, and not even on like, a hiking path or anything.  But, the legit WOODS.  And 2) it's the 1970s and police call boxes are no longer really a thing at this point.  But, once the man calling himself the Doctor gets to the hospital it gets even stranger.

Shane:  I mean, everything about this story so far feels like the Brigadier spinning a yarn, but keep going.

Ryan: So, the Brigadier gets a phone call from the hospital that a man called the Doctor has been admitted to the hospital.

Shane: Wait, how did the hospital know to call the Brigadier about that?  Was there a national bulletin?  Is the Doctor a wanted man or something?

Ryan: I don't know, man.  Maybe the police just call UNIT whenever something with the label "fucking weird" comes across their desk.  I don't know.  This is just what the report says.

Ryan: (theory voice) Due to a situation UNIT was overseeing in the area at the time, the Doctor's appearance was notably auspicious for the Brigadier, so the UNIT officer went to see if his friend could help with the investigation.  However, when he got the hospital, he discovered that he the man calling himself 'The Doctor' was not anyone he recognized.

Shane: Wait...what?

Ryan: (laughing).  I told you the situation at the hospital is weird.  So, the Brigadier is told that this man who has helped him out before has been admitted to a hospital that is nearby a situation that UNIT is investigating -- a clear sign, in the Brigadier's mind, that this Doctor who is injured is the same one he's met twice before -- and then discovers that it's a completely different man.

Shane: Well, I mean...that's not *too* weird.  I mean, the man is in a hospital, and you usually see doctors in a hospital.  And I'm sure a lot of doctors are known more by their title than their surname.  There are millions of doctors on the planet, so I don't know if two different people wanting to be called Doctor is all that unusual.

Ryan: (with a haughty smile) That makes perfect sense, but listen to this.

Ryan: (Theory voice)  The Brigadier assumed at first that the patient calling himself the Doctor was a coincidence and started to leave the room.  However, he found himself called back when he heard the unknown man call the Brigadier by name. The conversation made it clear that, not only did the patient know the Brigadier's full name, but also knew the circumstances under which the Doctor and the Brigadier had met both times before. Information which, at the time, was highly classified and known only to those in the Prime Minister's office and those who had been in the UNIT planning room at the time of the situational crises.

Shane: Okay, I'm going to call it.  I'm going with spy.  I think the Doctor is a code name and this guy inherited  the call sign and the information from the Doctor's previous operations.  

Ryan: So, you think this is like, a 007 scenario?  

Shane: I mean, I'm sure you'll peddle some alien abduction theory or some other supernatural bullshit, but...yeah.  I'm going spy call sign.  Makes sense to me so far.

Ryan: Well, you might not be a *total* dipshit, but...we'll see.  There's still quite a bit more to cover. This isn't even the tip of the weird iceberg.

Shane: (sarcastically) Oh joy...

[red-pill-blue-pill]

Talk to me. Keanu reeves.

A/N: This is my first request ever (for @celestiaelisia) and I hope it meets the standards 💖

Word Count: 3337 (more or less I've edited this like a thousand times dude)

Summary: You work as assistant director in the John Wick 3 set and everything is quite shitty in your personal life.

Warnings: Body shaming (your coworkers shame you because of your weight so if it’s triggering for you please don’t risk it. You are all beautiful no matter what.), angsty angst.

Sunset Boulevard was crowded with tourists, as always. You walked fast, making your way through, you had no time to waste. You needed a new job. You had moved to LA a year ago. The relationship with your parents was hanging by a thread. You were a reckless teenager often getting yourself into trouble. Everything started when you stuck up for yourself in high school, people blamed you for the fights that happened and the director had to call your parents every other week. That's when you started skipping school, staying late out and fighting endlessly with you mother. The only support you had was your older sister. She had always been by your side in every tough situation. You came to her to seek comfort, to joke around, to cry your eyes out. She was everything to you, the only thing that prevented you from leaving. One day the situation got out of hands and you just had to run away. Your first option was LA, the city of dreams, or so people said. You'd wanted to be a movie director since you were a little girl. In high school your highest grades were the photography and audiovisuals ones, it was a vocation. When you arrived you rented a room in a small apartment with two other girls and looked for a job in the film industry, soon losing your hopes as it was a lot harder than it seemed and sticking to waitressing while looking longingly at the hollywood sign instead.

You had just been fired from your latest job. You were waitressing in a cheap dinner down town. Greasy food, watered down coffee and terrible tips. But life kept on going and rent wasn't going to pay itself so you had to keep on looking for another job. Looking online you found an opening as assistant director for the third John Wick movie. You experience in the field wasn't impressive so you didn't think much of it besides applying and keep giving out resumes at restaurants and dinners. Deep, deep down you still had a little gleam of hope that told you they would call you. Surprisingly, they did call, and the first thing you did was phone your sister. When you told her she got even more excited than you, she had always believed in you and even though this was just a little step she knew it was the beggining of a succesful career.

The filming had started a couple of weeks ago. Being in New York felt pretty rad. You walked effortlessly around the set, giving out the day's scripts, delivering clothes door to door, bringin everyone their cup of coffee... it almost seemed like you floated around. No one knew how you managed to do all of that by yourself. Sure you had some coworkers with the exact same work as you but they would rather spend their time sitting around doing nothing. Truth is you loved this job. You loved having the opportunity to meet actors and actresses, learning about directing and producing films and keeping your mind busy. You always carried around a little notepad to write down all the tips the director and the producers gave you. Your coworkers saw you as the ass-licker assistant and considering how people praised you for your good work, their hatred for you grew and grew each time someone complimented you. At first, you didn't care, you knew you had been working hard and that you deserved to be recognized for that. However, when the first insult came you knew it was going to be be harder than you thought.

"Hey fattie, why don't you bring me a coffee." one of your coworkers said as you were about to exit the trailer the director had assigned for all of you to take your work breaks in. You turned around to look at him, shocked by the words that had left his mouth. Your cheeks turned a bright red color and the other colleage sitting next to him stiffled a laugh. You were trying to process what had just happened, memories of high school came rushing to your mind like a shit tornado. This was too familiar. Sure, you were overweight but after all the bullying you had endured as a teen you finally thought of yourself as an intelligent, beautiful and sweet individual. You knew your weight didn't define you and you certainly didn't care about what others thought of you. However, hearing that "nickname" again made it all come back: the insecurity, the shame. You opened your mouth to answer but nothing came out, your brain replaying in loop how your classmates yelled insults towards you in the halls and how the girls teased you in gym class. Your eyes watered and you rushed out of the trailer, slamming the door behind you and trying to get away as fast as possible. You ran between the trailers, in search of yours. You picked up your phone to give a quick call to your sister, to ask for advice. You let it beep a few times, her answering machine spoke and told you to leave a message. "Hi sis, I was just calling to get some advice. It's been a couple of days since we last talked, hope you're okay. Give me a call." You hung up and kept walking fast.

“y/n!” 

You cursed under your breath as you heard that familiar voice calling you. You dried the few tears that had escaped with the back of your hand and put on the fakest smile you could, hoping he wouldn’t knotice your flustered face. You turned around and waved as you saw him approach you “Hey Keanu!” 

He tried to steady his short breaths “Wow you almost outran me there.” he chuckled. 

“Well, be careful grandpa.” you said holding back a laugh. He looked at you with eyes wide open as he laughed hard. 

“You offended me with that one I must say.” He stared at you with a playful grin and you felt your heart pound in your chest. 

He was wearing his John Wick suit and a few fake cuts on his face and the only think you could think of was how good he would look without that suit. Yes, maybe you had a little crush on him. Of course you did, who could resist him? After a couple of weeks of shooting you two had gotten pretty close. He was such a sweet man, he always listened to everything you had to say and he was really fun to be around. You just wished he would ask you on a date and hold your hand and kiss you. His voice got you out of your little daydream. “Anyways, I came to ask if you wanted to grab something to eat after work.” Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. “Sure!” you said trying to play it cool.

-

Weeks passed by and the mean comments just got worse and worse. "Disgusting" "Why don't you go to the gym fattie" "That shirt looks too tight on you we can see your rolls." No one on set knew and you planned to keep it that way. The shame was already unbearable and if everyone found out it was going to be even worse. Your self steem was slowly dissolving, leaving you feeling like an empty carcass, a shadow of the person you used to be. Outside you were still the same, no one noticed something was wrong, but inside you were an anxious mess. You feared everytime you had to walk on set, everytime you had to go out. You felt everyone's eyes on you, where you once had seen admiration you saw judgemental stares that burned on your skin. You started declining Keanu's invitations to go out to eat, coming up with shitty excuses you knew he didn't buy. You isolated yourself instead, crying you eyes out in your trailer, wishing to hug your sister and get that comfort you so desperately needed. She hadn't returned any of your calls and it all was adding to your anxiety. Was she alright? Had your parents finally convinced her to stop talking to you? On top of that you were messing up the friendship you had managed to build with Keanu. How could a girl like you be so delusional as to fall for a man like him. He would never see you as anything more than a good friend, if you were still friends that is. You were pushing him away, just as you always did. It hurt like hell. Tears started flowing again, harder this time. You were sure people walking by outside could hear you sobbing but you didn't care.

Keanu walked by your trailer to get to his and he stopped in his tracks when he heard you sobbing. He was starting to worry about you. He didn't know if you were trying to avoid him because you wanted to end your friendship or if there was something wrong in your personal life. Either way he wanted to find out. He enjoyed spending time with you, he always had fun when you were around. He thought of you as a bright, fun and beautiful woman who didn't give a fuck about what others thought of her. Your strength and sense of righteousness were the things he loved the most about you. The way you stuck up for what you believed in was admirable. That bright and cheerful side of you was already fading and he had noticed from the first moment. Keanu wasn't the type to intrude in someone's personal matters but when he heard you crying he knew he had to do something, he just had to think the best way to approach you.

The next day went by as always. You made small talk with the crew, talked to the director and producer to write down some notes about what they told you, and tried to avoid Keanu as much you could. You had caught him staring a couple of times and you just waved as you walked away. Fast. You knew he could sense something was off and you feared what would happen if he found out. "Maybe he'll join them. Or maybe he'll just laugh at you for being so fucking weak." Your mind whispered as your eyes welled up with tears.

Your trailer door closing behind your was the sweetest sound to you. It meant you were safe from the outside world, no one could mess with you in your safe space. Unless...

Your phone started ringing, breaking the silence of your small house. You ran to pick it up thinking it your be your sister but instead a male voice spoke. 

"Hello. Are you y/n y/l/n?" 

"Yes. And who are you?" You said, your heart rate rising up dangerously. 

"I'm you sister's husband." Silence took over the phone line. He was waiting for some kind of reaction that never came, so he spoke again, sniffling lightly. "Its all happened so fast. One day she was fine and the next one she had to be hospitalized and when you didn't come I assumed your parents didn't even call you-" he rushed his words. 

Your breath hitched and your head suddenly felt light "What?" You mumbled

"She passed away last week. Today was her funeral. I'm so sorry."

The phone fell to the floor. Suddenly everything felt like it was spinning in circles. Your heart threatened to come out your mouth and the tightness in your throat made it difficult to breathe. You fell to your knees with a loud thump. You opened your mouth to take a deep breath but a scream came out instead. A raw pained scream that tore apart your insides.

-

Keanu was smoking a cigarette outside his trailer. The weather was good considering it was winter and if he smoked inside the smell lingered on the bed sheets which he actually found pretty nasty if he thought about it. He was staring at New York's lightning, his thoughts lost in y/n, thinking about her behaviour. He blew the smoke and watched as it mingled with his condensating breath and danced in the cold air. The night was silent which was something strange in New York City, it felt almost peaceful. He finished the cigarette and walked to a nearby trash to throw away the butt. A pained scream cut the silence and echoed in the trailer zone. Then silence. Then another one followed. He turned around and started running towards where he thought it came. His heart was pounding in his ribcage, fearing the worst thing. He could tell who was the source, he would’ve known from a thousand miles away. 

He busted the door open and found you there, sitting on the floor with your arms wrapped around yourself as you screamed all your pain away. 

“y/n!” he kneeled on the floor next to you and hugged you tight. “What happened?” he said over your screams, worry obvious in his voice. He rocked you back and forth while he whispered sweet nothings into your ear, trying to get you to calm down so you could talk to him. It took a couple of minutes but you managed to stop screaming, turning into a crying mess as you slowly wrapped your head around that phone call. 

“My sister.” you said sobbing into his chest as he rubbed circles on your back. “she passed away.” as you let out those words total realization hit you and the tears started flowing faster. 

“I’m so sorry, love.” Keanu planted a kiss on your hair as he let you cry a little more.

When you managed to calm down -or maybe when you ran out of tears to spill- you took deep breaths and Keanu’s voice flooded your ears 

“Are you hungry?” you shook your head no and he just sighed “Okay. I’m gonna grab some stuff from my trailer to spend the night here. I’ll be back.” 

You moved off his lap and he stood up. “Keanu” you spoke, you voice sore and broken “It’s okay, really, you don’t have to stay.” god, you were a terrible liar. 

He smiled sweetly from the doorway “I know i don’t have to, I want to. Now wait for me, it shouldn’t take longer than five minutes.”  When he closed the door you let out a shaky breath and pinched the bridge of your nose.

He was right, he was back five minutes later with a bag full of food, a pile of blankets and some movies to watch on your laptop. He was an actual angel. He put everything down and sat next to you on the small couch, staring silently at you. You gave him a questioning look. 

“I know you don’t want to but I need you to talk to me. Open yourself up. I know something’s wrong.” he reached out to hold your hand. “Okay.” you took a few seconds to prepare yourself. 

“Since I started working here my coworkers had been shaming me because of...” you used the hand that keanu wasn’t holding to gesture to your body. He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. Anyways, it’s affecting me a lot, that's why I avoided you, I didn’t want to make you feel embarrassed." He sighed relieved now that he knew you didn’t want to end their friendship but it hurt to think you really believed he was embarrassed of you. 

“And then there’s my sister.” you choked on your words and Keanu knew not to push it. He hugged you again. 

“Who’s shaming you?” he said against your hair. His voice had turned serious, a kind of seriousness you’d never heard from him, it was almost scary. 

“No Keanu, there’s only a couple of weeks left I can deal with it.” 

“Tell me.” he pulled away to look into your eyes, his gaze so intense you felt he was looking right into your soul. 

“The other assistant directors.” 

“Okay. I’ll take care. Are you sure you’re okay?” he checked once again.

You nodded. It wasn’t entirely true. You just didn’t feel anything at all. Pain had been replaced by nothingness and the void in your chest was even more consuming than the anxiety. 

“Do you want to take a shower?” 

You raised an eyebrow and he quickly corrected himself. “No, no I didn’t mean it like that.” his cheeks turned rosy and he thanked god for the dimly lit room. “A shower usually helps me relax a little.”

“Yeah I guess I could use a good shower and fresh clothes.” You stood up and walked to the small wardrobe, picking your pijamas and fresh underwear. 

“Will you be okay?” Keanu asked from the sofa as you were about to close the door. The white light from the bathroom shone on half of your face and for a first time he could take a good look at your red puffy eyes and flustered cheeks. His heart broke at the sight. He still thought you were beautiful, your plump cheeks screamed for him to kiss them and he had to resist the urge to just run to you and do it. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll call you if I need something.” you said smiling weakly at him.

-

You opened the door, steam flooded the small living-room, the scent of your shampoo invading the space. You stepped out of the bathroom, your hair still wet and your hairbrush in your hand. The wet trails of your tears got lost between the droplets of water that still lingered in your eyelashes. 

“C’mere” He said opening his legs and motioning you to sit down on the floor between them. He took your brush and started gently brushing your wet hair. He untangled the loose knots on your hair, the feeling of his hands caressing it making you hum with delight. This was by far the best moment of your day, maybe even the best moment of the week. 

The brushing stopped too soon for your liking and his hands dropped to your shoulders, massaging softly. “Do you want to watch a film or eat something?” His voice was soft, as if he was scared to startle you, and it felt velvety in your ears making your eyelids feel heavier than they did before.  

“Can we just go to bed?” that was the only thing you really wanted to do, leave this day behind as fast as posible. He nodded softly standing up and offering you a hand. You took it and stood up too, leading the way to the bed in the back of the trailer. You lied down with Keanu next to you. His fingers intertwined with yours as his thumb rubbed circles on the back of your hand. 

“y/n” he whispered into the dark. You hummed in response. “I don’t know if I’m overstepping here but you’re beautiful.” you felt your face heat up at the comment. “What I want to say is, your weight doesn’t define you and you are one of the most cheerful, bright and amazing people I’ve ever met. Don't anyone tell yoy otherwise.” He raised his hand still intertwined with yours and kissed your skin softly.

You felt a tear slid down you face. “Hug me. Please.” You turned your back to him and he spooned you. His arm was around your waist and his face was in the crook of your neck. His beard tickled you and his breathing was hot on your skin, his lips kissing your neck every couple of minutes. 

 “I would never be embarrassed of you, if anything, I'll cherish and adore you every day of my life.” he mumbled against your skin. You didn’t know what to say so you put your hand over the one he was resting on your belly and gave it a little squeeze. “Tomorrow will be another day.”

He was right. The thought of getting up tomorrow was dreadful to you but you had to push through, for yourself, for your sister, and that, with Keanu by your side, seemed a little easier. 

[purplesurveys]

863

Do you have any friends who are on and off with bfs/gfs all the time? Yeah, Jo and Aya don’t make the most stable couple. They had one really problematic stint last year where they would break up and get back together every week. They ironed it out eventually and they’ve been ok for a while, but lately I think it’s a little rocky again because I no longer see them interacting and they’ve been retweeting stuff that gives me a few hints. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve broken it off for good. When was the last time you almost cried out of exhaustion? Ohhhh boy. It was some day in Feb I think? and everything had just been going wrong for me. Andrew and I got yelled at by our thesis adviser because she didn’t like what we submitted and she gave us a day to revise three entire chapters. We stayed in the college working away from 3 PM to 10 PM then when I got home, I realized I forgot to bring with me a certain item that my org entrusted me with. Absolutely wasn’t allowed to lose it. Had a panic attack and this was when I started crying because it was so late and I just wanted to go to bed; though Andrew saved my ass by offering to go back to school at like 11:30 just to retrieve the damn thing. Lastly, that was a time when business reporting was still giving me hell and I was struggling to find a business story around campus to turn in for that week, so I was freaking out about that too. All in all a shit day. What`s a TV show you hate missing? Idk man, if I miss a show I don’t think there’d be hate attached to it. I imagine I’d miss a show because it made me happy, so this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Do you think it’s funny how people always say their pet is the best ever? It’s adorable haha but not necessarily funny. Whenever someone says it I totally believe them; I think all pets are the best :) When did you last brush your teeth? This morning.

