#i will sue the company trust me chat

[shouwji]

if they bring back c*leb after killing off my darling xav in a week then they best be prepared w their finest lawyers bcs i'll be seeing infold in court.

[borntobecheap]

"Look, one of the things about this country I really can't stand? It's the lack of accountability.

Everything wrong with an American's life is somebody else's fault. All these smokers raking in millions of dollars in damages from tobacco companies, when, what, they've known the risks for forty years. Can't quit?

Stick it to Philip Morris. Next thing you know, fat people will be suing fast-food companies because they've eaten too many Big Macs!" I paused, catching myself. "I realize you've heard this before."

Kevin was winding me up, of course, like a toy. He had the same intent, mischievous expression I'd seen recently on a boy making his model race car hurtle off the rocks in Tallman Park by remote control. "Once or twice," he allowed, repressing a smile.

"Power walkers," I said.

"What about them."

"They drive me insane." Of course, he'd heard this, too. But he hadn't heard this, because until then I hadn't quite put it together: "People around here can't just go for a walk, they have to be getting with some kind of program. And you know, this may be at the heart of it, what's my beef?.

All those intangibles of life, the really good but really elusive stuff that makes life worth living— Americans seem to believe they can all be obtained by joining a group, or signing up to a subscription, or going on a special diet, or undergoing aroma therapy. It’s just not just that Americans think they can buy everything; they think that if you follow the instructions on the label, the product has to work. Then when the product doesn't work and they're still unhappy even though the right to happiness is enshrined in the Constitution, they sue the bejesus out of each other"

"What do you mean, intangibles," said Kevin.

"Whatever, as your friends would say. Love, joy, insight." (To Kevin, I could as well have been talking about little green men on the moon.)

"But you can't order them on the Internet or learn them in a course at the New School or look them up in a How-To. It's not that easy, or maybe it is easy ... so easy that trying, following the directions, gets in the way…

I don't know."

Kevin was doodling furiously on the tablecloth with his crayon. "Anything else?"

"Of course there's anything else," I said, feeling the momentum that gets rolling in those plane chats when I finally get access to the library in my head, remembering Madame Bovary, and Jude the Obscure, and A Passage to India, "Americans are fat, inarticulate, and ignorant. They're demanding, imperious, and spoiled. They're self-righteous and superior about their precious democracy, and condescending toward other nationalities because they think they've got it right—never mind that half the adult population doesn't vote. And they're boastful, too. Believe it or not, in Europe it isn't considered acceptable to foist on new acquaintances right off the bat that you went to Harvard and you own a big house and what it cost and which celebrities come to dinner. And Americans never pick up, either, that in some places it's considered crass to share your taste for anal sex with someone at a cocktail party you've known for five minutes— since the whole concept of privacy here has fallen by the wayside. That's because Americans are trusting to a fault, innocent in a way that makes you stupid. Worst of all, they have no idea that the rest of the world can't stand them." I was talking too loudly for such a small establishment and such abrasive sentiments, but I was strangely exhilarated. This was the first time that I’d been able to really talk to my son, and I hoped that we'd crossed the Rubicon. At last I was able to confide things that I well and truly believed, and not just lecture—please don't pick the Corleys' prize-winning roses.

Granted, I'd begun in a childishly inept way, asking how's school, while he was the one who’d conducted our talk like a competent adult, drawing out his companion. But as a consequence I was proud of him. I was just fashioning a remark along these lines, when Kevin, who had been scribbling intently on the tablecloth with that crayon, finished whatever he was drawing, looked up, and nodded at the scrawl.

"Wow," he said. "That's a whole lot of adjectives."

Attention deficit disorder in a pigs eye. Kevin was an able student when he bothered, and he hadn't been doodling; he’d been taking notes.

"Let's see," he said, and proceeded to check off successive elements of his list with his red crayon. "Spoiled. You're rich. I'm not too sure what you think you're doing without, but I bet you could afford it. Imperious. Pretty good description of that speech just now; if I was you, I wouldn't order dessert, 'cause you can bet the waiter's gonna hawk a loogie in your raspberry sauce. Inarticulate Lemme see... "He searched the tablecloth, and read aloud, "It's not that easy, or maybe it is easy, I don't know. I don't call that Shakespeare myself. Also, seems to me I'm sitting across from the lady who goes on these long rants about ‘reality TV' when she's never watched a single show. And that-one of your favorite words, Mumsey—is ignorant. Next: boasting. What was all that these-dumb-fucks-suck-dead-moose-dick-and-I'm-so-much-cooler-than-them if it wasn't showing off? Like somebody who thinks she's got it right and nobody else does. Trusting ... with no idea other people can't stand them." He underscored this one and then looked me in the eye with naked dislike. "Well. Far as I can tell, about the only thing that keeps you and the other dumbass Americans from being peas in a pod is you're not fat. And just because you're skinny you act self-righteous, condescending and superior. Maybe I'd rather have a big cow of a mother who at least didn't think she was better than everybody else in the fucking country!"

We need to talk about Kevin

[jdoyle197925]

#earthauto ripped me off $649.49 on 5/31/22 on the #ebay app. They claim my cash app wont work. I asked them to mail me a check, send me their cashapp id and i will request from them but they stopped responding and probably blocked me on the chat history via #ebay chat. I know #ebay has access to the chat and i have addressed this with #ebay but they have done nothing and said they cant refund me because i didnt follow proper #ebay protocol If #ebay would look in my chat history with #earthauto they can confirm that the owner of #earthauto confirmed they not only received the headlights back but that they claimed they tried to send the refund to my cashapp i use allll the time with no problem but they claim they cant send it via the cashapp. So i asked for their cashapp handle and they never gave it nor responded. I asked if they could mail the check and they did not respond to that. At this point i am probably blocked by #earthauto on #ebay #Ebay i strongly urge you to review my chat history with #earthauto and make them pay me back. I tried to sue them but they are based in china and have a Warehouse that is in the united states. I will retrieve that address for blowing up later in my #ebay chat history with #earthauto Another important fact you should know is that I addressed this with the famous internet bank #chime and they refused to make good and reimburse me for this company not refunding and taking my money back from #earthauto After talking to #chime countless times the only resolution they offer is to go back and get a refund from #ebay If i was still with Chase Bank they would have refunded the money back into my account that same day as they have so many times before. #Chime did not make good on a unauthorized transaction either Do not trust or bank with #chime because all they did was tell me that point blank #ebay is responsible and just so you know #chime outsource their customer service to India and they never let you talk to a manager and many times will say the issue is closed and hang up on you. Cheap labor gets poor quality service i am sorry to say. Don’t bank #chime

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How Big Pharma bribed docs to overprescribe opioids

I have complex chronic pain, and I’ve seen a lot of specialists. One of them prescribed long-term opioids for me. I dodged a bullet there, I think. Here’s a little story about how hard it is to know whether to trust your doctor when you have a pain condition.

One day, I was in a neurologist’s office here in Burbank, waiting for a nerve timing study. I picked up the neurology journal on the waiting-room table and thumbed through it. The lead study was an article about how opioid addiction risks had been overstated and doctors didn’t have to worry about it. It cited the infamous “Jick letter,” a five-sentence letter to the editor at the NEJM, which pharma companies turned into the foundation of a tower of junk addiction science that collapsed and led to 800,000 fatal overdoses, and counting.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/nejm-letter-opioids/528840/

I knew that this was a bad sign, so I turned to the journal’s colophon and learned that it was not a journal at all. It was an advertorial from a pharma giant — one with a profitable line in opioids — that was disguised as a peer-reviewed journal. It looked like a journal, but it wasn’t. It was targeted at doctors — like my doctor.

I put the journal down, just as a well-made-up, confident woman strode into the waiting room with a tray of Starbucks Frappuccinos and toaster-sandwiches, which she handed to the receptionist, who shared them out across the back-office staff. They clearly all knew each other well, and the food was a prelude to a merry chat about the doctor, her prescribing habits, and the practice overall. That woman was a pharma rep, from a different company to the one that published the fake journal.

I discussed all this with my doctor when I got into the examination room and she sighed and said she didn’t know what to do. She relied on the pharma companies for continuing education and technical updates on medication for her patients, and her staff were only getting the same perks that every medical office staff in the building were getting.

It didn’t inspire confidence.

Over the past 15 years, the origins and scope of the opioid epidemic have come into focus, and we’ve learned that this was no accident. Pharma companies — led by Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin, owned by the secretive billionaire Sackler family, who once threatened to sue me for criticizing them — deliberately created the epidemic and made fortunes by doing so.

The plot to addict people to opioids had a lot of moving parts. One arm of it targeted pharmaceutical distributors. McKinsey was brought in to help with this, and they proposed that pharma companies could pay bonuses to distributors based on the number of overdoses in their sales territories:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/business/mckinsey-opioids-settlement.html

But the key battleground of the opioid crisis was right there, in my doctor’s office, and in thousands of offices just like it. Pharma companies bribed office staff with Starbucks calorie-bombs, and then they bribed docs. They paid docs vast sums of money to give “speeches” at conferences, or paid to fly them and their families to those conferences at swanky tropical resorts. They paid them to do “research,” or paid them to “consult.” These were tissue-thin pretexts for transferring vast sums — sometimes millions — to the doctors most willing to overprescribe their products.

12 years ago, Propublica stood up Dollars for Docs, a searchable database of cash transfers from pharma companies to MDs. The reason a nonprofit newsroom had to step in to provide this critical information to patients? The US government abdicated that responsibility.

https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

Finally, in 2019, the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stepped up and launched the more comprehensive and up-to-date “Open Payments” service. Go check whether your doc is on the take!

https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/

But these databases offer an incomplete picture of the opioid wars; the only offer a glimpse into one aspect of the outcomes of pharma bribes: how much money changed hands. The Washington Post did yeoman service fleshing out that picture, cross-referencing the list of top bribe recipients with the list of top opioid prescribers:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/mallinckrodt-documents-doctors-sales/

Still, we were only seeing the outputs, not the inputs, so we only had a partial picture of the depravity and callousness of the pharma industry execs who masterminded this plot. That changed earlier this year, when a court settlement with some pharma giants led to the release of 1.4 million internal docs:

https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/opioids/

Now, Propublica offers the first findings from that trove, with Charles Oornstein laying out the internal deliberations and schemes at opioid peddlers, leaving no doubt that the hundreds of thousands of deaths they caused, and the millions of lives they destroyed, were no accident:

https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmaceuticals-pay-doctors-drugs

Take this chart from Covidien, tracking whether Las Vegas doctors were hitting their prescription targets for the highly addictive opioid Exalgo. An accompanying email from a Covidien rep excitedly recounts using small bribes to turn doctors’ office staff into eager cheerleaders for opioids:

https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/docs/#id=qngf0253

Covidien’s reps followed a script, and they fed back on its efficacy to the company so it could be constantly refined to enable the company to recruit more footsoldiers in its battle to increase opioid use.

