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heknewwhoyoureallyare · 4 years ago

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In this world there is always two type of guys. An Alpha and a Beta. My name is Jimmy and I’m a beta. This is what I look like:

I have this friend, well sort of, we are roommates. His name is Alaric, Our lives are both miserable, but while I have normal people problems like having trouble loosing weight, having low self esteem, can’t get a girlfriend, have a low paying job which led to difficulties paying the bills, and I have no social life (because I spend to much time playing video games). My roommates have Alpha problems, like how to snatched away the company that his big brother has inherit from their father, how to destroy his competitions in his work field, and how to create his own personal brand in his social media account and gain more followers, which in all honesty he already have plenty of. Oooohhhh and he looks like this:

The only reasons that I said that we are sort of friends its because, it’s true that Alaric and I are roommate, and sometime we talked to each other, during dinner while watching televisions, (right before I go back to my video games). It’s because we couldn’t be anymore different from each other. I’m a nerd and he’s a jock. I came from a lower middle class family, and he’s an old money rich. I have confidence issue and he has to much confidence. I am a follower and he is a natural born leader. I am a good person and Alaric is well Evil. He doesn’t bully me or anything but the thing that he told me especially about the stuff that he do to the people that he hates is extremely shocking and twisted. This guy has everything that he needs and yet his heart is full of nothing but hatred and envy! His minds are full of plots and evil schemes. So one time I took it upon myself, (because I’m a good person), to decide to become an Alpha for once and teach Alaric a lesson! A moral lesson! I snooped around his bedroom, when he’s not at home and I open his laptop. In there I found a file that are filled with his evil plans to take down his big brother and snatched away their father’s company from him. Since I’m a good person, and I’m learning to become more of an Alpha for once, I took the initiative to delete this file. I hope that this action will give him a signal to stop what he’s doing. After I delete this file that are full of his evil plots and schemes towards his perfect older big brother, I also found his other files that are filled with his collections of videos, but not just any videos. His porn videos collection, his forced role play porn videos collections. Not a BDSM videos, but a role play of a beautiful women getting forced to have a sexual intercourse by a guy that almost looks like him, big, strong, tall and has the power to dominate any women that he likes. I feel so disgusted by it, that I decided to deleted this file to, straight away. After he came back, I heard a loud manly scream from his room and when I checked it out, it was Alaric trying to find a file about his plan to destroy his big brother. He asked me where his file has gone, but I replied that I don’t know. He then checked the webcam that he has install in his room (which I am not aware off btw) and saw me deleting everything. He confronted me about this behavior and ask me why would I do such a thing. He thought we were friends. I have no choice but to come clean to him and explained that the reason for me to do this, it’s because I want to teach him a lesson. A moral lesson, about not hurting other people and accept our fate no matter what, without hurting anybody else. He then give me the most evilest glare that I ever seen him in.

And he said, “I trusted you and you have betrayed me! I never hurt you before because I thought we were both at the same side, but apparently, you think that you are better than me, well at least morally anyway. In fact you think you’re better than me so much that you decided to jeopardize my plan for my future and the future of my father’s company and for what? To teach me some big moral lesson? You know what, I will consider you my enemy now, and I will show you what I will do to my enemy especially the one that I think is my equal!” He then packs his bags and left the apartment right away. I was relieved, I thought for a moment there that he’s going to beat me to a pulp and put me in a hospital, but thank God that he doesn’t. Perhaps he was just bluffing, but what does it mean when he said that he consider me as his enemy, that are also his equal. I don’t understand. A couple of months later I have to move out from the apartment that I’m in because someone just bought the ownership of this building and now they want to bulldoze it and turn it into a Mall. Sucks to be me. I have no choice than to go back to my mother’s house and move in back with her. My mother is a very beautiful woman and very faithful to my father, after my father has died. She has never married again. Prim and proper and very religious, she’s always been a very caring woman. This time however I noticed that she has changed:

She dressed in a very sexy way, and there is a certain allure that she has now, that is sort of making me feel uncomfortable, especially as a son. I asked her “Mom, what has changed” and she said “What do you mean?” I asked her again “Why do you dress very sexy now?” And she said “Oooohhh I’m just very anxious for you to meet my new lover that’s all...” I was shocked when I heard her say the ‘L’ word. I thought she’s going to be loyal to my Dad until she passed away. I asked her immediately who is her new Lover, and how many lovers has she had in the past, and she said “Oooohhh calm down honey, this is the first lover that I ever had after your Dad has passed away, he’s very sweet, he’s always helping me around the house when I’m alone! In fact he’s here right now. Would you like to meet him?” I said “Yes”, and a couple of minutes later I heard a familiar voice saying “Hello Son!” And guess who showed up.

It was Alaric. I freaked out and I get angry. I wanted to attack him but he’s stronger than me. My Mom started to try and stop me and asked me what has gotten into me, and I told her everything, about the apartment, the files, the threats everything! My Mom asked him if this is true of which he deny everything. He said that he had never met me once in his life. At that moment, I just realized something, I have no proof to back my claimed up. I don’t even have any social media, to stalked him to. I only know that he has a lot of followers because he has showed me his social media account once. My Mom said maybe the reason why I’m so angry it’s because I haven’t gotten to know him very well, so she decided to give us some quality alone time together. When my Mom leave the room, Alaric started to smirk at me, and said “So what do you think? I told you that I will start treating you like the enemy that I consider equal!” I replied “Alaric please this has come to far, you have to leave my Mother alone! She’s innocent! This is between you and me!” He said “I don’t give a shit! I will destroy everything that you love and you hold dear, just like you did to me, and I will teach you about some big moral lesson about life, and you will start thanking me for it! You even have to start calling me Daddy!” I asked him again “Wait what do you mean? What do you mean that I have to start calling you Daddy?” He said “Your mom and I has gotten engaged!” I replied “Wait What? What do you mean? How? When?” He then smirked again and said “a couple of days ago, it took me a while to seduce her, but she finally gives in. It’s seems that after your Father has died and you have moved out from her house, she has become very lonely. I just have to fucked her once and showed her what she has been missing with, and she couldn’t say no to me ever since!” I asked him “Wait What? You did what?” In which he replied “Yeah you heard me. I fucked your mom! It was the Greatest Fuck that she ever had, she even said that I’m a better fuck than her late husband! Your Father! We Fucked, and we fucked, and we fucked. Sometime we fucked without condom, and I cream pied her a couple of times and we recorded it! We also did that role playing thing that you hate so much from my Laptop. Where she pretend to be this weak innocent woman and I came in to her house and have my way with her and there is nothing she can do to stop me! Yeah we did that!” At this point I don’t know what to say anymore. He then continued by saying “If you ever try to do something funny again to me, and jeopardize my plan for my future, I will post your mom videos to the internet and the world will know what a whore your mother really is!!! Peace out Brotha!!!

I was very angry at him, I tried to taught him a lesson, a good moral lesson in the past and this is how he repaid me. The next couple of days things has gotten really worse. Every night, I couldn’t stop hearing my mother’s voices moaning and groaning in her room while screaming Alaric name over and over again “Oh Alaric, That’s it! YOU are so good! Don’t Stop, Don’t Stop!” She even can’t stop stroking his ego “Oooohhh Alaric you are such a Man! A Big Man!!! A Strong Man! You are much stronger than my first husband!”. I can’t believe she said that! These voices can last for hours and hours. I sometime wonder when will they finally get some sleep! Alaric then take his revenge a step further by starting to wear my father’s clothes and smoke his cigars!

My Mothers even allowed it. Everyday she can’t stop talking about how Alaric is going to be my Stepfather someday! A good Stepfather, even though, she knows that he’s about the same age as I am. I always get angry at her and I tried to talked him out of this, but he refused to listened. He just smirked and continue to do his thing. One time I get a text message from my mom’s phone saying that she needed me in the beach near the house and when I get over there well, guess what I found.

Alaric having his dick sucked at the beach by my mom, in public. No one was there but I guess he just wanted me to see how much control that he has over me and my mom! He texted me using my mom’s phone while he’s getting a blowjob from my mom at public places. Just so that I can see this thing. I can’t stand this anymore, I almost went crazy. I begged Alaric to stop punishing me because of what I did in the past, of which he replied to me“I only wanted to teach you a lesson!” And when I asked him what the lesson that he wanted to teach me, he simply replied with “Never try to teach an Alpha anything, especially about Life, cus he might schooled you on what real life really is!” And just like that I realized that I should never overstep my boundaries by teaching an Alpha anything.

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into-control · 3 years ago

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Into i need help. I bought a oculus quest 2 right and i tried to connect it to my laptop and it wont work so I realized i needed and actual pc gaming setup you know, problem is idk anything about PCs and i dont wanna get scammed. Can you help me? Ive looked online and idk wtf im looking at tbh. Can you give like advice and shit lol 😂 love you into 💕

well i'm not a professional at pcs by any means but i've always had a huge fixation on them so i can try to help as much as possible and i'll even try to put it in simple terms. fair warning, i talk A LOT in this post because i love rambling about computers :') i tried to use the simplest terms possible since you seem confused but if something doesn't make sense just ask and i can try to reword.

it all depends on what you want out of your pc. and do you want to build one or get a prebuilt one? if you want my advice i recommend building one. getting a prebuilt pc is the easiest way to get scammed because retailers tend to overcharge and they think they can get away with it because they stuck a flashy high end graphics card and colourful lights in it even though it has shit airflow and they cheaped out on the motherboard and power supply or something like that. if you're going to get a prebuilt pc make sure you look at allll the specs and consult some online reviews to see if they're any good, and figure out if you're going to be overcharged. now i'll talk about building one. a lot of this will still be useful if you're considering buying a prebuilt though.

the very first step is deciding your budget. idk where you are but in USD the typical amount to spend on pc parts is i think like $1000 - 1500 (you can spend less but that's if you don't have a lot of money to spend and are still desperate to have a gaming pc). i'm spending around $1700 CAD (before taxes, eugh) on mine bc i want to get into more demanding games eventually. it sounds very costly but computers like these can last you a decade and are very multifaceted. figuring out your budget first instead of going right ahead and buying stuff is important because each component should take up specific percentages of your budget. another important thing to consider when deciding your budget is if you want RGB (the colourful lights as previously mentioned), because components with that capability are slightly more expensive.

after deciding your budget, your first move is deciding what graphics card (GPU) you want. the GPU is responsible for processing and presenting the visuals on your screen. theoretically it should take up between 35 - 40% of your budget because it is the powerhouse in a gaming system. you have two developers to choose from here: NVIDIA or AMD. from what i've seen people tend to prefer NVIDIA but AMD cards aren't bad and they definitely compete in performance. i'll talk about nvidia though because that's what i know more about. by searching up the oculus quest 2 system requirements it tells me you at least need an nvidia geforce gtx 970. this card came out in 2014 and is by no means bad however it is actually the same base price as a lot of newer cards. if you want to go better than the minimum requirements, first consider what your monitor is capable of. if you don't have one yet, consider what you want it to do. monitors are not considered a part of the budget i keep mentioning by the way. idk how much this matters to you since we're talking about the oculus quest 2 but i'm just kind of assuming you're going to use this pc for other games too. the main two things to take into consideration are max resolution and refresh rate. my monitor has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a 144hz refresh rate. what the resolution means is that there are 2,073,600 pixels in the screen, and can go up to a resolution of 1080p in video games. the refresh rate means the monitor can refresh the picture on the screen 144 times a second, therefore can show a max of 144 frames per second in a video game. to put that in to perspective, most screens have a refresh rate of 60hz, such as regular laptop screens, iphone screens, etc.. monitors come in mainly 60hz, 75hz, 144hz, and 165hz, and for resolution they mainly come in 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. seeing as i don't have any plans on upgrading my monitor any time soon, dropping extra money on a GPU that can achieve more than 144fps and 1440p/4k would be pointless. but forget about the monitor, the oculus quest 2 has a max refresh rate of 120hz and its resolution lies somewhere between 1080p and 1440p. if you know what kind of games you're going to be playing, look up how they perform with different kinds of cards. i'm fairly certain anything above an nvidia geforce rtx 3070 would be pointless because of your display limits, and anything below the nvidia geforce gtx 970 simply won't be enough for the system. you can look at all the GPUs ranked here. after deciding which GPU you want you need to figure out which brand of it you want (NVIDIA themselves, asus, gigabyte, evga, etc), because they all perform at slightly different levels, although the difference is usually only a few frames so it's better to save money. something to watch out for is the quality of the fans in the GPU because if they aren't good, it will overheat and underperform. i'm aiming to get a 3060 or 3060 ti, if that helps. the only problem is that there is currently a worldwide GPU shortage due to covid, tariffs, and the cryptocurrency mining boom (gpus are used in bulk to mine). fortunately there is currently a crypto mining crackdown happening in china, where majority of mining in the world happens, so the demand for GPUs will hopefully start going down soon. you wont be able to build your pc right away but the market is looking better than it has in awhile. this is just about the only argument i have in favor of getting a prebuilt pc, because they have GPUs in them and are more readily available. i don't think that's a good enough reason though especially since part of the reason i'm building my pc is because it looks fun lol. another thing to note is that you should not overspend on your GPU. the shortage has caused a lot of GPU prices to skyrocket into the $2k-3k range but none of them should be above 1k except the highest end ones. when deciding on a GPU, search up the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP). cards made by brands other than AMD and NVIDIA will almost always cost a little extra, but do not pay hundreds of

extra dollars. but anyways!! the GPU is now out of the way and is definitely the longest paragraph here because it's the most important part.

next up is the central processing unit (CPU), which you should be spending about 20 - 25% of your budget on. its job is essentially to retrieve instructions from the RAM and execute it. i suppose you could call it the brain. again you have two developers to choose from, this time between intel and AMD. i've had two laptops with an intel CPU and my current one has an AMD CPU and both are very good, however the general consensus is that you can get the same performance for less by going with AMD. CPUs have cores, and each core can run its own process. the more cores you have, the more your pc can think about basically. you can get CPUs will all sorts of amounts of cores but for gaming, 4 or 6 cores is all you really need. 8 is actually already a bit overkill. so you really don't need to get the best CPU out there. the one you get should depend on what GPU you get (hence choosing that component first). you don't want to bottleneck your GPU by getting a CPU that isn't good enough for it, but bottlenecking your CPU with the GPU by a small amount isn't as big of a deal because the goal is to allow your GPU to be used to its full ability. another detail about CPU is clock speed, which determines how quick it can complete tasks. the higher the faster, obviously. my (non gaming) laptop's CPU clock speed is 2.30 GHz and has 4 cores. the cpu i have for my build is the AMD ryzen 5 5600x. it has a base clock speed of 3.7 GHz but it can be maxed out to 4.6 GHz, and it has 6 cores. the oculus quest 2 has a minimum requirement of the AMD ryzen 5 1500x or the intel i5-4590, which is a little low on the performance list. but like i said the CPU should depend on the GPU. all it takes is a google search for which CPU goes best with the GPU you've chosen and you can find several answers depending on if you want the best possible performance, best budget performance, etc.. a nice little fact about choosing AMD over intel is that most AMD CPUs will come with a stock cooler, which is absolutely necessary otherwise your CPU will overheat (this is another thing prebuilts will cheap out on). this only adds to the whole price-to-performance thing. the stock cooler will most likely do unless you push your pc or want the build to look prettier.

next on the list is a motherboard, where all the parts come together in unity. you should spend 8 - 10% of your budget on this baby. it's easy to over and underspend on a mobo. the most important thing when it comes to choosing a mobo is that it supports your CPU. you cannot use the same mobo for intel and AMD CPUs. fortunately the product page will straight up tell you which CPU brand the mobo is meant for and will typically have two versions of the same board. it's important to note that motherboards don't always have onboard wifi, meaning it wont be able to connect to the internet via wifi and instead needs an ethernet cable or an external wifi adapter. if you can't get an ethernet cable to the room where you want your pc, you're going to need onboard wifi, or a wifi card/usb. onboard wifi mobos tend to be more expensive so it's up to you, but i personally bought one with wifi included so i wouldn't have to worry about it because our ethernet cables are in the basement and i'm upstairs. another very important thing about motherboards is that their BIOS version (operating system i guess?? idk how else to describe it) doesn't always support your CPU out of the box and must be updated before using it. this can present as a problem if you don't have another CPU to perform the update with, however some motherboards allow you to 'flash' the BIOS with a only usb drive as long as it's hooked up to power. there are plenty of step by step youtube videos about how to do this. i will have to do this with my motherboard when the time comes because it doesn't support ryzen 5s out of the box. don't let this deter you from getting a certain board as long as it has a BIOS flash feature. next up is what I/O ports you want, which are the ports (usb ports, headphone/mic jack, hdmi port, etc) you'd find on the back of any desktop computer. that is the side of the motherboard. basically just be aware of how many of each ports you want, and remember that there will probably be even more ports on the front of the case you get. the last thing i can think of right now is making sure your motherboard has all the headers (where you plug components in) you want it to have but i'll get to that later.

next up on the list is RAM, aka random access memory. this stores short term data. the amount of RAM you have kind of determines how much your pc can multitask. RAM sticks typically go up by some multiple of 2GB. most standard laptops and desktops nowadays will come with 8GB of RAM, which is enough for day to day use. it can be enough for mid and low end games however it cuts it pretty close most of the time. 16GB of RAM is the sweet spot for gaming and anything above that is pretty much overkill (and once again a waste of money) as long as you don't have a billion unnecessary background processes. a large amount of RAM is typically needed for video editors or computer programmers. you should always make sure your motherboard can support the amount of RAM you want although any good motherboard will support 64GB or even 128GB. the best option is to get a 16GB RAM pack, which will include two 8GB RAM sticks. splitting RAM between two sticks will increase efficiency. this is called dual channel. i also recommend getting DDR4 RAM, which is simply faster than DDR3. a good speed to have is around 3600 MHz. make sure your motherboard supports DDR4. you also want to be weary that your RAM is compatible with your CPU brand because they do have to interact for your pc to function.