What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited? I checked my Twitter right before this question. Do you have a friend who you think you’ll be best friends with forever? Yes, Angela is for keeps. Does it annoy you when you accidentally delete things? For the most part I can just undo and get the deleted thing back, but when that’s not applicable it can get super distressing. I know I was gloomy for a very long time when I accidentally wiped out my camera roll with photos from 2014-2016. What`s a movie / book / TV show / band / whatever you highly recommend? Movie: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Book: Got nothing in this department. Show: BoJack Horseman Band: Paramore ha. They got a sound for almost everyone! When did you last use a dictionary / thesaurus? Two questions ago when I was looking for an adjective to best describe what it’s like to lose your entire camera roll and, essentially, good memories that you’ve made. Are you anticipating or dreading anything? I ammmmmm anticipating dinner haha. I can’t think of anything I’m dreading.

If someone could randomly give you something right now what would you like? Baked sushi :( It’s a recent trend locally and it looks so gooddddd, I just don’t wanna spend the last of my savings on it or ask my parents to buy a tray for me. What`s the most annoying thing in the world? At the moment it’s people who refuse to wear masks because they claim that it messes with their oxygen level or because they find it personally uncomfortable. When did you last use one of those water slides you put on hills? I have no clue what you mean. What are you sitting on right now? One of the dining room chairs. What skills would you like to learn / develop? Adobe Indesign and iMovie. I dabbled with these recently – Indesign for a class and iMovie to make a video for Gabie – and though I was always too scared to start using programs like these, I actually found them fun and super useful when I finally had my hands on them. When we saw each other the other day Gab was talking about using this break to take up workshops in different Adobe programs so that she’ll have more stuff to put on her resumé, so I might follow her footsteps too. What is something other people say you’re good at but you think you’re not? Teaching. I always feel like I fumble a lot, but idk I get compliments on it so I guess I’m kinda okay but I just don’t see it. What does your bedside lamp look like? I don’t have one. I used to have a wall light though. It was a just tiny lil bulb that I had to plug in to give my room a light orange hue. What did you last take a photograph of? Myself and Cooper. When was the last time you got really frustrated with technology? Yesterday. My laptop was a bit slow when I wanted my YouTube video to go full-screen, and my impatient ass already got irritated with it. What was the last funny thing someone said to you? She didn’t technically ‘say’ it but my mom was singing a song earlier and had the lyrics wrong, and what came out of her mouth instead was so wrong and so funny.  Who taught you to tie your shoelaces? My grandmother. What was the last thing you bought? I bought snacks from my girlfriend’s dad Korean food business! I got myself odeng (fishcakes) and tteokbokki (spicy rice cake) :) Do you want to move to somewhere else? If so, where? Any country with a capable government at this point. What time is it where you are? 8:04 PM. What’s your favourite picture of yourself as a child? I’m not sharing that on here, but I do have my favorites.

Do you like your neighbours? I suppose they’re okay, in a sense that they haven’t done anything to annoy me. I’ve never talked to them in the last 12 years that I’ve lived here though haha I always felt like my mom could take care of the socializing stuff – and she has been. Does your room need to be cleaned? Nah I’m barely in it these days. It’s mostly spotless and things are stacked up neatly. Do you have a good relationship with your family? I wouldn’t say it’s good, but it’s not bad. Super lacking in the emotional aspect, though, and it’s a big reason why at the end of the day I can’t call it a good relationship. What is something people are surprised to hear about you? That I don’t like fruits. The horrified gasps and expressions never get old. Do you make judgments about people straight after meeting them? Only if they blatantly act like a jerk. Do you hate any particular groups of people? I mean I hate racists, abusers, rapists, Karens... but if you mean to ask if I hate any race or people of a certain sexual/gender orientation then most definitely not. Do you fall up or down stairs usually? Down :( Do you constantly break things? (By mistake or otherwise) HAHA yes. What was the last bug you saw? Kinda looked like a moth but I’m not sure what it was exactly. Are there any smells which make you feel nauseous? Rotten egg, any fruits lol. What is the scariest thing you`ve ever gone through? Random men play-lunging at me when I’m walking outside and then laughing once I jump or whimper. I don’t know if there’s a certain script that those fucking pigs follow, but I’ve had several of the exact same experiences through the years. That’s why my friends can always poke fun at the fact that I drive everywhere no matter how close my destination is – at least I feel safest that way. Do you have anything unusual in your bag? No. I only carried the essentials in the last bag I used when I went out the other day. Are there any people you know in real life that you only talk to online? Yeah, there’s a bunch of people I don’t really get to see irl. Some of them are friends who’ve migrated, some are my friends’ parents, my relatives who’ve always lived in the US, etc. Do you think people who don`t care about education are dumb? In the Philippines they will definitely be considered careless, dumb, and having no ambition. But I know education isn’t as big of a priority in other countries and that college isn’t a necessity in those places, so I guess there’s a cultural difference here. What`s your favourite key on a keyboard? I don’t pick favorite keyboard buttons lol. Do you always finish what you start? Nah I’m a little terrible at that, especially if we’re talking of passion projects. I collected Starbucks planners for like six years and was never able to completely fill up any one of them. Who`s your favourite character from The Simpsons? Or do you hate that show? I’m not a big fan of the show but just because I relate to her a lot and the fact that she’s intelligent and a goody-two-shoes, Lisa. Have you ever had any friends who always tried to steal your things? Nah wtf? I’d so easily stop talking to them if all they did was steal from me lmao What is something you will never understand? People!!! Who!!! Aren’t!!! Nice!!! To!!! Servers/Baristas/Anyone working in a job that has to directly deal with customers!!! When did you last laugh hysterically? Probably earlier this afternoon watching a Good Mythical Morning episode.

[eldritchsurveys]

1073.

1 - Have you ever seen an episode of My 600lb Life? >> I have not. I have a knee-jerk aversion to shows like that because I feel like they’re exploitative and kind of sideshow-y. That may or may not be actually true for this show (or any show that I feel that way about), and if someone who was familiar with it reassured me that it wasn’t, then I’d change my opinion and maybe check it out. But just from what I know about the reality-show industry, I’m not into the idea.

2 - Do you feel bad when someone asks you to hang out and you say no? >> I don’t think I’ve ever been in this situation.

3 - When was the last time you turned down plans with someone? What did you decide to do instead? >> ---

4 - Have you ever had any “unusual” or exotic pets? If you could own any animal, what would it be and why? >> No. I don’t want to own any animals. The only pet I’m willing to have is a trained emotional support dog.

5 - How often do you wash your hair? >> About once a week.

6 - What have you found the hardest about the current Pandemic? >> Seeing how some people totally disregard it and really show their unwillingness to think about how their actions affect other people. Also, not being able to go certain places, but, like... that hasn’t been as painful as I’d expected it to be.

7 - And what about the easiest? Has anything improved in your life because of what’s happened? >> Definitely the staying-at-home part, since I was doing a lot of that already. Nothing has improved in my life as a direct result of the pandemic, though. My lifestyle hasn’t changed enough for that to really be possible.

8 - If you have multiple pets, do they get along with each other? Are they related or even the same species? >> ---

9 - What’s the weather doing right now? Is this good for you, or not? >> It was chilly and sunny today, which is fine with me. I prefer warmer weather, sure, but I can deal with the cold as long as the Sun is out. (I also finally got a chance to put my cards out to be cleansed and recharged. I’d been waiting almost a week for a sunny day.)

10 - Do you have any plans for Christmas yet? >> I am assuming that Christmas will be an at-home affair just like Thanksgiving was, which is fine with me. I like some of the stuff we do at the Wayland house for holidays, but a lot of it is far too commercial for me.

11 - What was the last meal you ate? Did you have anything good? >> A veggie burger and chips (which is usually what I eat for breakfast, but I had Thanksgiving leftovers for breakfast instead. really flipped the script today).

12 - Do you still buy DVD’s or CD’s? >> No.

13 - Do you live somewhere where strangers say hi to you in the street? Would you like to live somewhere like that? >> It’s 60/40; closer to downtown people are less likely to do it, but in the residential areas like here, it’s bound to happen. I... I can take it or leave it, I guess. My social aversion comes and goes, but when it’s strong I don’t want to be noticed by anyone and being acknowledged when I’m outside is painful and disruptive, so... there’s that. But when I feel more stable, it can be nice to be smiled and hello’d at.

14 - Are there any accents that you really struggle to understand? >> Sure, particularly if it’s one I’m unfamiliar with. I try my best -- I find that hand motions and pantomiming sometimes help.

15 - Have you ever tried any of those meal replacement shakes? >> Yeah, I’ve drank my share of Ensures and Nutraments. They were great when I was doing drugs all the time and wasn’t interested in eating, but also didn’t want to like, pass out in the street.

16 - What did you wear the last time you left the house? Where were you going and what did yo >> Okay, I don’t quite know what the rest of this question was supposed to be, but the last thing I wore outside was sweatpants, a Fraternal Order of Grave Robbers t-shirt, and a NOLA Museum of Death hoodie. We went grocery shopping.

17 - Do you make up silly nicknames for your pets or family members? >> ---

18 - What’s your favourite thing to take photographs of? Are you actually any good at photography? >> I don’t have a favourite thing to take photos of. I have made no effort to be skilled in photography.

19 - Do you have anything interesting planned for the rest of the day? How about for tomorrow or the weekend? >> The day is pretty much over. Tomorrow I guess I’ll either be playing video games or online.

20 - Are you living in an area that’s under any lockdown restrictions? Do they have an official end date in sight yet? >> Not really. Any kind of lockdown Whitmer would try to impose now would get shot down by the rest of the government, I’m sure, seeing how things went earlier in the year. Even though, you know, the ICUs are at capacity again... because this is definitely a prolonged state of emergency... which is the framework she was using to enact the executive orders for lockdowns.... which were declared unconstitutional....

21 - Are you going to take the vaccine for COVID once it becomes available? >> If it’s available to me personally, then sure, I’ll take it. But I don’t know how they’re going to roll it out and whether it’ll actually get out to everyone the way you’d expect.

22 - How much housework have you done lately? Is this more or less than usual? >> No more or less than usual.

23 - What gifts are you hoping to get for your next birthday (or Christmas, whichever one is coming up next)? >> ---

24 - Do you suffer from any form of motion sickness? >> No.

25 - Do you contribute regularly to any Facebook groups at all? >> No.

26 - When was the last time you weighed yourself? Were you happy with the numbers you saw? >> Over a month ago, I guess, I don’t really remember. I’m never happy with the number, but at least it hadn’t changed.

27 - Have you got any chronic health issues? What do you do to try and manage them as best you can? >> No.

28 - Did the last drink you had contain caffeine or alcohol? >> Yeah, I drank a cider.

29 - What’s your favourite scent of perfume or body spray? >> I prefer a particular roll-on oil. The scent’s name is usually “Opium”.

30 - Would you rather live in a mansion, a cottage or a penthouse apartment? >> A cottage.

[limitededitionsanderssidesblog]

Love Like You - Chapter 2/2

Ships: Anxceit, Logicality

Summary: Nearly half a year has passed since Virgil first walked into the Stork House and met mysterious and hardworking caregiver, Dexter Serpente, and the odd pair of eleven-year-old twins, Roman and Remus. Over the past few months, with weekly visits, Virgil finds himself slowly falling for both Dexter and the boys. However, shadows of his past and fear of the future hold him back.

This Chapter is twice as long as the last, so sorry in advance.

Chapter 1 AO3 - Here

- The sun began to set as the day grew sleepy. Cars filled the traffic lanes as working adults returned to their homes after a long day at their jobs. They honked and beeped their horns, impatient to get home; while Virgil honked his horn for another reason.

“The light is green! Get off your phone and drive!” Virgil shouted at the car in front of him that refused to move even though it had changed ten seconds ago.

He never did like sitting in traffic, but today it was even worse since they all had planned to take the kids to the movie theater to watch the latest Pixar movie. They ended up leaving the Stork house a little late since it was hard to corral ten kids into three cars. They almost had to cancel entirely because one of the other volunteer helpers couldn’t make it. Virgil quickly grew nervous about getting there on time, but his rushing around didn’t do much of anything to help the issue. Dexter called his other volunteer but they were occupied as well. 

Virgil nearly had a meltdown then, Dexter was also slightly panicking but he remained calm enough to soothe Virgil. Dexter then asked Patton if his boyfriend would be available to drive them to the theater, and, after a swift call, he was.

Logan came and took four of the older kids in his white Corvette, Patton drove his KIA and took four of the toddlers, while Virgil volunteered to drive the agency’s car to take him, Dexter, and Roman and Remus. A small argument between who should drive stalled them a few minutes longer, but Virgil quickly settled it by snatching the keys and bolting for the car. He felt a little guilty for acting so childish, but he felt that he needed to make it up for ruining the night.

“How much time until the movie starts?” Virgil questioned, speeding up a bit, but not too much that he’d risk getting a speeding ticket.

“Seven minutes,” Dexter replies looking at the digital tickets he bought online.

We’re still ten minutes away. We’re not going to make it. We’ll miss the beginning of the movie. I’ve messed it up for everyone.

Cue the shaking and shortness of breath to take over his body as his anxiety skyrocketed. Dexter noticed his panic and was quick to reassure and comfort him.

“The ads last fifteen minutes, we’ll make it on time,” Dexter said.

Virgil nodded his head, but only to not concern Dexter any further. The man already had so much on his plate and did so much for him, he didn’t want to be any more of a burden on him. Instead, he focused on the twins in the back talking excitedly about the movie they’ve been waiting to see.

“I can’t wait to hear the new songs!” Roman cheered, bouncing a little in his seat.

“There aren’t gonna be any songs, stupid. It’s a Pixar movie, not a Disney movie.” Remus chided beside him.

“Toy Story 2 had a song in it! And I’m not stupid, you’re stupid, stupid!” Roman argues back, sticking his tongue out at his brother.

“Idiot!”

“Dummy!”

“Boys! Quiet down back there!” Dexter demanded, giving them each a glare through the rearview mirror.

Roman and Remus stopped their little spat but continued to glare and make faces at each other. Virgil watched them in the mirror and smiled a little to himself.

It had been a grand total of four months since Virgil had turned the big three-one and realized that his chances of ever having someone in his life had escaped him, and when he admitted that he was not physically, mentally, or financially capable of adopting a child. Though, instead of accepting a life of loneliness filled with nothing but endless days at work and the occasional excursions with his two friends, Virgil decided that he would visit the Stork Agency at least twice a week to volunteer and be around the kids.

At that time, he had grown very close with the two eldest kids at the Agency, falling for their quirky personalities. Virgil would usually come on the days when Remus wasn’t allowed at school to help tutor him. He’d bring books on his grade level math, science, and English and help him with his homework. When he wasn’t tutoring him he’d read stories to him to help his reading comprehension. Improvement in his grades began to appear after three weeks of work and Virgil remembered the smile on Remus’s face when he brought home a C+ on a math test. Dexter had felt such pride over the score and even hung it on the fridge to celebrate.

When he wasn’t helping Remus catch up with the rest of his grade, he would play video games with him on the WiiU. Remus was a near master at Mario Kart and it was practically impossible to beat him, but when it came to games like Super Smash Bros, Virgil reigned champ. Dexter wasn’t much of a gamer and often just sat by and watched them play if he wasn’t too busy taking care of the other kids. The best part was watching Roman and Remus play together since they were both just as good and their matches went on for long periods of time in a tight struggle.

Although video gaming and reading stories were enjoyable, the most entertaining activity they liked to do was anything creative. Remus loved to draw, and while his drawings were at times weird and sometimes disturbing, he had a real talent for it. Roman, on the other hand, was a storyteller and liked to write scripts for his own plays that he would act out with whoever he could get to join him.

Four months may not be a long time to know someone, but Virgil already felt like attached to the boys, and watching them act silly was one way he was able to calm down. Although, the best way for him to calm down was by watching Dexter beside him parenting them. Even if he was annoyed or frustrated with them, he had a knack for handling the wildness that gave him a special kind of shine.

The twins were not the only ones who somehow worked their way into his heart over the past four months, despite his best efforts to keep it secured under lock and key.

Miraculously, traffic began to clear up and they were able to navigate through the city a bit faster. This put Virgil slightly more at ease, and he refused to look at the car’s digital clock to keep his anxiety down to a minimum. When they finally did arrive in the theater parking lot, Logan and Patton in tow behind him, Virgil raced around until he found a parking spot with empty spaces around so the others could park as well. 

Practically leaping out of his seat, Virgil opened up the door for Roman behind him, while Dexter did the same for Remus, and walked to meet up with the others so Dexter could do a headcount before heading into the theater. 

Dexter went on ahead to give the clerk their tickets, while Virgil led the children to the theater, while Logan and Patton went to buy the popcorn. Just as Dexter said it would, the movie trailers were still playing by the time they walked in. Virgil guided the kids to their seats, making sure to leave a few seats empty so that the other adults can sit around and keep an eye on them.

The movie trailers reached its final one by the time Dexter walked in and took his seat in front of Virgil. 

“See, I told you it would turn out alright.” Dexter smiled over his shoulder, turning to look at him from one row down.

“Yeah… it did.” Virgil breathed out, his heart rate still calming down from his near panic attack.

Dexter smiles once more, then turned back to face the front as the movie began. Logan and Patton walked it with everyone’s snacks just in time.

The movie was definitely a lot more interesting than Virgil had thought it would be, not that he thought it would be completely boring. The plotline follows the story of a young girl who accidentally stumbled into her father’s laboratory and travels into another dimension, where she believed he disappeared to when she was a baby. The young girl then seeks after her father in the strange world, making friends along the way, and drawing attention from, and being hunted by, the people who captured her father. In the end, she reunites with him, the meeting was emotional enough to jerk a few tears from more than just him, and they go home. There was even a song sung for Roman to enjoy, and just enough violence to keep Remus entertained, but not so much that it was majorly concerning. A little over two hours later, the movie ended and the adults had to, once again, escort a crowd of small children out of the theater, which was no easy feat.

Along the way back to the cars, Roman practically bounced up and down as he reported every moment of the movie that he enjoyed. Dexter held onto his right hand and Virgil held onto his left, walking closely with the boy in between them. Remus basically hung off of Dexter’s shoulders, having asked to sit atop of them when they walked out. Dexter looked tired and repeatedly told him to stop squirming around, but it did little to calm the energized eleven-year-old. The scene warmed his heart and Virgil nearly laughed out loud at how silly he looked. He desperately wanted to take a picture but didn’t want to appear creepy. 

On the road back to the agency home, the twins sat and talked excitedly about the movie in the back. In the front, he and Dexter sat in silence. Virgil wanted to say something, anything, but all his words got tied together whenever he tried to speak. Dexter made a few comments towards him, but Virgil was only able to reply in short, broken, phrases. By the time they arrived back, Virgil still had said barely two words to the other man.