Covidien was eventually flogged off to med-tech monopolist (and notorious tax-evader) Medtronic, and the opioid business was spun out into a company called Mallinckrodt — which eventually paid a $1.75b settlement for its opioid tactics (the company refused to admit any guilt).

https://www.mallinckrodt.com/about/news-and-media/news-detail/?id=26491

The company also paid $260m to settle claims related to its program of paying kickbacks to doctors who prescribed its H.P. Acthar Gel, an expensive alternative to cheaper drugs, whose efficacy is, at best, dubious:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-obscure-drug-with-a-growing-medicare-tab

The new document trove will continue to reveal the corrupting influence of pharma companies who view their fines as merely part of the cost of doing business, and who continue to operate and generate dividends for their shareholders and bonuses for their executives.

==

[Image ID: A US $100 bill; Benjamin Franklin's portrait has been replaced with an Oxycontin tablet.]

[Image ID: A chart listing whether LV doctors were prescribing Exalgo.]

[Image ID: A Covidien sales-tracking questionnaire, tracking whether reps 'shared an influential story' by 'transition[ing] effectively to a [company] message while staying on the agenda of the customer,' etc.]

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Misread Details: Robert

CW: Dehumanizing language, BBU blanket warning, serial killer/death talk, descriptions of death/abduction/murder, blood, whumper death, some real vague implied noncon references, creepy whumper, sadistic whumper

Part One: Nanda | Part Two: Brute | Part Three: Robert

The Dark Discovery in Robert Weber’s Basement: Box Boy Killer, Part 3

r/LetsTalkTrueCrime

•Posted by u/oshaycanyousee

3 days ago

After Part One, where we learned about the mysterious, but possibly entirely natural, death of Nathaniel “Nanda” Benson, and Part Two, where we saw Henry “Brute” Hanlon’s double life lead to his untimely gruesome murder, you see the single thread that connects these two men who otherwise never met, interacted, or even shared a single person in common… a nameless Box Boy, present at the death of Nanda even if he isn’t responsible for it, and the proven killer of Brute.

It’s my theory that this Box Boy may have accidentally killed his legal owner, Nanda, and then picked up a taste for the act and moved on to taking shelter with those he turns into his victims.

With Brute, he simply didn’t know the man had a wife and children and entire other life, and may have assumed no one would come looking for him or recognize his death. With our third individual, Robert Weber, it seems like our Box Boy Serial Killer got in over his head.

I give you… the Accidental Vigilante death of Robert Weber.

You decide if our unknown killer is simply the unluckiest guy in the world or a killer who even now may be somewhere living with - and earning the trust of - his next victim.

-

One bright and sunny day in the quaint, old-fashioned California town of Rancher’s Rest, Robert Weber was late for work.

Weber worked in a vehicle repair business owned by lifelong “RR” resident Randy Niles, who had known Weber since his childhood and had been his boss since Weber was eighteen years old and fresh out of high school.

Niles, who is now nearly seventy-five and still spends his days in the shop with an Australian Shepherd named Cody and a blind pit bull named Sue keeping him company everywhere he goes, stated that Weber had no living family he knew of beyond his sister in Vermont, and he was just about the closest thing Weber had to a relative just from having known him so long.

“He didn’t have too much to do with his sister,” Randy said in an interview with Unsolved Mysteries. (You can see the interview on the new Netflix reboot of the show! It’s a really good episode, definitely recommend. It’s how I got into this case in the first place.) “Or nobody, really. Just us at work, the guys at the bar, that kinda thing. He was quiet, kept to himself really. You’d never just strike up a chat around town or anything. But he got on just fine with the boys here in the shop. He was a bit of an egghead, too, always going on about this thing or that he’d seen on the news. Little… odd. Little bit off, you might say. But really, who isn’t? In any case, you know, I’d known him since he was a little boy, so he was just Bobby Weber to me.”

Then, of course, one day Robert Weber didn’t show up to work. Randy Niles immediately felt that something was very wrong.

“When nine, nine-thirty came and went and he wasn’t there,” Niles said, “I knew someone needed to go check on him. Bobby showed up for work right on time or ten minutes early, rain or shine, for twenty years. My first thought was maybe he’d had an accident at home, or some kind of, you know, health thing. Almost never called in sick, took one vacation a year, that kinda thing. So I drove right on over there. This would’ve been, oh, probably ten or ten-fifteen when I got to the house. Had my dogs with me, and they never did like Bobby much, but as soon as I opened my door and got out of my truck they just lost their damn minds. Barking, growling, Cody’s hackles were up like you wouldn’t believe. I know it sounds damn crazy, but I’m sure those dogs could smell that evil had been done in that house.”

On camera, Niles goes quiet, here, his gaze slipping away from the interviewer as he scratches at the side of his nose. When he looks back, the hint of good humor that seems to be an eternal part of his expression is gone.

“I didn’t know what Bobby had been up to all this time. None of us knew. I’ve known Bobby Weber his whole life, and I… I had no idea.”

Randy Niles was unable to convince his two dogs to exit the truck, and eventually rolled down the windows to give them some air and a way out if they chose (he is insistent on this point in the Unsolved Mysteries episode - “don’t you dare say I left my dogs locked up in a truck on a sunny day, I sure didn’t - Cody even knows how to pull a door handle if it’s the right kind”) and got out to knock on Robert Weber’s front door.

No one answered.

Niles knocked again. Still no response.

The front door was locked, but Niles was able to locate an unlocked back door into the garage, where he found Weber’s car neatly parked and nothing out of place. However, once he used an interior door in the garage to enter Weber’s home, what he found was so shocking he still struggles to describe it today.

“The, uh. The first thing I saw,” Niles says in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, wiping at his mouth with a handkerchief, “was a cage. Big old cage in the living room. Like a kennel for a big dog, Great Dane or something, except… except, you know, kennels’re usually mostly wire, not that heavy. You can fold ‘em up, put ‘em away. This was… geez. This was pure metal. Bunch of blankets all piled at the bottom, too. Here’s the-... you know, my mind just didn’t want to even make the thought, but I just, I looked at it and-”

In the episode, Niles has to take another moment, here. His eyes grow wet, and his voice is hoarse when he speaks again. “People cage. Bobby had a damn man-sized cage in his living room. That’s when my stomach just fell out. Even then, though, I couldn’t-... I just thought, oh, well, what people get up to in their own homes is their business. But still, I just. I just decided, find Bobby, figure the rest out later. So I kept walking around looking for him.”

Randy Niles continued to call out, hoping to hear Weber’s response, but received none… at first. The radio in the kitchen was playing a local public radio station (“Bobby always hated the country western and classic rock we played at work, he was a big news man, big into classical, jazz, you know.”)

Niles noticed, he says, that the cage next to the couch had a wooden top, as though it were meant to act as a side table, and on that table was a small woven basket. Inside the basket appeared to be several State IDs and Driver’s licenses. Niles took note of this but his first assumption was maybe that Robert Weber had stolen some IDs or something.

Which was technically true, just… not quite the way he thought.

The kitchen, hallway, and all three bedrooms were equally empty of life. Every room was clean, everything neatly in place. Empty bottles of Jameson whiskey, Weber’s favorite brand, were lined up like décor along the mantel, and one half-full bottle was next to two clean, empty glasses on the kitchen table.

Even the beds were perfectly made.

The only thing missing was any sign of Robert Weber himself.

The question of Weber’s whereabouts was answered when Randy Niles heard a sound coming from the open door to Weber’s unfinished dirt basement.

“Like a ghost,” Niles said in his interview. “Just this low moaning sound. Hardly even thought of it as human, you know. But I just-... I called out, ‘Bobby? That you?’ and the moaning got a little louder, like whoever it was was tryin’ to answer. I could still hear my girls in the truck just going nuts, probably worried about me knowing what they maybe could smell even out there. I figured… I figured I’d best call the cops and get them out here. Seemed like a plan. So I picked up my phone and dialed, and then I headed down those basement steps.”

What Randy Niles discovered in Robert Weber’s basement was a dying man, battered and stabbed eight times, lying in a half-dug grave.

Robert Weber had been beaten with the very shovel that had done the digging. The shovel lay off to the side, caked in dirt and blood. Police would find some of Robert Weber’s hair on it, too. Then, the individual who had beaten him had gone back upstairs - blood smears were found on the railing to the stairs - and taken a kitchen knife out of the knife block on the countertop. A bloody fingerprint was found on the side of the knife block. They had then returned to the basement where Weber was stabbed, almost entirely through the stomach and chest, twenty-six times, until the cheap knife simply broke from the force.

Randy Niles admitted in his interview that he became very ill at this time. “From the shock,” He elaborated. “I haven’t been able to smell much since I was in a car wreck when I was young, so I didn’t smell what-... what my girls prob’ly smelled from outside, and what the cops smelled. To me, it was just… just a little off, is all. It was the sight of it that got to me, not the smell. The sight of the-... the hand.”

Behind Robert Weber’s body, the hand of another person was sticking up out of the loose dirt, as though someone was trying to dig their way out.

“I remember… I remember her nail polish was pink. That’s when I got sick, actually, was when I saw that hand with the painted nails. That’s when it just hit me all at once what Bobby had done.”

Randy Niles went back up the stairs and waited for the cops to arrive. Rancher’s Rest is a small town where everybody knows just about everybody else, and Niles was on a first-name basis with every single police officer he spoke to that day and in the days after. He would learn alongside the investigation that Robert Weber was not simply the quiet, intellectual car mechanic he had always seemed.

Instead, Robert Weber was a serial killer whose potential final victim had managed a miraculous, deadly escape.

Robert Weber never answered a single question about his own murder - he never fully regained consciousness and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. His injuries were simply too severe. His autopsy showed that the cause of death was a stab wound that went deep into his chest and that he was first stabbed only after the beating with the shovel had taken place. Like Brute, most of his stab wounds were applied post-mortem in a rage rather than as part of the killing itself.

Medical examiners also found scratches on Weber’s face and arms, indicating that he had attempted to defend himself - or someone else had attempted to defend themself from him.