next is storage. there are three-ish options here depending on how much you're willing to spend. generally you should spend 8 - 10% of the budget here. you can always get a good ole hard drive for the cheapest, however they are the slowest and physically biggest option, meaning whatever you put on it will take a bit longer for your pc to retrieve and open (they can load about 100-200MB of data per second). the next option is a solid state drive. they are a little more expensive but can load as much as 600MB of data per second and take up less space. the last and most efficient/expensive option is an m.2 nvme drive. these things are physically absolutely tiny and can load up to 4GB of data per second. anything you put on these will open very very quickly. the fairly standard solution for this is a combination of two of these three. personally i'm using one m.2 drive and one hard drive. the hard drive i have can store 2TB while the m.2 drive can only store 256GB. funnily enough these two drives are roughly the same price. the idea here is to install your operating system on the faster drive. this makes it so it only takes like 8 seconds tops for your pc to start up. you can also put any other programs you use most often on there (like your main browser and favourite games) and they will open very quickly, while the bulk of your games and other files will go on the bigger drive. that's all there really is to say for storage, just make sure the reviews are good on the drive you want to get, but that goes for any component.

next is your power supply (PSU). very very important to not cheap out on this. 6 - 8% of the budget should go to this. the function of the PSU is to do exactly what its name implies: supply power to all the components. this is where the website pcpartpicker can come in very handy. not only does it help you build a list of parts that are all compatible with each other, it will also estimate how much wattage you will need to run your pc. 600W is usually enough for a normal gaming pc. PSUs are ranked, and you should never really go below a bronze ranking. you can also choose between non-modular, semi-modular, and fully-modular PSUs. non-modular PSUs have all the cables permanently attached. this can be desirable to people who are confused by what cable is plugged in where but also undesirable as unused cables cannot be removed and make cable management harder. fully-modular PSUs come with the cables all in a separate bag so you choose which ones to plug in. semi-modular power supplies have the necessary cables attached and the rest can be attached need be. it all depends on preference and how much faith you have in yourself. i have an 80+ gold certified fully modular 750W PSU because the thought of unnecessary cable management makes me sick lol. corsair is pretty much the most trusted brand for power supplies. be careful because this is another place prebuilts will cut corners.

now for the case! this one isn't overly difficult to choose and mainly will just appeal to your aesthetics. it's less important to stick to a precise percent of the budget for this one but you also don't want to spend more than 8%. do you want a black case? a white one? do you want a glass side panel so you can see inside your pc and admire your hard work? besides that, you also need to make sure the case is big enough for your motherboard, GPU, and PSU. most info pages for cases will tell you the max size of the GPU and PSU and what size of mobo it's meant for. you also want to make sure there is a place to put your storage drives (unless you only have m.2 drives which are installed on the motherboard). you also want to make sure it has optimal airflow abilities. a case with no airflow will cause overheating. the best ones have mesh fronts and tops to allow cool air to be pulled in and hot air out. it's even better if you can get a case that comes with fans in the front, because they are what pulls that cool air in.

next is the CPU cooler, which i briefly mentioned. if you don't get an AMD CPU then you'll need to buy a separate cooler. you can choose between air coolers (a fan and a heatsink) or liquid coolers. i don't really have much to say about them and i recommend doing your own research on liquid coolers lol.

last but not least, case fans. like i said a lot of cases will come with front fans and also an exhaust fan at the back, however you might want more, or even replace the ones you already have with better ones. pay attention to how many fans your case manual says can fit and plan accordingly. check out reviews to see if the fans you want are quiet and efficient. if you buy a three pack of case fans there is a chance it will come with a fan hub. this makes it easier to control all of them in sync because the hub will connect all the fans to one header on the motherboard. generally 3-6 fans are pretty good for a gaming pc. two or three in the front pulling in cool air, one at the back and two on the top to pull out hot air.

now that i have all the components out of the way i'm gonna talk about RGB lighting. numerous components that i've mentioned have the option of including LED lights to make your pc brightly coloured, which is always nice if you have a glass side panel on your pc. it's an extra bit of money but i personally was willing to sacrifice that because i want to show off my build lmao. motherboards, RAM sticks, GPUs, CPU coolers, and case fans are the main components that can come with RGB lighting. you can also get special LED strips and power connectors designed for PCs. if you decide to go for RGB lighting, do try to stick to one RGB ecosystem, meaning make sure all the RGB components can be controlled by one program. RGB is controlled by your motherboard. for example if you get an asus motherboard you'll probably want to use their program, aura sync. most components can be controlled by any brand's program however if the motherboard itself has RGB lighting it can only be controlled via its own brand's program, along with the GPU. if you want RGB case fans you really have to make sure your motherboard has RGB headers (the thingy on the motherboard where you plug the fan's LED lights into). most motherboards will only have two-ish RGB headers so if you're going to buy a bunch of fans make sure they come with a fan hub, which lets you plug them all into one header on the motherboard. also, never sacrifice performance for RGB. specifically when it comes to GPUs. if you have a choice between a GPU with RGB and a GPU without RGB, always take the one that has better performance (given it's within the parameters i mentioned earlier).

that's all i have to say :) if you couldn't tell i really love this stuff. i will also recommend you watch youtube videos about this, you can see the build process and the reasoning for using each component, and also tips on what to do and what not to do. i hope this helps and wasn't too confusing. i know you said this is mainly because you got an oculus quest 2 but if you're going to get a gaming pc you should definitely consider games outside of the oculus too.

#ask #anon

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takadasaiko · 4 years ago

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Compromises (a Veronica Mars one shot)

FFN II AO3

Summary: Logan has been in limbo since returning from deployment, spending every night at Veronica's, but never actually moving in. When he starts looking at buying a place of his own, both he and Veronica find themselves having to answer the tough question: what do they really want?

This particular story was requested via a prompt from @elby3000 : "I want to take a shower so you should probably join me. It’ll save water."

Yeah.... it kind grew beyond that, but there are definitely shower shenanigans involved :P

Compromises

The sun was streaming in through the bedroom window, pulling Veronica reluctantly from the ease of sleep. It was Saturday. And early. Too early for the sun to be peeking in and waking her up. She rolled over with a frustrated sound, fully intending on putting her back to the offending ball of light, wrapping an arm around her boyfriend, and falling immediately back to sleep.

Only she found an empty space where Logan had slept the night before. That's right. She forgot. Apparently the Navy has managed to train his ability to sleep the day away right out of him. He'd likely already been up for hours if the cool sheets on his side of the bed were anything to go by. Awake and productive like a real, functioning adult. It was still a concept she was wrapping her mind around some days.

Veronica yawned and stretched as long as her body could reach. She supposed she should try being a functioning adult too, even if she was getting a later start. She should go get curtains. That would keep that sun out.

After another few moments of procrastination she finally rolled off the bed, bare feet hitting the carpet of the bedroom floor and she sauntered tiredly towards what smelled like breakfast. Okay. She could get used to Adult Logan. Especially if Adult Logan was cooking breakfast for her.

"I smell bacon!" she announced over the sizzling as she rounded out of the bedroom and into the hall.

She found him leaning on the counter opposite the stove and scrolling through something on his laptop. He turned at the sound of her voice, that lopsided smile of his tugging into place. "Did it call to you?"

"It did. Loudly and flavourfully."

He quirked an eyebrow at that. "It called flavourfully, huh?"

She smacked him on the arm playfully and his grin returned. "Tell me there's coffee already made. Then I'll start making sense."

He twisted around to flip the bacon. "It's been in the pot for a couple of —" She grabbed the pot and poured the dark coffee into a fresh mug. "Okay. Don't say I didn't warn you," he finished.

Veronica made a face at the burnt coffee, but he didn't seem to notice, his attention re-focused on his laptop. She poured the remains out into the sink and started a new pot. "What's got your attention this morning?"

"Looking at apartments," he said, turning the computer so she could see.

"For that price tag, we call those condos," Veronica answered as she peered at the very nice layout with an address not too far from there. Funny what a few miles up the beach changed. Gotta love Neptune.

Logan huffed a laugh and turned back to the bacon. He fished it out of the grease and onto a paper towel to pat it dry, then dumped a couple of eggs in the scramble.

"You thinking about having some lady friends over that you don't want me to know about?" she teased as she stole one of the barely-cooling pieces of bacon.

"Oh yeah. Definitely. Rave parties every night, wild bingers. Like college all over again."

"Or high school."

He made a noncommittal sound as he stirred the eggs and shrugged. "I need to get my stuff out of Dick's place."

"Why?" Right after Logan had gotten home from deployment Dick had told him that he needed the guest house that he rented from him for another friend coming into town. Logan had talked about getting a place then, but Veronica had just signed the lease where she was and had roped him into helping her move in. One night led to the next and it wasn't like he would have been sleeping at his old place anyway. Somewhere along the way he'd moved anything that would have gotten in Dick's buddy's way into one of Dick's many guest rooms in the main house and still used that as his home address for any official paperwork.

He dumped the eggs out onto a plate for her. "Apparently his dad's selling the place."

"Did you ever have a lease when you were in the guesthouse? If so, he can't just kick you out, even if he sells it."

"We don't. It's not a big deal. I should have done this after I got back. I've just been putting it off."

It was strange. Logan hadn't moved in, per se, and she wasn't sure she even wanted to start in on what it would take to contemplate it officially being their place versus her place that he slept over at, but she did know that she liked having him there. It was nice - comforting, even - to have him so close after they'd been away from each other so long. She'd gotten used to it faster than she ever thought she could. It was one thing if he just had a room or a guest house he rented from his best friend - a crash pad, really, for between deployments - but if he had his own place, what was that going to do? Would he suddenly want to start sleeping over there rather than here, remembering how much more he enjoyed his million dollar condo on the beach lifestyle versus her rent controlled three story walk-up on the beach? He'd have room for his weights and his surfboards, and all the other things still stored at Dick's place. Then what? Veronica's little apartment would gather dust while his neighbors gave her that look 09'ers gave to the riffraff that stumbled in where they didn't belong. That was his world, not hers and she —

"Veronica?"

The spiraling slammed to a halt as Logan's voice cut through. She blinked hard.

"Coffee's ready."

"Yep," she answered automatically.

"You okay?"

"Yep."

"So do you want to?"

Oh. He'd asked her a question. Shit. "Want to….?" she prompted hesitantly as she poured the fresh coffee into the mug. That smelled glorious. She might actually be able string coherent sentences together with that stuff.

"Go with me to check a few out today," he said in a tone that clearly meant he was repeating the question.

"Oh," Veronica manages, finding that clever gaze of his fixed on her expectantly. She took a long sip of scalding coffee and a deep breath. "What I want-" she set it down on the counter and moved forward, her fingers dancing around the hem of his pajama bottoms and up under his t-shirt, nails scraping lightly against bare skin and she saw him draw in a sharp breath - "is to take a shower. You should probably join me. You know, save water?"

"I think I could get behind that," he answered, his voice low and amusement dancing in his eyes as he ducked down, catching her in a kiss. Veronica felt his arms go around her waist and a muffled laugh escaped her as he hauled her off her feet. She shifted, arms around his neck and legs around his middle as he started back towards the bathroom, the list of available condos left forgotten on his laptop.

------

Several weeks later Logan finally managed to convince her to go with him to check out what he was still determined to call an apartment rather than a condo. The building wasn't technically a high-rise building, sitting at five stories tall with a separate garage rather than street parking. You needed a fob to get past the gates and there was an elevator up to the floor with the specific unit he was looking at. Logan was not nearly as amused as Veronica was with herself when she asked - in a quality 09'er impression that she had perfected years before - where the doorman was and why they'd have to fob themselves in. What if her hands were full of all the clothes that daddy's money had bought her? She thought she saw Logan roll his eyes at that one.

The condo was beautiful, even if she wouldn't admit it. The floor-to-ceiling windows reminded her of the guesthouse at Dick's that he'd stayed at, but this one looked down over the ocean instead of on level with it. There were two and a half bedrooms, two bathrooms - the one attached to the master bedroom making her just a little bit jealous with its deep soaking tub - a massive kitchen, and a deck that looked out on the ocean as well.

"Do I even want to know how much something like this costs?" she asked, joining him on the deck where he was leaned against the railing, taking in the view. He liked it. She could tell he liked it.

"Do you?"

Veronica loosed a long, loud, dramatic sigh. "Yeah. Hit me."

"Just under two."

"Two what?"

"Million."

She nearly choked on her own breath. "A month?"

That finally broke the love affair gaze he had going on with the waves rolling in and he turned to look at her, laughing. "A month? Seriously? I know I threw money around when we were younger, but hell, Veronica." He turned back to the view. "No, overall. Might be over with taxes."

"Oh," she managed. "You want to buy it."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Why not? It's an investment. I'm not going anywhere permanently and there are a few other perks." When she crossed her arms to wait on what those were, she saw him give her a quick glance, almost like he was trying to make adjustments for his example. "Next spring you won't have to deal with the idiot AirBnB renters you know will be in the complex raging all night. You can just come crash over here."

"What if I like my idiot AirBnB renters?" Veronica snapped, the question sounding absurd even as it left her lips. She'd grown up in Neptune. She and everyone else knew spring breakers were what they were. No one liked them.

Logan quirked an eyebrow at that. "You spent a Skype session that took me three days to secure last March to bitch about spring breakers in general. That was before you rented a place right on the beach."

"So's this place. What's the difference other than the price tag?"

Logan loosed a long breath, frustration clear even if he looked like he was desperately trying to keep a lid on it. "Okay, what is it you hate?"

"What do you mean?"

"You obviously hate something about it, but you hated the last three places too. I thought you would've liked this one."

"Why does it matter if I like it? You're the one buying it."

"Not yet," he popped back, his tone increasingly more strained and he watched her expression carefully. He was looking for whatever she wasn't saying. Damn him. "What's going on, Veronica?"

"Nothing."

"Something is."

She felt her temper flare, even if there was no reason for it to. She knew that. Logically she knew that, but it was like she couldn't stop herself. "You know what, buy it or don't. It's your money, it's your place. If the ritzy, multi million dollar condo is where you feel at home, I say go for it."

And then she was storming out, something in the back of her mind screaming at her that it wasn't fair to do that to him without even trying to figure out why she was reacting this way. It didn't seem to matter, even if it did. She couldn't stop herself.

----------

Logan had been left standing alone on the balcony of an apartment that he wasn't even sure that he wanted to own as Veronica had stormed out. Distant chatter below on the beach joined the sound of the waves and the eventual awkward question if he was done viewing the unit from the realtor that had made herself scarce during the abrupt argument that he'd been blindsided with. He thought he had been asking her opinion. He thought he'd been including her in a life decision. He wasn't sure where he'd gone wrong.

Veronica's phone rolled straight to voicemail when he called. Not once, not twice, but three times over the next hour, and Logan had taken the next several to vent his frustrations with the top down on his convertible, hitting breakneck speeds down the PCH to try to work through some of the confusion he had and give both of them time to breathe. He didn't know what she wanted and Veronica sure as hell wasn't telling him. Every night she wanted him to stay, but she never actually asked him to move in. He'd been left in a sort of limbo, even after he'd explained that he was being moved out of his apartment at Dick's. He had thought maybe he misread her signals and so he'd started looking for a new place. Apparently that had been the wrong move too.

The sun was setting by the time he pulled up to park the BMW along the street outside her apartment and killed the engine. It took another five minutes to convince himself to get out and start up the stairs. He had a key. It wasn't that he couldn't get in, but suddenly in the wake of a fight in which he still wasn't sure how it'd been started, he wasn't sure if he should knock or just walk in. It wasn't like it was his place too. There had been a few brief times that she had referred to the apartment as theirs in some form or fashion. It always caught him by surprise in the best of ways and he had thought she'd follow it up with something that indicated that he actually belonged there permanently, not that it had just been a slip of the tongue, but she never did.

Finally, he dug the key out of his pocket and stuck it in the lock, turned, and pushed the door open.

Veronica was sitting on the couch with a bowl of ice cream balanced on one knee and some show that he didn't recognize playing on the TV. He closed the door behind him, locked it, and circled the couch. "I need you to give me a hint."

"About what?" Veronica asked around the spoon in her mouth.

"What the hell that was."

"I don't know. You're the one that took forever to get home."

The word struck a nerve and Logan felt his temper flare dangerously. "This isn't my home, Veronica," he snapped. "This is your home. Your name's on the lease, you pay the rent, you have all of your shit here. I just sleep over."

"If you need your space go buy your condo," Veronica popped back and it felt like a slap to the face, even if somewhere under the sting he recognized that particular brand of venom in her voice as the type she used when she was trying to hide something else.

"Don't give me that!" he shouted, finally drawing her gaze around. "You want me over here, but I'm still living out of a bag like when I'm deployed. I try to go get my own place and you storm out like I just threw something in your face. I don't know what you want from me!"

"You!" she shouted back, suddenly on her feet, the bowl somehow deposited on the coffee table. "I want you!"

They stood there staring at each other for a long moment after the outburst, her words hanging between them. "I don't know what that means," he confessed softly and without warning she covered the space between them. Her hands reached up to his face, dragging him down to hers and he felt her pull him into a kiss that he was powerless to stop. Suddenly her fingers were pulling at his belt and he was tugging at her shirt. They were moving together and it was sort of an answer to his question. A piece of the answer. He wasn't sure, but in that moment, he just needed to be close to her in any way that he could.

----------

Sex was a good distraction. Sex with Veronica was the best distraction, but when the distraction ended and they were left breathless in bed, pillows thrown to the floor and the sheets crumpled at the foot of it, the questions started to seap back into his mind. Dangerous and loud and swirling, threatening to drag him under and drown him. Sex was good, but if this was going to work - and Logan wanted this to work with Veronica more than he wanted anything else in his life - it had to be more. They had to figure this out.

He rolled over in bed, finding her tugging the sheets up to wrap around herself and he laced one arm around her middle to curl into her, pressing a kiss against her shoulder. In turn, Veronica shifted onto her side so that she could wrap an arm around him and she ran one bare foot up his calf. He shivered, tightening his hold. "Hey."

"Hey yourself," she answered, her voice relaxed.

"I need to know what I did wrong."

And just like that he felt her tense, but he refused to let go. Finally, she turned those clear blue eyes on him. "Do we have to talk about this now?"

"No," he breathed out, "but I want to. Please."

She sighed deeply and nuzzled in, sending a rush of relief through him. "Talk," she huffed and he had to stop himself from chuckling. Instead he kissed the top of her head and felt her nails scrape along the skin over his spine, threatening distraction if he'd let it.

"I just need to know what you want."

There was a long moment before she loosed another breath. "I don't want things to change."