Why am I like this? Why can’t I do anything right?

Logan and Patton pulled into the driveway and along the street just a minute or two after them, both looking fatigued. Both Logan and Patton had worked full shifts that day, while it had been Virgil’s day off. He offered to help the children in and to bed so that they could go back to their apartment sooner. Patton argued against it at first, but one hushed word from Dexter, that Virgil couldn’t quite hear had him readily leaving with a smile, quickly dragging Logan along with him. A thrill of foreboding ran down his spine and Virgil then felt like he had made a mistake by offering to do so.

“Racoon man!” Remus cried, pulling on his arm violently, “I want soda!”

“No can do little man, it’s past your bedtime,” Virgil said, hauling him up into his arms, grabbing another kid’s hand, and leading them to the house. The movie was a late one and had ended at nine, which was just an hour before lights out. That meant that He and Dexter had a lot of work to do before then.

Dexter went on ahead to help the smallest toddlers to sleep in their room next to his in the basement. Virgil took it upon himself to help the older children get ready for bed upstairs. Setting Remus back down, he nudged him inside and directed him upstairs, almost closing the door behind him until he noticed Roman still standing out on the porch.

“Roman? You okay, little dude?” Virgil asked, walking out to him. Roman jumped slightly at the sound of his voice and quickly turned his head away, rubbing his face with the back of his arm.

“Yeah!” Roman replied, turning around hastily, head low. “Just allergies,”

Virgil wanted to interrogate him a bit further, not believing the excuse behind the tears the boy thought he didn’t see, but he ran inside and up the stairs before he could ask any further questions. Virgil sighed with a frown and followed after. 

It was truly a task to get all the kids to settle down enough to change into their pajamas, brush their teeth, and get into bed; but he didn’t have to do anything at all for Roman, the downcasted boy was in bed before anyone else. Virgil wanted to find out what was wrong but had a feeling that he just needed a little time to himself for now.

By the time he settled all the kids to bed and turned out the lights it was well past ten at night. Taking one final look at the twins resting in their beds, longer than the looks he gave the other kids, he went back down the stairs to head out and get some sleep of his own.

He grabbed his keys from the coffee table and had one foot out the door when Dexter suddenly walked in from the kitchen behind him, making him jolt slightly as he looked nothing more than a shadow in the lightless room.

“You heading out already?” Dexter asked him, switching on a lamp near him. Virgil squinted against the abrupt introduction of light, but once his eyes adjusted he noticed the simple cashmere black long-sleeve Dexter had changed into that hung eye blindingly tight against his body, and a small bottle of wine in his hand. Virgil turned his eyes up to his face to stop mentally drooling over him, but by the smirk on his face, Dexter had already realized what he had been doing. 

“I thought you weren’t supposed to have alcohol in the house?” Virgil coughed, trying to regain the cool that he never had.

“It’s my own small stash from my safe, the kids won’t ever get to it.” Dexter said matter-of-factly stepping away from the entrance frame with a push of his hip, “So…?”

Virgil looked to him and then to the small bottle of alcohol. A large part of him screamed not to risk it and run away and never come back. Deep down he knew what it would lead to, he isn’t dense, he’s noticed the attention Dexter’s given him over the past few months, but he didn’t trust himself not to ruin it.

I ruin everything. I’m the reason everyone left me. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t even try.

Even so, despite his best efforts to remain indifferent and unaffected by his charms, Virgil constantly found himself falling for his charisma and passion. He hoped that, just maybe, he would have another chance at a relationship.

“Maybe just one glass.” Virgil concedes, closing the door and following after Dexter into the back room.

The sat on the long couch, a foot of space between them, with wine glasses each in their hands. Dexter pop opened the bottle and poured a bit in both their glasses. They clinked their drinks together in toast and took their first sip. Virgil usually wasn’t much of a wine drinker, but the fruity taste sat deliciously on his tongue and drew him back for more.

“I wanted to thank you for all your help tonight, Virgil,” Dexter spoke up after their cheer, the rim of his glass against his lips.

“I didn’t really do anything.” Virgil huffed, twirling the drink in its glass.

“Yes you did, you made my job easier just by being there,” Dexter confessed urgently, chasing away his self-deprecating thoughts as soon as they came, just as he always did. “The children really like you.”

“Well, kids are easy to please.” Virgil blushed, turning away shyly, wrapping an arm around himself.

Slowly a hand reached out and gently grasped his chin, softly pulling it back as it were a moment before. Virgil then realized just how close they had become, the foot falling to a mere few inches. Their faces were within breathing distance and he could feel the steamed warmth of Dexter’s breath blowing against his cheek.

“They aren’t the only ones who like you.” He whispered,

A pull drew them closer together, closing the space between them. The grip on his chin was soft and gentle, allowing room for him to pull away at any moment. Virgil’s mind roared in his head as he lost himself in the moment and in Dexter’s caramel brown eyes. The time it took for them to finally reach each other was painstakingly slow, as though an eternity had passed by without them as they stayed still together, trapped in each other’s embrace. For the first time Virgil felt relaxed in someone else’s arms, he wasn’t afraid about what could be and could only think of what currently was.

However, the warm touch of Dexter’s lips against his reawakened those fears.

What if my breath smells? Am I out of practice? Am I a horrible kisser? Why is this happening? Why is he doing this? Why does he like? What if I screw it up? What if I push him away? I can’t lose him!

“Wait, stop!” Virgil shouted, pushing Dexter off of him.

Dexter fell back into the cushions roughly and looked back at him in surprise, confusion, and regret.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that-” He immediately began to apologize, which only made Virgil feel worse.

“No, it’s not that, it’s just-” I ruined it. I ruin everything. Why did I push him away? I’m so pathetic. I hurt him. I’m pushing him away. I don’t want him to leave. I have to do something to fix this. “Ca-can we just be friends?” He stuttered out, shutting his eyes closed and tightening his fists on the fabric of his jeans.

He shook in his spot, sobs trapped in his chest begging to break out, on the cusps of an emotional outburst. It took all of his strength and focus to keep from bursting out in tears and cries. Even so, a few tears managed to slip past him and fall down his cheeks.

A hand reached out and grasped his face, but only to wipe away the tears that had fallen through.

“If that’s what you want, then of course.” His kind voice answered, much too forgiving after what Virgil had just pulled.

“I’m sorry.” He hiccuped with a sob, causing another round of tears to fall.

“Don’t be, I don’t want to force anything onto you.” Dexter smiled, though he could see that it was forced and hurt.

Fuck, I’m the absolute worst.

-

The next few weeks were awkward as hell, though it was mostly his fault.

After, whatever the hell that was happened, Virgil practically ran from the house and scrammed his way to his apartment condo. About an hour later he received an incoming text from Dexter.

Dee: I’m sorry, forget what happened.

He wanted to, he really did; if it were possible he’d erase the feeling of being held so gently, he’d erase the image of Dexter’s eyes boring kindly into his, erase the smell of his burnt wood cologne. If the power to erase his memories existed within him he would do so in a heartbeat, so that his heart would stop beating so heavily and his clutch onto hope could come undone.

But no, he didn’t have that power, so now he was left to remember it all in excruciating detail. The hope inside him that he had desperately been trying to push down and squash had now gotten the upper hand.

No matter what he did, or told himself, it was becoming increasingly more difficult to ignore the emotions building inside him. Yet, it seemed that it didn’t make a difference in the end what he felt towards Dexter since he had already gone and ruined it, whatever it was.

In an attempt to avoid him and the awkwardness, Virgil switched from going twice a week to just once a week, but that did very little to help, in fact, it only made it worse. Before it was just strained and uncomfortable glances and awkward small talk, but after he started cutting his visits short they began to talk less and less, sometimes he wouldn’t even see Dexter because he’d be too busy with the other children. It wasn’t unusual for him to be busy with the other kids, but he had always somehow made time to talk with Virgil, but now it was as if he wasn’t putting in any effort.

Virgil didn’t blame Dexter for being terse or angry with him, he would be too if he had that shit pulled on him, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Although the biggest problem to come out of all this wasn’t the tension between the two men, it was the effect it had on the kids, Roman and Remus specifically. Since he only came once a week now Virgil had barely any time to be around them, and sometimes he’d only be able to see one or the other if either of them at all. His usual tutoring with Remus had been cut short and he could tell that he was beginning to struggle again as his class began to take a lead on him the more new material was introduced. Remus promised to work his hardest without him and said that Dexter helped him when he found the time, but Virgil couldn’t help but feel guilty.

Roman had taken it differently and had taken Dexter’s side, although he didn’t even know what happened between them. He grew quieter and would say barely two words to him. Virgil didn’t know what to do about it, wasn’t sure how to fix everything he had destroyed.

But he had to make that first step.

It was almost dinner time for the kids, Dexter occupied the kitchen preparing the food while Jessica, a volunteer, sat with Virgil and the other kids in the backroom as they watched Barbie. Remus sat by his side, pretending to be working on his scheduled reading homework, but really was focusing on the movie. The only one not there, besides the smaller toddlers taking their nap, was Roman.

Looking over his shoulder, Virgil stared out of the window into the backyard at the small treehouse in the great oak that sat alone out there. Recently, Roman had been retreating to his ‘tower,’ purposefully avoiding him. Virgil decided that, at the very least, he could try to earn the boy’s trust again.

Ruffling Remus’s hair as he stood, Virgil went out the screen door to the backyard and went over to the treehouse the boy was hiding in. Climbing the wood ladder, Virgil gently knocked on the door before he pushed it open and let himself in.

The treehouse was pretty scarce of anything, but it had an old pillow and a few stuffed animals strewn about on the floor. The ceiling was really low, which meant it was impossible for Virgil to stand, so he had to remain seated the entire time.

“Hey bud,” Virgil greeted, crawling into the cramped space, “You mind if I join you up here?” Roman didn’t reply, sitting in the corner of the wooden fortress with his back faced towards him. “Look, I know you’re angry at me right now, but I didn’t mean to-”

“Why are you still here?” The sixth-grader cut him off, his voice icy and hard.

“I- Excuse me?”

“I can tell how much you hate being here. Why don’t you stop faking it and just go?” Roman spat, curling further into himself. “All they ever do is leave, even if they promise to come back, they never do. So why don’t you go away!” He shouted in a broken sob that pierced Virgil’s heart.

Roman had always been a cheerful and energetic child, similar to his brother but in a more controlled way. However, there were moments when he seemed quiet and subdued. The moments never lasted long and were far and few in between, and whenever Virgil asked about it he would always change the subject or give a simple answer. He thought it was just one of his many quirks, he should have realized sooner that he was feeling this way. It made perfect sense, Roman had lived the past ten years of his life in disappointment as he watched the children around him steadily be adopted one by one, which he and his brother were left behind. Perhaps they had been considered by a few families, and maybe some of them even promise to come back and never did. They grew up being judged and rejected by adults, they’ve known nothing else, it’s become their entire existence and identity; what did a child make of that?

“Was- was it me?” Roman asked sobbing, more to himself than to Virgil, his eyes blurred with tears and snot running down his nose.

Suddenly, without thinking, Virgil snapped and reached out, pulling Roman into a massive hug, holding him tightly against his chest and running his fingers through his hair.

“Roman, Roman no. You’ve done nothing wrong.” He told the crying by, setting his chin on top of his small head.

“Then why aren’t you around anymore?”

“Because adults are idiots sometimes.” Virgil chuckled dryly.

He’s been a damn fool lately, running away from his problems won’t solve anything, and not talking about it made it worse. He hadn’t meant to cause anyone harm, never intended for the boys to be affected the way they were. But it happened, so he had to fix it.

Once Roman calmed down and regained himself Virgil lead him back inside the house, hand in hand, and sat him with his brother in front of the still playing movie. He could tell the boy didn’t want him to leave his side, but the sooner he fixed his mistake the better it would be for everything else.

Dexter was still in the kitchen, placing a casserole into the oven. Virgil watched him for a moment, observing how calm he looked when he was focused, calm and beautiful. Dexter set the casserole on the middle shelf and closed the oven door, setting a timer on the stove, and then turned and caught Virgil in the middle of his staring.

“Hello.” He greeted, his usually warm smile appearing slightly strained.

“Hey, Dexter,” Virgil returned his greeting looking down at his feet, “c-could I talk to you?”

“Of course, what is it?” He asked, taking off his oven mitts, throwing them on the counter, and leaning his weight against the refrigerator. 

“I…” Virgil began, still looking at the ground, crossing his arms and rubbing his sides nervously, “I wanted to say I’m sorry… for pushing you away.”

Dexter’s calm and relaxed facade suddenly fell away and he became rigid and stood straighter. Even his fake smile cannot remain, his face becoming harder and somber with retrospect.

“I told you before, it’s alright.” Dexter reminded him, sounding downtrodden.

“No, it isn’t, I made you think that you were the problem. I never wanted to do that to you.” Virgil argued shaking his head as he looked up from his feet, his voice unintentionally growing louder.

Dexter his eyes grew wide and surprise, as did Virgil‘s, neither were used to say anxious librarian using a loud tone or becoming aggressive. It wasn’t that Virgil was never aggressive, in fact, he could be quite aggressive, although not physically and rather verbally; but since whenever he was around Dexter he was also around children the former never really had the chance to see that side of him. Virgil froze for a moment, fearing what Dexter would think of him after he yelled. However, Dexter didn’t appear to be offended, and he actually appeared endeared by it. It’s my return, but just for a moment, except this time it was real.

“Well, I forgive you, and I’m sorry as well.” Dexter exhaled, leaning away from the refrigerator.

“What for? You didn’t do anything wrong.” Virgil asked in confusion.

“Yeah I did, I made you uncomfortable, and spent the time since avoiding sulking about it. I’ve been acting like a child.”

“If anyone’s a child it’s me, I’ve been avoiding you like an idiot.” Virgil disagreed, putting himself down that he might build Dexter up.

“Don’t say that about yourself.” The caretaker said in an almost commanding voice, becoming rigid in his stance once again. This time it was Virgil‘s turn to be surprised at the other new show of aggression. Sure, Dexter was no saint, Virgil had seen him get frustrated and annoyed with the children multiple times since he first came to the Stork House, but it was always in a nurturing way, like a parent to a child. His tone of voice and the look in his eyes showed something else besides parental affection, kind, caring, and intense.

It’s the truth, though.

Those were the thoughts that Virgil always told himself and believed. It was easier to take the blame than to risk hurting someone else. Still, it was nice to have someone to help combat those thoughts, even if he didn’t listen.

Their eyes stayed locked for a few moments more, taking part in an unspoken battle against each other for a prize he couldn’t figure out. A heartbeat or two more passed when Dexter’s strong stance and expression began to crumble away into one more relaxed, and he began to laugh, although Virgil wants sure if he was laughing at him or something else entirely. Dexter’s hearty and breathless laughter filled the room and chased away the tension; Virgil had no choice but to join in until they both became laughing fools.

“I think the kids are starting to rub off on us,” Dexter chokes out between laughs. 

“I think you mean just you,” Virgil teased, holding his now hurting stomach.

“Says the guy pointing fingers like a child,” Dexter smirked.

Virgil feigned offense and put a hand on his chest and pretended to be wounded, just like Roman would do. 

Perhaps the children really were rubbing off on him, but he didn’t consider that a bad thing. So what if he acted like a child from time to time, being around these kids had been some of his best days. Ever since he came to the Stork Agency Virgil has found it in himself to smile again without it being fake or forced. He’s having actual fun again, he feels like he’s contributing to something bigger than himself, and he feels almost whole again.

Dexter excused himself to call the kids to wash their hands before dinner, which was finished and set out on the counter. 

Virgil watched the man in both wonder and curiosity. He had never laughed like that with anyone else, not since Matthew, and he had never expected to do so again. Virgil had welcomed in failure with each relationship he walked into, he expected and built up walls to protect himself for when it inevitably happened. Yet, this man, in just a handful of months, had managed to put a dent in his walls and threatened to break them down for good.

In his fear and natural reflex, Virgil wanted to put an end to the threat and keep his walls up higher than they were before. He had been hurt too many times and feared being completely shattered if he took one more blow. Even so, Virgil found himself welcoming in the destruction of his walls. He had trapped himself in a box for years, relinquishing his freedom and joy in exchange for security. He was bound by the chains of his own creation with the key in his hand at all times.

Virgil had a choice to entrust that key to someone else, but he still wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to. However, with how things were going, not only would his walls be removed, but he will also hand over the key to his heart as well. And Dexter would be at the center of it all.

-

“So if this is the tens place, and this is the hundreds, which one is this?”

“Uhm… it’s the… it’s the thousandths place.” Remus replied, head bent over his homework booklet as he stared intensely at the numbers on the page.

“Good job! So if that’s the thousandths place, where does this number round to?” Virgil quizzed, pointing at the four at the end of the equation.

“It…It…um, it doesn’t.” 

“Correct! But why doesn’t it?” He continued, making sure that he wasn’t just guessing.

“Because… it’s less than five, so… it doesn’t round up.” Remus answered, his eyes lighting up.

“Great job bob, Einstein is gonna have to look out.” Virgil congratulated him, pulling him into a hug and affectionately ruffing up his hair.

“Yeah or else he’ll have a chicken stuck up his butt.” The boy proclaimed with a grin.

“Mister Virgil? Can you help me?” Another child, Samantha, asked. Virgil nodded and scooted over to her to look over her work and help her where he could. 

The fresh spring breeze blew through the open windows and ruffled up the worksheet, nearly blowing them off the table. May had come, and with it, the warmth partnered with the ending of spring and the approaching summer. Not only did it bring a change of weather, but also the impending student stress of finals. Virgil, who had actually somehow made it through college all four years and was a surprisingly decent student, due to his anxiety over failure, offered to help them. After all, how hard could grade school classes be?

At first, he had helped only Remus since he was still a ways behind his class, but soon after all the other children gathered around him asking for help in their studies. He would have been overwhelmed if it wasn’t for Patton, who offered to help in English and History, while Virgil helped with Math and Science.

By far, the hardest subject for Remus to grasp was math. He really was a creative boy and was more of an artist than anything else, the math simply didn’t come easy for him; it was the same for Roman as well. If he could, Virgil would move them to a fine arts school where they could cultivate their talents and focus on what they were good at and not be held back. Roman had a better time in math and science than his brother, but they still weren’t his favorite subjects, so he didn’t need to ask for help as often, except when it came to mean, median, and range.

“This is stupid! Why do I have to know this?” Roman complained, throwing down his pencil in frustration.

“Honestly I don’t know bud,” Virgil sighed and patted the boy’s head, “But if you pass your test I’ll take you out for ice cream.” 

Roman’s eyes lit up at that and he immediately took the bait, returning to his work and giving the problems more of his attention. Virgil smiled as he watched the boy’s comedic face as he focused solely on the homework sheet. Virgil remembered hating math in school, despite being good at it, and it did little to serve him outside of the education system. Unless Roman wanted to go into a science or math-related field, which he probably didn’t, Virgil doubted he’d really need the information he’s learning.