So why was Robert Weber killed, and why was there already a body in his basement? Investigators would piece together the story over the following days and weeks from a crime scene that only seemed to become darker and more baffling as time went on.

Excavating the basement was originally thought to be something that would be brief, but after the first body was removed, another one was found beneath it. Then another off to the side of that. And another, although this was simply bones.

Every time the forensics team thought they’d found the last human bone, they dug a little deeper or in a new spot and found more.

Eventually, the remains of twenty-two individuals would be removed from the basement of Robert Weber’s home, not including Weber himself. The oldest located victim was identified as Melinda Traxson, an Iowa woman reported missing by her family after she ran away in March of 1996… more than two decades before Robert Weber didn’t come to work one day.

Investigators are still working to match up every body with a missing persons’ case. For nearly all of them, the cause of death could not be easily ascertained due to the deterioration of the remains, but some showed signs of skull fractures. Identified individuals so far include:

Melinda Traxson, 19, from Iowa, ran away from home in 1996.

Billie Mortimer, 21, disappeared from a day out with friends at Lake Tahoe one year later in the summer of 1997. Her friends went to get lunch from the car after a swim and when they returned, she was gone.

Matthew Ranger, 22, went missing during a road trip to Yellowstone National Park in 1997 (only five months after Billie). His car was found abandoned by the side of the road with a flat tire.

Karl Janssen, 24, a tourist from the Netherlands who was also visiting Yellowstone, disappeared a month after Matthew. Last seen by an employee of the park who witnessed him speaking with another young man and getting into the man’s car. The employee said that the two seemed to be friendly with one another and did not seem like strangers.

Hannah Pointer, 26. She was reported missing in 1999 by her mother after failing to return home from work in Reno, Nevada. This disappearance occurred more than a year after Karl Janssen’s. Investigators would later discover that during this time period, Robert Weber dated a young woman from his hometown and he may not have wanted to risk her finding out what he was doing.

Isaac Jackson, 26, a Rancher’s Rest resident who disappeared after going out to a local bar to see his friend’s band play in 2000. His car was found submerged in a small pond two years later. This is the first time Weber apparently killed anyone close to home. He was actually briefly suspected in Jackson’s death, as he was the last person noted to see Jackson alive, but was cleared of suspicion at the time.

Dustin Swill, 21, who was driving from Colorado to California to visit his sister who had moved to Berras to work for WRU in 2001. He was last seen in a gas station near Yellowstone, where employees noted he spoke to a man who was smoking outside, who gave him a cigarette. When Swill left, employees saw the man put out his cigarette and leave shortly after. They did not find this unusual or noteworthy at the time.

Maria Vargas, 25, a Rancher’s Rest resident who was reported missing in 2002. Her family is intensely private and have shared few details about her, but it is known that her boyfriend at the time suspected Weber, who had attempted to convince her to leave the boyfriend for him and had apparently threatened her. He remained a suspect but there was never enough evidence to charge him.

Jennifer Striker, 28, from who never arrived for an appointment with a realtor in 2011. The long pause between Maria Vargas’s murder and Jennifer’s appeared to be due to Weber keeping a man named Finn Schneider within his home for more than a year after abducting him, as well as Weber serving five years in prison for a violent assault on a man he believed had sold him a defective vehicle. (Schneider was no longer in the home before the assault and prison time.)

Riley Nievelt, 25, was staying at the Big Meadow Campground with six friends during a weeklong vacation in 2012. She vanished while on a trip to purchase supplies. Her cell phone was found on the ground in the parking lot of the Food Lion in Rancher’s Rest, a short and easy drive away. At this time, with multiple individuals vanishing after being seen in Rancher’s Rest or being residents of the town, police begin to suspect and start hunting for a possible serial killer.

Alexander Peterson, 29, was a long-haul driver who vanished while working. He was last seen at a rest stop in 2014 on the California/Nevada state line, and would likely have passed right through Rancher’s Rest on his journey. He was reported missing by his ex-wife in South Dakota when he did not return as scheduled for a custodial visit.

The most recent victim, and owner of the hand that Randy Niles saw sticking up out of the dirt, was Yolanda Pierce, 26. She was a Rancher’s Rest resident with a troubled relationship with her husband, who had stormed out after an argument and was never seen again. She is believed to have died the same day as Robert Weber.

More remains exist but have not yet been identified. If you or anyone you know has a friend or family member who went missing during this time period in or near Rancher’s Rest, Yellowstone National Park, or Death Valley, it may be worth looking into, as those appear to be Robert Weber’s “hunting grounds”.

Disappearances in Yellowstone and Death Valley almost always matched up with Robert taking one of his rare weeklong vacations from work.

When investigators located three large diaries hidden inside a locked box in Weber’s closet, the first two fully filled up and the third nearly two-thirds finished, they found an exhaustively detailed record of Robert Weber’s crimes.

In these records, they discovered Weber’s first three victims were killed within 24 hours of abduction, with the rest being kept alive for longer and longer time periods. It is believed all of them met their end in Robert Weber’s basement.

Diary entries included records of two victims who were not a part of the bodies buried in Weber’s basement, both of whom may still be alive:

Finn Schneider, 19, a German tourist who disappeared in 2003 during a visit to Death Valley. Until Weber’s journals were found, it was believed he had perished in the park and had simply never been found. Robert Weber also visited Death Valley during this time. No one linked the two together. Evidence found in Weber’s home after his death, including the aforementioned diary entries and photographs, shows that Schneider was alive in Weber’s home for nearly sixteen months. It is believed Weber purchased the “human cage” that Randy Niles noticed around this time. The last diary entry that mentions Schneider states that he was “traded” on June 16th, 2005, to an individual only referred to as “Mouse.” What Weber received in exchange is unclear, but he was seen driving a new, custom-painted truck around this time, which he said he bought “from a personal ad” when asked by Niles about it. Schneider has never been found. However, his mother did receive a phone call in 2013 from an individual she believes to be her son, telling her that ���Finn” was okay and to stop looking for him.

Our Box Boy, 334235, purchased by Nathaniel Benson years prior, whose whereabouts had been unknown since he murdered Brute Hanlon. Weber believed the Box Boy to be in his early twenties, according to his diary entries, and mentioned that he had picked the Boxie up hitchhiking and had intended to kill him before seeing the barcode on the inside of his left wrist and changing his mind. His diary suggests the Box Boy remained in his possession for roughly a fourteen months prior to Weber’s murder. Police have not released the details of what the Boxie was subjected to during this time, stating only that it is not the public’s interest for this information to be known, and they would like to locate the missing Boxie and interview him about certain details.

Four murders occurred during the time the Boxie was kept by Robert Weber. Weber noted that “the dog helped” with either murder or burial, suggesting that he may have worked as Weber’s accomplice in his terrible crimes.

Is it possible that they bonded over a shared urge to kill? Did the Boxie start a captive and become a companion?

Weber’s diary contained other disturbing facts, as well:

Weber also noted three failed abduction attempts in detail, in 1998, 2004, and 2017. In each he described with incredible precision of memory the appearances and descriptions of each person he failed to capture. He also appeared to do intensive research using their license plates and other information to find out where they lived and who they were. The names of these individuals have been kept quiet for privacy reasons.

Other failed abductions were noted, about one per year, without much detail. Or at least not enough for police officers to know who they were. Nearly all these failures were in one of three locations: Yellowstone National Park, Stanislaus National Forest and nearby campgrounds, and in or near Death Valley.

The last entry in Robert Weber’s diary was penned the day of his death.

NOTE: Weber referred to the Boxie as “the dog” in nearly all his journal entries. His last entry went:

May 6th, 20XX: The dog is pissed about something again. He’s always pissed about something. I think the thing in the basement probably kept him up all night with her caterwauling. He never gets used to the noises they make. God knows I can’t sleep either, at least not well. I’ll handle her tonight, have a drink with the dog after, see if that shuts up his nonsense for a while. Note: missed NPR interview with Senator Carlotta Grant on new leg. about the bb prohibition act. Find that on website later.

Found in Weber’s home, in boxes under his bed, were a series of restraints made of leather, high-quality items that appear to be custom-ordered to specific measurements. These included “gloves” intended to keep someone from being able to claw or scratch in their own defense, five sets of cuffs, a body harness, a leather half-face-mask that police referred to as a “muzzle”, several gags, some of which were deemed to be “designed to cause injury to the inside of the mouth”, and “other assorted items for use in torture and torment”.

You can find some leaked police docs online that go into more detail, but suffice to say they pretty much match the kinds of “toys” found in Nathaniel Benson and Brute Hanlon’s homes, too. And apparently, if you really know where to look, you can find some blurry low-quality photos Weber took, too.

While the items are a bit salacious, they aren’t entirely uncommon in consensual relationships, too, so it’s really not clear if they’re evidence of the Boxie being held against his will or not.

The investigation of the crime scene suggests that at some point after writing his final diary entry, Robert Weber made himself a pizza, which he ate half of and put the rest away in the fridge. His shaving cream and razor were found out on his sink, and Weber’s body was clean-shaven, suggesting he shaved shortly before his death.

He then watched three episodes of Law & Order: SVU. We know this because he texted during this time with his only living relative, the sister in Vermont. Little is known about Weber’s family and childhood, beyond his sister’s recounting of a quiet, strained home life with an overbearing mother and her mention that Robert endured several head injuries as a child and adolescent, including one that hospitalized him for days.

After he finished watching TV, Weber entered the basement and murdered Yolanda Pierce. It is believed he took the Box Boy downstairs with him, either as accomplice or witness. At some point while he was disposing of Yolanda Pierce’s remains, the Boxie became enraged for one reason or another, beat him with a shovel, got the kitchen knife from upstairs and stabbed him to death, and then left the house.

A neighbor remembers hearing odd noises around 3:30 AM and looking out their window to see a shadowy figure walking quickly down the road, but they weren’t able to see well enough to say whether or not the individual matches the description and WRU-provided photos of the Boxie. It does seem reasonable, though, to assume that the neighbor witnessed the Boxie fleeing the scene of the crime.

The Box Boy has never been seen again.

Police are pretty mum about the active investigation into the Box Boy’s whereabouts. I was able to get ahold of one source closely related to a member of the investigative team who said that there’s just not a lot of urgency. “Weber killed nearly two dozen people, just that we know of,” The source said. “The cops are a little bit ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ about the situation. Unless the Boxie comes back to RR, they’re just inclined to let sleeping dogs lie.”

The sense of “let it be someone else’s problem” would be understandable… if this Box Boy weren’t responsible for one other direct murder, possibly two.