"Veronica, Dick's selling the house and, crazy thing, for all the places that the Navy sends me, they kinda want a home address. I get that it's too soon for that to be here, but -"

"I never said that."

That stopped him. "You never said it… should be either."

There was a lot of sighing coming from her tonight. She moved, nudging him so that he rolled to his back and she eased herself up on her elbows so that she was looking down on him, her expression tight as she worked through what she wanted to say. She started several times, but the words seemed to get stuck somewhere between where they formed up in her mind and when they actually rolled off her tongue. She would open her mouth, close it, and those pretty blonde brows of hers would draw together as her lips tipped down in a frown.

"Veronica," he coaxed, "I just need to know what you want."

"I don't know," she confessed softly. "It was easier when you had a place but just…. chose to stay with me."

"I'm always choosing to stay with you."

"Are you?" she huffed. "Because you've never really lived with me. You're the man that lives in mansions and suites and -"

"Tiny quarters on the USS Truman," he offered the alternative.

That stopped her. "What?"

"Well, you seemed to be really focused on all the crazy nice places I've lived, but you've never seen what the ships we deploy on look like. There's something like five thousand men and women on my ship. I may not have to share my bunk with a dozen other guys, but it's tiny. Makes this place look like a castle."

"I like this place," she said softly.

"Me too."

"But you also like the condo, and if you bought it, someday…. you'd want me to move there."

"I'm gonna tell you something crazy. You listening?" He waited until she nodded and he couldn't stop the small smirk that tugged his lips. "Just because you buy a condo doesn't mean you have it for life. You can sell it. Rent it out even. Not signing my soul over to it."

Veronica snorted a laugh and nudged him hard in the ribs with her elbow. "Asshole."

"Yeah, but you knew that getting into this." He leaned up and pecked a quick kiss against her lips before falling back down against the pillow. "Here's the thing, Veronica: I want to be with you. Where doesn't matter."

"Even if it's a box on the street."

"Okay, I'm going to redirect you back to my earlier statement about the US Navy wanting a permanent address."

"So give them this one."

The statement hit him hard. "You want me to move in?"

"I don't want you to go."

"Getting my own place doesn't mean leaving you."

"But you won't be here."

"And you want me here?"

"I do."

"Okay," he breathed. "Here are my terms."

She cracked a smile at that. "I'm listening."

"I need more than a drawer."

"We might be able to swing that."

"And I need to pay half the rent and utilities."

And just like that he saw her expression darken. "I can pay my own rent and utilities, Logan."

"I'm not asking to pay them for you. If I live here, I'm asking to pay my half."

"And when you're deployed?"

"We'll cross that bridge next time we get there."

She considered that for a long moment. "Done."

"And I want my name on the lease."

Veronica sighed loudly. "You drive a hard bargain, Echolls."

"It's all about compromises, Mars. So I hear."

"Fine."

"Okay," he murmured with a grin, catching another kiss. "Hey, you know what I need?"

"To stop while you're ahead?"

"A shower. Since I'm gonna pay half the water bill, I think it's only reasonable to conserve water."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely. For the environment."

She choked on a laugh with that one and leaned down to kiss him again before rolling, taking the sheets with her as she started for the bathroom. She turned back to watch him as he stretched out on the bed, grinning at her before finally moving to join her.

-----------

Notes: Have I mentioned that I love the idea of them learning to communicate as adults? Because I love the idea of them having to communicate as adults. Their wants, their fears, and everything in between. Honestly, I just love them.

#Veronica Mars #Logan Echolls #VMfanfic #VeronicaMarsFanfic

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notyouneveryou · 4 years ago

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one word prompts

i’ve been sturggling with writer’s block for a while, particularly with fiction, so i did an exercise where i wrote 100 words per prompt, and tried to time myself to some songs from the cockroach cam playlists.

DULL

Edgar lazily dragged the pad of his thumb along the knife's edge, frowning when it didn't leave a bloody cut on his skin as he expected.

The metal must have grown dull from misuse, and he made a mental note to sharpen it soon before setting it aside and lying back on his mattress with a soft sigh, hands tucked under his head. Toes tangled in soft, cotton sheets as he stared up at his ceiling, letting his head drift away from him.

The speakers on his laptop were low quality and almost crunchy sounding, but they scored his dissociation perfectly, he thought.

COP

"Soooo, what's your gig then, stranger?" Edgar asked, the smile on his pointed features mischievous and almost teasing as he sipped from his slushie.

"I'm a detective actually," Nash replied, his tone calculated and pseudo-charismatic, reaching for the worn pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket. "I work with the City Police."

"Oh, so you're a cop?" A slight grimace came to Edgar's face which made Nash laugh almost immediately as he dragged a cigarette from its pack with his teeth, quickly lighting it with a flourish of his zippo lighter. "Not to be rude or anything, man, but you're, like, way too hot to be a police officer."

SAVE

"Hey kid, you okay?"

Still breathing heavy, his heart pounding hard under his chest, Charlie looked up at his saviour, blinking wide brown eyes at the hand extended out to help him.

"Dude, you, like, totally saved my life." He managed to blurt out as he reached out for the stranger's hand, somewhat surprised by how easily they managed to pull him to his feet.

"What happened? Were they trying to rob you or something?"

"No clue, man, doesn't look like they stole anything," Charlie said with a slight frown. "Probably just a kid fucking around, but shit. Sure scared the fuck outta me."

COFFEE

"Hey babe!" Edgar said, his voice as cheery and saccharine sweet as ever. "How's it going?"

"Eddie, what are you doing here?" Charlie asked, his voice fond but somewhat confused. "Isn't your place on the other side of town?"

"Yeah, but I had some errands to run in the city today," The younger man explained, smiling brightly as he effortlessly hopped onto the counter and revealed a brown paper deli bag and to-go coffee cup with a flourish. "So I thought I'd surprise you! We can have lunch together when you're on break!"

"Baby, that's really sweet, but this is a little-"

"Whaaat, is it so weird that I wanna see my boyfriend on his break?" Edgar pouted, eyes big and shiny with unshed tears like a rejected puppy.

MINOR

"Come on, Eds, you wanna be good for me, don't you?" Nash asked, still sitting at the end of the bed.

"You shouldn't talk to me like that, Nash." A frown pulled Edgar's delicate features down, his dark brows knitting together in irritation as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not a kid."

"Good thing you're not one then, isn't it?" Nash smirked around his cigarette as he stood up and slowly approached Edgar, letting his free hand rest on the younger man's hip once he was close enough. "Wouldn't wanna get arrested for soliciting a minor."

"God, you fucking perv." Edgar rolled his eyes and looked away from Nash.

"How about we play a game?" The sickly sweet smile to Cockroach's voice was clear, even when their face was covered, and that smile only seemed to grow when the victim started to plead again.

"Please...please, just stop this already. I'll give you anything, anything you want-"

"Hey! No, no, we've already played that game!" Cockroach's typically cheerful demeanour changed in an instant when they shouted, interrupting the begging and pleading, reducing their victim back to shuddering sobs. "Come on, it'll be fun, I promise!" The smile was back as Cockroach squatted down to the victim's level, reaching into the pocket of their shorts and holding out a small, silver coin to them.

"You just have to choose...heads OR tails!"

YOUNG

"Didn't know you were a fag now, Nash."

"What I am, Evans, is none of your fucking business." Nash sneered, crooked teeth grinding down on the butt of his cigarette as he glared at his neanderthal coworkers, all of whom stayed silent as Evans spoke. "Why do you suddenly give a shit who I stick my dick into anyway?"

"Hey, I'm just saying, man." Evans shrugged as he ate, seeming casual but the shit-eating smirk on his face suggested otherwise. "I don't care if you're a fag, but don't you think he's a little young for you? He looks like a high schooler, for fuck's sake."

"And I'm sure you'd know all about sticking your dick in high schoolers, wouldn't you?"

#nash #charlie #edgar #writing

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temporalwaveofmischief · 5 years ago

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Two pairs of feet were pounding against the gravel.

Tim opened both the driver and passenger side doors. After assisting Jay get into his seat, Tim got in and slammed the door, turned the ignition, and sped the hell out.

Tim's mind was in a million different places. His mind felt staticky. All his mind could think of was just getting the hell out.

He would never get used to its effects.

But, he managed to stand up to it right? He didnt even pass out. What changed? It could've been the adrenaline. From running into the tall grass field screaming Jay's name, to facing that asshole, it was possible.

'Okay.' Tim thought.

Next thing, where the hell were they going to sleep at? The car was the least ideal place for sleeping. And that thing and Alex were still out there. Motel it is.

Tim clutched the steering wheel until his knuckles were white.

The adrenaline was starting to wear off. They needed to find a motel soon.

Finally.

At Jay's side of the car there was a dingy motel. Tim pulled into the parking lot and parked the car near the entrance.

When Tim turned off the car, he checked on Jay. Jay was babbling incoherently. His eyes were unfocused, and his mouth was slack.

"Jay," Tim began, "I'm going to check us into here. Can you follow me to the front desk and wait?"

Jay said nothing.

Then, Jay looked around.

"Mmhmm."

Tim exited out of the car, and helped Jay out of his seat. Tim slung an arm around Jay's shoulders and approached the lobby.

A woman who appeared to be in her late 40s was manning the desk. She had a cigarette hanging out of her fingers.

The lobby itself reeked of smoke and bleach.

When Tim walked inside, the woman looked up.

"Hello. Whaddya want?"

Geez. So much for feeling at home. Well, it is a dingy hotel that looks as though it was a local hangout for druggies. So, quality was not going to be part of the equation.

"Ah, yes, we would like to book a room."

The woman goes to the cork board behind the desk and gets a key. She hands it to Tim.

"What's wrong with your friend?" She asked, her lazy, glazed eyes suddenly observing Jay.

"He's drunk. He is a light-weight." Tim said tiredly, waiting for this lady to leave them alone so that they can sleep.

The lady surveyed them. Then she gave out a huff and said, "Enjoy your stay."

Tim and Jay went to their room and sat down on the bed. Since money was running low, they only got one.

"How're doing Jay?"

Jay just stared up at him.

Sigh.

"I think both of us need a good night's sleep. We'll be better once we recharge."

Jay remained silent.

Tim gave up and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash up.

Tim set up the camera on its tripod, and shed his trousers. Tim crawled on the bed and got underneath the covers.

"Come on, Jay. Time for bed."

Jay didn't respond.

Jay needed his sleep, so Tim got up and carried Jay to the bed. He tucked him into the covers and made sure he was warm.

Then, Tim got in beside him and turned off the bedside table.

"Good night, Jay."

Tim wrapped his arms around Jay's waist.

Tim woke up to a screaming Jay that was thrashing and crying. Tim tried to restrain Jay and calm him down, he received a kick in the face in return.

Tim fell to the floor in a dazed shock.

After the pain subsided after a few seconds, Tim restrained Jay again. Tim petted his hair and whispered comforting words like, 'everything is going to be okay.'

Gradually, Jay settled down and slowly went back to sleep. Tim wrapped his arms around Jay's form even tighter and kissed his hair.

Morning arrived when slivers of sunlight filtered through the blinds and hit Tim in the eyes.

Tim slowly opened his eyes, glaring at the sun for not allowing him to sleep longer.

Tim glanced over at Jay's sleeping form. Tim smiled at just how blissful he looks. Being on the road and running from people (and entities) that want you dead can rob a man of blissful peace. Something that most take for granted. Only when it's gone do you realize how much you've really needed it.

Tim ruffled Jay's hair and slowly got out of bed.

"Hey."

Tim was startled out of his mind. He was so startled in fact, he fell to the floor.

"O-oh. Hey Jay."

"Is tha' my name?"

Tim froze.

No. He can't. He-he can't!

"Jay, do you remember anything?"

Jay shook his head.

Tim pulled back his hair and brushed through them with his fingers.

Tim remembered his breathing exercises and let out erratic breaths. Slowly, he calmed himself down.

"Your," Tim began, "Your Jay Merrick."

"J-jay." Jay replied.

"Merrick." Tim finished. Jay looked down, and slowly wrapped himself in a blanket cocoon.

"And you're in a motel with me."

Jay looked up.

"Who are you then?"

Tim's heart wrenched.

"I'm Tim. Tim Wright."

Jay looked down again, immersing more of his body into the cocoon.

"Tim. Tim. Tim." Jay repeated his name over and over.

Tim let out an awkward chuckle, "Yeah, that's me."

Jay went silent. His eyes now had a blank film over them.

Tim shook Jay.

Nothing.

Sigh. At least that's progress.

Tim retreated to the bathroom and got showered and dressed. Once he got out, he made sure to replace the tape in the camera.

Tim's mind reeled. What was he going to do?He pretty much had no income, they were on the run from people trying to kill them, and Jay was mentally checked out.

But, his train of thought was soon disrupted when his stomach let out a loud, unruly growl. Before he was going to answer these questions and assess their situation, he was going to eat.

Tim went over to the bed.

"I'm going to get breakfast, Jay. Stay where you're alright?"

Where would he go?

Jay didnt respond.

Tim sighed once again, and tucked Jay snuggly into the blankets on the bed.

Tim went outside of their room and locked their door.

--------------------------------------------------

Tim unlocked the locks and stepped inside their room.

The breakfast was not the most terrible thing in the world, surprisingly.

He had eggs (which was burnt in some of the corners), fluffy pancakes drizzled in cheap syrup, and orange juice. His time in the café area was calm. He thought out some plans and ideas while he ate.

The plans were this: wait until Jay recovers.

Jay is in no condition to travel. If Tim were to go searching for something, and anything were to happen to Tim, then Jay would be vulnerable. And who knows what would happen to him.

"Breakfast." Tim called out to Jay.

Jay just laid there in the bed, his eyes transfixed in a nondescript corner of the room.

"You need to eat."

Tim put the breakfast on the nightstand. It was a simple breakfast: a muffin with some eggs and apple juice.

Tim grabbed the plastic cutlery and sat Jay up in the bed. Tim began feeding Jay.

Once he was finished, Tim disposed of the trash in one of their trash bins.

"Get some rest, bluejay."

Tim got out Jay's laptop and opened it up. He went to their YouTube and Twitter pages.

Tim spent the past few days in this routine.

Wake up. Get dressed. Check on Jay, make sure he's taken care of. Check their channel. Decipher codes with their followers until it was well into the night. Go to bed. Start again.

Then, there was a video uploaded to the channel.

The hooded stalker was looking for something in an abandoned building. Tim's blood ran cold when he saw it was a gun.

Then, the figure was descending down a street. Then, it turned down to a particular house, Tim's.

It was searching through his home. The cabinets, the living room. But then, he discovered that someone else had been in his home. Alex.

Fucking. Fantastic.

This set Tim incredibly on edge for the past few days.

To the point where Tim just. Cried in the bathroom. He threw things. He kicked and screamed. Tired. Just so fucking tired of this bullshit.

Jay seemed to make no progress whatsoever. Everytime he had tried to get him to do something. But, Jay would either respond with silence with that near lifeless glaze over his eyes, or with screaming.

Tim was in an especially dark place during that time. Self harming was on his mind frequently. He was just so. Fucking. Tired.

He had been dealing with terrible shit happening ever since day one.

But, if he did go through with the final act, Jay would get left behind. And, a small, possibly foolishly optimistic part of his brain didnt want to remove a chance of a happy ending for both of them.

To combat these feelings, Tim would play his ukulele and write in his journal. Just, random things. From little nonsensical stories he had been making up, to plans of what to do after this shitfest ends. It was... cathartic for him.

Then, a small beacon of hope came.

Tim was out on his usual run to get snacks from the gas station. It wasnt fancy, but it should get him going.

Tim drove back to their motel room.

Tim almost had a heart attack.

Jay was wandering outside of their motel room. Tim immediately got out, with the groceries, and led Jay back inside of their room.

"Where have you been?"

Tim froze. Jay seemed to be better. More coherent.

"Gas station." Tim replied, "needed some food."

"Are you alright, Jay?"

"Yeah?"

"You were really out of it for the past two weeks."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You were either staring off into space, or you were screaming. You didn't even remember your own name or where you were."

Jay sat in a stunned silence, digesting this information.

"W-what happened, Tim?"

Tim summarized everything that had happened and what their current situation is.

"We need to go back." Tim said.

"No, we do not."

"Yes, we do. We're at a dead end here. Alex was there. He was there waiting for us."

"Thus, we shouldn't go back."

"We have no other leads, bluejay." Tim said softly, his voice breaking on the last word. Tim began crying. He didnt know why he was crying. It could have been all the built-up stress and dark thoughts he had for the past few weeks.

Tim put his head in his hands.

Tim felt two arms snake their way across his body. This was what he needed. He just needed to be in Jay's arms.

"Let's get something to eat, yeah? You mentioned getting food from the gas station." Jay brought up.

"Y-yeah." Tim responded shakily.

Jay went over and got the contents from the bag.

They ate in silence.

They cleaned up, and went to bed.

Tim curled up against Jay, and Jay followed suit.

"Night, Tim."

"Night Jay."

And outside of their walls, there are entities beyond human comprehension, people who are willing to kill them without a moment's hesitation,

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milayna-liveblogs · 5 years ago

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So I haven’t actually gotten anything done here, and the reason is that Target “balanced” its intake process on “normal” operations - by which I mean, it was inadequate, but barely limping by; and Coronavirus scare has blasted that out of the water. https://rpjohnston.tumblr.com/post/612260495706161152/working-retail-right-now-is-the-worst-targets I need to draw a new avatar - it’s been years - but my drawing program, Flash CS6, is on my laptop and it’s had...problems...since I accidentally let the battery run down. If I can’t salvage it, I’ll need to figure out GIMP or something. Anyway, I have looked at potential shows to blog! When I asked people, they suggested YuYuYu - Google tells me this is Yuki Yuna Is A Hero. I know nothing about it except the blurb: “The deity that protects humanity grants superpowers to the members of a middle school "hero club," who must assume magical forms to combat invading creatures from another world.” People tell me it’s really good though! From last season, there’s I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense. To be honest SAO kinda broke the MMO anime genre for me but the premise sounds interesting enough to give a try. Coming in Spring: BNA. It’s a Trigger anime and I’m a huge fan so unless it bores like like Luluco this should be a slam dunk. Tower of God. The animation draws me - it reminds me of the higher-quality Flash movies from Newgrounds, and I like to experience media that is less “mainstream”. This is based on a Korean webtoon, and is a Crunchyroll original. Appare-Ranman! This has some WILD designs, yo. I dig it. Colorful as heck, and the premise is cool too! Why is it relatively low on membercount? Unless it tanks hard I think I’ll have a blast. Finally, at some point Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S2 ff will drop. I don’t know about blogging that one - I enjoyed the firsts eason, but as another liveblogger put it, it’s 25% fanservice, 25% gross shit, and 50% genuine heartwarming WLM found family. Since I didn’t do the first season, IF I did this, I’d either have to blog the season I already watched, or start on the 2nd season, and I dunno about either of those options. I thought I’d find more from last season that I’d like but they either didn’t interest me from their synopsis or were continuing cours. Still if there’s anything from Winter or Spring that anyone wants to see drop me a line! Or if any of these are probably no good let me know that too. Depending on when things come down, I might start my next series with YuYuYu, or with one of the Spring animes when it drops. Hopefully that won’t be too long. I hate being too exhausted to do anything creative.