“Hey raccoon man, are you busy next Tuesday?” Remus suddenly spoke up from his seat beside him, using the nickname he had received the first day they met.

“Besides work in the afternoon, not really, why?” Virgil inquired of the boy.

Roman, who seemed to already know what his brother was talking about, tensed up and gave a commanding, “Don’t.”

But he went ignored as Remus continued on anyways.

“We’re having parents day at school. Snake man is going because he’s our guardian, but I want you to be there too.” The eleven-year-old beamed brightly, bouncing around excitedly in his seat.

“That’s such a good idea!” Patton gasped and smiled widely with a clap of his hands, taking a break from helping Maddie to listen in on their conversation.

“Oh, well I’m not sure if it’s okay for-”

“He’s not our dad, Remus.” Roman spat out loudly, causing the room to quiet down and turn to them. Realizing that all eyes were on him, Roman flushed a bright red and turned his head down, but still remained upset. “He’s just some guy.”

The room was deathly silent as all the children and both adults stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to the young boy’s sudden outburst. Roman froze as realization dawned on his face that was quickly replaced with a mix of anger and guilt. Standing from his seat at the coffee table, Roman ran away down the hall and upstairs, the sound of footsteps echoing in his wake.

No one made a move for several moments after and just looked around at each other at a loss for words. Virgil, however, snapped out of his shock and swiftly followed after him. It didn’t take long to find him as he wasn’t really hiding, and was simply lying on his bed on the bottom bunk with his back turned towards him.

“Hey, you okay?” Virgil asked, taking a seat at the foot of the bed.

“I’m sorry Mr. Virgil,” Roman apologized, turning over to face him, his eyes full of tears and snot running down his nose.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Virgil told him and pulled him into a side hug with one arm, “I understand.” 

Even though it surprised him, even though it hurt a little to hear those words, Roman was right, he wasn’t their dad, he had no right to act as if he was. “I know I’m not your dad, but if you’d let me, I’d love to go to your school.”

“Really?” Roman wondered, his glassy eyes shone bright with excitement and he sat up on the back of his legs.

“Yeah, of course.” 

Still, despite the legality of it all, he wanted to go to their school and feel like their parents, even if it was just for a day.

“So I heard you're coming to parents day.” Dexter started, speaking first between them as they walked together through the supermarket. 

Normally it would be Patton’s duty to help with groceries, but he was currently out of commission taking care of a sick Logan. Virgil had warned him that he was getting too much dust and not enough sunlight from overworking himself as per usual at the library. Well, it wasn’t as if Virgil practice perfectly healthy habits either, but which one of them was sick in bed? Exactly.

Either way, Virgil was now stuck pushing a cart around while Dexter read off his list and filled the basket with different foods, sauces, spices, and treats. He wasn’t too bent over it though, spending time with Dexter wasn’t a complete punishment. Ever since they had that talk two weeks ago the tension had basically dissipated. Until today that is; Virgil didn’t know exactly what had happened, but ever since his last visit earlier that week Dexter had been more quiet than usual, almost like he was busy thinking.

“Yeah, Remus invited me.” Virgil agreed, taking the cans of alfredo sauce the other man held out to him and placing them in the cart. “Roman didn’t like it at first, but he’s alright with it now.”

Dexter check pasta sauce of his list and stayed silent for a moment, gazing far ahead of him at something Virgil couldn’t see, his eyes cold and focused. Virgil gulped down a breath of nervous air as he grew anxious about the conversation.

Is he mad at me? Does he not want me to go to parents’ day?

“I worry about them sometimes.”

Virgil blinked and snapped out of his anxious thoughts before he could spiral, stunned and intrigued by the statement.

“Huh?”

Dexter walked on ahead, reading over his shopping list and leading them to the next item they needed. Virgil watched him walk in front of him, noticing the tension in his shoulders, and followed after.

“They’re so used to disappoint and being rejected by every foster and adopter that comes to the house,” he began, his tone low and somber, “but you’re the only one to ever wanted to come back and see them. I worry sometimes that it’s raising their hopes.” He confessed head hung low as he came to a slow stop and stared down at his feet. “Do you ever think you’ll adopt them?”

The librarian opened his mouth to respond but hesitated in his answer. Will he adopt them? There was no denial that he had grown attached to the boys since he first met them on his birthday six months ago, that being with them brought him a sort of joy and fulfillment he hadn’t felt in a long time. Of course, there were times he has been annoyed with them and wanted to walk out, such as when they were being stubborn and difficult or throwing tantrums, but they were only children and he came back to see them anyways.

Even so, was he ready to take care of two children? It’s not like he was making a whole lot of money at his job as an assistant manager if it was just one of them it might work, but there was no way he could choose between them or split them apart. And if he did take both of them, would there be enough room in his condo for them to live. His condo wasn’t that big and had only two rooms, both of which were currently being used. He could empty out his office, but that would mean they’d have to share a small amount of space. That may work for now, but what about when they’re older? Plus, with his work hours, he wouldn’t come back home until around ten at night five days a week, he couldn’t leave them alone like that.

“Its a big change in life to have a kid, let alone two. I still don’t know if I’m ready.” Virgil admitted regretfully.

The last thing he wanted to do was to toy with the boys’ feelings, but he couldn’t take them in, not yet at least.

“No one ever truly is.” The caregiver stated, his voice sounding serious but his face was kind with affection and understanding, “I’m not going to pressure you into making a decision, but please consider it. I can tell how much you love them just by watching you. And I know for a fact they love you back.”

Virgil smiled to himself, but it was slightly strained, his emotions were a haywire mix of joy, grief, pride, and guilt. Even if he loved being around them, wanted to see them grow and be there for them, they weren’t his and he had no right to them. If Virgil had been brave he would have admitted it to himself by now, that he couldn’t imagine life without the twins anymore, he could picture a future without them in it. But he feared what that kind of commitment entailed, and distressed over whether his broken self could manage it.

-

Requesting the day off to attend a parents’ day event at one of the local middle schools for two children who weren’t his that he met at an orphanage less than a year ago had certainly been an interesting way to start off his Tuesday morning. He had the date marked down on his Twenty One Pilots calendar, on his iPhone planner, and had even written reminders on sticky notes and placed them throughout his condo. Virgil did not want to miss it for the world. Thankfully his boss hadn’t questioned him too much on it and gave him the day off.

The next part of his morning had been dressing the part, even if he wasn’t their dad he wanted to make a good impression on the teachers. Besides, Dexter would be there too, and he didn’t want to slack off in front of someone who always somehow managed to look irresistibly good.

Not that that was the point of today.

Starting off with a quick shower, Virgil carefully blow-dried and styled his hair, keeping his bangs out of his face this time. When it came time to get dressed, he settled on a clean pair of non-ripped black jeans and a dark grey tee shirt without a printed design, since they were some of the few clothes that seemed appropriate to wear at a middle school. The real trouble came with picking a jacket, most of his wear oversized hoodies he had modified himself that definitely wouldn’t fly, but after some extensive rummaging through his closet, he found an old black blazer he only ever used for formal occasions. Once he was dressed he looked at himself in the mirror and decided it was good enough if not a little foreign. 

He had promised to meet Dexter and the boys at the school gates before class started, so when he had parked in the visitor lot and jogged up to the front of the school he could see the three standing on the side waiting for him.

Just as he had expected, Dexter looked stunning. Shaking that thought out of his head, Virgil focused on the boys and continued to jog over to them.

“Hey guys,” he greeted, “You ready to head in?”

“Duh, we were waiting for you, raccoon.” Remus retorted, and then received a hard nudge from behind by Dexter.

“Remus, That’s not how you should speak to people.” The caregiver warned the boy. “Now let’s get going.”

“Yeah stupid!” Roman mocked,

“I’m not stupid, stupid!”

“That reply was stupid.”

“Snake man!” Remus cried loudly,

Dexter groaned in exasperation and walked in between, separating them before they could continue any further, and pulled them along by their hands. Virgil chuckled and followed along, taking Remus’s free hand in his as he walked alongside them.

“Rough morning?” Virgil asked, having a side glance to Dexter.

“You could say that.” He muttered, “Johnathan canceled on me, but luckily Ashley was able to watch over the kids while I was away.”

“That’s rough buddy,” 

“Whatever you say, Prince Zuko.” Dexter laughed, understanding the reference. Virgil grinned and laughed along too, glad that he was able to bring a smile to his face.

The boys’ classroom was in the third wing of the school near the very end of the hall, but before they went to class they stopped by their lockers so they could put away their backpacks and grab their books. The room was decently large, with desks lined up in rows of four by six, extra chairs had been placed near the outer desks and in the back.

The first class of the day was English and Reading, which meant pretty much the entire hour was spent with the children just reading books on their own and discussing what they read, which was honestly kinda boring. Virgil tried to pay attention but once he noticed the other parents all on their phones or, not so secretly, taking naps, he succumbed and pulled out his phone as well.

The next class was much more exciting, and not just because Virgil was partial to the subject. The makeshift not-family walked together to the classroom directly across the hall to Mr. Humford’s basic Biology class. This class was a far cry from the last as this teacher decided to hold a parent and student team biology game. Although he had been a duel science major, his studies had been in computer science and library science, and yes that is an actual science. 

For the game, parents and children split into teams of two and went up to the whiteboard to face off against each other three at a time. To do this, Virgil teamed up with Remus, while Dexter paired with Roman. 

Dexter and Roman went up in the first round but lost, coming as a bit of a shock to Virgil. The caretaker came off as a highly intelligent person, but perhaps science wasn’t his strong suit. Virgil and Remus went up in the third round and actually managed to win theirs, which brought them into a final showdown against four other groups. They didn’t win, but they had finished in third place and got some candy as a prize. The teacher and other students looked extremely surprised at Remus when he got his award, but Remus was simply happy and proud and rubbed his reward in Roman’s face. 

This caused Dexter to force him to share when the older twin began to loudly complain, which only made Remus complain and disturb the classroom. The science teacher looked at him in agitation and looked like he was about to say something, but Virgil swiftly handled it by covertly giving Remus some more candy when their backs were turned, winking and holding a finger against his lips to keep it a secret.

After science, there was a ten-minute break that passed by in a flash and then they were suddenly in math class. The class was similar to the first in that it was filled with the kids doing boring work and parents hanging out on their phones. The first fifteen minutes were filled with the children doing a math warm-up sheet, which then turned into a forty lesson and discussion. 

Virgil could tell that the teacher was trying to engage the children and get them excited for the lesson, but he couldn’t really blame them for being bored in a math class.

“Okay, so today we’re going to go over a new topic, I hope you did the pre-reading I told you to do because it went over what we’re about to learn: absolute value. Now, can anyone tell me what the absolute value of one hundred and two is?” The young female teacher asked, moving back and forth in the front as she looked across the rows of preteens.

No one raised their hands, obviously not having read the assigned math book. The teacher looked slightly distressed and called out again, “Anyone? Anyone at all?” 

In the back row, in the very far corner, Remus energetically raised his hand up high, a grin on his face. Virgil beamed with pride over him taking the initiative, especially since he had helped Remus with absolute value last week.

The teacher, however, either didn’t notice Remus or pointedly ignored him. With a heavy sigh, she turned towards the board to do the equation herself.

“Excuse me miss, but Remus has his hand up,” Vigil spoke up, catching the teacher’s attention before she could write the answer on the board.

The teacher looked over at him in surprise, as if she didn’t believe him, and turned towards Remus slowly, hands on her hips.

“Well, Remus, do you actually know it?” She asked, her voice laced with a hint of sarcasm. A few of the kids around him chuckled among themselves, but Remus didn’t seem to notice.

Dexter twitched a bit in his seat beside him and scrunched his face in annoyance, and Virgil couldn’t agree more.

“It’s one hundred and two, Miss Lady!” Remus shouted, louder than it was necessary.

“Hm, that’s correct, though it wasn’t that hard of a question.” She chided, writing the answer on the board. “You see, when you have an absolute value symbol in any number, the answer will always be-”

Remus wasn’t called on for the rest of the class period, even though he raised his hand several times, and despite Virgil mentioning it, the teacher refused to call on him. And as they went through the day he realized that she wasn’t the only teacher to do that to him. In almost every single one of his classes, Remus went ignored, left out of discussions, or had discrete, snide remarks sent towards him.

He could tell that he wasn’t the only person to notice this, as not only did Dexter see the difference in treatment Remus was receiving, but Roman did as well and sat glaring daggers at the teacher and the other students.

Sadly enough, this was a recurring issue throughout the rest of the day in almost every class. If it wasn’t the students leaving him out of groups or ignoring him it was the teachers using underlying tones or making quiet remarks towards her intelligence or personality. It was always “Remus, focus,” and “Stop bothering the other students,” and “Please apply yourself more,” or “Put in more effort.”

They tried to make it seem like they were being benevolent or helpful since they were being watched, but Virgil could see through their facade and knew they were usually straight-up assholes. Especially the teacher they were currently with who had no issue pausing in his Geography lecture to straight-up yell at the boy.

“Remus Sanchez! Stop fidgeting!” The teacher, and thankfully last one of the day, ordered in a commanding, boisterous bellow.

Remus, who sat directly in front of his desk, had been rocking back and forth in his seat, tapping his own tune on his leg with his pencils as if they were drums as he listened to the boring lesson on the geography of Florida. The sudden shout had scared him into stillness and he immediately sat up straight in his chair. The way he reacted so swiftly and in an orderly fashion hinted that it had not been the first time Remus had been yelled at.

“Sorry Mister Sir, I-” Remus began but was cut off with another shout.

“And stop with that childish nickname! It’s Mr. Ruiz, I expect that even you can remember that.”

Remus didn’t answer back and instead simply turned his head down towards his desk and gave a small nod. 

A few parents looked around at each other in concern and simply shrugged, knowing it was wrong but not willing to do anything against the geography teacher. Virgil clenched his fists and looked over to Dexter, who looked back equally as furious, but more as a quiet cold fury rather than Virgil’s boiling hot rage. Dexter shook his head and mouthed “after class.” But that wasn’t enough for him, this dick didn’t deserve to be let off easy for what he just did.

Mr. Ruiz turned with an approving nod at Remus’s submission, and went back to his powerpoint but  said barely two words before Virgil said loudly, “Excuse me, Mr. Ruiz, can you not speak to Remus like that?”

The teacher paused in his lecture and turned slowly to face whoever had dared to cause such an offense by interrupting him. Mr. Ruiz looked directly at Virgil in disdain and astonishment, as though he actually couldn’t believe that a “family acquaintance,” as he had been labeled several times that day, had actually spoken up in defiance.

“I beg your pardon?” He questioned,

His heart pounded in his chest at the upcoming confrontation, his anxiety yelled at him in his ears to shut up and apologize, but he shoved it all down, letting his anger drown out his fear. Virgil raised his head to face him and stood from his chair, his shaking at his sides.

“I said, don’t speak to him like that. Ever again.” Virgil spoke through tight lips, drawn into a sneer.

“Mr. Black, I highly doubt that now is the proper time to act in such a way-”

“But it’s time to yell at a kid in front of his parents? Are you trying to send a message or something?” He challenged, 

“Virgil, maybe you should calm down-” Dexter tried to calm him down, placing a gentle hand on his arm, but failed as it only made him even more riled up.

“No, Dee, I’ve had enough of watching these moronic teachers pick on Remus. You claim that he’s failing school but you keep him out of discussions and refuse to be decent educators!” He roared and ripped his arm away to point an accusatory finger at the teacher.

A stir started up among the students as they whispered among themselves, questioning and wondering about the claims Virgil was making. They looked to their own children, concerned whether or not Remus was the only one being mistreated by the faculty. Mr. Ruiz watched from the front as his classroom began to become distraught and flushed red in anger.

“Mr. Black!” Mr. Ruiz hollered, “Now is not the time for a family friend to file in complaints. Instead of pointing fingers you should focus on finding him someone who can raise him properly.”

The classroom quieted down at the loud outburst and blatant insult towards not just Virgil, but also at Dexter, who had spent the past ten years raising Remus. Virgil knew that he did every possible thing he could to support him while taking care of ten other children, the nights that were wasted away, the days he couldn’t leave the house, the countless hours that went without getting a break. No one had ever tried harder than Dexter, so Virgil knows that that comment hit deeper for him.

“I wouldn’t say another word if I were you,” Dexter warned in a dangerously low voice, his eyes filled with a near murderous glint as he slowly rose from his chair. “Yes, yelling in class on parents' day is not okay, but neither is degrading a child in front of his caregivers and other parents on the day you as a teacher are supposed to show to us that our children are in capable hands while we’re away at work. I have half a mind to sue the school for the discriminatory treatment he receives here.”

Mr. Ruiz stared flabbergasted with his mouth hung open, as did the rest of the entire classroom, the teachers and the students included. Not missing a beat, Dexter moved to Remus and gathered his things and pulled him out of his seat by the hand. Virgil followed suit and went to Roman, chasing after them as the caregiver practically charged for the door. “Have a good life, Mr. Ruiz. We’re leaving.”

Class ended for the day, ending early at noon for the working parents, but the four of them had long since been gone. After the miniature showdown in the geography classroom, Dexter has gone and signed out Roman and Remus for the rest of the day and scheduled a time to meet with the principal. Virgil stood a few steps behind the fuming man, the boys’ hand in his, letting him have his space to calm down. 

While he had been the one to make the first move and yell at the teacher, Dexter ended up becoming even more livid than he did. He felt partially responsible and almost guilty about what had happened, but he reminded himself that he had done it for Remus’s sake and wasn’t completely in the wrong.

In the end, they decided to treat the boys to some ice cream and went to the nearest McDonalds to get a cone and sundaes. Virgil offered to pay since he felt guilty, so Dexter went with the kids while they played in the play place. Of course, the ice cream machine was broken, so he just got everyone McFlurries instead. By the time he finally had everything, the boys were lost in their own little world, while Dexter sat on the sideline lost in thought.

“Sorry, the ice cream machine was broken,” Virgil said as he walked up and set the drinks on the table.

“That’s alright,” Dexter replied, giving him a small, tired smile. “Thank you.”

“It was only, like, three bucks, so-”

“No, not that.” Dexter shook his head, letting out a light chuckle, “For earlier.”

“Why? I made a scene and yelled at the teacher.”

“Yes but you did what I could not, guess it’s a good thing you’re the hot-headed one.”

“Gee, thanks.” Virgil huffed and leaned back in the hard plastic chair, tapping at the table lightly for a thoughtful moment, “I’m glad I am too but have they always been that way with him?”