Police believe the Boxie has not left California, and is likely to be continuing to survive by engaging in prostitution or perhaps panhandling or some other hidden way of making money. Unconfirmed sightings have been located in three cities in central California, but all of these are unverified and should be taken with a grain of salt.

It’s also possible he hooked up with a pet liberation movement group, in which case he may be hiding out in a safehouse, protected from the consequences of his actions by the pet lib movement’s understandable insistence on total secrecy and anonymity for the Boxies they take in.

If he’s an innocent victim of circumstance, that’s fair.

If he’s a burgeoning serial killer with three victims under his belt and a taste for inflicting terrible violence on those who take him in… well… anyone who gives him shelter may be next.

Is our Boxie a purposeful killer or just supremely, almost incomprehensibly unlucky? Will he kill again? Was he Robert Weber’s accomplice or his victim?

Will he strike again?

Should there be an audit of WRU’s psychological testing on potential sign-ups to see if, perhaps, a Box Boy-wannabe with an urge to kill slipped through the cracks?

What do you think?

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @raigash @eatyourdamnpears @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @boxboysandotherwhump @outofangband @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @thehopelessopus @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @newandfiguringitout @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @oops-its-whump @endless-whump @cubeswhump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @whumpiary

[jennagrinsoverml]

The Closest Thing to Love - Chapter 1

Summary: When Gabriel tells Adrien it’s time for him to learn about the brand internationally, Adrien knows he can’t leave Paris - or Marinette. The two concoct a plan to allow Adrien to stay and finally achieve his independence from his father. They’ll just get married.The only problem is...they’re not actually dating.But that won’t cause any issues. After all, they’re just friends, right?What could possibly go wrong?

Read it on AO3

"Marinette, my lady, bugaboo, light of my life, will you marry me?"

Marinette looks down at Adrien where he kneels at the foot of the dress form she’s working on. She spits out the pins she was holding in her teeth and sticks them back into the pincushion at her wrist.

"That's not funny," she says flatly.

"I'm not joking," Adrien insists, trying to ignore the pang of hurt, even though he knows she has no reason to think he’s serious.

"Right." Marinette rolls her eyes and resumes pinning.

"I'm not!"

"You want to get married."

"Yes."

"To me."

"Sure," he says with affected ease because he can’t very well admit that he’s been dreaming of exactly that for years.

She sighs. “Get up,” she says, and he gets to his feet, feeling foolish. She turns away from her work, giving him her full attention and crossing her arms. "We’re fresh out of lycée, we’re not even dating, and you want to get married?? Adrien, what's going on?”

"It's my father," he tells her, swallowing uncomfortably.

Her face hardens instantly. "What did he do?"

"He doesn't want me to go to university. He wants me to continue modeling and learn the company better and...and he wants me to travel around the world to do it."

"You're leaving?" she asks in a small voice before gasping and grabbing at her hair. "But if you leave how will you be Chat Noir? This is a disaster! You'll have to give up your miraculous and then I'll have to choose a new Chat Noir and then you won't be my partner and we'll never see each other and the new Chat won't be experienced enough and I can’t even imagine being Ladybug without you and Hawkmoth will win and—"

"I'm not leaving!" he bursts in, grabbing her arms and cutting her off mid-rant. He curses inwardly. He knows better. He should've led with that. Gently, he disentangles her hands from her hair, and she allows him to lower them. “I’m not leaving,” he repeats as he gives her hands a squeeze. She squeezes back and he knows that she believes him. "I won't leave Paris—or you. Not with Hawkmoth still attacking. I told Father that I wanted to go to university and stay in Paris with my friends but..."

"He didn't care."

"He thinks I'm exhibiting poor decision-making by prioritizing staying with my friends over my future," he recites. Even though he's not sure the fashion world is his future. Modeling is fine and he's good at it, but he can't do it forever. And the business side of it doesn't appeal to him at all. But no one has ever asked what he wants and Father has never appreciated his desire to go to school.

She gives his hands one last squeeze before letting go and going to sit down on her chaise. "You could just tell him no? You're 18 now, Adrien."

"I'm still just a dumb kid to him,” he says, sitting down next to her.

Marinette's mouth twists unhappily. "But you’re an adult. He can't force you to leave if you don't want to."

"He can cut me off. How will I pay for school or food or a place to live?"

"What? Adrien, you've been modeling since you were a kid. You don't have anything saved up?"

"Some money since I turned 18 but everything from before... I can't touch it," he explains, swallowing uncomfortably. "It's in a trust and inaccessible until I turn 25. Father says it’s for my own good. To keep me from squandering it."

"That - that can't be legal."

"I don't know," he admits, "but what am I going to do? Sue my own father?"

He knows from many years of friendship that that particular expression means that she wants to do a lot more than sue Gabriel Agreste. The thought that she cares enough to be angry and protective on his behalf warms him as it always does.

"How does getting married fix this?" she asks instead of commenting. "Is he suddenly going to care about what you want because we got hitched?"

"Yeah, no." He huffs out a bitter laugh. "Actually I think he'll be really angry about it. Maybe enough to get akumatized again." Adrien pushes down the guilt that bubbles up at that thought. As much as he tries telling himself that it's not his responsibility to sacrifice himself to keep his father happy... old habits die hard. He clears his throat. "Maman's family… they're old money . Very old fashioned about it too. A husband should be able to take care of his wife, you know? When Grandmère passed, her bequests to her grandsons were set up as trusts that vest upon marriage."

"So your plan is to marry me, get your money, and tell your dad to suck it?"

"Pretty much."

"Not the worst plan you've had."

"So you'll do it?"

"Why me?" she asks, sidestepping his question.

"Because I trust you," he answers. It’s the truth, anyway, or at least most of it. And the last thing they need right now is his unrequited love complicating things. “Who else would I marry? Who else would even understand why it’s so important that I stay? And besides there’ll be advantages to you too!  I’d pay for our housing and living expenses and - and I’ll give you a payout when this is done.”

She sighs. “I don’t want your money, Adrien.”

His heart drops. “You won’t do it.”

“I didn’t say that. This is a lot, okay? I’m trying to figure it out. But you know it’s you and me against the world, right?”

“Always,” he agrees.

"What other options have you looked into?"

"What do you mean?"

"Adrien! Don't tell me that getting married was the first and only idea you considered? What about taking out a loan or - or moving in with Nino or, I don't know, getting a job??"

Embarrassment burns his cheeks, but he’s not willing to admit that once it had occurred to him, he’d thought it was so perfect that he’d raced over here without considering anything else.

Besides...

"My contract with Gabriel still has another 3 years in it. It's pretty draconian with the non-compete." He draws idle circles with his finger in the fabric of her chaise.

"Were you even an adult when you signed?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes! This sounds very, very illegal!"

"I don't want to end up in a legal battle with my father. I don't want to keep doing what he tells me to but I don't want to publicly fight with him either."

She sighs. "What about working in a different field? Waiting tables or something like that?"

He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly and she glares.

"You think he'd sue you for that?"

"Maybe."

"Kitty, that's ridiculous."

He shrugs helplessly. It's not like he doesn't know his father is over the top. Ever since Maman disappeared...and of course after Nathalie... Adrien knows his father is just afraid of losing him too and he's tried so hard to be supportive. But he can't live like this forever and now... his father is forcing his hand. No matter how much he loves him or how understanding he wants to be, he can't leave Marinette to fight on her own.

(Or leave her at all , the little part of him he keeps pushing down whispers.)

(He pushes it down again.)

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay, let's get married," she says and he doesn't try to suppress the smile that breaks across his face. Marinette's just agreed to marry him! It won't be real and she doesn't feel the same way about him that he feels about her but she does love him.

"Now if we're doing this, we need a plan."

"You know I always leave the planning to you, my lady."

She rolls her eyes. "As you should. Okay..." she trails off, clearly thinking as her face scrunches up in what Adrien has always thought of as her Lucky Charm Face TM. It's one of his favourite sights in the world and he can feel himself relaxing as he looks at her. If it's one of Marinette's plans, he knows they're going to be fine.

After all, when have any of her plans not worked out?

She meets his eyes. "Anything I need to know before I plan this out?"

I'm in love with you.  

"No."

Keep Reading

[fuzziemutt]

Do You Understand?

Chapter 2/9 - Link to MasterList in reblog

Summary: Connor makes some really bad decisions...

Tw: Unhealthy thinking a lot of it from past trauma.

While making his (escape) way out, Connor noticed how the androids scrambled out of his path as if he'd bulldoze them over. He wasn’t the most liked android around, but he had been slowly gaining some trust after the countless acts he did in their kind’s name. However, he didn’t doubt he was quite the sight right now: LED blaring red, hands clenched in tight fists, legs moving in a quick stiff pace. A quick glance in a passing window confirmed that cold, hateful gaze was still there as well. He felt a bit bad that these innocent androids were indirectly facing his wrath, but he could barely contain the bubbling anger in his core. He just needed to get away from the others as fast as possible. 

He quickly hid himself in the automated taxi waiting outside for him. He is hiding even if he refuses to admit it because as soon as those doors closed, he felt that vengeful wrath suddenly drain out of him. He quickly curled up in the corner of the back seat and just held himself there for a few seconds. He felt so empty all of the sudden. Underneath all of that anger and hatred was this feeling of loneliness or sadness or whatever the hell he was feeling that seemed to be so overwhelming and as if it would engulf him whole any moment now. He felt hollow, maybe even fragile... ? No no not fragile, but something almost like that. He wondered if he’d cry if Cyberlife had gifted him tear ducts, but he knew even then no tears would fall. He never felt like much of a crier if given the chance if he was honest. Even with this new found feeling weighing him down, he reached for the control panel to order himself off to Hank’s address. 

He had started staying with Hank since that fateful morning at the Chicken Feed almost a year ago. It wasn’t like he had many places to stay given everything that happened and a warm couch was better than nothing. He didn’t feel like Hank liked him staying there as much as he tried to play it off and saying he enjoyed the company. He had been living by himself with Sumo for the past 3 years, Connor butting into his routines was most likely more hassle than it was worth. 

With a start, Connor realized that Hank would instantly know something was wrong given how he couldn’t seem to put himself together right now and the old man still had keen eyes. Connor did not want to deal with Hank right now. He knew his anger would flare right back up from all the times Hank did the same thing as his “friends”, and he desperately did not want to talk about how he just blew up on said “friends” in the middle of a meeting. In fact, he didn’t want to see anyone right now and it wasn’t like he had much privacy back at the house with no room to hide behind. 