#future plans

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whaleyoufeedmenuggets · 6 years ago

Note

Im too lazy to look at the questions so DO ALL OF THEM. (if you dont wanna then go on a random number generator and get 5 random numbers)

ITS REALLY LONG BUT I DID IT KJSHADJS HERE GOES i love oversharing my lifealso im putting a read more line bc its hella long

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

water bottles

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

ehhh depends on my mood. i’d say it’s (dark) chocolate most of the time (love that 70% dark chocolate mmMmMm)

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

cotton candy!! except when it gets all over my face and hair o no

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

common report book comments included

- very active

- bright

- “the live wire of the class”

- usually distracted but still does well

- mischievous

- playful

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

bottles so that i can close it and save the rest for later and not have to chug it yeet

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

sportswear #sweatpantsalldayeveryday

7. earbuds or headphones?

def headphones but they’re inconvenient sometimes :/

8. movies or tv shows?

tv shows!! (also, my adhd ass can’t get through a movie without zoning out oops)

9. favorite smell in the summer?

i haven’t experienced /real/ summer (thank u singapore’s tropical climate) but i rly like the smell of rain :”)

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

making up excuses to skip pe

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

belvitas before morning practice

croissant sandwich and chocolate milk after practice

if there’s no practice, then scrambled eggs from the dining hall lolol

if i’m too lazy to go to the dining hall, then cereal

12. name of your favorite playlist?

it’s literally called jams and the description is “a clusterfuck of stuff i’ve jammed to at some point”

13. lanyard or key ring?

key ring

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

gummy bears/sour patch kids

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

death of a salesman - arthur miller

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

with one foot up on the chair and the other leg sitting normally

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

a pair of asics sneakers

18. ideal weather?

15ºc/60ºf when its like cool but not too cold but also not ridiculously hot and also when theres no insane wind (a light breeze is fine)

19. sleeping position?

on my left side and hugging a pillow/bolster/soft toy

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

i like the feeling of pen and paper but im disorganized as hell so an apple pencil + ipad makes a good enough substitute

21. obsession from childhood?

frogs (i’ve loved them since i was 3 hehe)

22. role model?

a dude i used to train with for a while in 2014. he retired last year but he’s always looked out for me like an older brother since we trained together (he’s 8 years older than me lmao) and even thought i’m so far away rn he still checks in on me and stuff and idk he’s probably one of the swimmers i respect the most.

23. strange habits?

i cant fall asleep at night if im not hugging something. like. it could be a pillow. or a soft toy. literally anything. once on a school trip i hugged a pair of sweatpants to sleep bc i legit cant fall asleep if im not hugging something.i have no problem falling asleep in class/on buses/cars/planes though.

24. favorite crystal?

idk i never really paid enough attention to crystals to actually have a favorite and know their names. they’re all rly pretty tho.

25. first song you remember hearing?

uhh h h i honestly can’t remember. probably some classical music bc i played the violin and that was my first experience of music that i was actually aware of????

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

switch on the aircon and take a nap / sit in bed on netflix/playing on my nintendo switch. and swimming outdoors i guess.

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

switch on the heater and take a nap / sit in bed on netflix/playing on my nintendo switch.

do u see a pattern here

28. five songs to describe you?

jet lag - simple plan (bc time zones suck and i miss my fam & friends)

avalanche - bring me the horizon (pretty much sums up how tf my brain feels)

high hopes - p!atd

astronaut - simple plan

the reckless and the brave - all time low

29. best way to bond with you?

doing dumb shit with me

also Quality Time™️ like idk even if we’re chilling and doing our own shit i like just spending time with people im comfortable enough with

30. places that you find sacred?

idk

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

a hoodie and sweatpants

for no reason other than that’s what i wear 90% of the time

32. top five favorite vines?

I AM CONFUSION!!! AMERICA EXPLAIN

this bitch empty. yeet.

im in my mom’s car VROOM VROOM

the one of that dad playing the saxophone (???) and the kid slamming the oven door open and shut

road works ahead “haha yea sure hope it does!”

33. most used phrase in your phone?

either lmao or lolol or LMFAO or yeet

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

gOD i had spotify ads stuck in my head all the time before i switched to premium and now i cant remember any of them (thank god)

35. average time you fall asleep?

i’d say 12:30-1ish

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

the tROLL FACE MEME LIKE those rage faces idk what they’re called but BASICALLY THOSE 2010-2012 era memes

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

suitcase!!! i like sitting on them and yeeting myself around on them or getting people to push me around and then falling off

38. lemonade or tea?

lemonade

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

ngl i havent had either of them before

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

so in jc2 (aka 12th grade), for some reason PEOPLE WERE PUTTING PRE-PACKAGED HARD BOILED EGGS ALL OVER THE SCHOOL. like they were still in their wrappers and all but u could open ur schoolbag and find like 5 eggs in there. and no one knew where they came from. i think at one point there were even eggs hanging from the pull-up bars. all i know is that they were everywhere and people in my batch still remember it as the egg invasion of acjc.

41. last person you texted?

my mom

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

def jacket!!! especially when they have zips hehe

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

hoodie

44. favorite scent for soap?

idk man depends on my mood

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

sci-fi bc im a fricken nerd

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

shirt and sweats

47. favorite type of cheese?

cheddarrr also i like mozzerrella sticks

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

a fineapple B)

lmao jk ummmm maybe a watermelon bc when u hit it it sounds hollow, just like how my skull would sound if someone hit it (h a)

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

here for a good time not for a long time

never give up without a fight

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

idk probably some dumb meme. i laugh at a lot of stuff like i laugh anything even mildly funny. some that i can think of off the top of my head are:

- i was tryna type ducky but typed fucky instead and sOmEOnE (could be the person who submitted this ask, idk tho) changed my facebook messenger nickname to fucky and the notification was like ”poopy butthole changed your nickname to fucky” and i think that’s still the funniest sentence i’ve read in my whole life

- one time we went to mcdonalds and a friend said mcfluffy instead of mcflurry and idk why but i laughed so hard at that

- once @doduo and i spent half a chinese lesson cutting out random faces from the chinese newspaper and sticking them randomly all over the classroom and idk. it was the funniest thing ever. until the teacher came over and confiscated my scissors rip.

51. current stresses?

- an essay draft (that i am procrastinating rn by doing this, oops)

- CANADIAN TRIALS (but thats a good kind of stress)

- submitting a proposal for a group project but none of my groupmates are freaking replying my texts ugh

52. favorite font?

avenir next!! i find san serif fonts way easier to read than serif lolol.i like helvetica neue too.

53. what is the current state of your hands?

dry af but also i just got my nails done so they pretty rn hehe

54. what did you learn from your first job?

i…havent had a real job yet

55. favorite fairy tale?

idk i was never rly one for fairy tales even as a kid.

56. favorite tradition?

chinese new year when we get CASH and we spend 3 days just eating junk yEET im rly sad im gonna be missing it the next few years tho

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

hh h h hh hhh hh hh they’re pretty personal i don’t /really/ wanna put it out here but i can text you the answer to this if you want (i’m perfectly fine with that!!)

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

- i think i’m pretty intuitive!!! i can guess anyone’s mbti if i’ve spent enough time with them/gotten a detailed enough description of them /winks/ and i can read people pretty well in general and i can draw links to themes/symbols in lit pretty well….???

- i’m somewhat decent at lettering…i think

- i’m good at pull-ups and also vertical jumps i’m secretly a froge

- i’m decent at photography…i guess….

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

yeet

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

pokemon !!

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

/sweats/ i’m not very good at remembering lines from books/movies/shows WELP

62. seven characters you relate to?

JAKE PERALTA - b99

rosa diaz - b99

linguine - ratatouille (he’s permanently confused and he let a ratto take over his job bc he had no idea what he was doing like damn what a big mood)

dory - finding nemo/finding dory (i relate to the forgetfulness)

percy jackson

kale bae /winks/

mitt (during bad phases) /winks again, but sadly/

63. five songs that would play in your club?

idek man i wouldnt even be at my own club i’d be at home taking a nap i’ll just ask someone else to handle my playlist

64. favorite website from your childhood?

club penguin !!!

65. any permanent scars?

yE one of them was from jumping onto a treadmill going at 13km/h 2 years ago bc i thought i was a good idea

66. favorite flower(s)?

i dont have any

67. good luck charms?

i eat pancakes for breakfast on meet days!!!! altho i think this is more of a habit than a good luck charm tbh lmao.

also i guess pip???? he’s my emotional support narwhal :’)

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

durian. i cant stand the stuff or anything flavored like it ugh.

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

red food coloring is derived from beetles

70. left or right handed?

right

71. least favorite pattern?

overly-floral patterns i guessssss. also i hate wearing stripes.

72. worst subject?

chinese

besides that, math and physics

73. favorite weird flavor combo?

i rly like vanilla ice cream and fries

also i would eat ketchup with nearly anything

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

i usually just suck it up and go to sleep when it comes to pain but i guess an 8??? idk. i usually take advil/ibuprofen only for fevers

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

i got my first loose tooth on january 11 2005 and it fell out on january 18 2005 & it was a tuesday (pls don’t ask me how i remember this bc i dont know)

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

tater tots

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

cactus i guess. idk im not good at plants.

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

grocery store sushi (it was pretty decent in singapore so yeeeee lmao also i ate a lot of that as a kid)

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

its the same photo for both so yeAh

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

earth

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

idk i always called them fireflies

82. pc or console?

console I LOVE THE FEEL OF BUTTONS

83. writing or drawing?

drawing (more like doodlign for me bc i cant draw for shit)

84. podcasts or talk radio?

neither but if i rlllllly had to choose then podcasts i guessss s sss

84. barbie or polly pocket?

neither LMAO i gave all my barbies haircuts when i was a kid bc i didnt know what to do with them

85. fairy tales or mythology?

mythology for sure!! i love greek mythology (may or may not be bc of percy jackson lolol)

86. cookies or cupcakes?

87. your greatest fear?

losing those i love and care about (could be drifting or actual death it goes both ways)

88. your greatest wish?

rn, for my essay to write itself

for the short-term, to make the olympics (and WUGs…and worlds…and sea games…and asian games…and commonwealth games lmao)

for the long-term, uhhh idk. i just wanna live a life i’m satisfied with and to have a job i actually like and to be able to support my parents

89. who would you put before everyone else?

my mom

90. luckiest mistake?

i always say that i regret doing a year of college in singapore instead of coming here for freshman year but if i’d come in a year earlier like i was supposed to, i proba wouldn’t have made it past swim team tryouts and i made some pretty great friends in my first year of college soooo it all worked out i guessi cant think of any others rn

91. boxes or bags?

bags

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

fairy lights are rly pretty!!but i like natural light :”)

93. nicknames?

deb

debs

debo

debbo

alpha childuhh h h i think thats about it??? i cant remember any others

94. favorite season?

spring’s pretty great rni like fall too (before it gets cOLd)

95. favorite app on your phone?

insta/tumblr/telegram

96. desktop background?

a photo of me looking rly cool at the starting blocks before a race B)

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

4 - mine (singapore & US), my mom’s and my dad’s

98. favorite historical era?

uhh h h idk the ice age seemed pretty cool haha sike it was actually coldmedieval times seemed pretty cool too like damn i want a suit of armorWHEW I SPENT WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON THIS but i had fun so yeet

also if you read all the way down here ily and you’re cool

#ask #this was hella long #but also hella fun

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thoughts-for-tom · 7 years ago

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Always (Tom Holland x Reader)

pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

summary: Y/n is a senior, and she's the top of her class. She's always been busy because of school work and doesn't have enough time for Tom, her boyfriend. Y/n also received an invitation from Ivy League College which is her dream school, and it required her to stay there for a year, which means leaving Tom behind. How will Tom handle the situation? Will Tom fall out of love?

warning: sexual content, slight swearing, unprotected sex, FLUFF SMUT

word count: 1.8k!

It's been a busy week for y/n. She's been doing school works every day because all of their subject teachers basically just dropped all their assignments including individuals works and group works. Y/n rolled her eyes as she saw her partners Dylan and Layla using their mobile phones instead of helping her out with their project. It was a project for their English subject, they need to write a summary of their chosen stories. This is why y/n hates group project because her partners tend to depend on her just because she's the top student of the class.

She stopped on what she's doing when her phone vibrated. She smiled upon seeing who texted her, its Tom.

From: Thomas ♥

hey baby, where are you? I miss you, can we meet?

She always liked Tom's real name even though Tom hates it, that's why she named it on her contacts. Y/n pursed her lips, she wasn't sure what to reply. She still has a lot of things to do and she might have to turned down Tom. She glanced again on her phone when it vibrated again.

From: Thomas ♥

please :(

And that's all it takes to convince y/n to ditch her project making session with her useless partners. She stood up and walked towards Dylan and Layla. Dylan is busy playing video games while Layla is busy stalking some guy on instagram.

Y/n sighs. "I'm going. You two better finish the project or I'll tell Mrs. Williams you haven't contributed and she would mark the two of you zero on this project." She said as she stormed out from the library. She knew that sounded like a threat but serves them right.

Tom is sitting inside a coffee shop near their school. It's been a week since he had seen y/n, they have always been texting each other but that's it. Tom missed her so much, he missed hugging, kissing, and holding her hands. Tom felt his phone vibrate and he can't help but to smile as the excitement rushed into him.

From: Baby

I'm on my way.

Few minutes later Tom heard the door open and he quickly goes to y/n and hug her. They went to their table and Tom can't stop smiling and staring at his girlfriend. Y/n noticed Tom is smiling ear to ear and she laughed.

"Stop smiling like that." Y/n chuckled.

"I can't help it! I'm so happy you're here." Tom said and reached for y/n hands resting on the table.

Y/n gave a peck on Tom’s lips and giggled, “What did I do to deserve an amazing person like you?”

Y/n and Tom spent the whole afternoon talking inside the coffee shop. Every time y/n is with Tom, everything just feels right. It is as if the world seemed to come to a stop and the moment paused for y/n and Tom’s eyes to lock.

“Oh, by the way,” Y/n held Tom’s hand across the table and gripped it tight. “I received an invitation from an Ivy League school.”

Tom’s faced brightened up with what y/n mentioned, “I am happy for you! It’s your dream school, isn’t it?”

Y/n’s face began to frown and slightly lets go of Tom’s hand, “But it required me to stay there for the whole school year.”

Tom didn't know what to feel. Does that mean they're going to be apart from each other? Tom think he won't be able to handle that.

"Does that mean you're going to leave me?" Tom said, in his low voice, almost like a whisper.

"Tom. I--" Y/n stopped. She doesn't know what to say either.

"We can still text each other. We can still communicate online." She said to lighten up Tom's mood, but she knows that won't work. Tom looked at y/n, he loves her and he always wants what's the best for her.

"I'm sorry." Tom said. Y/n didn't expect that. Why would he say sorry?

"Tom, you don't have to apologize. What are you sorr--" y/n was cut off by Tom.

"I'm sorry for feeling this way. I know you want this so bad and I wanted you to be happy but I just can't help it." Tom said, and he can feel his eyes getting watery. Tom's always the cry baby in their relationship, whenever he and y/n have an argument, or when they're watching a drama movie on netflix, Tom always cry.

"I understand you Tom, I do. Please, don't cry. You know I hate seeing you cry." Y/n said as she wiped the tears starting to fall down to his cheeks.

Tom smiled at her. When it was getting dark, they decided to go to Tom's place and watch some movies like they always do. Tom's parents were not around so they can freely do whatever they want, but Tom is not thinking some nasty things. He just wants some quality time with y/n, and maybe some cuddling and kissing.

"You can go ahead upstairs. I'm just gonna cook some food for us." Tom said and kissed y/n on her lips, just a peck. Y/n smile and walked upstairs. It's been a month since she's been here. She missed the scent of Tom's room and suddenly flashbacks of their first sex came rushing into her mind. This is where she lost her virginity, and she was glad it was Tom. It's been a month since she and Tom had sex, and she's being honest with herself, she's definitely craving for Tom's touch. She blushed at the thought, but brushed it away. She turned on Tom's laptop and connected it to the tv.

She picked Everything, Everything because she has a huge crush on Nick Robinson and just right when the movie is about to start Tom walked into his room with nachos, popcorns, sandwiches, and juice. They positioned themselves on the bed with y/n head laying on Tom's chest and Tom's hand wrapped around her shoulders. Y/n rest her hand on Tom's chest while playfully moving it like she was playing the piano. It made a ticklish sensation and Tom can't help but to giggle.

"Nick Robinson is hot." She said when she saw Nick's character on the movie. Tom hummed as a disapproval.

"Hotter than me?" Tom asked.

"Shut up." Y/n chuckles and leaned toward Tom's face.

"Of course, you're hotter." she whispers and gave Tom a kiss. Gentle but long.

When they pull apart from each other, Tom smirked. "You made a mistake doing that." He said, and with that he kissed her. This time it was hard but passionate. It's like they've been wanting this for a long time and they're so hungry for each other.

Tom positioned himself on top of y/n while kissing her, not wanting to break it. Y/n moans as she felt Tom hands roam around her body, caressing gently. Tom kisses went down to her neck and collarbones leaving a mark before capturing her mouth for a kiss.