“Well,” Dexter began but paused when the twins came running over, cheering as they sat and grabbed their flurries, not appearing to care that it wasn’t what they had originally been promised, which is a miracle in its own. “Why don’t we finish this later?” Dexter offered, opening the straw and putting it in the McFlurry for Remus, who had been struggling with the packet.

Virgil nodded and grabbed his drink, turning to Roman to chat with him to get his head going. Today had been primarily focused on Remus, but that didn’t make Roman any less important, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t feel left out. As he prattled on about his favorite Disney princes, which eventually roped Remus in, Virgil smiled at the way he lit up like a Christmas tree and the peasant energy he gave off. It was a mystery how they hadn’t been adopted until now, but with each passing moment, he found himself more and more relieved that they hadn’t been.

You’re not ready to be a parent.

Virgil ignored that thought.

-

When they arrived back at the Stork house Patton had dinner going, while most of the kids sat in the living room playing a game. The others were presumably spread out through the house. Dexter went and offered to take over and let Patton go home early. As his best friend left, he winked at him and whispered “good luck” before he headed outside to leave. Virgil blushed and stuttered but was unable to reply or come up with an excuse before he was out the door.

Both Patton and Logan knew about his conflicted emotions for Dexter and, despite knowing his past, encouraged him to pursue it. Thankfully they didn’t butt in and do anything to force them together, which he was truly grateful for.

The night went on as it usually did whenever he came there after dinner was served the children were allowed three hours of free time spent watching TV and playing games before he and Dexter got them all ready for bed before lights out at ten. Tonight Virgil and Dexter switched roles and he was the one to help the toddlers while the other helped the older kids. He didn’t hate the toddlers, but they were a pain in the ass to get to settle down. At least two of them refused to get changed into their pajamas, and nearly all of them didn’t want to brush their teeth. By the time he got them into bed and, presumably, go to sleep, Dexter was already waiting for him on the couch, finishing with the older kids way before him.

“You could have helped you know.” Virgil chided falling back into the, kinda, soft cushions. They seriously needed a new couch, one not stained and lumpy from ware tear. 

“I thought you could handle it.” He grinned, leaning on his side, resting his head in a palm. His cat-like smile became serious, “I got an email from the school. They offered to suspend the teacher for thirty days, but only if they get a written apology from us.”

“Fucking bullshit if you ask me.” Virgil groaned, throwing his head back he dragged a hand down his face and rubbed at his tired eyes. “Guess they don’t actually give a shit do they?”

“Even if I did threaten them with a lawsuit, they know I’ve always been tight on money and can’t afford an actual lawyer,” Dexter said with a grimace.

“Havey they always been such dickwads?”

“Careful with the language, the kids, and pretty much yeah. It was fine at first, but then Remus began to show signs of an undiagnosed child development disorder that’s thus far gone untreated. Because of that, not only the kids but the teachers as well, treat him horribly. And since he isn’t diagnosed, I can’t switch him to the special ed classes where he could potentially get better care.”

“You haven’t taken him to a doctor?”

“Believe me, I wish I could,” Dexter sighed, eyes tired. Suddenly he looked as if he had aged ten years, the weight and worry giving his stress lines beyond his age. “But I just don’t have the funds. I’m basically a single father with ten kids. Roman accepts his brother as he is, and that’s already more than I can ask for. I just wish I could make it easier for him.”

He went quiet, shifting to sit forward and lean over, elbows on his knees and hands in his hair. It was hard to see in the dim light, but Virgil noticed a few gray hairs peeking out from where his head was usually covered by those hats he liked to wear. Virgil frowned and looked out the window at the night sky, which was more visible with the new moon. All around there were stars, and most all of them shone white and were small, but there where a few that stood out. Ones that were large, twinkled a little more or shined other colors like blue or red. They stood out and were different, yet they were the most beautiful of all. 

It was a common woe of a parent to have a child that stood out, naturally, they wanted to make their life as free sailing as possible. And sometimes being just like everyone else is what is easy, it’s what’s considered normal, while diversity is often difficult, but that is what makes it so beautiful. Over the past couple of months, he had come to know Remus as the quirky boy he was and he had come to love him because of it, both he and his brother. They were the kindest and friendliest kids he had ever met, and if their school refused to see that, then they didn’t deserve to have them as students.

“There’s a school not too far from my place, they could go there next year.” Virgil offered, voice barely above a whisper.

Dexter raised his head and gave him an incredulous look, raising an eyebrow at him. 

“But that’s on the other side of the city. I’m not sure if they would be able to make it to school on time each day.” Dexter told him.

“Then they could move in with me. I live just down the road.” Virgil said, trailing off and growing quieter with each word as his insecurity and doubt began to rise up. 

What am I doing?! Shut up! This is too much commitment! His anxiety screamed at him like an unhelpful, angry track coach. Virgil tensed up slightly in his shoulders as his body began to lightly shake. However, before he spiraled, Virgil centered himself and breathed in and out deeply and tried to change his thoughts. 

You’re not ready. Yes, I am. You’ll be a horrible father. No, I won’t. You don’t know the first thing about parenting. I can do research online and at the library. They won’t want you as their father. I don’t know that. You can’t. I can.

“I want to adopt them. I’m ready.” Virgil said, more to himself than to Dexter.

Dexter beside him smiled and nodded his head, his lips visibly trembling as his eyes became water and tears filled the corners of his eyes. So many emotions passed over his face within a short moment; happiness, relief, pride, surprise, and joy to name a few. It was as if a ten-year-long wish had finally been granted, and it most likely had.

“Thank you.” Dexter muttered voice choked up before he cleared his throat, “I’m glad to hear that and proud that they’re going with someone like you, but I’m afraid it may not be possible.”

Now it was Virgil turn to feel an array of sudden emotions, mostly confusion and hurt.

“What? Wait, why?”

“Well, as you said before, you are not financially fit to care for two children. If you were to apply for adoption it’s likely you’d be rejected.”

“So what? After all this your telling me I can’t adopt the boys?” Virgil nearly shouted the previous calming and celebratory atmosphere went now that he was pissed. Dexter, however, just smiled.

“Let me finish.” He chuckled, making Virgil frown deeper, “There is an option to have a cosigner apply with you to help you care for them and pay the fees. If you have someone sign the adoption papers with you and help pay the deposit, you should be allowed to adopt them pretty easily.” He explained, leaning back into the couch slowly, turning his body towards him again.

“I’ve raised Roman and Remus since they were two years old, they are as much my sons as anyone else’s. I’d like it to remain that way.”

Virgil thought for a moment, trying to figure out what he meant, and then blushed when it finally hit him. He swiftly became aware of how close their bodies had become and the soft, alluring, look on Dexter’s face that threatened to give him a heart attack.  All his anger from the moment before had been utterly replaced with nervousness.

“Is-Is this some kind of marriage proposal or something?” The librarian asked,

“What?! Of course not, I mean I like you but that’s a bit too fast.” The caregiver said in a rush, his face and ears reddening as well.

“Okay good! Yeah sorry, I just got freaked out there. Thank god!” Virgil breathed out in relief, sinking down in his seat, a hand over his beating chest.

“Do you not want to get married? Like… ever?” Dexter inquired, looking a little worried.

“No! I mean… kinda? I don’t know, relationships have never been my forte.” 

Dexter watched him carefully for a moment, and then asked, “Was is someone specific?”

Virgil bit his tongue and sunk a little lower in his seat. It wasn’t something he liked to revisit or tell others. To him, it was his single greatest failure of his life and his biggest regret. He had wished endless time that he could’ve gone back in time and done it all different back then. Part of his felt like he’d never move past it, but maybe this could be his starting point. He liked Dexter, he really did, but his fear from his past was holding him back from doing anything about it. Perhaps telling him would help.

Another few moments passed, Dexter waited beside him patiently, not rushing or pressuring him. With a deep breath, he opened his mouth.

“Well, I’ve always been awkward in relationships, especially when they became intimate. But, back when I was in college I dated this guy named Matthew. He was amazing, sweet, and pretty much my best friend. In truth, it was the only time I’ve ever been in love. After three years, he popped the question and I-, I wasn’t sure. I told him that I needed a little time to think and focus on my final year of college. Matthew promised he would wait, ‘Until the end of time,’ he said. Three months passed and I had my degree and my answer. But when I went back to him, he had moved on with someone else.”

Virgil swallowed the lump clogging his throat and heaved a shaky breath. Dexter put a comforting arm around his shoulders, Virgil leaned into him gratefully, sighing as the other rubbed his shoulder in reassurance.

“I’ve tried so hard to recreate what I had with him with other guys, but all I could think about was how I wasn’t enough for Matthew. That I had kept him waiting too long, and that I wasn’t enough to wait for.”

“Bullshit.”

“Huh?” Virgil spluttered in shock, leaning away to look up at him in confusion.

“Bull. Shit.” Dexter repeated, firmer and more intensely, “You’re more than enough. That asshole said he’d wait forever and couldn’t even handle three months, that dick didn’t deserve you.”

“I don’t know about that,” Virgil mumbled, turning his head down.

“Virgil.” Dexter said softly in a firm tone, gently pulling up his face with his hands, “You are the most amazing person I’ve known. You’re honest and diligent, caring yet stern, intelligent and brave. What more can I need to know I want you, and to raise the boys with you?”

“A thirty-year-old that doesn’t look like a depressed teen emo?” Virgil said half-jokingly, 

“You make it work.”

The pale yellow-orange light from the table lamp shined as they only source in the room, highlighting Dexter’s face in a soft glow. He couldn’t help but gaze up at his warm caramel eyes in awe. Carefully he reached up and placed a hand against his cheek and rubbed the scar under his left eye tenderly. Dexter placed one hand over his, and with the other he brushed away the long bangs that had fallen in front of Virgil’s eyes, letting it rest on his cheek as well. There were barely two inches of space between them, yet Dexter didn’t make a move like he did last time. Virgil knew that he was letting him make the call this time if he wanted it or not.

Virgil decided that he did.

Slowly, and a little awkwardly, Virgil pulled them closer until no space was left, and pressed their lips together. It was soft and careful, not rushed or hard, they took their time and savored every moment. Dexter’s lips were slightly chapped, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, his own breath probably smells bad anyway. Dexter quickly took over the kiss and Virgil let him, leaning him until their chests were practically pressed against each other. After a few minutes, they parted to breathe, both gasping and out of breath, and Virgil laid against him with a happy sigh, resting his head under Dexter’s chin in the cuff of his neck.

They laid there together for the next hour, content to simply sit with each other, no words needed. All the while Virgil found himself in wonder that this was his life now. Six months he relinquished himself to live the rest of his life alone, he still couldn’t believe how far he had come. He was with the man who made him happy, about to become a father to two wonderful boys.

He couldn’t wait to tell them the news.

-

The very next day Virgil requested the day off from work to fill out the paperwork and applications with Dexter, which ended taking up a good couple of hours. While they were busy in the office, Patton offered to watch over the kids, since it was a Saturday and he had no school to teach. 

When they had told Patton the news that both of them were going to adopt the twins the friendly elementary school teacher had literally fainted. Virgil freaked out, thinking they had accidentally killed him, while Dexter simply helped the fallen man up and onto the couch in the front room. Patton woke up a minute later and instantly cheered them on, playing it off as if hadn’t just blacked out.

“I’m so happy for you! Both of you!” Patton beamed brightly, pulling Virgil into a tight hug, and Virgil returned the hug just the same, “I knew you could do it.” He whispered in his ear, squeezing his shoulder.

Two hours later, as they discussed living arrangements for the boys, since neither of them wanted to live in the shelter anymore but knew that Virgil’s condo wasn’t the most ideal place to raise them, Logan busted in through the door and charged into the office, currently on his lunch break. Apparently Patton hadn’t been able to keep the big surprise a secret for more than a few hours. Virgil wasn’t surprised though, those two couldn’t keep anything from each other. 

“So you finally took our advice.” He said.

“You better not say ‘I told you so’.” Virgil deadpanned at his oldest friend, knowing full well how blunt and forward his best friend could be.

“Fine then, I'm glad you finally heeded my words.”

“Seriously, Lo? Can’t you be-”

Out of nowhere, absolutely out of the blue, Virgil was pulled into a hug, which was completely out of character for Logan to do with anyone who was not immediate family or his boyfriend.

“I’m glad you’re happy again,” Logan told him, sounding honest and thankful.

Logan was Virgil’s oldest friend and had been with him in the thick of his break up with Matthew. He had watched him struggle ever since, tried to help, and was always there. This was a victory for him as much as it was for Virgil.

“Yeah, me too.” Virgil agreed, returning the hug.

Soon after, Logan had to return to work once his one hour lunch ended. Virgil and Dexter returned to the task at hand until they were finished. Since Dexter was one of the applicants, they had to send it to a third party so it would remain impartial and fair. This worried Virgil a little, but Dexter remain confident that it would go well.

“So they boys will be sharing a room, which used to be your office, so we’ll have to clean that out before they can move in. Arrangements with the new school will have to be made. And,”

“And I’ll schedule an appointment for Remus.”

“Are you sure? It can be expensive.” Dexter asked, looking up from his opened notes on his computer desktop.

“I have medical insurance, besides, I want him to get the help he needs.” Virgil affirmed.

He knew personally how important getting help can be, especially as a child. He wished his parents hadn’t waited until his last year of high school to get him therapy for his anxiety disorder, life would have been easier if they had. So Virgil wanted to be different.

“Alright, then that just leaves custody and visitation since we’ll be living in different houses,” Dexter announced, typing away at his keyboard, his hyper-focused face looked adorable as it always did.

“Obviously we’ll have it be open,” Virgil said matter-of-factly,

Dexter smiled and typed at his keyboard, “It would be nice to live together one day though.” He said nonchalantly as if it had been an afterthought. Virgil choked on his spit and immediately sat up straight from his previously relaxed position, blushing furiously. Dexter laughed and waved a forgiving hand him,  “Not now of course.”

“Right,” He breathed shakily, laughing it off unconvincingly. His heart raced in his chest still from the sudden scare, not appearing to want to calm down anytime soon.

Dexter went back to typing on his computer, listing off things they would have to take care of and things they would need to buy before the boys could move out of the agency house. Virgil watched him, albeit a bit bashfully, making small comments to his statements. They were so different from each other, and, to be honest, he wasn’t the type of man Virgil would usually pursue. Perhaps that was one of the reasons he didn’t think anything could come out of them in a romantic sense. Yet, he had been entranced and pulled in by him, almost as if he were put under a spell. Everything he did was enthralling, from the simple sight of him cooking in the kitchen, to the entertaining banter they would engage in. They had known each other for only half a year, but he could already imagine a world where he was in it every day.

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” He murmured under his breath, a small smile falling on his lips.

It was a month until they had heard anything back from the social workers at the third-party agency. Usually, it would take a lot longer, but Dexter was able to pull a few strings to speed up the process because of some people he knew in the field. So when the notice came in that June, both of them opened it slowly with haste. 

It had gone through and they had been accepted. There was a three week waiting period, but neither of them could bother themselves enough to care at that moment. Once he found out, Virgil called both Patton and Logan and told them the good news and they all celebrated together. After that, the only step left was to tell the boys.

“Roman, Remus could you come here for a moment?” Dexter called from the back porch, as the kids were all currently caught up in a game of freeze tag.

“I swear, the toilet paper was Remus’s idea!” Roman shouted, pausing in his pursuit as a tagger, holding his hands above his head as if he had been caught redhanded in a crime.

“No not that- wait what toilet paper?”

“We’ll come back to that later. Can you two just come here for a second?” Virgil spoke up, waving the boys inside.

Roman followed the direction and walked toward the backdoor into the house, his head held down slightly in guilt. Remus chased after him and came bouncing into the living room. Once they were both in, Dexter closed the backdoor and sat them down, the young boys sat in between the adults.

“Now, Virgil and I have some news for you that we’re very excited about,” Dexter said.

“You’re pregnant!” Remus said excitedly.

“What? No! Remus that’s not biologically possible.” Virgil told him,

“But I’ve read stories online where it happened.”

“We’re going to talk about what you’ve been reading, but not now. What we wanted to say was,” Dexter cut in again, a lecturing look on his face, but got interrupted again.

“We’re getting a dog?!” Roman cheered out a guess, eyes bright with hope.

“Nope, I’m adopting you!” Virgil said, saying it quickly to avoid anymore stalling or excited shouts from the boys. Dexter coughed a little and waved at him, clearly not happy that he had been left out of that statement. “Well, we’re adopting you. Our application was accepted, so we’re officially your parents.”

The boys were both quiet for a long while, staring at them in shock and disbelief. They looked between them and at each other, seeming to share the same thoughts as each other. Slowly the broke away from their silence, as Roman began to tear up and cry, and Remus beamed a wide grin and cheered while bouncing up and down on the couch.

“I’ve been waiting so long for this…” Roman sobbed, rubbing away the tears as they fell and sniffling as his nose became clogged. Virgil pulled him into an embrace, rubbing a hand through his hair, while Roman clutched onto his shirt and cried and laughed.

“Does that mean I get to call you snake-dad and raccoon-dad now?” Remus asked, breaking from his jumping, landing in Dexter’s lap, to look up at them in joy and wonder.

“Of course bud,” Virgil told him, “Of course,”

.

.

Taglist: @omikkydraws @stormypaint @strickenwithclairvoyance @lolanomsgranola @hunter-shyreen @venus-fuck

[sweetheartjeongguk]

pretty kitty 2 (m)

pairing: taehyung x reader

genre: hybrid au, camgirl au, smut

rating: nc-17

warning(s): taehyung making dumb decisions, jimin being utterly confused (as always), jungkook and his assortment of fruits, good ol’ squirting, impregnation kink, daddy kink, unprotected sex

word count: 3.8k+

summary: temptation is a dangerous game to play. 

the discovery | the denial | the meeting | the aftermath | the payback

masterlist

Contrary to popular belief, Taehyung did not whip out his rusty romantic skills like in the cheesy rom-coms where he runs after you to make sure you’re okay and you instantly fall in love with him. While he prides himself on his handsome face, he can only go so far. The tiny amount of courage within him to follow after you fizzles like a pathetic flame, both from fear of rejection and fear of Seulgi beating his ass on the street for everyone and their mother to bear witness to.

Taehyung may come off as an intimidating tiger hybrid in the eyes of his classmates and every stranger he passes, but according to his oh-so lovely friends and (probably) his parents, he can be a bit of a pussy from time to time.

Instead, Taehyung, like all brave predators, shoves himself into one of the bathroom stalls of the café. He takes several deep breaths to himself, desperate to calm the anxiety and residual anger lingering in his chest. They’re irrational, he knows this all too well, but he couldn’t help it.

It’s like his tiger is reaching out to you only to be stuck behind an invisible barrier, reminding him of just how unobtainable you are.

“Tae?”

Taehyung coughs reflexively at the voice of his best friend echoing in the empty men’s bathroom. He hears a tired sigh – seconds later, there’s a gentle knock on the rickety stall door.