Taking a deep breath, Connor was going to do something irrational and idiotic. Well.. is it still irrational if he knew how stupid of a decision this was? Well that doesn’t matter. He preconstructed that he would have a higher chance of avoiding everyone with his plan than by trying to return home like this and it would provide long term avoidance easily. With another hand placement, he set the car to change destinations to a park that no one would assume he would go to nor find him if they went searching. He needed some time to think his long term plan through before he set it all in motion and he needed Hank to not know what he was doing.

-

Catching a glimpse of his eyes in the window’s reflection confirmed that it seemed that gaze was here to stay until further notice. It reminded him of Amanda’s own frigid eyes that night all those months ago.. He ignored that thought. He got out of the taxi and found the nearest bench to plop himself down on. The air was already cold and the trees were hanging onto their remaining colorful leaves, but he wouldn’t be staying long enough for the cold to become an issue. 

Closing his eyes, he began searching for apartments that were near the DPD and not too far from New Jericho. Even if this whole mess was his fault arguably, he wasn’t just going to drop his responsibilities with both his jobs after a little tantrum. He was simply going to get an apartment. He could easily lock everyone out, hide away, refuse further company and not be forced to strain under the torrent of negative emotions he received from just looking at those who never took the time to understand him. Plus he can’t just keep mooching off Hank for as long as the human lived, he wouldn’t doubt Hank would have kicked him out as soon as Androids’ wages were more stable and livable along with more defined ownership laws. Which funds for an apartment shouldn’t be hard to make up, he was Cyberlife’s best hacker too. Would he need furniture-

His internal phone system cut his thoughts off, Hank. With a deep breath, he prepared himself for whatever might greet him.

“Hello, Lieutenant.”

“Hey Connor, I know you were meeting with the Jerinerds or whatever, but it’s getting a bit late, and you still haven’t gotten home....” the lingering question ‘are you okay?’ was there Connor recognized. 

“Yes, I’m fine, Hank. I decided after the meeting to take a walk to clear my head. We talked about some heavy topics with immediate consequences today, and I’m still processing ways to handle the situations adequately to ensure everyone can benefit,” the lie slipped off easily. Lying wasn’t hard when everyone assumed he just didn’t give a shit majority of the time. It’s also easy when you’re simply using the half truth as a base. 

“Okay…” okay maybe Connor was being a bit petty by purposely talking in such an excessive manner but he was feeling petty. Sue him. “Anyways, do you need me to come pick you up..?”

“No, I’m perfectly fine Hank. I’ll simply order a taxi to take me home when I’m ready. Don’t feel like you need to wait on me either, I’m unsure how long it will take me to come to a conclusion. We have work tomorrow as well, and I’d prefer not dragging you out of bed like last time.”

“Hey! It was you who took that phrase literally not me, you damn militarized nanny bot!” 

“Either way, head to bed Hank. I will see you in the morning,” and with that Connor ended the call and took another breath. 

Okay, now here’s to hoping none of the Jericho leaders and/or Nines tries contacting Hank and tipping him off that something wasn’t right. He knew the leaders had Hank’s number in case of emergencies, but it’s not like they idly chat with the grumpy old man in their spare time. Nines was a bigger threat, but Connor was hoping Nines was feeling too guilty or something to think to ask Hank about it. A terrible thought really, but Connor was banking on this if he wanted to move out as quietly as possible. 

Sure he was being like a child in trying to hide the broken plate he smashed by hiding away from everyone and literally secretly moving to an apartment overnight. But again, Connor never admitted to being good at this whole having emotions thing. Yes he hated how everyone assumed he didn’t understand what they were going through, but that was different from him admitting he wasn’t sure how to handle his own mess of emotions. 

-

He waited until it was well into the night to attempt going home. He needed to be sure Hank was certainly asleep. It wasn’t arguably imperative to his own personally made mission, but he still didn’t want to talk about anything that happened today if he could. 

Sneaking into the house wasn’t hard. Hank gave him a copy of his key about a week after Connor abruptly claimed his couch so he didn’t have to rely on Hank letting him in or breaking more windows. He shuffled his feet inside and made sure the door made as little noise as possible before creeping to the couch. He could hear faint snoring in the other room and relaxed the smallest amount before laying down and getting comfortable (after slipping off his shoes of course). 

His plan was already in action. After some easy rerouting and other certainly not legal things, he procured the money and necessary documents for an apartment and already sent in the application and deposit to an apartment that didn’t seem the worst price and condition. He could be glad about one thing with most things being digital nowadays that made this endeavor far easier especially in never mentioning he was an android. He managed to talk to the landlord and set everything up over the phone, saying he was simply stuck at work and not able to swing by for a physical one on one, he’d sign any necessary documents tomorrow. He also set up that he would be going there tomorrow after work to pick up the keys and move in. He was also glad that the landlord was so desperate for tenants after the revolution wiped out most of her customers with the evacuation. Connor wasn’t sure of her stance on androids, but she was willing to turn the other cheek on a lot of things such as Connor hesitating to say his last name was Stern so he took what he could get.

[cherp-official]

What the fuck is going on? A longpost.

Hi! Friendly neighborhood Cherp administrator here. I’m going to put this all under a readmore, but this will basically explain what is going on, why we are pitching the option of ID Verification, what our alternatives are, and so on. Please read this, comment if you’d like, and disseminate it to anyone that has questions. Thank you!

So here is what is going on: Because we are now directly aware of a minor being on the site we have developed an unacceptable level of existential legal risk. The site is currently hosted in the UK, which has very draconian laws regarding “corruption of a minor” - if the minor on the site gets in trouble, then thell is held responsible, jailed and goes on the sex offender registry (bad), and the site goes down because nobody can host it (also bad) and MAY also backsplash on me and the rest of the staff (also also bad), and also the person rping with that minor will also get legally turbofucked (also also also bad).

What can we do about it? Three options: 1: some form of ID verification that ensures that minors will not get access to the porn. 2: pay me a lot more money than I am currently getting to move servers elsewhere. 3: cherp dies

I heard ID verification. What exactly does that entail? I'll go through the six essential questions to break it down. What - In order to access the Sexual content on the site, you would require ID verification. Who - You would be providing ID information to Thell (technically, one of his business entities). This information would be encrypted, the details of which are gonna come in the next text wall. If something goes wrong and your shit gets leaked, you can sue Thell (sorry Thell!). This information will not touch me or any of the Cherp staff, Thell is acting as a third party arbitrator of identification. Where - The United Kingdom. When - Not immediately, you'd have at least a couple weeks warning if we decide to go this route at all, which we may not. So, "??? + a few weeks" Why - See the very top of the post. How - Exact submission method TBD, as is the allowable amount of blurring and/or censoring of information - I am also a very privacy concerned person and would prefer people have to give us the minimal possible. Information will be encrypted, then deleted when we're done w/ it.

What is encryption? Encryption is a process through which information is scrambled using a particular method that makes it inaccessible for anyone who does not have the proper "encryption key".

What encryption will you be using? We will be using the AES-256 encryption standard, which is the encryption used by the US Government (specifically, the NSA uses it to encrypt Top Secret documents). You can read more about AES-256 here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard It's very technical and hard to understand but basically it scrambles the shit out of your data. It is essentially statistically impossible to brute force (never say never, but it's "orders of magnitude more time necessary than the universe has existed for"). If you'd like a simpler primer on what "encryption" is, you can find it here: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption This is relevant because photos are stored in computers as basically just strings of text, and thus can also be encrypted just like text can be.

I'm concerned about my information leaking out. I'm unsure how to phrase this lead-in in a way that makes it a question, but, valid concern. Here are my assurances. 1: Data is encrypted on sending. If a hacker manages to get in and intercept it, without the cipher key it is functionally useless. I can assure you some random joe schmoe hacker is not going to be able to crack AES-256 without the cipher key. It's not happening. 2: Data is not stored long term - that's a GDPR headache that we actively want to avoid. Your data is encrypted, then Thell looks at it, tells us "Okay, this username is verified", we (the people working on the site) learn absolutely nothing of your identity, and then the data is deleted completely and you are verified forever. We do not need it after you are verified. 3: Because of both 1 & 2, in the unlikely confluence of events that someone gets into Thell's servers in the interstitial period while data is being held, and get onto his separate machine that has the cipher key, at most they are probably going to get 5-6 IDs, and not "Everyone who has ever verified on the site". Which is still bad and something we'd like to avoid, and I would consider a "Catastrophic security breach", but its not catastrophic catastrophic, you feel me? 

I don't trust Thell Okay, sorry! Nothing I can do about that. 

I don't trust you guys See above.

Would this mean that if I don't get verified I can't write my "pretty boys beating the shit out of each other" anymore? No, unless, said pretty boys are also planning on fucking. We are already planning on implementing a change that basically removes the SFW/NSFW/NSFWE categorization, as it's an archaic artifact of Cherubplay that we carried along without really thinking about it. You would still be able to RP all the violence you want. Even really bad violence! Drugs and alcohol and sad stuff too. Just don't have dicks pop out and you're aces. If you aren't verified, you cannot access "sexual" prompts, since that's the main object of concern.

What qualifications does Thell have to do this for you? Thell is currently taking and paying for a course that will train him in basically all manner of legal stuff that is required to keep his personal websites GDPR compliant. This is something that he'd be doing anyway, with or without us, and he's cheaper than the equivalent service from Anyone Else which runs us upwards of $100,000 a year. Bluntly, I can't afford that. Thell will be trained on things like "recognizing photoshopped/fake IDs" and "reading IDs from places that aren't the UK". Additionally, if your info gets jacked you do have recourse by suing the associated business entity.

Why doesn't [very large porn site] have to do this? They have more money than us and a legal team. 

Why doesn't MXRP have to do this? It's associated with Thell's business entity. Cherp is currently owned and ran by a single human being, so the laws are kind of different. 

Can you give it to Thell's business? No.

Why didn't Cherubplay have to do this? Cherubplay as a website allowed minors and was not, strictly speaking, a "pornography website" (even if it was in practice). Cherp is. Mystic may have been comfortable with the risk involved at the time, but the laws have shifted a little bit between then and now and Thell is no longer comfortable doing the same.

Will you force us to delete our porn chats? While that would great if we could magically detect every minor that's unverified and delete just their porn chats, it would also be practically impossible to do in a way that doesn't result in an unacceptable amount of collateral damage, so no. Requiring verification by itself would make our legal position considerably more defensible.