Y/n moans that me Tom to gain more access into her mouth, and it's been only a matter of second when they find their tongues touching each other. Y/n hands roams around Tom's upper body as her hands find its way to the hem of Tom's shirt. She grabbed it and pull it, Tom groaned and help y/n take off his shirt. Tom is back on kissing y/n while his hands grab y/n's shirt and literally ripped it apart. Y/n moaned as she heard some of the buttons from her shirt fell on the floor. Y/n didn't even noticed that Tom already unclasped her bra and throw it on the floor. Tom stopped while looking at y/n body.

"Beautiful." he said goes down and started nibbling and sucking y/n breasts. Y/n arched her back at the sensation Tom was giving her.

Tom kisses went down into her stomach. Tom quickly unzip her jeans as she felt the eagerness of y/n to touch her down there. Tom smirked and happily obliged, he throw y/n jeans and undies on the floor. Tom kissed her again while his hand caressing y/n breast and the other playfully rubbing her cherry.

"Please." y/n begged as she moved her hips. She moaned when Tom started to insert his fingers and thrusting them into her. When Tom felt her wetness he removed his fingers and unzip his pant and throw them on the floor together with his underwear. Y/n watch Tom's huge member sprung upon removing his pants. The next she knew she is holding it with her hands and started jerking it off. Tom moaned as he felt the pleasure rushed into him.

It was a matter of time when Tom felt y/n mouth on the tip of his member. That's when Tom lost it, he moaned and watch as y/n sucking his manhood. The warmth and the way his manhood touched the tip of y/n is sensational, but Tom doesn't want to cum yet, so he positioned himself on top of y/n again and started kissing her. Y/n felt the tip of his manhood touching her entrance, and she moaned in Tom's lips when she felt him inside her.

Tom started to move slowly and deep and when he felt y/n had adjusted he started to thrust fast, hard, and deep. He felt y/n hands on his back while he buried his face on y/n neck.

"Fuck. I'm gonna--" y/n moaned as she felt the familiar sensation. Tom continued to thrust inside her after her orgasm. Y/n moaned as Tom keeps hitting her spot.

"Shit. I'm coming." Tom said, but he realized he wasn't wearing a condom so he had no choice but to cum outside. Tom pulls out his member and release it on y/n stomach.

Y/n moaned at the sight. Tom quickly grabs his shirt on the floor and wiped his release on y/n stomach. He kissed her and positioned himself beside her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't wear a condom. I didn't see this coming." Tom said and chuckled.

"I wasn't expecting this to happen either." Y/n said, still panting.

"I'm gonna miss you." Tom said, and kissed her.

"So bad."

"I'll miss you too." Y/n said, and this time it was her turn to cry. Tom quickly wiped her tears.

"I'll visit you every holidays." Tom said.

"No need, I'll make sure I'll be home every holidays" Y/n said.

"I love you." Tom smiled.

"I love you too, Thomas. Always." Y/n said and wrapped her arms around Tom. Hoping that this would not be the last time.

Masterlist here.

I hope you enjoyed it! Tell me your thoughts.

If you want to be tagged on my upcoming oneshots, click this Taglist and fill-up the form.

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland smut #tom holland imagines #peter parker imagines #peter parker smut #peter parker #spider-man #tom holland fluff #tom holland fanfiction #fanfiction #tom holland oneshot #mcu #avengers infinity war #tom holland as boyfriend #tom holland boyfriend #tom holland au #tom holland headcanons

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thetravellingvagrant · 6 years ago

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Day 17- Salzburg: In Which I Meet A One Eyed Monster

I decided to get myself out into Salzburg to explore early, today. Partially because I had already grown intensely tired of my new dorm-mates despite none of them having done anything particularly egregious, but also because, given how much I was paying to stay in this city, it seemed like it would just be a waste not to. I had planned a full-on touriststravaganza for my first day here, with nary a ring-road or random bog in sight. My plan then, based almost entirely on word-of-mouth recommendations was as follows; I would take a walk through Mirabelle gardens, situated not too far from my hostel and supposedly quite pleasant on my way to the Natural History (and Science) museum of Salzburg, which I had been told was a particularly excellent example of natural history (and also science) museums. After spending a few hours there, I would climb up to the Hohensalzburg castle, which had been leering down at me from the mountainout centre of the old-town since I had arrived, daring me to come and see it, if I was hard enough. Once I had had my fill of the thrill of being slightly elevated I would meander back down and have a stroll along the street on which Mozart was born and had now become a tat-hive of the highest order before finally, getting myself a lovely meal and heading back to my shitty little hostel which cost the earth.

I arrived at Mirabelle gardens not long after my plan was finalised. To be honest, I didn't spend very long there at all. Perhaps it was more spectacular during the summer, but I found the entire experience, as I did the gardens themselves, flat and uninspiring.

4/10

That didn't stop other tourists from taking a constant and steady stream of photographs, though. Of what, I am not sure; there didn't appear to be really anything of aesthetic interest within a hundred foot radius of the place, but snap away they did.

Disappointed with the gardens, though secretly a bit pleased to have freed up a little more time to spend on my other, more interesting activities, I walked briskly to the Natural History (and also Science as well) museum, paid nearly £10 to get in and, grumbling at how expensive literally everything is here, made my way inside.

The very first room of the museum contained an approximately life-sized model of a giant squid (AKAthe best animal and I will hear literally no disagreement from any one of you motherfuckers) hanging from the roof in full attack mode

14/10

so I pretty instantly forgot how much I had just paid and began having an uncharacteristically good time. This...I think humans call it...enjoyment...continued as I progressed further into the museum, also. Fans of terrible taxidermy (and I know there's at least one of you reading this...), I soon realised, would be disappointed with today's blog entry, as this museum was just genuinely very good and very slick. Nearly every exhibit looked like the thing it was supposed to, with no mangled up faces, or eyes popping out or bursting at the seams or anything. There were a...few odd exceptions, sure

I’m naming no names, incredibly buff marmot...

but for the most part, I really couldn't fault the museum. It was entertaining, well laid out and just generally expertly put together. It even had an aquarium (featuring an octopus and everything) and a reptile zoo. It was grand.

Fans of the blog with an extremely long memory, though, may remember on my very first trip, I visited a science museum named...NEMO or something, in Amsterdam, which, although very good on its lower floors, steadily detached itself more and more from reality as one proceeded upwards. Unfortunately for the Salzburg museum of Natural History (and also science, that's there too), though very fortunately for me, it had followed in NEMO's footsteps.

Interesting, well labelled and well thought out exhibits and animal displays petered out after around the third of five floors and gave way to...I'm not really sure what. They stopped signposting things in English after that. It appeared that what I had thought was an exhibit on Africa, though, had slowly transformed into some truly and utterly bizarre musings on mythical creatures- or at least I hoped so as it would go at least some way to explain the following:

Oh...hey, guy...

Then things really fell apart. I walked through rooms full of spooky masks

Ah!

past randomly placed posters full of cryptids

AH!

and...Garfield?

AHHHH!

The fever dream of the 4th floor, however, would pale in comparison to the full on tramadol overdose of the 5th. After meandering through a fairly good bit on the deep sea, the fifth floor straight up shat itself and delivered one of the weirdest and least coherent exhibits on the human body I have ever seen in my life. Pictures, more than words would do the experience justice,

Pictured: My nightmares

though a few highlights included an interactive display on how shit is formed, a pulse reading machine which declared one man who I witnessed use it as legally dead and a room full of stuff on sex and reproduction which boasted a picture of several women in their vests and pants with a button next to each. My best guess and rudimentary understanding of German told me that you press the button next to the woman you find the most attractive. When you did, it would display the stats for each woman and rank them by popularity amongst museum-goers. For anyone that's interested, the busty one was the winner.

Also of note were a series of little keyholes that one could peer through, each one of these tiny windows a porthole to the various stages of doing some sex. The first hole had a little barbie doll applying perfume to herself, the next hole had the same doll, now nude and with nipples amusingly etched onto her in pen, getting banged by a Ken doll. The next was just a picture of some random birds, which seemed...out of place and the final hole had a big collage of...like, leather and handcuffs and various other accoutrements of kink. It was deeply odd and rather jarring, sitting amongst a hitherto fairly child-friendly exhibit on reproduction.

Confused, though fairly sure I had now seen everything (including a wall of taxidermied dogs, positioned like, right next to the sex room) I left the nature part of the museum and checked out the sciency bit. It was shit and I spent very little time there. Overall though, the museum was still very good and probably benefited from all the weird junk in it. I definitely wouldn't forget my visit at the very least...

I had spent too long in the natural history (and hey, guys, don't forget about science!) museum and by the time I left, it was bordering on getting dark. It hardly seemed like it would be worthwhile climbing the big hill to the castle if I left it much longer, so I decided to do that next, postponing food, much to the chagrin of my angry tummy.

The walk up the hill was tiring, though enjoyable and peppered with fairly decent photo-opportunities.

I mean, it’s ait.

and after not-too-long, I arrived at the castle, sweaty, though triumphant. I walked through the main gate and...oh, you needed a ticket. And tickets were 10 euros. And it was only open for another half an hour. Right. Good. Okay, that was worth it. I turned around and headed back down. At least I had had a nice walk...

Yeah. Great.

After a quick stroll through the obsidian-dense crowds populating the street on which Mozart was born and where the sheer quality and quantity of Mozart themed tat you can find is simulatenously both tremendously impressive and utterly depressing

Fuck you.

I headed to a local eatery for food. The diner was fairly low-end; very much your average sort of shitty UK takeaway level of quality, though somehow I still managed to spend over 10 euros on a very basic burger, too-salty fries and a small bottle of water. Oh, Austria!

I returned, very tired and (after those fucking fries) very thirsty, to my dorm. Upon entering, I realised that I was to share the room with some new guests. Three screeching, giggling Australian girls, who were every bit as immediately irritating as they sound. One of them was sitting on my bed.

“Oh, am I on your bed?” she tittered

I was so tired and the transgression so bizarrely rude that all I could muster in response was a gruff “Yes.”

I think she expected me to be better natured about it, but I doubt she would have been so light-hearted about the whole thing if she had returned to discover me sitting on her property, so she could fuck off. She moved from my bed, clearly making a mental note to never speak to me again and I retook my now pre-warmed throne.

I didn't hang around in the room for too long, darting back outside to the hostel's courtyard to quickly make some phone calls before finally returning to the room and to my bed, proper.

The lights were off as I cracked the door open for the second time. The Australian girls had gone to bed , already. It was 8:30pm.

“okay...” I sighed, not willing to take my laptop downstairs, as the only communal space in which I could use it was current;y being used for the nightly broadcast of The Sound Of Music. Yes. Nightly. It looked like I was working in the dark for the rest of the evening.

More irritating, still, was the fact that one of these girls, the one sleeping above me and indeed the bet-sitter extraordinaire had decided to make use of the tiny little nightstand which sat next to my bunk to house her phone for the night. It was very clearly designed to be part of the lower bunk's set-up, but okay, I can just about understand not wanting to sleep with your phone next to you on an upper bunk, I guess. She had, however, neglected to switch it to mute, meaning that with every text, notification or update she got (and she got a stunning amount of these throughout the night and early morning) the phone would vibrate noisily right next to my fucking head, distracting me when I was awake and waking me up when I was asleep. Because there was a physical aspect to the vibration also, earplugs couldn't even block it out fully. It was a lot of fun.

Mercifully though, at around 2am, all her apps had updated, the notifications ceased and people stopped texting her, having received literally no response for the previous six hours and I could finally drift off to sleep, angry and exhausted.

#travelling #vagrant #travel #europe #salzburg #natur haus #natural history museum #science too #hohensalzburg #mozart #tat #duck #rubbish

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av3da · 6 years ago

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REQUESTED!!

heyoooooooo! it’s been a few weeks (definitely months) & i kept saying i would write again but i did not yikes. anyways i’ve been reading lately & getting some inspiration so yeah. this is trash cause i’m not good at luke stuff, i did get A LITTLE carried away with this word count wise, trying to make up for how crappy it was.

i K N O W luke doesn’t have tattoos. but i used that to my advantage for the sake of the story to pretned he had a secret one. which hemight for all we know.

lie to me has been stuck in my head for the majority that i was writing this but it would’ve been ironic if that’s what i titled this imagine so anyways.

1777 words

rumors - jacob whitesides

As a grumble escaped my lips, I threw my arm across my body as to hug the mattress while flipping over to now lay on my stomach, being awakened by the shrill chirps coming from my phone. Slowly coming to the realization of where the sound was coming from, I lifted my arm to touch the cold metal of my phone and glanced it over with tired eyes.

The house was filled with silence, opposed to the noises of mother nature outside my window. The sun shining brightly through the pane was enough to persuade me out of bed as I knew I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep after that. I practically jumped out of bed, not of excitement but because it would be the only way to really wake me up given my tired state.

Slipping my phone into the waistband of my pajama shorts, I grimaced at the feeling of the cold surface touching my skin. I walked out of my room and into the small apartment kitchen to pour myself a glass of water to start the day, then pulling out my phone to read the piling over notifications. I unlocked my phone and opened messages as those notifications were most likely the most important.

emilia: hey babe! keep your chin up! don't believe what everyone is posting!

bianca: you know i support you through everything & it doesn't end here. we know men ain't shit but he is a keeper. don't believe what you're seeing love.

tommy: girl no. this is NOT happening. this is total bullshit. don’t even think for a second that any of this is true. that girl’s story is so fake. she is a SNAKE.

I scrunched my nose up in confusion, snickering at the random messages while sipping my water slowly. I scrolled past a few other threads of group chats with my siblings and sole messages from cousins and other family members I felt close to. They were sending me messages of their concerns and support, and I didn't quite get what was the reason as to why.

my love lucas: babygirllllllll. i am so exhausted but it's 5 in the morning and we have to do some radio interviews for the album. thank you for staying up until we got back to the bus, & for that, i know you won't be awake until the afternoon. BUT I LOVE YOU & THE BOYS ARE YELLING AT ME SO TEXT ME WHEN YOU WAKE UP!!! xoxxoxxo

While my boyfriend's text did put a smile on my face, it put the texts into perspective for me and I already figured out what was going on.

He went to a party last night with his band members and few of the tour crew at a bar, and I had stayed up until three in the morning despite the fact that I was working all day just to make sure he made it back safe. I trusted him, and you can't have a long-distance relationship without trust.

This was the second tour that Luke has been on while we were dating, and despite the things that you may find in fanfictions, going along with them on tour just wasn't exactly a thing... or my thing at the least. I had school to attend, a job to pay for myself, an apartment to upkeep, and our pets to take care of. Sometimes he would fly me out when he was going to be in California for a few nights and I would get the groupie experience for the week, but it's just too stressful to bother my friends to watch our dogs, so I opted out after the third time it happened.

Everyone knows that alongside a boy band is a mass of fans. Fangirls, to be exact, that protect their boys through every decision they make and while it is super devoting and heartwarming, some of them don't like the fact that the band members are in a relationship. So ever since footage of Luke and I together surfaced the internet, my life has not been the same since. I used to get a lot of hate which didn't bother me because I, contrary to Luke's knowledge, was a fangirl myself so I knew it was bound to happen eventually.

As time went on, the fans came to accept our relationship, all the while still having a few who disapprove but proving them wrong just meant sticking by his side every day, and I planned to do that for the rest of my life.

Every time that they go out partying, plenty of pictures are per say leaked to the public, and their fans find a way to figure out their plans, meeting them at these bars and clubs. There are pictures of Luke talking to his fans at these venues almost every time and they don't bother me because yet again, I trust him.

But there was something different going on this time, my friends and family have been by my side through every single tabloid but their sudden concern was something that was a bit abnormal to me.

I put my glass of water down on the marble top counter and paced to the living room, where I pulled my laptop atop my legs. Typing quickly into Google, I scrolled through the 5SOS Update fan pages on Tumblr and Twitter, finally coming across blurry photos of Luke and another girl.

"It's too low quality to see what's even happening.." I spoke to myself with a soft scoff, glancing at one of my dogs that was staring at me with her head cocked to the side, "I talk to myself all the time, I'm not going crazy." I told my dog before laughing and going back to the screen.

A majority of the replies was concern towards me, maybe they knew something that I didn't. And that thought alone was concerning enough.

I trust Luke. I do. I trust him with my life.

That was until I stumbled across a reply from a girl who was saying that she was the one in the photo, and my heart skipped a few beats as I read her side of the story which was its own thread. I've seen fans concoct an entire story from a white lie and this seemed a bit dubious to me because he didn't text me much at the party, just before and after.

But I trust Luke with everything.

She wrote details about his secret tattoo that only I knew about and it's exact location, how his black polish clad nails traced up her arm as they spoke, and how his favorite alcoholic beverage was fresh on his breath.

This broke me.

I closed my laptop and put it aside, grabbing a bag of Doritos and trailing back to my bedroom. My head swirled with this new information, not wanting to believe it but it was so believable that it was physically stinging at my throat, but I refused to cry. I had cried myself to sleep when Luke was gone plenty of times, not because of the hate, but because I missed him, and I missed waking up next to him, and I missed the scent of him on my sheets.

I tried to tune out the negative thoughts in my head for an hour by blaring the television with whatever mildly funny show was on, it didn't work. I merely sighed and rose out of my bed again, walking to my bathroom to wash my face in hopes to shake this bad feeling off. As I dipped my head into the sink and flung cold water in my face to rinse off the soap, I heard keys shaking and my front door shifting as someone went to unlock it.

I froze in place and grabbed the shower curtain to cover my practically naked body. I'm home alone, of course, I'm only in a bralette and pajama shorts.

I heard the door close behind the person who was now in my house and I was trailing through how many people I had given a key to. The footsteps grew louder as the person came closer. I saw the toe of their shoes in the doorway, then he stuck his head in to peek around the room, connecting his bloodshot eyes with mine.

"Luke.." I let out a sigh and released the shower curtain, walking up to the boy who towered over me. His hair was a mess, as usual, and he was in his normal punk rockish outfit.

"It's not true." He told me firmly, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed hard.

His eyes were red, he was crying, he was scared. His voice was wavering and his breath was shaky. "How did she know?" Was all I could manage to the broken-hearted boy in front of me.

"I had a lot to drink, and it's not an excuse but I didn't flirt with her or anything, she was just really close to me and kept touching me and I was trying to tell her off but she wasn't listening to me. She kept playing with my shirt color and touching my hair and that's how she found the tattoo. She kept mentioning your name and saying that you deserved better, someone you could see every day and someone who's normal, someone who takes you with them when they tour the world, someone who can answer your calls whe-" I cut him off with my lips, pressing a passionate kiss on him, slowly wrapping my arms around his neck to pull him lower to me as I stood on my tip toes.