“You okay there, tiger?” Jimin asks cautiously.

“I’m getting there…” Taehyung tries to laugh, but it comes out wobbly and insincere.

He leans his forehead against the cold stall door before reminding himself of the colonies of germs plaguing the surface and stepping away in disgust. He can sense the curiosity emanating from Jimin – no doubt that Jimin’s formulating a whole script of questions for his best friend.

“Are you really that upset at Hoseok?” Jimin’s eyebrow ticks up. “You know he’s just messing around. Contrary to popular belief, Jung Hoseok has standards. He wouldn’t mess with any girl like that, especially if she’s your girl.”

“It’s not that.” Taehyung says abruptly. “She’s not my girl. She’s not…anyone.”

He mentally curses himself for speaking before his brain can tell him to shut his mouth and listen.

“Oh?” Jimin’s curiosity is practically tangible. “So what then?”

“Nothing.”

Taehyung clenches his fists in frustration. Why is he so worked up? The answer is perfectly clear, yet he’s adamant on forgetting the whole situation ever existed. How is he supposed to waltz into class on a seemingly normal Monday morning without looking over at your desk and imagining your nude body glistening in sweat and waiting to receive him?

Taehyung physically shakes away the intrusive thoughts. The less he spends in his own mind, the better his chances of forgetting the situation entirely. Sure, he can never look at you the same way again, and you kind of ruined regular porn for him – in a good way, but Taehyung can’t see how that benefits him in any way. Maybe, just maybe, if Taehyung suppresses the temptation to click on your channel and attempt at forgetting you ever exist, then everything will go back to normal! Easy peasy!

Taehyung’s wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.

After shoving himself back into his chair at the café and forcing himself to socialize with the others as if nothing’s wrong, he finds himself doing semi-okay. While Jimin’s eyes glance over at him more than usual, Taehyung’s doing better than he expected. The story of Yoongi getting stuck inside his studio and not being to get out for at least two days and only surviving on beef jerky and coffee in a can certainly stirs his mind away from the dirty thoughts of your lingerie and seductive lip-biting.

But once the seven of them depart to their own dorms in preparation for a new week of lectures and homework, Taehyung finds himself in his own personal hell.

Jimin watches from the corner of the classroom in half amusement and half concern at his best friend practically gnawing away at his thumb nail five minutes before the start of class. Fortunately for the younger of the two, Jimin doesn’t notice his wandering eyes towards a certain desk in the front of the room.

You sit in your seat patiently, fiddling with your pencil case and stopping for a second to wave at one of your friends who shouts a “Hi Y/N!” from across the room. You aren’t the most popular person in school, but you did have a small collection of friends here and there in the class.

Considering your online personality, it still baffles Taehyung how quickly your behavior switches up in a blink of an eye. His eyes threaten to dry out from how hard he watches your every move, but he manages to grab ahold of himself and finally blink some moisture into his now-strained eyeballs before someone discovers his not-so-discreet creepiness.

“She looks familiar.”

Taehyung swallows back a growl at Jungkook who he barely noticed was beside him the entire time, munching on an assortment of strawberries and blueberries. Jungkook’s unphased by Taehyung’s show of aggression – he has too many embarrassing stories of Taehyung that dulls his reactions as the years go by – but it doesn’t go unnoticed by a small group of girls a few seats away. They giggle and awe over Taehyung’s “masculinity” with obvious temptation reflecting in their eyes.

“Sooyoung, you have to get back in on that.” Seunghee whispers as if it’s the darkest secret of the universe.

Sooyoung, a dark-haired lynx hybrid with a fierce attitude to match, scoffs. “Who’s to say I ever left?”

The other girls surrounding her gasp and squeal in obvious delight, soaking in Sooyoung’s tales of the past and sighing at how “lucky” she is. Unbeknownst to them, you listen into the girls’ conversation in equal parts jealousy and irritation.

You’re irritated because you’d rather not hear about Taehyung’s “massive cock” on Monday morning before you’ve had a proper lunch. On the other hand, you’re jealous because you know all about Sooyoung and Taehyung – she’d definitely know a thing or two about his…penile situation.

“Sooyoung being cringy again?”

You sigh in relief at the sight of Seulgi who trudges in a minute late, her backpack lazily swung around her shoulders and her hair tangled in a messy bun as if she’d just woken up and rushed across campus for the lecture. Seeing as though you’ve known her for a good ten years, you’d say that your assumption’s correct.

“Rough morning?” You snort as you take in her complete appearance. “I didn’t know coffee stains and maple syrup were all the rage in the fashion industry.”

“Shut up.” Seulgi grimaces at the mess on her shirt. “I didn’t have time to do laundry yesterday. Yeri decided to use all the soap to clean her…delicates.”

You reflect her discomfort. “Doesn’t she know that she can wash them by hand?”

“She’s a neat freak who practically snorts Gain detergent.” Seulgi sighs in defeat. “There’s no way I can save the child from her destructive behavior.”

“Just buy some more soap, you weirdo.” You flick a manicured nail against her cheek. “Or like I’ve always told you, do laundry at my house. Joohyun told me that she’s waiting for your Just Dance rematch.”

“Oh yeah, don’t your sugar daddies pay for your water bill?”

You nearly choke on your own spit. Seulgi has no tact whatsoever, and you have no clue why she hasn’t gotten into trouble with it yet. It must be the Kang charm, as she loves to call it. You just call it how it is – pretty people BS.

“Not in public, Seulgi!” You resist the urge to flick her across the nose. “I have a job too, you know…”

Seulgi’s the only one in your friend group to actually know about your “camgirl career”, as she proudly dubs it. Joohyun nearly found out a month ago when you were camming and she accidentally came home unannounced. Thankfully, she just thought you were having a little “one-on-one” time and decided to leave you for the entire night.

While you constantly remind Seulgi that the sugar daddies are only for the bills and your college debt crisis, she likes to think that when you finally make a living with it (you don’t know where she gets her delusions), you’ll let her live with you and your sugar daddies in a million-dollar mansion in Seoul.

Truth be told, that actually sounds pretty spectacular. But you’d be damned if you’d let Kang Seulgi be right for once.

“No shame, no shame.” Seulgi waves her hands before going to unzip her backpack to grab her binder and pencils. “Who knew you can flash your pussy in front of thousands of people and get paid for it?”

She completely ignores your blushing red face as she continues muttering to herself. “Maybe I should do that.”

You practically dig your feet into the floor as you pray to a higher power that no one can hear Seulgi. Considering the entire class is made up of 80% hybrids, it’s a long shot but not entirely impossible. No one’s spoken up so far, so you take this as a miracle from the Lord as you sit back in relief and wait for the teacher to finally arrive to begin lecture.

Needless to say, you find yourself completely oblivious to the tiger hybrid a couple rows behind you who has been listening in since the start of class.

And the lynx hybrid who smirks dangerously at this fresh bit of juicy gossip.

“Are you finally going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

Taehyung ignores the poke to his cheek and instead focuses on finishing his essay for his psychology class.

Maybe if he took a page from Pavlov’s book, he can train Jimin to shut up every time he hears a bell ring. Jimin likes to call it “cruel and unusual punishment.” Taehyung dubs it “essential knowledge.”

“Nope.”

“How about now?”

“Nope.”

“Now?”

“You want me to punch you in the face?”

“Oh, so feisty.” Jimin giggles devilishly.

Taehyung rolls back his shoulders as he continues typing away at his laptop, reaching the final page of his essay. Slowly but surely, he’ll be done for the night and in time for his 5-hour nap session. At least then, Jimin won’t be around to nag on him anymore.

“Did you really hate the site I showed you? I got another one if you’re interested.”

Taehyung says nothing to this. For the next ten minutes, he wishes for complete and utter focus on his essay – at least until his reference page – and not the dreadful image of your sopping wet cunt replaying like an annoying infomercial across his brain.

“Oh…I see.” Jimin smirks at the lack of response. “Maybe you liked it a little too much? I understand…”

Jimin pauses to watch Taehyung’s face, but his boastful ego is only fed with the same deadpan look from ten minutes ago. He’ll have to step it up a notch – time for Phase III.

“Maybe you’ve just been watching the wrong ones. I had the same issue when I first discovered the site so you’re not alone.” Jimin sighs in fake despair. “If you want a good one, my friends’ been talking about that prettykitty channel, but I haven’t gotten around to—"

Skkrrt!

Jimin nearly flings himself out of his own chair at Taehyung’s abrupt leave. He barely takes time to completely shut down his computer, and Jimin’s pretty sure that he didn’t save his work either.

“Okay…goodbye, I guess.” Jimin grumbles to himself, scratching awkwardly at the nape of his neck.

What’s bothering Taehyung so much?

Taehyung has an answer for that, and it’s simply this. 

He’s going crazy. Complete and utterly bonkers. 

That’s it – the obvious explanation for the entire situation.

Stress from the new school semester mixed in with daily struggles like remembering to call his parents on their anniversary before he’s bombarded with angry texts from his mother or paying his tuition fees on time so that he doesn’t end up living in a box outside of his lecture hall.

Why else would he be so hung up on someone he barely even knows? Sure, he’s known you since you two were barely out of Pull-ups, and yeah, you’ve occasionally played together on the playground before you found your own groups to hang out with. College’s different – you’re two grown adults who are working towards a degree for a career that you’re bound to be stuck in for the rest of your lives. You both crave excitement – while his involves watching girls get themselves off on camera, you’re actually living as one of them!

Maybe that’s why he’s so enamored by the sudden discovery of this darker version of you behind the screen. You, the quiet and introverted student by day, become the loudest sex kitten known to mankind by night. It’s enough to shock anyone into a meaningless daze – much like the one Taehyung’s in right now.

‘It all makes sense now!’

“You just have to watch someone else…then you won’t think about her anymore.” Taehyung whispers to himself as he types in the infamous website. “Once you see a new pair of nice tits, you’ll get over hers.”

If Jimin and the rest of the boys, especially Namjoon who oversees the group as an unofficial leader, could hear him right now, Taehyung would be due for a smack in the head.

Regardless of what does and what doesn’t make sense, Taehyung likes to think that it’s the only possible solution to his ‘you’ problem.

Forget the old by welcoming something new.

He nods happily to himself as he scrolls through the list of camgirls on the site, pointedly ignoring the one that stands out to him the most.

The blinking red alert of “Live!” stares him straight in the face, but Taehyung gathers all of his emotional strength to skip over it completely to click on another.

It’s a bunny hybrid this time – Taehyung just knows that Jungkook would be creaming himself in under five seconds at the sight of the cottontail poking through black lace panties. The girl’s hot, Taehyung can’t deny that obvious fact. She’s already touching herself through the lace, with her free hand coming up to caress a sensitive nipple. He’s quickly reminded of his unofficial task of the night: forget all about prettykitty to focus on peachbun instead.

‘Foolproof plan, if I do say so myself.’

Somewhere, Namjoon clutches his heart from a sudden sting of pain – or was it betrayal?

He reaches down to slowly stroke his cock through his sweatpants, getting himself warmed up as the girl continues touching herself. He smirks to himself as he falls into a relaxed state, welcoming in her soft moans and sleek sounds from her pussy as she starts stretching herself out with two fingers.

Not even two minutes in, and Taehyung finds himself in trouble.

He frowns as he switches between rapid tugging and stroking at a snail’s pace. Nothing. Not even the sight of the girl’s pebbled nipples and overflowing sleek over her thighs can make Taehyung as hard as a rock.

If anything, his dick’s as hard as an al dente pasta noodle.

He pouts as his dick sits as limp as ever against his stomach. If dicks could have sad faces, his would be the poster child. He can practically hear Jimin and the others mimic sad violins behind him, mocking him for his complete and utter failure of a boner. Taehyung can’t help but think that God’s purposely against him for watching porn – or so, his mother would probably say.

Taehyung bites his lip pensively as he scrolls back to the top of the page. Your channel teases him, the red ‘Live’ button winking incessantly and slowly provoking him to click, to give into the temptation. He plays with the idea of searching through more camgirl channels, but suddenly even that feels like a tedious chore.

He knows what he wants – he just can’t (shouldn’t) have it. Taehyung moves the mouse to click out of the webpage, but his own stubbornness freezes him in his tracks, the mouse icon hovering over the exit button.

It’s Monday evening – the end of a hard day’s work at school. He completed his psychology essay on time with a couple hours to spare, and he made sure to send the extra time to answer all the messages in his emails, especially the one from his little siblings who bombarded him to spend them money to buy new games at the mall, and clean up his bathroom after God knows how many months.

Taehyung deserves a little pampering for himself (as awkward as it sounds) – a little “self-care”, so to speak – so…why not?

Before he can physically rip himself away from his laptop and chuck himself through his dorm room window, Taehyung clicks on your livestream and waits as it loads. It had been about 5 minutes since your livestream started, and Taehyung hopes that he hasn’t missed much.

It’s as if invisible hands are strangling him when Taehyung finally enters the livestream.

You’re indeed streaming…but you’re not alone.

“F-fuck, Daddy, yes.” You cry out as the man drives his hips into yours, his veiny hand wrapped tightly around your throat. “Fuck m-my little pussy. Fill me up with your kittens.”

The sight of you, complete with your ears and tail, being obliterated by an unknown man is enough for Taehyung’s cock to fill up and ache to be touched. He should be angry – at most, he’s a little bit jealous. Instead, he’s completely drawn into the image of someone else’s cock inside of you and the wetness that spills over onto the sheets and down your thighs.

Taehyung whines pathetically as he grips his own cock on his right hand, tugging in tandem with the man’s thrusts. He can hear every lewd squelch of your pussy as it clings to the man’s dick in a tight vice. By the sound of his throaty grunts, it only keeps riling hm up. While the man’s face is never shown, Taehyung gets a front-row view of your fucked-out expression – the most important part of the show, in his opinion.

You’re drenched in sweat and come, but you still look as pretty as you did today. You lean upwards to crash your lips against the stranger’s and as you pull away, a cute little string of spit drips from your bottom lip. Your tiny hands grasp at the bedsheets in desperation – in a sneaky attempt to touch your clit, the man smacks at your wrists, and you assume your original position.  

“O-Oh shit, that feels so good.” You giggle through every harsh thrust, stretching your legs out further so that his cock fills your hole deeper and deeper. “Daddy always knows how to take care of his little pussy in heat. He knows how to make his kitten feel so good.”

Taehyung swallows dryly -- your little stream’s a pretend heat session. You didn’t show any signs of an actual heat in class, so it’s a fair assumption that you’re just playing it up for views and tips. It plants a little image in the viewers’ heads of you being in heat just for them. Meanwhile, you work to stack up cash for the night, aiming for $5k in about an hour. Last time, you’d gotten $2k, and you had only streamed for less than an hour, so your expectations are more or less obtainable.

As Taehyung continues fucking up into his clenched fist, he takes a peek at the comment section that goes berserk. Comments such as “You look so fucking hot!” and “I can’t wait for you to come all over yourself, baby” are the most common that he sees – and they are absolutely right.

“Come in my little pussy, Daddy.” You whimper as the man’s thrusts start to become sloppy, his hand that once grips at your throat moving down to grip your sides.

You lean onto your chest in order to reach behind you and knead your cheeks apart, his wet thrusts hitting every sweet spot possible. It’s hard to not roll your eyes back in pleasure, but you keep your eyes on the man, pouting cutely as you silently beg for your quick release.

“Does my little kitty like that, huh?” Taehyung subtly snarls at the commanding tone of the stranger.

Maybe he’s more than a little jealous.

“I f-fucking love it.” Your own hips grind back onto his cock, desperate to milk out whatever release he had for you.

The feeling of his fingers brushing against your tail sends tingles down your spine and into the apex of your thighs. You’re reaching the end of your rope, and Taehyung sees it even before it finally happens.

Taehyung closes his eyes as he tightens his fist around his wet cock. He’s so close to his own release, but he wants to wait until you come – a lame excuse to pretend that you’re coming on his cock and not some stranger’s, that you’re the one receiving his come and being filled up with his kittens.

“I’m coming!”

Taehyung pants as he watches your face transform into a look of sheer bliss as your juices spray all over the man’s cock and onto the already sodden bedsheets. You’re suddenly lifted up against his broad chest, the audience catching a glimpse at the cock snug deep in your creamy pussy, and the man fucks up in quick bursts as he reaches his own end.

“What a good kitty.” The man purrs as his fingers trail down your stomach to flick gently at your pink pearl.  

You purr in response as you feel his warm come fill you up, the overstimulation on your clit bringing together a perfect mixture of pain and pleasure. When it becomes too much, you twitch away from his fingers, a whine parting from your swollen lips. You accidentally shift off his cock with a wet pop, a steady stream of come dripping from your little hole and mixing in with your clear juices from before.

The sight’s too much for Taehyung to handle, and he can’t stop himself from staining his t-shirt with the white ropes of his own come. His breath grows heavy with each finishing stroke until his cock becomes too sensitive, forcing him to pull away and take a much-needed breather.

However, his eyes stay glued to your form as you wave goodbye to your viewers, giggling profusely as the man plants multiple kisses along the curve of your back. Your adorable laughter soon morphs into decadent whimpers once you feel his warm tongue lick away the remaining come that coats your cunt.

“Dream of me tonight, Daddy.”

Your blissful sigh is all Taehyung witnesses before the livestream officially ends, leaving Taehyung to clean up his mess.

Both literally and metaphorically.

[affiloram51525plja-blog]

affiloblueprint

What Is It?

It is a membership site devised to help you understand affiliate marketing.

Short Review

An honest site, good training, mostly legit info, and they have way more value than most internet marketing products. Plus, their basic membership does not cost anything!

However, when you begin buying their packages, it gets pretty expensive, especially when you buy everything they've to offer. When you conider that the community is not a whole lot active, and support is a very small amount in comparison with alternatives.

Before making a decision, have a look inside their affiliates area and then judge if extremely effective best bet you have for you.

==> Enroll For Your FREE Affilorama Account!

Before You Buy

The very first thing we want to know is how Affilorama is actually structured. It's passed through numerous changes lately, and above current reviews don't reflect these changes.

The website is set using these a rather confusing way, dividing features into different packages, forcing it a little obscure the one that we would like to buy to get going making money. It's possible to try to break it down for you therefore's a little easier to understand.

An everyday (free) membership Affilorama should get you access some training videos, a members forum, and also their blog. These items are updated frequently, and there's a ton of information there. I wrote my original directory for Affilorama in 2014, but as of 2017, it's still active with questions, after, as updates. They are building for your long haul!

affilorama updated post

Update 2018

There was once four packages, raise paid, recurring membership fee. Now there is just a without charge organization, plus two other items you can buy. Is without question basically the "DIY" version, that is definitely $197. This is simply not DIY since you acquire the help of the running and community, but it's not "in serious trouble you", as while using the upgraded versions which is certainly an $997.

affilorama packages available

Affilorama has updated their package offers since I wrote my original review

Affilorama Premium is $67/month and is the same thing that I consider to be the "main feature" with this company. There'may be a 7 day trial for $1. Free membership is available nowadays

Affilotheme the help that people seek a premium WordPress theme used to be intended for $97, but these days is usually to often be available through the Affiloblueprint package.