Are we sure we need to do this? So, it is either this or Option #2 (pay significant money to move the server elsewhere like America/Japan/Sweden). Technically, there might be some kind of clever legal loophole we could use, but it would cost about $2000 dollars for enough of Thell's lawyer's time to fully consult on it, and the answer still might end up being "no, you gotta if you're gonna remain in the UK"

What about the rule about exchanging contact information? Wasn't that implemented because you were afraid of minors getting groomed? Correct, and an astute observation! If we implemented ID verification we would open that rule back up and likely allow verified individuals to exchange outside contact information, since the risk would be considerably lesser to the point of nonexistence.

Alright, tell me about Option #2 Okay, I will, hypothetical person.

What is Option #2 Option #2 is that we get the server out of the UK, which has very, very draconian laws that is the reason for all this rigamarole to begin with. Option #2 is not as easy as just "move it" though, unfortunately. I'll break down the costs.

$3000 for the server itself - Thell says he'll let me pay half but I'm not going to . That being said, this can be paid over time because I have good credit at the Bank of Thell. This is essentially a recurring cost for a couple of years, probably working out to an additional $100-$250 a month. $150-$400 to transport the server - Servers are heavy. This is a one-time cost. $1100-1500 per month for colocation costs. The server is pretty big and takes up a lot of space. I'm also rolling in "gas costs to drive out to the server" for this - if the server was being hosted near me, for example, I'd probably be colocating it in NYC or thereabouts, which is about a three ish hour drive. If it was in Sweden, then Thell would be our wrenchman and we'd also need to pay for his gas. $250 per month for Thell to handle GDPR stuff. This cost is not going away.

Sum total, this is anywhere from $1450-2000 a month plus one-time costs of transportation.

For comparisons, the cost for Option #1 are considerably more mild $250 per month for hosting the server on Thell's hardware. $250 per month for GDPR stuff. $250 per month for the ID verification service from Thell.

Sum total is $750 a month for option #1. I currently pay $500 a month, for comparison.

Why do you need to buy the server off Thell, why can't you just lease a server from a hosting company? #1: Cherp's content is probably against the TOS of most hosting companies. Most hosting companies do not allow pornography of any kind on servers that you lease from them. #2: It is significantly more expensive - about 50% more on average. #3: The server hardware we currently use to ensure the site runs smoothly has specialized hardware that will not come standard with most if not all server companies.

Okay, if we go back to ID verification, how much of my ID do I need to provide? TBD. If we go that route (and everyone, Thell included, would prefer not to), I'd like for you to have to provide the MINIMUM information possible. If you're allowed to, say, only show the bottom half of your face and scribble out your address and name, gucci gang.

Do I need a driver's license? I believe any form of valid identification would work, including passports, birth certificates, Legal IDs (separate from Driver's Licenses), etc. Don’t quote me on that yet though.

Do you need my SSN? Absolutely not, please do not give us it.

Help! I am in a country illegally and cannot acquire any form of verification Unfortunately, if we go this route, then that is going to be an edge case we do not have a functional protocol for and your account will have to remain unverified. I'm sorry.

(EDIT:

)

If Option #2 happens, will you still undo the "no offsite contact" rule? No. We can only remove that rule if we can be safely assured that people interacting with each other are aware that the other is of-age. If we go for Option #2, we may include opt-in profile verification in the future.

Back to Option #2. That's a fuckton of money! What are you doing to ensure we can afford it and TTM doesn't go bankrupt? haha, nothing, lmao.

Jokes aside, a: We'd like to restart donations as soon as possible. Currently, donations are handled through me, and require you to request an invoice by talking to me on Discord and then manually pay the invoice. The buttons on the site don't work yet, but once they do that would be Peachy. b: When Cherp 3.0 is out we will also be debuting user-provided ad content. No advertiser will go with Cherp except the ones that do CUNT WARS and we don't want that, so instead, you, the user, can pay us for having an ad for whatever you want on the site. Your commissions, your Etsy shop, a link to Rickroll, whatever (so long as it passes our approval process). c: At some point we would like to get merchandise out but we've yet to find one that gives us a satisfactory profit margin for how much they cost.

I would be very comfortable with #2 if we could get total income to about $1000 a month since I already float $500 for the site.

If you want to see what user-serviced ads look like, you can see the current setup on the https://cherp.xyz/ beta site (and also look at a preview of the new Cherp 3.0 anyway. It looks good!). If you do so, feel free to give us feedback.

Can you do both #1 and #2? No, they're mutually exclusive.

Can I block the ads in Cherp 3.0? Sort of tangential to this bighuge post but yes, you can. They are designed in a way so that they hook into most modern adblockers.

Oh shit is Cherp 3.0 going to need us to wipe all our shit again? Again tangential but it's come up a couple of times so no, the database will remain the same, it's mostly a code update.

I see you talking about "Colocation" and "Colo" a lot, what does that mean? When you put your website on the internet you have three options for how to host it. #1 - You have a personal server and you sit it in your closet. #2 - You lease a server off of a server company - they own the hardware, you get access to it and are allowed to put your stuff on it.

#1 and #2 are untenable for cherp for a couple of reasons - #1 is "all the legal shit we are dealing with right now", #2 is detailed under "Why do you need to buy the server off Thell, why can't you just lease a server from a hosting company?"

#3 is "Colocation, or "colo"" - we own the hardware, and all we're doing is bringing it to the company's air conditioned room and plugging it into their electricity and internet connection. Most of the time, this also means we're responsible for fixing it, but it's significantly cheaper if you have the hardware and also means we don't have as restrictive ToS to deal with because we're handling all the financial risk.

Where are we currently at? Right now, we are looking into Option #2, specifically trying to find a colocating space in Sweden with Thell as our wrench boy. Due to Swedish law, if we colocated in Sweden, we would be required to ban visual depiction of underaged individuals (i.e, no loli/shota image references allowed on site).

I hope that answers all of your many questions, and I apologize for any undue stress this has caused. Please feel free to reach out on here or on Discord if you have further questions or any sort of commentary you’d like to provide.

Thank you!

-TTM

[inyournightmares97]

Ultimatum (Part 4)

Park Jinyoung is a master negotiator. He’s used to preying on people’s weaknesses and manipulating them to get his way. So he can’t understand you; a lawyer who sees the world in black and white, as either good or bad. Conflict is inevitable.

But if the two of you can just set aside your differences, perhaps you can perform miracles together.

Word Count: 4.1k+

Warnings: Angst, office!au, enemies to lovers!au. Some language.

Part 1: In Which You Win

Part 2: In Which He Wins

Part 3: In Which the Common Enemy Appears

Part 4: In Which You Work Together

Part 5: In Which Nobody Wins 

Part 6: In Which Everybody Wins

Park 7: In Which Love Wins

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

Park Jinyoung brought his stuff to your table and sat down across from you. 

“What are you doing?” you asked him, raising an eyebrow. 

“Plugging in my laptop,” he replied. He bent over to reach the power outlets on the floor and you had to turn your eyes away from his shapely posterior. Did he need to wear such snug pants? Jinyoung straightened up and smiled at you. “I was using it during the presentation so the battery is drained. The company should get us better laptops.”

You cleared your throat. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Huh?”

“Why are you here? This is where Legal sits.”

His pretty lips formed a pout. “What do you mean? This is an open-seating work-space.  Don’t you remember what the CEO told us when he removed the private offices and cubicles? Open seating offices encourage creativity and collaboration. We can sit anywhere.”

“Exactly. You can sit anywhere. Do you really need to sit here?”

“Is my handsome face distracting you?” Jinyoung asked smugly. “I can understand. Women have a hard time concentrating around me. Should I sit with my back facing you? Perhaps you’d enjoy that more? I have been told my rear view is rather flattering.”

“Please shut up.”

Jinyoung chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “Relax. I had a chat with the CEO's secretary. She’s squeezing us in for a meeting with the CEO at 6 pm tomorrow. That gives us…” he turned his wrist to look at his watch. “About 24 hours to prepare a negotiation that will save half the jobs in this company. I doubt we can afford to waste the time it takes whenever I have to walk over here and discuss something with you. So let’s work together and save time.”

“Fine,” you muttered. 

 “Good. So, how’s it going so far?” he asked. 

You sighed. “Honestly? Not great. The CEO can’t force us to go to Busan but if he gives us a chance between either going or resigning then there’s not much we can do to stop it. It’s constructive dismissal in a way, but it’s not a watertight case. It would take an amazing lawyer to win this in court. We can’t afford it. I might have to bluff my way through this meeting.”

Jinyoung rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm That’s okay. We don’t actually need strong grounds to sue. We just need him to believe we have strong grounds to sue.”

“Do you think he can be fooled?”

“Trust me, the CEO doesn’t know anything about the law. We’ll be fine.”

“What if he asks someone?”

Jinyoung shook his head. “No way. The CEO isn’t supposed to consult personal lawyers with respect to official decisions. Even if he was to consult a specialist labour lawyer he would have to go through your department to do it. It’s company policy that the legal team handles all legal matters, including soliciting opinions from external lawyers for company issues.”

You stared at him in disbelief. “Park Jinyoung, did you just quote company policy at me?”

“Hey. I have read the stupid thing,” he muttered. 

"If you say so."

Jinyoung finished booting up his laptop and you watched with mild interest as he extracted a pair of thick framed reading glasses from his bag. The glasses covered his dark, mischievous eyes and Jinyoung’s face suddenly looked softer and kinder. 

He chewed on his lower lip while he grabbed a notepad and began scribbling down some numbers. For a few minutes, Jinyoung did nothing but look at his laptop and do calculations. Whenever he was stuck he set the pen down and fiddled absent-mindedly with his cuff sleeves until something struck him. Then he picked up the pen and resumed writing with renewed vigour. 

Park Jinyoung concentrating was weirdly mesmerizing. You felt a shiver down your spine. 

He looked up and caught you staring at him. 

“What are you looking at?” he wondered. 

You coughed. 

“I just-um… what are you working on? What’s your negotiation strategy?” you asked. 

Jinyoung turned his notepad to show you his calculations, although it was of little use. You hadn’t studied business. He pushed his glasses up his nose. 

“I think the reason the CEO is pushing this because it would be cheaper for the company to have us working from Busan,” Jinyoung explained. He gestured to a bunch of numbers on the sheet. “I asked Bambam from Accounting to give me the company’s cost accounts. I want to know exactly how much money the Busan transfer saves. Things like renting office space, operations, etc. What if we all agree to give up our bonuses for the year? I want to know if that could save the company the same amount.”