His arms snaked around my waist and pulled me closer to him, deepening the kiss with every second that passed. When I pulled away from the kiss, I just stared into his eyes and nodded my head.

"I believe you. I know better than to believe them. I believe in you, and I believe in us." My voice was soft, but I was finally regaining my confidence. He chuckled softly, leaning down to hug my waist, lifting my body off the ground slightly as he whispered comforting words in my ear.

"Can I make us ice cream sundaes?" He whispered, a bright smile spreading on his face in which I giggled in reply and followed him to the kitchen with my hand in his.

As we made our way to the kitchen, one of the puppies ran up to us to greet Luke and I bent over to pick him up, cuddling him the dog as Luke prepared our dessert even though it was four in the afternoon.

#writing #imagine #luke hemmings imagine #luke hemmings #luke 5sos #5sos imagine #luke hemmo #luke gif

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francesderwent · 7 years ago

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“In Need of a Generic Father Figure” A Veronica Mars Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies Meet-Cute LV AU Week Day 7 Canon-typical language, but otherwise general audiences On AO3 Inspired by this post and that one scene in Charlie Don’t Surf.

______________________________________________________________

It was supposed to be a kind of housewarming-slash-homecoming party, the kind of event that was totally low key in its formulation and planning stage but got completely out of hand once things got rolling. All their friends from the old neighborhood were coming over, and it was supposed to be all nostalgic idiocy born from the eternal familiarity of each having been present for one another’s particular flavor of shitty childhood. There were no delusions about the depth of this bond, and so they weren’t expecting it to be a great party, not the best night of anyone’s life by any means, but it was the sort of gathering you could predict, could depend on. Low-pressure, low stakes, low key.

So, precisely the kind of event which would have a giant wrench thrown into it if you were to add in an unknown factor, say, a perfect stranger to man the grill.

“But he wouldn’t be a stranger,” Dick is insisting. “He’d be a dad.”

Logan gapes at him. “Whose dad?”

Dick shrugs, ineloquently.

“So by dad, you just mean some unknown-as-yet male person who has at one point fathered a child?”

“Sure.”

“So, some unknown person’s father, standing on the corner of our property, making hamburgers.”

“Grilling hamburgers, that’s essential.” Dick looks up from his computer and gives Logan a look like he’s disappointed in him for missing an obvious point. “And it’s not just some random sperm donor, dude, he has to be fatherly and shit. I put it in the ad.”

“Ah yes, the ad,” Logan says. “The Craigslist ad, which you put up online without consulting or telling me. I read the ad. And yet here I stand, questioning the entire premise behind it.” But Dick has returned to his computer, presumably to scroll through his emailed responses. Logan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Alright, the court recognizes that grilled hamburgers are better than any alternative. But why do we need someone else to come grill? You and I are fair-to-average at setting things on fire already.”

“We don’t have a grill.”

“No, but we both have trust funds that kicked in some time ago. You may remember them. They’re how we afforded the house…”

Dick huffs. “So we just buy a grill?” Logan gives him the raised eyebrows and jazz hands: duh. Dick bangs on the space bar. “Just buy one, from the depths of our rich boy pockets, without working for it or anything.”

Logan stares. “Are you having some kind of break?”

“It’s stupid to spend money if we could just borrow one.”

“Okaaaay,” Logan says. “So why aren’t you advertising for a grill we can borrow?”

“Because!”

“Because what, Dick?”

“Your dad is supposed to teach you how to grill!” Dick bites out.

They stare at each other for a long beat, then Dick tears his eyes away and starts clattering angrily on his keyboard. Logan sighs, then gingerly sits next to him on the sofa.

“You know,” he says, careful to keep his tone conversational, “if you wanted to sign up for one of those programs for kids with deadbeat dads where they hang out with well-adjusted adult men and learn life skills, I would have happily signed up with you, but we really should have done that when we were younger.”

Dick throws an elbow into his ribs half-heartedly. “Shut up.”

“I’m not saying, like, when we were twelve,” Logan goes on, warming to the topic, “because we mostly hadn’t figured out our dads were deadbeat by then. But definitely before we finished college and joined the workforce. I’m thinking like nineteen or twenty would have been the ideal age. Our father figures could have taught us to consume alcohol, in addition to teaching us to grill.”

“We were already pretty good at drinking alcohol by then,” Dick reminds him.

“Then they could have given us a strict talking-to about underage drinking,” Logan says. “It’s far too late for that now, and we’ve missed our chance.”

“Missed our chance…” Dick echoes.

Logan looks at him sideways.

Dick catches his eye and actually sniffs a little. “I know it’s stupid. You don’t have to tell me it’s stupid.”

Logan shifts uncomfortably. “It’s not stupid, man. I just wish we knew of some actual father figure we could get to sub in for you, rather than resorting to Craigslist dads.”

“It’s not just for me, dude,” Dick insists. “I know you care about this shit, too.”

Logan cracks a smile despite himself. “If some guy with a beer gut shows up and grills me a hamburger and calls me ‘sport’, that’s not going to make the old man any less of an abusive asshole.”

“I know, but we can make some nicer memories can’t we? Some nice dad-memories?”

For a second, Logan allows himself to enter into the delusion, but almost immediately becomes sidetracked on the mental image of Gregory Peck from To Kill a Mockingbird standing in their backyard, holding a light beer and grinning affably. That would be one thing – but he can’t imagine that any fathers like that actually exist in the world. No, this dad was probably going to be more or less a deadbeat himself, or else how would he have time to babysit a bunch of profligate twenty-somethings? At best, it would be some old guy whose kids were too grown-up and busy to talk to him anymore, a dad whose desperate neediness for attention and affirmation matches Dick’s. But then again, Dick will inevitably be drunk for the entire party – he wouldn’t notice if the dad was an escaped convict in black and white stripes with a literal ball and chain on his ankle. What harm could it do? He sighs, asks in a wry tone, “Are you going to ask for proof of paternity, or is this person going to be a fake dad on top of being random?”

Dick lights up. “That’s a great idea, I’ll edit that in!” He resumes typing at a frenzied pace; Logan watches bemusedly.

Still. It’s one weird thing on one day. It won’t make any difference one way or another, in the long run.

Nobody’s life was ever changed because a stranger made them a hamburger.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

After that, Logan tries to extricate himself from the whole dad-audition process, but Dick is, as usual, both oblivious and incorrigible. Logan very quickly comes to dread the phrases “hey, listen to this” and “what about this”, since both are sure signs that he’s about to be read a joke resumé with phrases like “excels at offering positive reinforcement”, or shown a headshot of a guy in a sweater vest. So when he gets home from work and the first thing he hears is “Logan, dude, this is the one”, his first response is to groan and flop face first onto the sofa. They found the sofa at the side of the road the second week in the house and it is therefore a little worn out, so the decision to be dramatic hurts.

“Asshole,” Dick tells him absently, wandering in from the next room holding his laptop. “Listen: father for twenty-plus years, expert level jokes and manly affection, bonus secret-family-recipe hot sauce.”

“The hot sauce is a nice touch,” Logan admits, rolling over onto his back and kicking his feet up onto the sofa arm. “All of the other applicants have really fixated on the ‘dad’ part of ‘grill dad’.”

Dick nods so enthusedly it looks painful. “I know, right? And get this, there’s an attached letter from his kid,” he says. “Dear advertiser, I can confirm that the applicant has been my father for my entire life, and I can honestly say that he has excelled at the position. You would be lucky to have him at your party, where he would strike just the right balance between embarrassing and fun, call all of you by the wrong names and then substitute “son” or “honey”, and repeatedly tell you he’s proud of you. His hamburgers are to die for, and he brings his own fire extinguisher in case anything should go wrong. He has my unreserved recommendation. Also, if this is some kind of dad kidnapping scheme, I will hunt you down and kill you. Cordially, V. Mars.” Dick looks up expectantly; Logan fights a smile.

“They wrote a letter of recommendation for their dad?”

“Uh huh.”

“Hmm,” Logan says neutrally, then says, “Mr. Mars,” trying it out, hitting the ‘r’s and dragging out the ‘s’.

“Keith Mars,” Dick adds helpfully, and turns the computer so Logan can see the attached photo. Keith Mars is bald, just slightly on the portly side, staring adoringly down at the tiny pigtailed child with whom he is dancing, her feet on his – V. Mars is a girl, apparently. Dick tabs to the next picture: Keith Mars standing next to a grill holding a hot dog over the head of a plaintive-looking pitbull while a gap-toothed, elementary-school-aged V. Mars laughs in the background with a blue-haired friend. In the third picture Keith is older, wearing a suit and grinning widely, hugging someone in graduation regalia, her face obscured by her cap. “He looks cool, right?” Dick prompts eagerly.

“Yeah,” Logan says, tearing his eyes away from the graduation photo. Neither he nor Dick had had any relatives attend their college graduation, and he’d seen plenty of family reunions at the baccalaureate celebration that seemed more stiff and awkward than anything else, but Keith looks like he just might burst with pride. “Yeah, he seems nice.”

“Like a real dad, right?” Dick persists.

Logan snorts. “As if I have any experience with which to judge that quality.”

Dick offers a fist bump and Logan complies. “Trauma twins!” Dick says, sing-song. Logan rolls his eyes. “But he seems legit?” Dick says, returning to the salient point. “This is okay?”

Logan stands and claps his roommate on the shoulder. “Sure, man. If you say this is the one, I think you’re probably right.”

Dick beams at him. “I’ll tell him he got the gig!”

“Cool,” Logan says drily. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Since Dick thinks it would be acceptable to simply explain the dad-for-hire situation when their guests show up, Logan finds himself calling each invitee one by one the day before the party and beginning with the statement, “So you know how Dick has a tenuous relationship with reality?” Lilly laughs for a full minute and a half, and Duncan, no matter how many times Logan runs through the concept, just doesn’t seem to get it, but everyone else just thinks it’s sad.

“Oh my god, our lives suck,” Gia says, sounding as if she just realized it. “Does no one in our group have a functioning father figure?”

“Carrie’s dad was okay,” Logan offers. “But he moved out of state a few years back.”

“And he never knew how to grill!” Dick yells through his bedroom door.

“And he never knew how to grill,” Logan repeats.

“Yeah, well,” Gia says skeptically, “I’m bringing extra booze for when this weird-ass idea causes someone to have an emotional breakdown.”

“Appreciated.”

And when the day arrives, booze is the one thing they do seem to have enough of.

“Why did we say we were going to supply ingredients?” Logan wonders aloud as he methodically opens and shuts every cupboard in their kitchen. “You forgot to buy onions, we don’t own any spices, I don’t even think we have salt and pepper –”

“Logan. Man! Relax.” As anticipated, Dick is already halfway to trashed, and far from caring if their hamburgers are seasoned.

“This was your idea,” Logan says, accusing sliding into sardonic. “You’re the one who wanted to make some new dad-memories, and now because you were overly confident in a Craigslist ad, our new dad is already going to be disappointed in us.”

“Dude, holy shit –” Dick bursts out laughing and can’t continue his thought. Logan turns around to glare at him in exasperation. “What if –” Dick stammers, chortling, “what if he says the thing? ‘I’m not mad I’m just disappointed?’ How absolutely sick would that be?” He’s wheezing now, and Logan can’t think of anything to do except stare at him. “Just like a real dad!” Dick howls.

Logan stands, frozen, for a beat longer, and then abandons his search for the probably-nonexistent spice cabinet to reach for the scotch instead. “Gia was right,” he says flatly. “This is going to end in tears.” He pulls a little too sharply on the tab of the wax seal and it snaps off with the seal still in place. He looks at it in consternation, and it is at this point that the doorbell rings. Dick makes no sign of moving from his position, giggling slumped over the kitchen table, so Logan jogs to the front hallway, only to discover that Dick has placed all the beer they bought in front of the door, barricading it closed. He’s kicking six packs out of the way and trying to open the scotch bottle with his teeth when he finally manages to wrench open the door and is greeted by the genial but not-quite-non-threatening face of Keith Mars.

For a moment the desire to say something dismissive rises up, as if this was still high school and he was still incapable of engaging with an adult on mutually respectful terms, but Logan takes a deep breath and forces it down. “Mr. Mars,” he says.

Keith sticks out a hand. “Richard?”

Logan snorts, but accepts the handshake. “Richard is inside. I’m the roommate, Logan.”

Keith’s eyes drop to the scotch bottle still in Logan’s hand. “I hate it when that happens,” he says mildly.

Logan makes a non-committal noise. “We probably have a wine opener somewhere that should do the trick.”

“We don’t!” Dick yells from the kitchen. “I told the chicks to bring one!”

“That would be Richard,” Logan tells Keith wryly. Keith raises his eyebrows, but then reaches into his jacket pocket and offers Logan a multi-tool. “Thanks,” Logan says uncomfortably, looking down to flip through utensils instead of making eye contact. “Can I offer you anything?”

“Nope,” says Keith cheerfully, “just point me to the backyard and I’ll get the grill fired up.”

“Get the grill fired up!” Dick’s voice repeats, maniacally.

“He’s fine,” says Logan, unconvinced himself. “The backyard’s through this way.”

“No!” Dick stumbles into the hallway and spreads his arms wide, probably so as best to show off the tshirt he bought specifically for the occasion which reads “you’re all up in my grill”, a decided improvement over the grill-themed shirt Logan had to initially talk him down from, which had a meat-related innuendo on it. “I will show you to the backyard, sir!”

Keith offers a hand. “Keith Mars.”

“Awesome, dude.” Dick shakes his hand, which is apparently hilarious because he cracks himself up again. “Welcome to the party!”

Keith glances at Logan, who shrugs. “I’m just happy to be included,” Keith says, sounding, against all odds, like he means it.

“Dope,” Dick responds. “Follow me, mon capitan, I will show you to your grill kingdom!”

“Please stop mixing your metaphors,” Logan tells him, but Keith waves him off and allows Dick to sling an arm around his shoulder and lead him towards the screen door to the backyard.

“Dude, seriously, your application was whack,” Dick says. “I was like, whoa, this guy is like a serious dad!” Logan is watching them go, wondering if he’s responsible for making Keith feel safe and if he should therefore follow, when there’s a voice at shoulder-level behind him.

“So that’s the Craigslist guy?”

He turns, smoothly accepts the proffered casserole dish. “Craigslist dad, actually, or you’re missing the whole point.”

Carrie stands on her toes to look over his shoulder at where Keith is patiently observing Dick’s wild gesticulating at all the ingredients they bought. “Huh,” she says. “I guess he does kind of look like a dad.”

“I should hope so, we took the casting call very seriously.”

Carrie rolls her eyes. “That’s a fruit salad,” she informs him, indicating the dish he’s holding. “I’ve just gotta grab my guitar out of my car and then I can help set up or whatever.”

“You brought your guitar?” Logan repeats. “Are we gonna sit in a circle and sing campfire songs? What the hell kind of barbecue do you think this is?”

“A nice wholesome one, of course. You were kind enough to invite Susan and her kid, and you specifically got a random dad to come grill you food.” After a pause and seemingly despite herself, Carrie asks, “You really couldn’t have just bought a grill yourselves?”

Logan sighs. “Actually, the grill is ours. Keith had one but it wouldn’t fit in his car, so Dick went straight out and got the most expensive one there was.”

“Don’t all serious dads own pickup trucks?”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“And now you have your own grill.”

“We even managed to work it ourselves; we made marshmallows over it last night.”

Carrie makes a face. “I can’t believe you guys are living together. You’ll both starve to death or suffocate under dirty laundry within a month.”

“Nah,” says Logan, dismissive, “we can live on marshmallows for at least two months, and we can just buy new clothes and burn our dirty laundry on the grill.”

“That,” Carrie tells him calmly, “is disgusting.”

“People who bring acoustic guitars to house parties shouldn’t throw stones,” Logan counters.

She laughs and flips him off. “When’s everyone else getting here?”

He indicates careless ignorance with a wave of the hand. “Hopefully soon. I think we need to set up a watch rotation to make sure Dick doesn’t start crying on the grill dad.”

Carrie snorts, tosses him her keys; he manages to switch the fruit salad to one hand and snag them in the hand holding the scotch. “In that case, you go grab my guitar out of the trunk. What did you say the guy’s name is?”

“Keith Mars.”

“Got it. Do not leave me out there by myself for more than a minute.”

“Of course not! In fact, I wouldn’t dream of getting in your car and driving far, far away from here.”

She elbows past him, laughing, and jogs through the house to make a dramatic exit out the back door, where she is greeted by Dick’s incoherent shouts. Logan sighs, then picks his way back through the six-packs to the kitchen to put everything down, finally open the scotch, and knock back half a drink. When he gets back out to the driveway Casey Gant is there with his newest arm-candy girlfriend, and Logan finds himself cajoled into giving a house tour so he can explain to her why he and Dick decided on this house, how all the guests know each other, and that, no, Casey wasn’t lying about the Craigslist situation. By the time Logan manages to extricate himself, everyone has arrived and is milling around the backyard. Carrie waves to him from a picnic blanket in the middle of the lawn, where she is in fact playing guitar for Susan and her adolescent daughter. He likes Susan and the kid fine, but the three of them seem to be working on a warble-y song from the latest Disney princess sensation, so he hides a grimace, waves back, and looks elsewhere. There’s a few people clustered around the grill, listening to Keith tell some story which is apparently fascinating; Logan gives them a wide berth and joins Lilly and Gia instead, who are standing off to the side eyeing the whole scene skeptically.

“Don’t you ladies want to take advantage of this unique opportunity to interact with a genuine, human parent?” he asks.

“Nope,” says Gia, at the same time as Lilly says “Not even a little.”

Logan snorts. “Well, cheers to that, I suppose.”

“Yes, cheers!” Lilly says. “To dealing with our issues in therapy, rather than projecting all of our buried hopes onto a stranger with a novelty apron who could never live up to our ideals anyway.”

“Like motherfucking adults,” Logan echoes solemnly. They clink glasses.

Gia looks contemplative. “It’s not so much that he’s a random stranger,” she says. “I even kind of trust that he’s for real, you know?”

“I know,” Lilly retorts, pausing to take a big gulp of her drink. “That’s the worst part. Dick introduced me to him when I got here, and he was immediately more interested in my life and my job than my parents have ever been.”