AffiloBlueprint is $197 for lifetime access that is definitely the step-by-step system for newbies.

Affilojetpack are pre-made niche websites with content included, email swipes, likewise ready-made material. It's $997.

AffiloTools is a one-stop shop to track issues like competitors, rankings, keywords, and a number of other things. It's included along with your free membership.

Pricing Updates 2018

Ok, so what I've figured out is that there is three prices of membership. You join the FREE membership, that steadily the ability to access some features, and is often free. Then there may be the PREMIUM membership, with which has a $1 trial, and it's $67/month after that.

affilorama membership levels and pricing

What I Liked

Though I exist of criticisms of this particular program which I'll discuss below, overall, I believe this can be a legit program. Mark Ling really lays everything out before you join, the fact is that sets him other than 99% for all your serious "gurus" out there. Ling has a superb reputation with the exceptional affilo-stuff has been around since 2005.

Most products in this industry don't last within a year.

The site is member focused, includes a somewhat-active forum, and is constantly changing as time goes on, instead of a static PDF or video series that can stale with time.

I keep in mind the main thing I liked about Affilorama was the way in which lots of the videos were set up, with bulleted overviews, prime quality voice overs, and scripts you may download for each video. I do know loads of they on limited internet connections and video training isn't always essentially the most convenient.

Free Membership

There's greatly present on the free membership. I joined a very long time ago and am still able to use the forum, all the work outs modules, the official blog, and a large array of other things including hour long webinar sessions.

Navigate the lessons dependant upon topic

affilorama website lesson navigation

2. Read The Title Summary of Each Lesson, Organized By Topic

affilorama lesson titles and summaries

3. Watch HD Videos & Read About Each Lesson, Including Step By Step Pictures

affilorama lessons video

Since the original writing of this review, I like the way this script has restructured. Without having the $67 per 30 days membership, you possibly can concentrate on absorbing what they have to offer for free. That gives you the right amount of time to consider upgrading on top of AffiloBlueprint or AffiloJetpack.

By granting them you value rapidly, you will see what kind of company they are! And hey, if they supply like this stuff without cost, the paid stuff have to be healthier for 🙂

Get Your Free Affilorama Membership!

Goodies Included In Premium Offers

If you commit to go together with Blueprint or Jetpack you've got 1-year webhosting for 1 website. That's worth at least $100, and maybe more towards the quality despite hosting. You furthermore may explore owing to their "AffiloTheme' Premium Theme. A premium theme could cost between $20 and $100, in order that'is actually a acceptable too!

What I Didn't Like

"Outdated" Sections of Training

Though there is a lot of wonderful trainings in the gratis group, there are plenty real bombs to watch out for. While appearing for information on how to construct an internet site, I only found a bit about using Adobe Dreamweaver and creating content using HTML. Sure, there are a selection of the way for building website, but the easiest and most popular is WordPress. My #1 recommended product (see below for link) permits you to create WordPress website in about 30 seconds.

Considering you'll be able to select from over 10,000 different WordPress themes, including premium ones with fancy features, plus the normal process to customize your company site with different plugins, I did not why you'll use such as dreamweaver. WordPress is flexible, search result friendly, and highly customizable.

Low Member Activity

Right at the top of the list of appeals of going to a membership site just like a is generating help. There definitely here are a couple of active members, and actually moderators to aid with answering questions.

But from what I possibly could see, there didn't appear to be several activity going on.

affilorama forum

There are numerous instances of posts being replied to in three or four hours, however most activity seems to be over other times, even days or weeks old. I used to be on the website one evening and saw that there were only 16 members on!

Even though this is just my personal opinion, the posts I looked at didn't appear to be too insightful or warranting a discussion. In fact, I'm comparing this to my own end result of Wealthy Affiliate, containing plentiful active members, in conjunction with a live chat scrolling 24/7 a place that you may consider and carry instant answers.

Affilorama has the suitable idea yield members forum, but it only is devoid of numerous active members to get this to a great feature.

That's A Bad Idea #1: Copied Content

An enormous fear the workout that you will see discussed on other reviews of Affilorama is the use of PLR content and backlinking strategies.

Because it feels like an "easy way" that creates an online business, many people preclude stuff of making helpful, interesting content unfortunetly copy it from multiple places. True, there are actually legit ways to repeat content, and they rarely spark a legitimate, long-term business.

Aided by the ways is PLR content. It is a symbol of Private Label Rights and permits you to take content is due to a source tagged PLR, change it of any kind for your information fit, then do it in the own.

The concerns with that is multifaceted. One, everyone permission to access the same content. Two, this product is often written in a really generalized way that is neither interesting nor okay for the reader. Three, because it's not completely unique content, it's very hard to rank.

Many people say which you can "tweak" letting it to cause it to unique and pass Copyscape. My question to the child is, when you're a reader, are you able to detect when someone is BS-ing you online? Do you like along with generalized content or highly specific and insightful content?

Not surprisingly, if you need to spend enough time to research and re-write this stuff so they are unique, interesting, and helpful, you better yet not use PLR or merely write 100% original content.

In our own way to copy content is curation. By curating, you are taking other author's work (that allow you to achieve this), and offering a linkage to the unique source. Normally, mingle an "authority" on a topic by collecting legitimate information on that topic.

However, if you copy achieve article, there may be there's no chance that you're going to get ranked in Google for that content. No rank means no traffic. In the event you copy just a good bit and write your personal commentary for this (as curation must be), you will want to write down user generated content!

The Affilorama training helps it to be sound like that is simple to do and will sustain job as a web-based marketer less difficult. That's removed from the truth. Using content in this manner adds a new level of difficultly versus just writing the damn thing yourself.

That's A Bad Idea #2: Backlinking

Internet marketers can talk before cows arrive home about backlinking strategies but after all, Google explicitly says that artificial link-building is against their TOS and it'll end up at trouble.

Gurus went on and on about the benefits of Private Blog Networks. Countless products were released, revealing the ranking revolution, and the way it was easy attending to the #1 spot with PBNs…until that they will deindexed and anyone that used them was penalized. They've since recovered in popularity, but who knows when the following Google update will kill your PBN.

google deindex backlinks

I actually have personally grown One More Cup of Coffee to five,000 visits per 24 hrs with out a single backlink, so I actually have my own proof that links are not needed to experience a traffic generating website falsified income. It only takes longer, additionally it may also lasts longer too.

And by the age of the training on backlinks in Affilorama, I wouldn't trust it for our particular own website, and may't recommend it for yours!

Extra Fees

Considering what you'll discover, the worth swapped the varied packages you in finding will not be too crazy. However, there are certain considerations!

For only one, you must pay an autoresponder fee in addition to whatever it is that you buy, who can cost $20+ per month. Then, your hosting may not free after for a year of membership. Also, there is some confusion about "Affilorama Premium" and "AffiloTools".

Premium it happens to not be available on the company website, but it surely's listed as an extra feature, specifically that you get a 1-month free trial. The first price for premium was $67, so can we expect a $67 upsell most of us join Blueprint?

Regarding AffiloTools, it clearly says hence it's free for Affilorama Members, that being said we're told that we all experience a no charge study to be a part of Blueprint. So which can be it?

affilo bonus 2

affilo bonus 1

Affilorama Free VS Premium Updated for 2018

It's been quite a while since I wrote my initial review. I wrote this making a return to 2014, togerher with its now December 2018. Affilorama remains to be alive, so they collect new members and perpetuate improving a company. Personally, I are unable to find much activity this review, so I'll just turn the job over as-can possibly be now. I've updated the pricing info, and made an effort of the costless association simply by Winter 2018.

However, if I get sufficient comments within the comment section aiming a review the newer Premium membership in Affilorama, I'll join and test it out. Contribute to the discussion and let me know if you would like me to do this!

Last Note

I in fact wasn't delightful to have email offers from Mark Ling, cross promoting services and products from folks that I would consider scam artists. I've done a lot of reviews for my website, and am aware that lots of the "gurus" hang around the other and run promotions for some another. That's fine. It's how business is done online, and You'll be able to unsubscribe very easily.

Specially me, I used to be just disappointed to find out that the finished products owner was promoting a person who I personally find terrible. This method person often charges thousand of dollars for mentorships and exclusive programs. You familiar with ones - "Join cost-free webinar", after which they try to sell you a $10,000 mentorship package.

Final Review

Affilorama has an incredible no charge registration, and appropriately priced premium offers. They've a helpful community, and a quality product that I am able to proudly recommend.

Thumbs Up

==> Sign Up For Affilorama Here

However, they aren't my #1 recommendation!

Wealthy Affiliate vs Affilorama

Features Wealthy Affiliate Affilorama

Will it be easy to get help?

Private coaching available?

Are you able to Contact the Owners?

Is in fact a live chat?

Is known to be step-by-step training?

Are free websites included?

Is hosting included?

Are you able to try for free?

Definitely is a keyword-research tool?

Exists an affiliate program?

Do I recommend this? Yes No

My Overall Rating 10/10 7/10

Comparing Wealthy Affiliate To Affilorama

I can write a whole in-depth review comparing Wealthy Affiliate to Affilorama, but I'd love to fully things below on why WA remains my #1 recommendation after all these years

They update the workout frequently to bring to attention changes in online marketing, Google, and online marketing

We have no major upsells. The membership costs $49/month. END. OF. STORY

Hosting is offered in your membership price, for the life span whatever the membership

They offer cheap domains. $15 per year (no upsells), including FREE privacy, including FREE SSL

Live chat help for instant support, plus forum support for "slow cooked" answers.

Proprietary website boosting technology

SiteSpeed means no need for installing a caching plugin to purchase one site run fast

SiteComments for starting engagement in the comment small portion your company site

Spam filter without a desire for a plugin (fewer plugins means faster website)

Free weekly webinars on lots of topics (e_mail business, AMP, star ratings, SEO, etc)

Peer Review & Feedback: Get feedback on your service so aren't within the a "newbie bubble"

There are tons more things you can examine inside ourselves full Wealthy Affiliate Review. It's really ridiculous what they offer regarding the flat membership fee, and you cannot find another service has had an opportunity to come back even close.

But what would you say? Have you been connected to both websites? How you imagine they quite a lot of or similar? What sort do you prefer?

Oh, allow's do remember that this kind of page was purported to be an overview of Affilorama, not an evaluation to Wealthy Affiliate.

What on earth of Affilorama?

Various join? Why? Or at least…Why?

Should you tried Jetpack or Blueprint, what did you think that?

I'm really curious to look at what your opinions available the comment section! affiloblueprint

[atopfourthwall]

State of the Wall: 8-8-18

Some big History of Power Rangers news, some big DVD news, and various other things in this one!

Schedule of Upcoming Episodes 8/6 – Ravage 2099 #2 8/13 – Adventures of the Kool-Aid Man #2 8/20 – Tandy Computer Whiz Kids: Safeguarding the Environment 8/27 – Mr. T and the T-Force #4 Star Trektember 9/3 – Star Trek #2 (DC) 9/10 – Star Trek 2009 Comic Adaptation 9/17 – Star Trek: The Next Generation #4 9/24 – Star Trek #1 (Gold Key)

As always, the schedule is subject to change for any reason – particularly if something happens in my personal life that forces me to interrupt the regular schedule, as what happened in the last few months (in case you somehow haven’t heard – flooding in my basement, car crash, etc.). As such, one episode that I had originally scheduled for this block of episodes has been bumped and I HOPE to add it back in as a double feature for one of these weeks, but I make no promises because my schedule is very busy – especially around this time of year as I start gearing up for Longbox of the Damned. On that note…

Longbox of the Damned Two big things for Longbox that hopefully you guys can be made aware of! First and foremost is that the Longbox of the Damned 2018 Bumper Contest has begun! You can see more details HERE, but the short version is that like the last two years, you can submit an end-of-video bumper for Longbox and 31 of them will be shown off! The ending date is September 15th and the exact rules and regulations can be found in the video I just linked.

Otherwise, as per the Patreon Milestone, this year we’re having another Midsummer’s Nightmare! It’s a brief one – a four-episode Godzillathon premiering on Saturdays throughout August first on a regular Saturday Night livestream before then being made public on its own. Details can be found in THIS VIDEO, so check that out and I hope you enjoy them!

History of Power Rangers As a reminder, the Ninja Steel videos won’t be scheduled until the series is complete and it’s all out on DVD. As of right now, I have the first season of Ninja Steel on preorder, but Super Ninja Steel isn’t yet complete.

So of course a while ago when I announced I was going to be putting History of Power Rangers on youtube in new versions only and completely replacing the old versions, I was operating under the assumption that I could knock them out pretty quickly since I had the scripts done. However, due to storyline stuff in Atop the Fourth Wall, all the prepwork necessary for the 10th anniversary, my own personal life issues that keep getting in the way of everything, and just basically EVERY OTHER THING IN THE WORLD KEEPING ME BUSY it has taken far longer than I expected them to go back up.

I still want to finish their revised versions and make those the official version, but until I can finalize all that, I’ve uploaded them to Vimeo. There’s still the potential for them to be taken down for Copyright reasons, but at this point I’m willing to risk it. Even youtube is having issues with stuff now as they’ve revised their ContentID algorithm and some videos have been hit by multiple ContentID claims (sometimes not showing up until a few days after I reupload them). I want people to actually be able to see them, especially as people have been following the instruction to circulate the links and people have found them missing. So yeah, all History of Power Rangers videos are up now in SOME form – be it youtube or Vimeo.

Eventually, the new versions WILL supplant the old ones, but these ones should be a lot easier to download through Vimeo than they were on Vid.me, so feel free to pirate to your heart’s content the ones on Vimeo (as long as you don’t reupload them to youtube). Don’t worry about costing me revenue for downloading them – Vimeo doesn’t use advertising for its videos. If you still feel like contributing something for all the work (especially since the downside of Vimeo is that *I* have to pay to use it), feel free to buy a DVD, a t-shirt, sending money to the Patreon – it’s all good. Ooooor you can purchase a DVD digitally, which brings us to the next point.

Digital DVDs I’ve been talking about doing this forever, but it’s finally happened! One of the advantages of the Vimeo account is a digital distribution platform for the DVDs!

Vimeo has limitations depending on what kind of account you use for how much you can upload per week, so right now because of me having to upload all of History of Power Rangers, only volumes 1 and 2 are currently available for sale. However, volumes 2.5 and 3 WILL be available soon (most likely next week once the weekly restriction resets). I still need to discuss with Screenwave about selling the movie DVD’s contents online, but we’ll see about that.

In the meantime, you can check out volume 1 HERE and volume 2 HERE!

Unfortunately, due to my workload with everything else, I likely won’t have that volume 4 DVD I was teasing for October. Still, when it IS eventually released, there will be a simultaneous digital release on Vimeo.

Patreon Patreon-sponsored review slots will be returning in September! I don’t know if I’ll make a big announcement on social media when it happens, but that’s mostly because there will be a TON of people hoping to get them… and there will still only be two slots available.

As I discussed in the last State of the Wall post, the method of payment WILL change. When you get the slot, you will be charged $50 immediately and that will guarantee your slot. However, you also have to stay into the next month and be charged another $50 for a total of $100 to absolutely have it. Think of the first $50 as your down-payment. This should hopefully keep Patreon-sponsored episodes from overwhelming the schedule as it sometimes has done in the past. You can feel free to hang onto the slot longer if you want, but bear in mind I will STILL have the policy in place that you can only request a review once per year.

On another note, I wanted to ask you guys about something that’s been suggested by some of my colleagues. Patreon has two ways of paying for things – per video/content or per month. I go per month considering I like the stability of knowing how much I make per month plus I sometimes put A LOT of content out there – minimum of four videos with Atop the Fourth Wall. However, the thing about paying per video released is that I don’t have to CHARGE people for every single video put out (nor would I), so it’s not like, say, if it was October and you were a $2 patron that you’d suddenly get $64 charged for Longbox for that month. You can also put restrictions on how much you’re willing to pay – so if you were a $5 patron, but you don’t want to overspend, you could limit it and say “I cannot be charged for more than $10 for this month.”

This would likely alter how I do the reward tiers and if you ARE interested in me switching to per-video I’d love to hear suggestions on how you’d prefer the reward tiers be handled – is the $10 reward of getting your name in the credits now for anyone who has a minimum of $10 in a single month… or is it still just for the people who are pledging $10 per video? That sort of thing.

Let me know what you guys think!

Conventions Power Morphicon – As indicated in the Power Rangers Turbo vs. Beetleborgs Metallix review, I will be returning to Power Morphicon this summer! I was last there in 2010 when I had nothing to really show for it other than some minor name value for having done History of Power Rangers, but this time around I should have a live show and get to hang out with some other Power Rangers-related youtubers. Power Morphicon is on August 17-19 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA! And as a reminder for that one, if you can’t attend to get the exclusive Lord Drakkon figure, you can purchase a non-attending badge and have it shipped to you! LionCon – Another Minnesota convention! I’ll be at LionCon at the River’s Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota on September 22nd-23rd! I’ll be doing a live show, selling stuff at a table – that kind of thing. Come on out and have some fun!

[johncarry9580-blog]

How to Save Money on Prescription Drugs Online — Offshore Cheap Meds

Today, I’ll discuss 5 proven Saving tips on Prescription Drugs. Americans pay highest on prescription drugs across the world. People are unable to afford prescription drugs. Before discussing saving tips, I will show you recently published consumer report survey.

As per recent consumer report survey, 1 in 4 Americans can’t afford prescription drugs. Consumer Report survey shows that some of the price increases are considerable. 24% of regular prescription takers who said they paid more out-of-pocket shelled out $50 or more for a single prescription this year than they did for the same prescription a year ago. Nearly half of regular prescription takers who now pay more out of pocket (47%) said that year over year, they paid an additional $20 or more for a drug they regularly take. Fifteen percent paid $100 more this year for one of their scripts than they did for the same one in 2016.

Consumer Reports asked regular prescription medication users, “which if any of the following did you do when you found out that your out-of-pocket cost increased?” Here’s how Americans responded:

Didn’t do anything but pay the higher price (37%)

Asked the pharmacist or doctor for a less expensive drug (35%)

Asked the pharmacist for a lower price on the same drug (22%)

Called the insurance company to see if it would cover a greater portion of the cost (20%)

Used a discount coupon (17%)

Shopped at another pharmacy for a lower price (15%)

Did not fill the prescription (14%)

Shopped online for a lower price (11%)

5 Tips to Save on Prescription Drugs Online:

1. Try Generics:

Choosing Generic drug is the evergreen and a unique option for saving money on prescription drugs. Generics drugs work same as brand drugs at a high cost. Generic drugs have the same active ingredient as brand drugs, so it works same. But why Brand drugs cost more than Generics drugs?