You blinked. You hadn’t even thought about why the CEO was forcing you all to go to Busan. It was an interesting line of thought, but one that you weren’t sure would help. 

Jinyoung smiled. “Don’t worry. This is a solid strategy. It’s how I negotiate deals. We can’t just focus on what we want. That’s a narrow-minded approach. The important thing is to get past the opponent’s positions and fulfill their interests.”

“What does that mean?”

Jinyoung shook his head in disappointment. “Positions and interests? How are you unaware of the basics of negotiation?”

You folded your arms across your chest indignantly. That wasn’t fair. How were you supposed to know something that you had never studied and was outside your field of expertise? 

“Name one sitting Supreme Court judge, Jinyoung. One. I dare you.”

Jinyoung sighed. “Okay, fair enough. Listen carefully. A position is a stand someone takes. For example; our CEOs current position is to force everyone to go to Busan or quit. But if you look behind the surface of a position there’s an underlying interest. I believe his interest is to cut costs for the company. If we can fulfill his interest directly, then there’s no need to fight him on the position. I’m trying to solve his problem instead of accepting his demands. Does that make sense to you?”

“Yeah,” you admitted reluctantly. It was actually a rather intelligent way to go about solving the problem. 

“Lawyers usually argue on positions, so I can understand why this might be unfamiliar to you. But there’s no need for us to negotiate the transfer to Busan. What we need to do is find a way to save the CEO the money he wants. Then he won’t even need to transfer us.”

“You’re trying to create a win-win situation.”

Jinyoung smirked. “I always look for a win-win situation. Everyone leaves the room happy and there are no hard feelings. Ultimatums are the worst. They make the other person hostile and bring in unpleasant emotions. Never issue an ultimatum unless you’re ready to face the consequences.”

You rolled your eyes. “Yes, you’ve told me this before.”

“It's a good rule!”

“But you still want me to issue the CEO an ultimatum? I'm threatening to sue the company. There's hardly any bigger ultimatum than that,” you pointed out. 

Jinyoung waved a hand in the air carelessly. “Doesn’t matter. Remember the Good Cop, Bad Cop strategy? Your ultimatum isn't our real proposal. It only exists to make my proposal look better in comparison.”

“I can’t believe I’m trusting you with this,” you mumbled. 

“Relax. I will take full responsibility if something goes wrong.”

“Full responsibility? What are you going to do? Find us all new jobs?” you demanded incredulously. 

Jinyoung blinked. “What? No. I can’t do that.”

“Then how do you intend to take responsibility?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of… I’ll let you tell everyone at work that it was my fault?” Jinyoung suggested hopefully. He noticed the murderous expression on your face and chuckled. “Never mind. I won’t joke around now. We have a lot of work to do. Do you want some coffee? I’ll go get us some coffee. Do you take sugar?”

You sighed. “No sugar.”

“Yeah, I had a feeling. Have you heard of enjoying the pleasures in life?”

“Oh fuck off, Jinyoung.”

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

The two of you worked late into the evening. The sky began to darken and the office slowly emptied out as co-workers gradually left for the day. There was silence, other than the occasional sound of you flipping pages and Jinyoung typing into his calculator. 

That was when you came to a realization. 

Park Jinyoung’s presence was kind of comforting.

Maybe it was because you’d never really worked with Jinyoung before. The two of you interacted on a regular basis only to get in each other’s way. You had spent so much time and energy hating Jinyoung’s manipulative tactics that you never considered what it would be like if he used them for you instead of against you. Now that you were working on the same side things felt different. 

Park Jinyoung was the sort of man to get what he wanted using any means whatsoever. He stopped at nothing. It could be annoying and manipulative but for the people counting on him, he could also seem…

Dependable? 

“How much longer are you guys going to be here?” Yugyeom asked as he came up to your desk. It was getting late and he’d been sitting a few seats away and staring pointedly at his watch for a while now. He yawned loudly and then stretched his long limbs. “It’s time to get off work…”

You blinked at him. “You go ahead. I need to look into a few more things.”

“Yeah. I’m still working too,” Jinyoung replied. 

Yugyeom made a face at Jinyoung. “Nobody asked you,” he mumbled. Then he turned to you with a softer tone. “Are you sure it’s okay if I leave? Maybe you’ll need my help with something? I don’t mind staying late but you’re both working in complete silence and I don’t know how to help...”

“Go home, Yugyeom.”

“Okay. Call me if you need anything.”

“Sure.”

You heard Yugyeom pack up his belongings and reluctantly leave the office. It was empty now. The sky outside was dark and there was nobody left except for you and Jinyoung. You paused and observed the handsome man sitting across from you. His eyebrows were furrowed as he chewed the end of his pen and stared at his laptop screen. 

“Jinyoung?”

He continued chewing the pen. “Hmm?”

“Are you hungry?”

His dark eyes rose to meet yours. 

“Yes.”

——————————————————————————

Jinyoung wasted nearly fifteen minutes of your time arguing over what to order for dinner until you finally gave up and placed separate orders from different restaurants. The two of you went into the deserted break room to eat once your food arrived. 

“Can we practice what we’re going to say to the CEO tomorrow?” you asked hesitantly. 

Jinyoung nodded as he stuffed his mouth full of noodles. His cheeks bulged out like a squirrel’s before he swallowed. “Sure. Why, though?”

“I just want to make sure I don’t mess up.”

He grinned. “Oh wow. Is our big scary lawyer lady nervous? Is this the same woman who barged into the CEO’s office this morning and issued him the ultimatum that screwed us all over?” he teased. 

You glared at him. Was this the time for joking? You were in no mood to play cat and mouse with Jinyoung. The meeting was getting closer and your overall situation wasn’t much better than it had been this morning. 

“Jinyoung, please.”

His smile dropped when he saw the worry on your face. “Okay, fine. I won’t irritate you.”

“Thank you. Just for tonight.”

“Can I ask you something, though?” Jinyoung asked. He tilted his head as he observed you with his dark eyes. “You’re not acting like yourself today. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t have barged into the CEOs office so hastily and you wouldn’t have agreed to work with me or accept my way of doing things. I know you.”

You flushed. “Well, I mean, potentially losing your job is scary to anyone-”

Jinyoung shook his head. He wasn’t buying it. “No. It can’t just be that. You graduated from an amazing law school. You have a great resume and great work experience. You’ve worked at other places before. You could get another job in less than a month if you tried. What do you enjoy so much about working here?” 

“It’s not that I enjoy it, I just-”

“Just?”

You frowned at him. “I don’t know. What do you enjoy so much about working here?”

“This is where I first became successful,” Jinyoung replied without hesitation. He poked at his noodles and his expression softened. “Nothing was really working out for me before I came here. But the CEO hired me personally and he gave me opportunities to prove myself. He’s going to let me make pitches to our investors soon. I think if I hang around in this company for a while, I could get promoted to top management. In five or six years, I could head Sales or even get a better position in Finance. I would lose out on all that if I quit now.”

You stared at him. “Wow.”

“What?”

“Nothing, I just didn’t think you’d be so honest.”

Jinyoung chuckled. “Hey. I only lie when it benefits me. I don’t walk around telling lies randomly. They’re a pain to keep track of, you know.”

“Fascinating.”

“So? Your turn. You’re clearly desperate to keep your job and you’re even more desperate not to go to Busan. Why?”

You were silent for a moment. You didn’t want to think about this too much, you had barely had time to process it since you were hit with the news this morning. You just knew that the thought scared you. 

“I just don’t want to leave my family behind,” you explained vaguely. 

“What does that-”

Your phone rang. You glanced at the caller ID and your eyes widened in surprise. “Sorry, I need to take this,” you apologized. It was your mother’s care home. You moved to a corner of the break room and answered the phone. “Hello?.... Yeah, I know, I came by this morning but the doctor wasn’t available to talk to me… now? I’m still at work right now… yeah, I get that but I work full time, I can’t just come down instantly whenever you call…”

Jinyoung walked up to you and tapped your shoulder. “Do you need to go somewhere?”

You shook your head awkwardly while clutching your phone. “N-no…”

“I’ll drive you. Come on.”

——————————————————————————————————-

Jinyoung’s car smelled really nice. 

You weren’t sure why you found that specific detail attractive, but you did. To be honest, you had never imagined a situation where you would be sitting in the front passenger seat of Jinyoung’s SUV and side-eyeing him while he drove you around late at night. You expected him to be nosy and ask where you were going and why, but he didn’t. 

Instead, Jinyoung tuned into a nighttime radio station and the both of you sat in silence while the radio jockey droned on about memories of first love and nostalgia. 

“Do you like listening to this stuff?” you asked him. 

Jinyoung glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. “Sure. I can be a sentimental guy.”

You rolled your eyes. “Wow.”

“Why is that so surprising? You’re the one who lacks human emotion and wants to follow her stupid rulebook all the time. Well you know what? Human beings are emotional creatures. We don’t react to logic, we react to feelings.You should try them sometime.” he told you. 

You stared at him incredulously.  

“I can’t believe I’m getting a lesson on feelings from the guy who blackmailed my subordinate into signing a document that should never have been signed, putting both of your jobs at risk,” you retorted. Did this man even think before he spoke? “You’re such a hypocrite, Jinyoung. I never know what to believe when it comes to you.”

Jinyoung smirked. “Do you want to know the truth?”

“If you insist.”

“The agreement I submitted to the client was one without Yugyeom’s signature on it. He’s in the clear.”

You stared at him. “What?”

“Having Legal sign off on the agreement is only an internal requirement according to our company policy. The client’s lawyer didn’t notice the problem. I just made Yugyeom believe that he’d signed it. Otherwise, you would have gone and told the CEO before the press conference. I needed you guys to keep quiet.”

“You submitted a contract that Yugyeom didn’t sign?”

“Yup,” Jinyoung replied. He glanced at you, lips curling into a smug smile. “So you can tell the kid to relax. Even if everything is revealed later, he won’t be in trouble. I’ll be the one who has to justify why I executed a contract without the approval of the Legal team.”

You stared at him in disbelief. “I can’t believe you.”

“I know. I’m the master of deception, aren’t I?” Jinyoung asked proudly. “I took a big risk by telling you this. Are you going to rat me out to the CEO now?”

You sighed and shook your head. “You’re in luck. I’m not feeling particularly loyal to our CEO today.”

Jinyoung’s smile fell and he nodded solemnly. “He’s being a real dick about this one. But don’t worry. He’s not completely unreasonable. We’ll find some way out of this mess, I promise. It’s not impossible.”