“Yeah, but like, actually interested,” Gia adds, “like he thought I was worth his time and couldn’t wait to hear more about me.”

“How dare he,” Logan says mildly.

Gia elbows him in the ribs. “I don’t see you over there talking to him.”

Logan shrugs. “If I met him on the street maybe I’d be able to trust that he’s the real deal, but the fact that he answered the ad just seems fundamentally suspicious.”

“Yeah, but you guys aren’t paying him, are you?” says Lilly.

“Just in beer.”

“He’s probably just lonely,” Gia suggests.

“I thought the same thing,” says Logan. “But if he’s such a good father, then wouldn’t his own kid want to see him? So why would he need us?”

Lilly pats him on the shoulder. “Logan, you’ve honed your trust issues and pessimism into quite an art.”

He huffs, irritable despite himself. “I’m just saying, don’t anyone go writing him into their will just yet.” Gia looks at him little worriedly, and he attempts a reassuring smile. “I need another drink, can I get either of you anything?” They both wave him off, and he makes for the deck where all the refreshments are, but in his haste to get away, forgets to avoid the grill group and accidentally makes eye contact with Dick. Dick, of course, begins frantically waving him over, and though Logan lifts a hand in acknowledgement and tries to stay course, this only means that Dick starts yelling his name. Logan silently swears to himself that he will not enter the fatherland without a drink in hand, so yells back that he’ll be right there and prays that they’ll be out of something on the drinks and appetizers table so he’ll have to go inside to get it, if not drive to the store. Tragically, Carrie is already there, refilling chip bowls, and when he offers to help she just gives him an unsympathetic look.

“Go get it over with, before Dick convinces everyone to start chanting your name,” she says.

Logan sighs, grabs the beer with the highest alcohol content he can find, and skips down the stairs. “Logan!’ Dick crows. “Logan’s here, guys!”

“I live here,” Logan reminds him. The obvious statement is greeted by polite laughs from the Keith fan-club and drunken giggling from Dick.

“Get this, Logan!” he says, childlike excitement radiating off him in waves. “We didn’t even need salt and pepper, Keith brought his own burger rub!”

Logan looks obligingly at Keith, who nods. “Secret family recipe.”

“I thought the secret was the hot sauce?” Logan says.

“I’ve got that, too.”

Logan raises his eyebrows. “Everything’s a secret with you, Mr. Mars. And here I thought we were just on the verge of opening up to each other.”

Keith laughs good-naturedly. “I’m an open book, Logan.”

Logan is mentally scrolling through options for sarcastic replies which aren’t overly combative when suddenly he feels very, uncomfortably cold, from the back of his neck down, and can do nothing but gasp stupidly. For a moment he thinks Dick has poured ice down his back, but Dick is standing on the other side of the grill from him, looking genuinely surprised albeit delighted. Logan cranes his neck and turns in a circle, but can’t see what’s been spilled on him, though it’s entirely clear who’s to blame. “Duncan,” Logan says, flat and edging toward a growl.

Duncan has the nerve to roll his eyes. “Come on, man, it’s not my fault.”

Logan gestures to where Duncan has clearly dropped his solo cup and half a plate of appetizers on the lawn. “And how do you figure that?”

Duncan shrugs. “You know how hard it is to hold a drink and a plate of stuff at the same time.”

“Hmm, then maybe you should go inside and eat at the table – or better yet, maybe the family down the block can loan us their high chair.”

Duncan scowls at him. “Do you have to be like this, Logan, seriously? It’s just a shirt. And it’s your freaking house, you can just go in and change.”

Logan flicks his eyes over at Keith, who thankfully doesn’t appear inclined to use his fake fatherly authority to intervene and is pretending to look intently at something across the way. Logan fakes a laugh and says as evenly as he can manage, “And it was your freaking drink, so you could have just apologized.” Keith abandons his examination of the next-door-neighbor’s maple tree to give Logan a side-eyed smile, and for a moment, Logan feels a vague sense of satisfaction, before he remembers that he doesn’t care about Keith’s approval. He makes a wry face back.

“Logan,” Keith says mildly, “keep an eye on the grill? I need to grab something I left in the kitchen.”

“No problem, Mr. Mars,” Logan answers, saluting sloppily. Keith nods at him, and then pats Duncan on the shoulder as he passes; Logan interprets the move as condescending and is pleased again, and again annoyed at himself for being pleased. As a pathetic attempt at distracting himself, he pulls his arms into what was previously his favorite gray v-neck and puts it back on backwards so he can look at the stain, and then is horrified all over again. “Duncan, what the fuck were you drinking?” he demands.

Now, finally, Duncan has the grace to look ashamed, or at least defensive. “Mike’s,” he mutters.

“Mike’s lemonade is not this color.”

“It was Mike’s hard black cherry lemonade, alright!”

There are various titters from the group; Logan snorts inadvertently and lifts up the shirt to sniff the purple-y stain, which smells more like sugar than anything else. He knows he should stop pushing, but can’t quite restrain a “Dude, really?”, which turns the titters into full-fledged barks of laughter.

Duncan snaps. “Why do you have to be such a –”

“Donut!”

Duncan freezes at the sound of Lilly’s voice.

“Quit being a drip!” she yells. “Or go home!”

For a second, Duncan turns his glare back on Logan with full force, and Logan almost thinks he’s going to spit in his face or something, but then he just kicks at his dropped solo cup and slinks off toward the front yard.

“Wo-o-ow,” says Dick, with barely contained glee. “This really is the best party ever.”

Logan rolls his eyes, grabs the spatula hanging off the grill, and starts idly pushing burgers around to have something to do. “You’re happy with your Craigslist investment?” he asks Dick.

“Absolutely, dude!”

“And the weirdness of the concept still hasn’t dawned on you?” Casey adds, snickering.

“How could it be weird? Keith is awesome, and he’s the perfect addition to the party, just like the application said.”

“Of course he is.”

Logan jumps, almost drops a burger on the ground, and then turns to find that Duncan’s place in the circle has been filled. She’s on the shorter side, with blonde hair falling down her back in waves, a leather jacket slung over one shoulder, and a completely unreadable expression on her face – and based on the looks she’s getting from the others, no one else has the faintest idea who she is either. “Uh –” Logan says.

“Keith Mars is still here, right?” she asks, voice somewhere between businesslike and belligerent.

“Well –”

“He just went inside,” Dick says, helpfully. “He’ll be back out in a minute.”

Logan groans. “Dick, remind me never to commit any crimes you’d have to be interrogated about.”

Dick shrugs, the whole movement exaggerated by drunkenness. “Look at her, man, what’s she gonna do?”

Logan looks at her, less sure that he should be unintimidated than Dick seems to be; she gives him an unimpressed once-over, but then cracks a smile seemingly despite herself. “So was it some combination of getting dressed in the dark and a wet tshirt competition, or is this a bold fashion choice?”

Logan glances down at his backwards v-neck and the damp, purple circle on his chest. “Bold fashion choice,” he answers, looking up to raise his eyebrows at her.

“I wouldn’t have been able to picture it,” she says, looking him up and down again, “but now that I see it, I guess it works. In fact, you should only wear this. Like, ever.”

Logan grins awkwardly, unsure whether she’s mocking him or flirting with him, and still unsure what he, as a homeowner, is supposed to do about strangers in his backyard, even if they are exceptionally cute.

“So, this is weird,” Dick offers.

“Hey, honey!” Logan turns; Keith is coming down the steps of the deck with burger buns and cheese in hand, beaming at the interloper.

“And it just got weirder,” Casey announces.

“Yup,” echoes his date. “More drinks?”

“You bet.” They wander off arm in arm; Casey salutes Logan with his beer can.

“What are you doing here, sweetheart?” Keith says, dumping his armful of food onto the picnic table so he can hug the blonde girl.

She shrugs, looking considerably more relaxed now that he’s appeared. “I’m an only child, dad, you didn’t honestly expect me to let you adopt a whole party without at least coming over to check up on you. I’ve never had to share before.”

Keith laughs. “Of course, why didn’t I think of that. Why wouldn’t my grown adult daughter show up at an honest Craigslist gig to make sure she wasn’t losing her spot as my favorite child?”

“I dunno,” Dick says suspiciously, “I think she might also be here to flirt with Logan.”

“You two have met?” Keith turns a surprised look on Logan, who does his best innocent blink and tries not to broadcast that a few seconds ago he was considering using Duncan’s spill as an excuse to take his shirt off in front of this girl.

“Only just now,” Keith’s daughter assures him.

Logan nods. “You’re V. Mars?”

“Veronica,” she answers. She offers her hand to shake.

“Don’t take this personally,” Logan says, “but I wouldn’t. I’m honestly kind of covered in Mike’s hard black cherry lemonade.”

“That exists?” she says.

“There’s no limit to the abominations which crawl this earth,” he replies, straight-faced. She laughs.

“See what I mean,” Dick says to Keith. Keith looks at him blankly; Dick belches, shoots Logan a complicated and incomprehensible hand gesture, and wanders off after Casey, leaving Logan alone with the two Marses. He looks back and forth between them, trying not to stare, and wondering if it would be weird to ask what kind of degree Veronica just graduated with based on the picture Keith sent.

“So!” Veronica says, into the strained silence. “You’ve been treating my dad well?”

“He’s getting all of the standard grill-dad benefits,” Logan answers. “We didn’t want to have the agency all over us, or god forbid, the unions.”

Veronica smiles in acknowledgment, but her eyes flick to her dad with something like nervousness.

“Do you two need a minute?” Logan offers.

“No!” says Keith, confidently calm. “Everything’s all fine, here. Son, can you start putting cheese on hamburger buns? Veronica, honey, help him?”

Veronica rolls her eyes, but bumps Logan out of the way with her hip so she can grab the cheese. “So, daaad,” she says, sing-song.

“Veronica,” he says, warningly.

She actually pouts. “Come on, dad,” she says, the words coming quicker now. “It’s pretty clear Logan doesn’t care about you being his fake father for the day; his entire body flinched when you called him son.”

Logan hands her a hamburger bun he removed from the block of them in the bag, says mildly, “I thought I managed to reserve my flinch to only seventy percent of my body.”

“Nope!” Veronica gives him an apologetic smile, and then turns back to Keith. “Dad, please.”

Keith glances at Logan, back at her, and sighs. “Make it quick, Veronica.”

She drops the package of cheese and reaches into her bag to retrieve a giant camera. “So-o-o,” she says, lowering her voice, “you know that guy I’ve been on all week for a completely unrelated…work thing?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

“Well, he just walked through the front door of your guy’s house.”

“No, he didn’t,” Keith says drily. She tabs through a few photos on the display, shows him one. Keith looks at her. “That can’t be good.”

She lets out a huff of breath. “No, I didn’t think so either.”

“I can see both exits from here, honey, and I haven’t turned my back once.”

“From here?” Logan repeats.

They ignore him. “If I didn’t notice him going in, it was because I wasn’t looking for people entering,” Keith continues, reassuringly. “Nobody could have gotten away, so they must all just be inside. We’ll wait it out, it’ll be fine.”

Logan is just about to give up and leave them to it so he can find another drink, and maybe even change his shirt, but that, of course, is when the air is filled with the sound of breaking glass.

Some kind of instinct takes over and he dives in between the sound and Veronica, dragging her to the ground with him despite her incoherent noise of protest. He looks up in time to see a flailing person hit the ground below the next-door-neighbor’s maple tree, surrounded by the debris from the shattered second-story window.

“That’s yours!” Veronica gasps, but Keith has already produced a gun from somewhere under his novelty apron and is pointing it at where the fallen man has gotten unsteadily to his feet.

“Police!” Keith shouts. “Don’t move!”

There’s a stunned pause, Logan takes in the faces of gaping astonishment on his friends, and then the man takes off running in the opposite direction. Keith lets out a brief curse and rips off his apron. “He’s running,” he announces to thin air, and Logan hears a siren start up down the street, so apparently he really is police. Keith throws the apron at Veronica. “Don’t let the hamburgers burn,” he orders, and then he climbs on the picnic table, vaults clumsily over the neighbor’s fence, and takes off after the runner.

“You’re going to strain your back,” Veronica yells after him, almost petulant. She elbows Logan in the ribs and he rolls off her, not sure whether she’s about to join in the chase herself or whether she’s just going to lay into him for tackling her. She gets up, checks her camera and is apparently convinced that its not broken, but still looks dissatisfied about something. She peeks into the grill, lifts a single burger with the forgotten spatula. “They’re not going to burn,” she says, disdainfully.

“Dude.” Dick jogs over so he can give Logan a hand up off the ground. “Dude,” Dick repeats, “is it just me or was our grill-dad packing heat?”

Logan pats his arm. “Not only was he packing heat, but he was almost definitely using us to surveille the house next door.”

Dick looks flabbergasted. “Shit, man. Even my fake dad didn’t really want to spend time with me.”

“I’m sure he’ll be back, once they’ve collared the guy,” Veronica offers. As if inspired, she removes the first burger patty from the grill, puts it on one of their prepared buns, and hands it to him.

Dick looks at it suspiciously, takes a bite, and then nods, but adds accusingly, “Whatever, man. I’m going to need therapy from this.” He shoots a finger gun at Logan. “So, you do whatever you’re doing here, I’m gonna go apologize to Susan for exposing her child to all this violence.”

“That’s really mature and responsible of you, Dick,” Logan says, surprised.

“Duh,” says Dick. “It’s up to us to break the cycle.” And with that, he heads back towards the rest of the party, who are all staring at Veronica with no small amount of apprehension. She doesn’t seem to notice, but absently picks up Keith’s apron and puts it on, and starts assembling burgers.

Logan can’t help but ask, “You’re not going to follow them?”

“Nope,” she says, shortly, “not my case.”

“Do you need to go after…your guy?”

“No, I’ve got the pictures I needed.”

“Then I’m sure Keith would appreciate the backup…?”

She lets out a short laugh, and Logan sees with dawning comprehension that she’s worried. “He needs it,” she answers, “but he wouldn’t appreciate it. I don’t have the clearance.”

“You’re not his partner?”

She turns to look at him like he’s an idiot. “No-o-o,” she says. “I’m his daughter.”

Logan grins, lifts his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure how deep the undercover scheme went.” She snorts, flips her hair over her shoulder, and turns back to the grill. “That one on the right is getting a little overdone,” he says, pointing.

“No it’s not.” She swats his hand away, and then moves the offending burger closer to the coals, Logan suspects just to be contrary.

“So you’re not a cop?” he tries again. She shoots him an exasperated glance over her shoulder, he grins, says, “If you’re not a cop, why were you surveilling the house too?”

She huffs a sigh, puts the spatula down with a clatter, and reaches for her bag where it had fallen on the ground. “Here,” she says, and tosses something at him. He catches it, turns it around, opens it.

“You’re a private detective?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Not a cop?”

“I’m going to throw a hamburger at you.”

Logan laughs. “So, what, you didn’t want to follow in your father’s footsteps?”

“I did, he didn’t,” Veronica says casually, returning her focus to the grill. “He wanted me to aim higher. I got accepted to Quantico, and was sent home after three weeks because of my issue with authority.” She shrugs, spins the spatula like a baton. “Turns out, I’m more suited for private eye work than I am for either the feds or the boys in blue anyway.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

Logan shrugs, thinking that she was already exceptionally cute, but she just became the most fascinating person on the planet. “I don’t know.”

She removes the last burger from the grill and spins to look at him, hands on her hips. He feels a goofy grin spreading over his face, and she rolls her eyes at him. “What, Logan?”

“You should only wear this.”

She looks down at Keith’s apron, which reads in big, bold letters, “NEVER TRUST A SKINNY CHEF”. She snorts. “If you haven’t figured out yet that you shouldn’t trust me, no amount of written reminders are going to do the trick.”

Logan ducks his head, rubs the back of his neck. “So I’m trusting, sue me.”

“Ah!” She taps her chin with one finger, mock-contemplative. “Is that how you ended up advertising for a strange dad to on-site cater your barbecue?”

“That wasn’t my idea.” Veronica raises her eyebrows, Logan adds, “I actually feel a lot better about your dad now.”

“You feel a lot better about him now that you know he deceived you?”

“Well, yeah,” Logan admits. “He seemed way too normal to be the kind of person who responds to Craigslist ads, so there definitely had to be a catch.” She raises her eyebrows at him, he adds lamely, “So it’s nice that the catch was he’s mainly here to catch bad guys.”

As if on cue, Veronica’s cell phone buzzes; she picks up on the first ring. “Dad?” The worry smooths away from her face at his response, and she mouths a quick apology to Logan before retreating into the corner of the yard to debrief. The last thing he hears her say is “I can’t believe you jumped over that fence, are you trying to kill me?”

Logan walks over to where Dick and Gia are relating the main event to Duncan, who has reemerged and is trying very hard to appear as if he doesn’t regret missing out. “Then Keith magically pulled a gun out of nowhere,” Dick says, miming in slow motion, “and yelled get on the ground or I’ll shoot!”

“He didn’t exactly yell that,” Gia puts in. “I’m pretty sure he basically just said ‘police’.”

Dick ignores her, too invested in the story. “But the guy just books it, and so Keith literally vaulted over the fence and chased after him, yelling and firing at him –”

“No,” Gia says.

Duncan rolls his eyes. “This is what you get for inviting strangers into your home,” he says derisively.

“Trained professionals to arrest the criminal who apparently lived next door to us anyway?” Logan pipes up.

“Professional or not,” Gia says, upbeat, “as soon as shit started to go down, Logan shielded the cop’s daughter with his body, which was pretty cool.”

“Aww,” says Lilly, coming up to put an arm around her brother’s shoulders. “And you were out in the car, sulking because everyone laughed at your drink choice!”

Reminded, Logan glances down at his shirt, which he’d mostly forgotten in all the excitement; it is now starting to stick to his skin uncomfortably. What the hell, Keith won’t be back for twenty minutes at least; he can definitely get some mileage out of this. He takes the shirt off. The girls wolf-whistle, Duncan groans.

“You know,” Lilly suggests slyly, “there are definitely easier ways than Craigslist to incorporate a new father figure into your life.”

“What?” says Dick, immediately intrigued. “Is there a more specific service?”

“Is there?” Logan repeats, alarmed.

Lilly starts laughing. “You’re both idiots,” Duncan tells them, with significantly more affection now that his knowing something they don’t has reestablished him in a position of authority.