Read this article: Generic vs Brand Drugs

Ask your doctor for a generic prescription. Although you can ask your pharmacy for a generic version of prescription drugs.

2. Compare Prices among all available pharmacies:

Compare drug price among all available local and online pharmacy. Some comparison sites like GoodRx and PharmacyChecker are the best and trusted source for comparing prescription drugs online. Although you can compare drug price on all other resources such as EdrugSearch, HealthPricer etc.

3. Go to a Major Drug Store.

Numerous drug stores in supermarkets and enormous box chains offer many generic prescriptions for only $4 (for a 30-day supply) or $10 (for a 90-day supply). Request the rundown when you’re at the drug store or find it on the Internet (Canadian Online Pharmacy), and bring a valid prescription. Try not to be disheartened if your solution isn’t on the rundown; check an alternate store. “Diverse chains have distinctive records,” says Dr. Gagne. These include drugs like metformin ER (Glucophage XR) for diabetes and pantoprazole (Protonix) for heartburn.

4. Get a Larger Supply:

Instead of getting a prescription that lasts for 30 days, and making an insurance copay each time, ask for a 90-day supply so you can make just one copay every three months. This works for medications you take long-term.

Larger Supply will cut down your expenses on Prescription drugs.

5. Switch to Online Pharmacies:

Online Pharmacies offer a huge discount on prescription drugs. How is it possible? Because, Online Pharmacies work Internationally and dispense drugs from other countries (ex. Canada, China, HongKong, United Kingdom, India etc.). Production cost and marketing cost varies from place to place so that they are able to provide affordable prescription drugs.

For example, Offshore Cheap Meds is a PharmacyChecker accredited online pharmacy and serving thousands of prescriptions across the world. They work on the business model that dispense drugs from licensed online pharmacy partner from India. Prescription drug prices in India is less across the world. so, they are able to provide prescription drugs at an affordable price.

What should you know before buying prescription drugs online?

Before buying prescription drugs, you should workout on these points:

Certification: Is it certified by CIPA(Canadian International Pharmacy Association) or PharmacyChecker or other authorized certification.

Security: Is it secured by the latest security features? (ex. GeoTrust, Sitelock or other related authorized security features.

Privacy: It is also an important factor to be considered before buying prescription drugs online from online pharmacies. Read Privacy Policy before buying prescription drugs online.

Payment Method: Check the available payment methods. If they offer legal and usual payment option and you are able to charge back on the issue. then it is fine otherwise check other websites. Ask for PayPal payment option, because PayPal is the best option for payment. You are always able to charge back when you pay through PayPal.

Shipping& Refund: Check the shipping and refund services on the website.

Delivery: Most of the Online Pharmacies are usually offer 2–4 weeks delivery time. In the US, they offer 2 weeks delivery.

Prescription Required or Not: If any Online Pharmacy offers prescription drugs without a valid prescription, then it is illegal. They are doing business illegally. Don’t buy from that pharmacy. As per US FDA, For order prescription drugs, you should have a valid prescription.

So these are the Tips for buying prescription drugs online. I hope, now you are able to save on prescription drugs. Please spread awareness of this in our society so that they are able to save on prescription drugs safely.

[djpri]

[FT INTERVIEW] Allure Korea, January 2018: Rock Chic

<Lee Hongki’s Kiss The Radio> DJ, <Night Goblin> comedian, <Hwayugi> actor and forever an FTISLAND member, Lee Hongki’s delightful days.

Knit top (J.W. ANDERSON BY TOM GREYHOUND), Fur Coat (KYMER)

Top (CALVIN KLEIN), Checked Jacket (PAUL SMITH), Pants (PRIV. SPOONS.CLUB), Fur Slides (EMU SLIDES), Socks (Stylist item) When Hongki walked into the studio, he was carrying a small trunk with a baggage tag. He had just returned from a solo concert in Japan. If this is not the life of a star, what else can it be? Lee Hongki had recently finished a few permanent programs, FTISLAND’s 10th anniversary Europe tour and solo concert in Japan. He is always honest and direct. The only time he hesitated was when we asked what’s his favorite program lately.

“What should I say? I love all of them. I like the radio and <Night Goblin> because I’m close with all of its members and the show is doing well. But I also can not talk about the drama that’s about to air...”

This unique and charming man’s clock is expected to tick away in the new year.

We met between 2017 and 2018. How was 2017?

2017 was really busy. It was FTISLAND’s 10th anniversary and I wanted to spread our name. So I said I’d do everything that calls for me. So I got invited to many variety shows. <Night Goblin> came first and because I found the format to be really funny, I thought it’d be fun. It really is.

Today’s concept is ‘celebrity’s life.’ I asked the stylist to dress you like Elton John and you pull off fur coat really well. For the selfie concept, I saw you take an actual selfie and upload it on Instagram.

That wasn’t a photo shoot. It was a time to take a selfie. (Laughs) When I heard that this is about showing a concept, I said I’ll do it for real. I don’t even really look at scripts. I like facing situations as they come. But that fur coat was super heavy.

Aren’t you too trusting of people? How do you know what’s going to come at you?

I trust myself. I change a lot based on each moment. If the mood isn’t good, I can’t do well. My pictures don’t turn out well. Today was really fun.

This concept was inspired by drama <Hwayugi>. It’s your first drama in 3 years and you are back on a top star role.

I acted a celebrity several times but each one was different. In this drama, I go back and forth a lot but it’s a likable character. I signed up for <Hwayugi> because its synopsis was fun and I worked with Hong sisters before.

What is it like to act a celebrity as a celebrity?

It’s actually hard. I don’t really live like that.

But you’ve seen a lot; admirable and not.

Since I see a lot, I do incorporate them to my acting. I tend to imitate my friends and seniors. First of all, I hate two-faced people. I also don’t like people who don’t listen to others. I can keep talking to those people but if they refuse to listen...that’s too bad. I admire people who are kind of sly but likable at the same time. Those type of people always give back what I give. So I can’t dislike them.

Ha ha. Is someone like that in FTISLAND?

Nope. Not in FTISLAND.

Don’t you have dynamic fans? You have FTISLAND fans, musical, radio and drama fans. How do you interact with all of them?

I’ve always been thankful of my fans so we’ve stayed close like friends. Sometimes, I post things like “I’m going to delete this in 5 minutes but I’ll buy meal for whoever comes here in the nest few minutes!” I really eat with them after that. We argue on SNS. But now, I have drama and musical fans so they all say different things. Some fans say, “I hope you keep acting in dramas. When will you do a musical?” I just have to do well with whatever I do.

I enjoy listening to ‘HONGKIRA’ while driving. Many guests come on the show. You are an excellent host.

Before, it was always about me. I used to think that I needed to be happy and satisfied for everything to succeed. But while hosting a radio show lately, because all of my guests are juniors and younger friends, I found myself changing. I want to make them feel comfortable just like how my seniors treated me. I can be more understanding because we work in the same field. 

Blouse: (YCH), Coat (JUUNJ)

Top (COS), Pattern Suit (SEWEINGBOUNDARIES), Jacket (CUSTOMELLOW), Sneakers (NIKE)

What do you want to say to the rookies?

I always say this. If you are a group, you have to unite first. The most successful member in the team shouldn’t change. But that’s not just up to that member. Everyone needs to help. And that successful member shouldn’t be proud. If you are successful alone, you are nothing.

I can’t imagine you were a nervous type even when you were a rookie.

No. There was no reason to be afraid. I enjoyed everything from the start.

You have an honest image. That can start scandals. Do you have any fear or regret?

There’s nothing I really regret. I get disappointed for not doing it. But I say everything after I think about it. I ask myself multiple times, can I say this? I can, right? 

It’s not easy for a celebrity to be honest.

I sing and act because that’s what I like. But people call me a celebrity for that. But it’s not like celebrities are obligated to follow rules. Sometimes I ask why I did this. But if I put it that way, there’s nothing I can really do. I did try to fix myself. But then I thought I was going to die.

Do you tell your juniors and friends to be honest?

No, I tell them to purify it. (Laughs). I say, I was honest but don’t be like me. I tell them to just be true to their image. For example, I had a junior who didn’t get a break for 2 years. I told him to ask for vacation like “if you give me a vacation, I think I’ll be able to work harder.”

Oh, is that how FTISLAND earns vacations?

No, I pick a date and ask them to not schedule me for anything that day!

I have to ask about musician Lee Hongki. How was the solo concert in Japan? You came here directly from there.

It was a mini live and it was really fun. I had something happen in that past and that made me be afraid of doing things alone. Yesterday, I had 2 shows on a Thursday and 5,000 people had to come to each of them. I was scared nobody would come on a weekday. But the venue was full. I was really thankful. At the end of my concert, I asked them why they came. They said for my song.

That must’ve been heartwarming. Isn’t that the best answer for a musician?

To my relief, they said for my song and I was really happy. So I said, “I can forever sing a song that you want to hear. But if you want beyond that, I can’t promise you. That’s because I could date many people and even though I’ll follow the law, I could party. I don’t really understand a celebrity’s fate. My dream is to be free and I want to live freely. But I’ll sing forever.”

That means you could betray them but never with music.

Yes, I got a long applause (laughs).

You also went on a 10th anniversary Europe Tour, didn’t you?

We went on our first Europe tour 3 years ago and it rocked. So many fans said they couldn’t get tickets so we rented a LIVE house with 300-400 seats and performed for them while drinking. But it’s hard to do a Europe tour because their prices are different. We got to go this time because we said, “we don’t care about getting paid.” We visited 6 countries over 2 weeks. It was so much fun.

You have so many songs now. It must be hard to put together a set list.

We don’t perform songs that the company made. The songs we did when we were young. I make all of our set lists. I think its ridiculous for a company to make it. I imagine how we are going to get to the next song after this, how we are going to rearrange it, how we are going to interact with fans, the mood...etc. I check all of them, discuss with the members and finish the set list.

Where do you think FTISLAND is musically?

We still have a long way to go. I like that music has no end. When I feel like I’ve come to a certain point, I keep meeting more talented people, new sound and new performance. So it’s amazing, fun and I have to continue studying.

Are you sensitive about how your song does on charts?

I don’t care about that. There are songs I don’t care how they do online, and there are songs I want to do well.

It’s not easy to be in a team with same members for 10 years. What’s your secret?

FTISLAND members get along well with each other and everyone is nice. When I was young, my seniors always told me that many bands disband because of their vocal quits. So I decided I won’t be like that. I like performing the most. I really enjoy the 5 of us performing together. So I don’t want to break this.

Do all 5 of you have the same musical direction?

No, that’s impossible. If you listen to our albums, each member has a different musical color. We color it FTISLAND together. Jaejin’s song can turn out different if I sing it. I may be singing them but it’s important to FT-fy them.

What do you dream as a musician?

It’s always the same. To be a ‘rock star.’

What’s Lee Hongki’s rock spirit?

Freedom. Not the rough kind but a peaceful freedom. Peace. I hate being complicated.

How will you be spending 2018?

I’ll have to be busy until I enlist in the army. Now that Soohyun (Kim Soohyun) has gone to the army, I feel like I need to start getting ready for it. I want to be the singer and actor that people can wait for. I want people to ask, “is Lee Hongki done serving yet? I want to hear his song again.” That’s why I plan to work even harder.

How will you describe today’s shoot with 3 SNS hashtags?

First of all, #OffEarly. I had so much fun that it ended fast. And #FurCoat #Allure_MustHave

Knit top & pants (ACNE STUDIO), Pants (NOHANT), Sunglasses (GENTLEMONSTER) *** Cr. Allure Korea + DJ. Pri @tumblr.com ;; Twitter @ChocopieK 

[theatremarketinginsights]

What I Discovered About “Rethinking” Theatre Marketing in a Pandemic

By Roger Gonzalez  

This past week, I spoke at the TRU (Theatre Resources Unlimited) annual Marketing panel. This is the second annual panel I’ve participated in, and I love that it forces me to rethink what new, hot marketing topics theatre marketers should be thinking about. But a year is a long time, and this year was remarkably life-changing. I don’t need to tell you about the pandemic, the recession, the quarantine, the stay at home, the racial unrest, the political upheaval, and generally the dozens of things that changed so dramatically in the past year. In fact, when TRU’s Bob Ost reached out to me, he was uncertain if there was anything new to really talk about, given that live-theatre was still vaguely in the future. But my feeling was, and is, that we can always talk marketing even when it seems that the whole world is on shut-down with no major changes in in the horizon. In fact, that’s the best time to talk. That’s exactly when you need marketing the most. So I said, yes, let’s do it, even if we don’t have all the answers, which maybe I don’t (don’t hate me for not having a crystal ball).

And just as we agreed to move forward, just a few weeks later, changes began unfolding. Within days, a few public press conferences, and announcements from government officials followed, and we learned that venues would indeed begin the opening process. For Off/Off and Off-Broadway, the dates seem to loom closer than the Fall 2021 dates being thrown around for Broadway. And on the day of the panel (March 25th), it was announced that theatre workers would soon be getting their vaccines. The conversation was all over social media, even though details were still mostly lacking. For me, the challenge was to talk on subject with what TRU described as the theme of their marketing panel for 2021: Rethinking Marketing Strategies to Reach the Wider Virtual Audience.

Rethinking. That word stood out for me. I literally sat down at my sofa one afternoon and started thinking, er, rethinking.

The more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that  little had actually changed. Sure, performing live-theatre is going to be a major safety challenge as we reopen and  that won’t satisfy everyone. Audiences are still very much split on returning to live venues, with some saying they won’t return for some time, and others anxious to don a mask (or two) and sit in a theater and start watching anything.

A year ago, digital platforms like Zoom were unknown. Now everyone seems knows how to use it. Restaurants survive on takeout, retailers on e-commerce, and mask-wearing became political. So how is it possible that "little has changed,” you may ask? 

Allow me to explain.

As a marketing consultant, a producer, development consultant, publisher, actor, and stage-director working with hundreds of theatre companies, playwrights, and other marketers outside of the entertainment business, as well as being a college professor teaching marketing, the realization surprised even me. That’s because while the way we do marketing may have shifted,  marketing principles have not changed that much. After some “rethinking,” it occurred to me that if you apply five basic principles to your theatre marketing that existed a year ago to today’s approach, you will always have a better chance at succeeding than if you panic, complicate the process, and jump into a reactive mode of marketing. You still need a marketing plan and strategy. You just have to update it to accommodate all the external and internal changes that have happened. 

So, here they are. Give them the attention they merit, and spend time doing your own “rethinking.” And please, don’t hesitate to share or discuss. Here goes:

5 Things about your pre-pandemic Theatre Marketing that remain exactly the same one year later.

1. You still must offer a good product, meaning your show, event, or whatever you are presenting or trying to sell. Whether it’s a workshop, class, online course, online symposium, or conference, quality is paramount. Why would anyone want to pay anything (even if it’s free which involves investing your time) for a bad product? A playwright friend of mine says he hates Zooms and so do I...bad Zooms. Another playwright I know also hates Zooms and says she’ll wait for theatre to reopen. Bad idea. The reason we may hate Zooms is because they are not often well-executed. But if you set your mind to creating a great Zoom presentation, or even a better Zoom presentation than the other gal, then you are elevating the platform. To me, that’s worth it. Zooming is not live-theatre and never will be. But shit is shit, and gold is gold no matter what platter you serve it on. Sure, I prefer live theatre, but I’ve walked out of a few live shows in the past because they were awful. If you can provide good production values, great acting, excellent direction, and all the things that make a story worth seeing, people will see it and enjoy it. Give that some thought before you throw some actors together on a live-stream with shaky wifi reception, give them minimal direction, and a script that they can barely read, much less perform. Make your story, and story-telling as great as possible.

2. Find your audience(s). This is still the biggest challenge we face. Even before the pandemic, identifying, finding, and serving the right audience for your show was a mighty challenge. Getting them into the theater was even harder. But now you may find that you actually have some advantages on both the live and virtual platforms. Whereas live theatre restricts your audience to geographic limitations, virtual theatre can be enjoyed by anyone around the globe with access to wifi, a device, and a link. This means you can brand your work, your company or yourself, and build a following bigger than ever before. Last year, you might have been struggling to “put fannies in your seats,” a phrase I’ve always despised for being so narrow-minded. This year, the world is your oyster…identify your ideal audiences, talk to them, embrace them with the story behind the story, and present your product. It’s a different type of targeting, but the principle is the same. Identifying audiences is still a priority, but now the net is larger, requiring a slightly different angle of approach.

3. Figure out how to reach/engage those ideal audiences. If you’ve identified them, where are they? Are they in Facebook groups, on Instagram under a particular hashtag, on a certain website, or other platform? Can you identify that audience because they are following a certain influencer? And if so, what are some ways you can engage them in the conversation and generate interest in you, your theatre company, and your show, or event? Once you matched your product to the right audience, you must decide on the best way to reach those audiences and hook them. Post, talk, engage, and bring them into the fold. Make them life-long followers. You can choose to do it with no-cost organic posts, or low-cost email marketing, even paid advertising. You will need to determine what works best, and what you can afford. And remember, don’t always be selling...engage with stories, and conversations first. Repetitive selling is desperate and annoying. 

4. What does that audience would want or need that you can deliver. Why would they see your show? If you can put your finger on that want or need and deliver, you’ve won half the battle. That aspect has never changed. Maybe the need or want has changed, but your ability to connect and deliver is still the same challenge. Think about this, maybe your audience no longer wants to see your show live, but is willing to see it online. Maybe your show fulfills something that can only be delivered in a live show. It really depends on your ability to understand this challenging attribute. Follow that lead. Do your homework.

5. Deliver with a communications strategy that engages that specific audiences’ needs or wants. Make sure your message is clear and convincing. Make sure you begin communicating early enough to hook them when  you’re not selling. Then find the right way to communicate your message and proceed to deliver a good product.good product. To do this, you will need to think, plan, strategize, and execute. You need to start the process early...maybe even months or years before. Very importantly, you will need a new, updated marketing plan. (another article coming soon).

Sure, this still may not answer every question you have, but trust me, this is exactly where to start. Human nature hasn’t changed all that much, good story telling is still good story telling. Many little elements have changed, but at the core of all your theatre marketing, these simple 5 principles still apply today and tomorrow. Audiences may have also changed; how you deliver your show is now constantly evolving, ticket pricing could be reconsidered, the competition is different, casting, union requirements, safety issues, media coverage, and what we define as the theatre experience has undergone huge shifts. This is all true (Coming soon, we will touch on these subjects). But if you root yourself in sound marketing principles, the rest falls in line. 

Let’s get started here.

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