Gia appears to be about ready to take pity on them, but is interrupted by Veronica’s return. “They got the guy,” she announces. “Dad is driving him to the station. Logan, he says he’s leaving you in charge until he gets back, not Richard.”

Dick flips her off; Logan replies, “I’m touched that he’s ceding authority to me in my own home.”

Veronica performs an elaborate double take, gestures at the house. “This is yours?”

“As far as the eye can see, or at least until where I imagine the police tape will be going up.”

“It’s my house, too,” Dick puts in.

Veronica ignores him. “I took you for an out-of-towner,” she tells Logan.

The fact that she thought of this means she’s not uninterested in the possibility of seeing him again. “Nope, local boy, though and through.”

Veronica eyes him thoughtfully. “And why are you half naked?”

He realizes he doesn’t actually have a good reason. “I was really starting to smell?”

She pretends to consider this. “I guess I’ll take it,” she finally says. Lilly starts cackling.

Logan tries not to preen. “Veronica, this is everybody; everybody, Veronica.” Veronica waves awkwardly.

“Are you going to stick around until your dad gets back?” Gia asks, faux-innocent.

Veronica looks sidelong at Logan. “Stay,” he says, hearing it come out somehow as if he were laying his heart on the line. He adds, more casually, “You can scold him for his fence-jumping.”

She considers him. “Do you have anything other than Mike’s hard black cherry lemonade?”

He cracks a smile. “I think I can scare something up.”

“The good stuff is all inside,” Lilly lies, straight-faced, then elbows Duncan, who says with faux-enthusiasm, “Oh yeah, and while you’re in there, maybe Logan could put a shirt on.”

“Like, if one jumps out at him,” Gia puts in. “Not every color works on Logan.”

“Yeah,” says Lilly. “He went through a whole orange phase. It was bad.”

Veronica looks bewilderedly around the circle, then back up at Logan. “I guess I could stay awhile,” she says, a smile pulling at her mouth.

“Don’t forget to grab hamburgers before you go in,” Dick says, serious. “That’s literally the whole point.”

“Right,” says Logan, not taking his eyes off Veronica. “Thank goodness for those hamburgers.”

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Yahoo answers post from user MeCasablancasIsTooCasablancas:

So a few years ago I met this really cool dad, super great, very wise, lot to offer as a father figure. I put a lot of effort into getting to know him and he’s always been totally chill. My roommate, on the other hand, barely wanted to talk to the dad, from day one. Only problem is, now that’s changed and we’re in competition, and I was wondering, how do I make sure that my prior claim to the dad is respected? My roommate didn’t even want a dad, but now just because he’s marrying the guy’s daughter everyone’s telling me father-in-law trumps the fact that I clearly called dibs? This can’t be right.

Also, the wedding is in two months, and even though there’s no way they go through with it, just in case please go to Craigslist and look for my post seeking a new roommate. If it helps, we have a grill.

#LV AU week #veronica mars #cate fic #vm #this fic brought to you by general insanity and my conveniently timed spring break #aaaaaaaand that's it for now folks!!#I promise I am working on the teachers AU #it's just very difficult to write a teacher AU #without including lots of stuff about students #which takes up space and time

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cjostrander · 6 years ago

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Nine Inch Nails: Bad Witch

Hello everyone! I’ve ben facing some technical issues with my laptop which has been preventing me from putting out reviews last month. Since then i’ve been able to still get my hands on a bunch of newer albums and really need to start scratching a couple of them off of my list. This album is the final of what was supposed to be a trilogy of eps from Nine Inch Nails. From what i read the only reason that they decided to instead turn this into a full album was due to how thrown aside eps tend to be on promotion sites. He definitely isn’t wrong in that regard since they dont usually hold the same excitement on a listener as an album does when discovered. This one from what i have heard is going to be a very unique one in the band’s catalog. Trent Reznor actually has a second official band-mate in his group by the name of Atticus Ross. Musically it does have familiar Nine Inch Nails elements but seems to make the effort to display similarities to other artists that were in his field or admired. You will notice heavy comparisons to David Bowie’s final album “Blackstar” (i reviewed) and Radiohead. The David Bowie similarity was intentional due to his admiration of the late singer and previous work with him in the 90′s. Bare in mind also that due to its initial intention to be an ep; this is the shortest NIN album with only 6 songs and roughly a half hour of runtime. Knowing how full the band’s albums can feel at times; this may not be a bad thing but time will tell.

Shit Mirror: This opening track starts off with some aggressive loops or guitars; never sure which is which with this band lol. It warms itself with its initial rhythm and Trent infuses himself into the mix with a much rougher and muffled vocal style than usual and seems to give a very cluttered feeling on the song. The drums and interesting brass elements certainly will provide the listener with quite a bit of activity to focus on. The song does well in the notion that it establishes a nice party atmosphere for somebody to play in the background. Because of this it won’t capture heavy emphasis from the listener when focused directly on. I still find it to be an interesting opener for this album/ep experiment and hopefully leaves the listener with enough of an impression to carry further on into the album. 7/10

Ahead of Ourselves: Now this song begins with electronic drum loops and immediately screams 90′s era David Bowie. The reviews that i have read have referenced Bowie’s album Outside in particular but i personally feel this initial opening is more in tune to Bowie’s follow work Earthing (which i reviewed). This open seems energetic but pretty simple and Trent centers himself in the back of the mix to further build the electronic rhythm of the song. Brass makes an interesting return to this song but the strongest attention grabber is the aggressive drum bashing combined with harsh screams from Trent. This segment will bring fond memories of Trent’s aggressively gloomy style from his 90′s heyday. Like the previous song it comes off as a song meant to be played in the background rather than as a front and center piece. Definitely not a bad thing but if you were to try and over analyze it; the song is going to feel like it is more empty or formulaic than you may like. If you don’t like that kind of mindset then getting into this band may not be for you yet. I would still check Downward Spiral and With Teeth first before giving it a final decision; but so far this album should be complex enough to get you thinking about his work in general. 8/10

Play the Goddamned Part: This track begins with a low bass rhythm and a rather groovy electronic loop that will make it very interesting to dance along to and enjoy a drink over. Brass fades its way in much more blatantly than on the past songs and will bring further David Bowie elements into the album. This brass component is a very strong element in Bowie’s last album Blackstar so if you like this then make sure to check it out. This is an instrumental piece as well so you will definitely find yourself treated to a much stronger focus on complex instrumentals. I actually really like that he decided to bring brass here because his give’s then band slightly fresher sound and exposes a longtime fan to something risky and new; even if you can point out a few very blunt comparisons. 8/10

God Break Down the Door (Single): Now this is the first and probably only single for the album. Electronic loops and strong jazz drumming begins the song off on an energetic note. You almost don’t even notic that this the start of another song since this sounds like a natural progression of the last song so it gives a nice sense of unknowing fluidity to both songs. Trent experiments with a vocal style that bares elements of big band vocals (think Frank Sinatra) but is most likely another throwback to David Bowie’s style since it is very comparable to Bowie’s base vocal style. This style fits specifically for Bowie in his late 90′s era up to his death since he seemed to take on a more classical approach himself (vocally) during this period. I definitely wouldn’t have picked it as a single for promotional purposes since nobody would think to guess that this is a Nine Inch Nails song. At the same time though; it is a good pick for single because it is just that; a song that isn’t what you’d bring to mind for Nine Inch Nails and showcases probably the biggest risk/experiment that the band takes on this album. That alone should be enough to help give this album a little extra substance to stand strong on. 8/10

I’m Not from This World: This is the second instrumental track on the album and arrives with an eerie extraterrestrial type sound. It is very soothing to the ears and will bring the listener into a rather deep state of relaxation and contemplation. It is a slow building piece so be patient since it is just under six minutes long. The next song is longer at just under 8 so the remaining tracks on the album are going to take their time to make sure you notice them. For an instrumental i really like this one since it brings forth a heavy dose of tension into the atmosphere and would be perfect for a soundtrack to a thriller film. Between the break for the ep project and the last album Hesitation Marks (i reviewed) Him and Atticus were focused on a bunch of film and tv soundtracks. I Believe this lengthy collaboration is what made Trent Reznor grow comfortable to name him as an actual member in the band since everyone before him barely was allowed input on record and were just for touring. Call it a douchebag move for Trent but it’s his project and vision so if he wanted to limit the scope that others could participate; it is entirely in his right and surely they knew what they were singing onto as well. 9/10

Over and Out: This finale piece begins with an 80′s like electronic rhythm and almost flirts with the concept of jazz qualities, Loop wise it has strong comparisons to both Nine Inch Nails’s earlier instrumentals and some of Radiohead’s work on King of Limbs and their Kid A/Amnesiac albums (i reviewed all three). Other than that this one definitely is another slow boil for the listener to focus on; though the softer chime interludes are very soothing and will leave much for the listener to contemplate over. Trent arrives vocally after the first three minutes to deliver more of his Bowie-styled vocals; which are basic but play heavy emphasis on building a deeply moving rhythm on the song. Lyrically substance will be hard to find but it gives a nice push for the instrumentals to liven up a bit. After this it fades away with a soft closing and leaves this short album feeling rather full in my opinion and completed as such. 7.5/10

Overall album rating: 7.9/10

Well this was interesting one to quickly put on and take off of my promotional list. It is short but as i said before his lengthier stuff has had the habit of being a but tiring at times due to the scope of what they have aimed for. This one certainly has that effect as well towards the end but provides to engaging listening music that is good to carry about you day to; party to; and to some small extent contemplate over. I would check it out after having acquired a firm taste for the band’s style since this album doesn’t go out of its way to try and win new fans over. It’s simply an enjoyable experiment that Trent wanted to do and in doing so put out music that he simply wanted to make; nothing more nothing less. Tomorrow i should be pounding out another album for review since i gotta keep up on my anniversary sheet since i haven’t really scratched much off of it this year. Enjoy your day everyone and i will see you next time!

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gundampilot · 6 years ago

Photo

Inspired by @dialup2002 to post some more old stuff. :) This is a desktop screenshot I posted on my DevART account January 2005. Kicking it with Windows XP, but I loved/preferred the classic style that I was accustom to (95-98-ME). I made the wallpaper used, but I’m having trouble finding a copy of it. I’ll prob try to remake it in non-1024x768 resolution lmao. Not sure if this is from 2005. It might have been from 2004, but I hadn’t posted it yet. I did that a lot. Some fun notes about some of the software icons pictured (lots of info):

Firefox - THE FIRST BROWSER TO DO TABS OMG. I was a huge advocate for Firefox, especially in its initial releases. They were doing things on the internet nobody had really seen up to that point, and made it popular! Since I had so many issues (as most people do) with Internet Explorer, I was shopping around for a new browser at the time of this shot. Google Chrome didn’t exist yet. (Can you imagine??)

IE - As stated above, I disliked IE. It was kept for various reasons, however. Such as testing website layouts, since the mass-majority of people used it and things looked different in browsers when you were coding.

Opera - While giving Firefox a try, I also managed to snag a very, very early copy of Opera. I’ve always been the type of person that loved to try out new stuff as early as possible, and this was a very special piece of software that I wanted to give a go. The reason that it was special? You had to send away for a CD for it. That’s right, kids. They snail-mail’ed me a CD because it was considered “commercial software.” I paid to get that browser lmfao. I was super super hyped later in 2005, because it became “freeware” and I was able to more-easily push my friends to try it out. The devs were (and still are) seriously awesome. This is why I still use Opera as my main browser today! Ya’ll should try it if you aren’t already! You can even use your most-beloved Chrome extensions on it. :)

Soulseek & WinMX - Holy crap, you guys! lmao Is anyone here old enough to remember these programs?? XD This was basically where most people went after Napster bit the dust. This was when we were all scrambling, trying to find a new P2P sharing program. This was right in-between the eMule/Donkey phase and before the Limewire/KaZaA fiascos where people’s computers were being overloaded with viruses from companies trying to stop pirating. Ahh, the wild, wild west... Days were so exciting when you spent hours downloading something that could potentially ruin your computer lmao

WS_FTP - Still one of my favorite FTP programs for Windows! Works like a charm! These days I use Transmit 5 for Mac, but this was my first program ever for file transfer protocol. It’s basically a tool for uploading files to my website’s server, because back when I first registered it, there was no web uploader for that kinda stuff. Now I stick with that because it’s easier and I’m used to it lol

Veo Digital Studio - Used to use this for my webcam back before webcams were built into laptops, and before they were common enough to have amazing freeware available for them. (Also this is hilarious.) The quality was horrible, but I was hella excited to take pictures and share them with friends and on my blog at the time. From what I remember, there was something I used after this that was some type of South Korean selca software. Haduri? Something like that. It was really cute and even let you do little animations. :)

Animation Shop - Okay. So... from what I remember, this might have been owned by the people that made Paint Shop Pro? I think it was Corel. I honestly don’t remember where I got this from, but this is what I used to use to make animated gifs (because Photoshop just....didn’t for some reason? I had to use PSP at some point, I remember that. I just don’t remember why lmao. It might have been my copy didn’t allow it, or my computer was just too shit to run it good enough, or just stopped working because....Windows).

Adobe Photoshop 5.0 - I originally got this rip from a friend of mine, whose dad got a CD from his company that he worked at. It was an official/real license, which was really awesome! I think this was the first version of Photoshop I ever owned (!!), which is pretty amazing to think about about! I had that CD copy for a few years. I initially was gifted a copy of the CD around 2001-2002 or so. I know for a fact I had newer versions (7.0 was legend before CS suite came around), so I’m not sure why I was using this one at this point lmao. My guess is, like mentioned above, something happened with my computer and I didn’t want to format it and reinstall everything lol or because it was the fastest version I had installed to boot up and do a quick photo edit.

Adobe Photoshop 7.0 - I do remember this took a long time to start up. I can only imagine this was like a bad pirated copy or something, or was so bloated with new stuff in it, and that’s why I kept 5.0 for a quick boot. I know I used this majority of the time, though. Most of my backups for brushes and fonts are from backups that include 7.0 as a zip. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My computer wasn’t the most powerful at the time, despite what I pushed it to do, so this is prob why. But hell yeah! Photoshop represent! lol I still use it today, and its still one of the first things I install on a fresh OS install. Enjoying CC 2017 these days.

Nero Start Smart - I was so excited to make mix CDs and share them! Back in the day before you had stuff like playlists that were sharable on YouTube/Spotify, etc, you had this to share music. Or play in your car. Or CD walkman. Nero was a software you could burn your CD-Rs and make your own laser-etched album art! I begged for years to get a CD burner lmao. Back when casette tapes were still around enough that my parents were like “but why???” lmao. They were not common back in the day like they became over time, just, like, included on your computer. Back then you had to buy one and install it into your computer tower yourself! I got mine I believe.....in 2001? It was the year after the Playstation 2 was released. The first one I got was just a very standard burner. Did a very specific type of CD burning at a low (slow af) speed. It was $700 lmfao. Let that sink in for a minute because my parents didn’t let me forget about it for the next four years lmfao. I saved up birthday and Christmas money and went halves on it. Then I upgraded to the one that this one was! c: Which did the laser etching, and DVD burning! (And you better believe I was burning DVDs of stuff I was downloading online lmfao this was the golden age of the internet where everything was just available everywhere as long as you had the patience to download that shit, because it took forever to download)

Volume Control - My dad and I messed with the wires on all of these random computer speakers and stereo speakers that we had collected over the years and hotwired our own version of a 5.0 surround sound in the room, which was mounted to the ceiling corners and above the computer station. It was lit. I needed Volume Control easily accessible because sometimes the speakers needed redirecting, or I needed to turn the beats down because my mother was tired of my fifth time playing the Gundam Wing OSTs and Miyavi. (It was metal, okay???)

Windows Media Player - I did not use this to listen to media. Let me reiterate that. I did not use it to listen to media on. lol this was specifically used to rip tracks from CDs that friends lent me, because it was the easiest software I was able to use to change the KBPs for quality control and the ID3 tags so I could save it and organize it for use in Winamp and know wtf I was listening to lol. Nobody used WMP for listening to music.... xD

Winamp - The best music player. Period. Still. Nothing beats it. Pls, pls, Nullsoft! Come back and make a native version for MacOS. :’(((( I would buy it! Doesn’t even have to have new features or look different. Classic look, pls pls!

Media Player Classic - Do people still use it??? This player was amazing! Paired with k-lite codec pack, it played everything. It was like VLC before VLC. And it looked good. Clean. Small. Could be installed anywhere which was nice. And the codec packs just made everything look and run fantastic!

Recycle Bin - .... Trash XD

Magnifier - This was for my dad because he had bad eyes and couldn’t remember CTRL +/-/0 to increase the text on pages that he wanted to read.

My Documents - Where I saved all the stuff I downloaded. Not the real My Docs. Just a folder that I named as such, with a custom icon. I don’t know why I wanted it there lol. I think to just have a uniform square on my desktop haha

Journal - I renamed this. I forget the original name of the client, but it was the official client of LJ. It was basically a program that let you write up posts for Livejournal and you could format things, draft them, etc, and post without uploading to your journal/blog. I liked it because sometimes I couldn’t post right away, and it made making drafts a lot easier for me to go back and edit. It also let you edit past posts, which was really convenient instead of looking for it on the web version one post at a time.

AIM+ - I loved AOL Instant Messenger, but over time the ads became too much. I invested a lot of time in 3rd party clients. I was constantly switching between AIM+, Adium, DeadAIM, Pigeon, Trillion, etc. Depended on what I wanted to do that day. Want to clone a SN? Want to skin the colors of the chats? Need transparency? Want to customize your lists? Want to log into more than one msg system at once? They all had their strengths. This was my msg service of choice. Back in the day you were either on this, MSN, or Yahoo!. Some people rocked ICQ and there were a few others, but these were the most common from who I knew/hung out with. I miss those days. <3

You can see WinMX running in the taskbar lmfao so I was prob downloading something at the time of snagging this quick shot. I also had DevART open (prob because I was gonna share this on there). I really wish I had more programs open at the time of this! XD It’s wild to look back at some of the software changes over the years!

Anyway, that’s one of my oldest screenshots that I can find that I’m able to share right now. :) I’m going to be posting a remake of that wallpaper that I did later today for those of you that want that, too.

If you read this far, thank you!! Hope you had fun reading about old stuff!

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