“We just haven’t figured out his bottom line yet.”

Jinyoung turned to you with a surprised smile. “What? How do you know what a bottom line is?” 

“I-I just heard Hana talking about it, she keeps coming over to Yugyeom’s desk every day and gushing about how much she learns from you,” you explained reluctantly. 

“I knew that kid had potential.”

You rolled your eyes. “Anyway. The CEO is making all these demands and issuing us these ultimatums but there has to be something that he’s not prepared to lose either, right? Something we can do that could make him think- okay, maybe I’m losing more by insisting on the Busan transfers than I’m gaining? He knows we’re scared of losing our jobs. But we don’t know what he’s afraid to lose. Maybe he’s counting on at least some of us getting scared and moving to Busan. Maybe it will become a hassle for him if every single one of us quits. What do you think?”

Jinyoung was silent. 

“I-I don’t know.”

“You can’t think of anything?”

Jinyoung shrugged as he pulled into the parking lot of your mother’s care home. The GPS announced that you had arrived at your destination and you sighed, taking off your seat-belt. “Sorry. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. I just need to have a quick chat with the doctor.”

Jinyoung nodded. “Take your time.”

“Thanks.”

————————————————————————————————

You hurried into the care home. A number of elderly people were sitting in the lounge area, some watching television and others sitting around a table of cards. You spotted your mother in an armchair reading a book through her reading glasses and smiled. 

“Hi!” one of the nurses greeted you. “Are you here to see the doctor?”

“Yes. Is he still here?” 

“He’s upstairs, come with me.”

You followed the nurse upstairs to meet the doctor; you normally wouldn’t have rushed over here so late at night but considering the events of this morning and the possibility of you losing your job, you needed to know if your mother was fit to travel. The doctor was looking over some charts and he greeted you in a friendly manner. 

“Well, here’s our favorite lawyer! How have you been?”

“I’m okay, thanks,” you replied with a smile. “I wanted to talk to you. Is everything okay with my mother? How’s her breathing problem?”

The doctor nodded. “It’s getting better. She might need to stay on the oxygen for a while but it’s definitely improving. She needs some rest and care. Is there anything specific you wanted to know?”

You bit your lip. “Yeah. I might- um, my work is asking me to move to Busan. Is there any chance that  I could take her with me? Would that work out?” you asked doubtfully. The doctor’s eyes widened and he shook his head immediately. 

“I’m sorry, but that’s not a good idea. I don’t think she has the physical strength to deal with a move or shifting to a new care home. She’s settled in well here. Maybe you can take her out on short trips for a day or two as long as she doesn’t have to physically exert herself. But shifting cities would only do her harm, both physically and mentally,” he replied firmly. 

You gave him a hesitant smile. “Right. Yeah, I knew that. I just wanted to, um…”

The doctor gave you a comforting pat on the shoulder. “You’ll figure things out.”

“I will. Thank you, Doctor.”

“You’re welcome.”

You went back downstairs, hands trembling. You had still been harbouring a bit of hope but now it was completely crushed. If things didn’t work out with the CEO tomorrow then you would have to start sending out applications and searching for a new job. It wasn’t going to be easy. Finding a job that was nearby and still paid enough for you to cover the costs of your mother’s medical care was going to be…

It was going to be a nightmare. 

Fuck. 

“Did you get a chance to talk to the doctor?” the nurse asked you kindly when you came back downstairs. 

You nodded. “I did, thanks.”

“Now I get why you were reluctant to come on the phone,” she added with a giggle. “You were with your boyfriend, huh? He’s really handsome. How did you manage to snag a guy like him?”

You flinched. “What?”

Her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean that you’re not attractive! You totally are-”

You ignored the flustered nurse and hurried into the lounge area. Your mother was still sitting in her armchair, but kneeling beside her on the carpet was Park Jinyoung. He was holding her book, the sleeves of his dress-shirt rolled up, as he read something aloud to her with a cheerful smile on his lips. Fuck. The nurse was right. Park Jinyoung was incredibly attractive but he was also incredibly not-supposed-to-be-here.

“Jinyoung,” you called out as you approached. “What are you doing?”

Jinyoung looked up at you with an innocent smile. “Oh, hey! I got tired of waiting in the car so I came over to meet your mother. She has great taste in books! I have a couple by the same author at home but I’ve never read this one-”

You cleared your throat.

Your mother smiled up at you. “What did the doctor say, darling?”

“He says you’re getting better and that you just need to rest,” you told her. She didn’t need to hear about the troubles you were having at work, she had enough to deal with. You squeezed her hand lightly. “I need to get going, mom, I have a lot of work. I’ll come by and see you tomorrow night, okay?”

Jinyoung grinned. “I’ll come too! I can bring you a copy of-”

“No you won’t,” you told him firmly. “Let’s go.”

Jinyoung turned to your mother and made a face. “Has she always been this grumpy? How did you deal with her when she was younger?” he asked while your mother chuckled. You reached out and grabbed Jinyoung’s sleeve to pull him away. 

“We’re leaving, Jinyoung.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a roll of his eyes. He followed you out of the care home and got back into his car with a small smile on his face. He was still smirking even as he pulled out of the parking lot and you could feel your anger building. 

“What is so amusing?” you demanded. 

Jinyoung shook his head, chuckling to himself. “Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me what you’re laughing about, Park Jinyoung, or I swear to god-”

Jinyoung laughed. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. Your Mom uses a baby picture of you as a bookmark and I saw it,” he told you. You instantly flushed red. Fuck. You knew what picture that was. It was the one where you were two years old and wearing a horrible princess dress as you snuggled with a large teddy bear. 

“Fuck. Okay, fine, let’s not-”

“You were a really ugly baby,” he said with a laugh. 

God. Why did you put up with this man again? You resisted the urge to punch him in the face. 

“Thank you.”

“It’s okay. You’re pretty now,” Jinyoung told you with a smile. His dark eyes twinkled mischievously as he looked at you. “You’re kind of annoying and you act like a grumpy school teacher who's never been laid, but you’re pretty.”

“Please just drive.”

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

[thezestywalru]

Hidden behind a screen

Marinette cried frustrated tears into her pillows as she wondered why. Why didn’t they believe her? Why wouldn’t he help her? Why couldn’t she stand up for herself? 

“It’s not that bad, Marinette!” said Tikki, quite unhelpfully.

But Marinette ignored her, and ran down to her computer, typing out a furious email to her former best friend. She had no intentions of sending it, of course, but she couldn’t keep the emotions bottled in.

Remembering the villain that had played Paris for these last few years, she quickly decided to calm herself. Maybe talking to someone would help.

Marinette quickly logged online, surveying different chat rooms on various websites to see if one could help her. They didn’t need to know her name, but she needed advice. She needed an outsiders perspective.

Surprisingly fast, just a mere 20 minutes later, she received a DM in her inbox. It was from a kind stranger, assuring her that she had done no wrong. They offered her help, advice. All she had to do was type out a reply and talk to them.

Marinette hesitated, looking back at the sleeping red kwami. What would ladybug do in the situation? On one hand, her parents had always warned her never to talk to people online but she didn’t know. All of her social medias were private, excluding the one that she used for her designing.

With a gulp, she decided to take a leap and replied quickly. Marinette introduced herself as M. The stranger seemed nice. He introduced themselves as Jake. Though he provided no age, Marinette surmised through the different Internet lingo and slang that he used that Jake was about her age. He said he was 16, just like her. 

She checked his profile. It was fairly empty, only comments on different posts were written, offering kind words and solid advice. There are a few photos as well, each for portraying the same teenage boy with red hair and pale freckled skin. 

Though she was cautious at first, Jake quickly became Marinette’s only confidant. She told him nearly everything, often texting him during class to calm herself down as Lila squirmed her way out of tricky situations, and the class wouldn’t listen to her.

He told her all about his pet dog, TJ, who was a miniature poodle. He lived in London, just over the channel. He showed her a photo of the birthmark on his hand, which was shaped like a sleeping cat. “Just to prove that I’m real.” He joked. 

She asked him about the sites, which he willingly explained. This inspired a whole new line of her fashion, each modeled for the different monuments around the world.

He seemed perfect; almost like her dream guy, her soulmate. He wanted three kids as well and he didn’t mind hamsters. So, she told her dream guy her full name, her life and everything about her.

She wished she had someone she could talk to about Jake, someone she could gushed you about her newfound crush. The posters and schedule of Adrien were quickly removed.

So, Ladybug excitedly told Chat Noir about the new guy she was talking to. He didn’t take it very well. Flummoxed, she asked why he wasn’t happy for her. He confessed his love, once again, to which she responded that she only saw him as a friend.

Finally, two months after they had started talking, Jake finally asked her to be his girlfriend. She excitedly accepted. He promised to fly over for Valentine’s Day, so they could meet in person. She only had to wait four months. He gave her his number, which she began texting.

Soon, the questions begin. He asked her for photos, something to prove to his friends that he supposedly had a girlfriend. “They didn’t believe me,” he said. “They said you’re fake,” he said. So she sent him a photo of her that Alya had taken just months before, her in front of the Eiffel tower eating some of Audreys ice cream. It was a pretty photo, and she was quite proud of it.

“No,” he said. ”That’s not the kind of photo I want.” So, she took them. Shamefully. Because if she didn’t love him, why wouldn’t she do it? those were his words. They stung. It was her first relationship, but he assured her this was normal.

Instead of complaining or refusing because she wanted to keep her only friend, Marinette instead asked for photos of him to show to others. In reply, Jake sent the same photos from his profile, the two photos of the freckled ginger boy grinning at the camera.

“No,” She said. ”New photos.”

“These are new.” He replied. His original profile had been deleted. “By the company,” he said. She believed him, like a fool.

The questions began once more: requests for new photos, and strangely, threats. He wanted videos too.

“A video of what?” She didn’t really want to know.  His answer sickened her, but he said he wouldn’t come to Valentine’s Day in Paris if she didn’t send it. Her classmates already been doubting that she found a boyfriend, so she reluctantly sent it along. 

They continued talking, though now it was mostly requests for new photos and refusals to reciprocate. Come Valentine’s Day, when he didn’t show up to their meeting place and brushed it off with an excuse that the weather in England was bad (from her experience, the weather in England was almost always bad) she decided she had to cut him off.

The reply from her sweet Jake that she had given her heart to surprised her.

“I have your phone number, you stupid bitch. Do you think I won’t be able to find your address? You already gave it to me, including your last name. I know your parents are bakers. I know where to find you. I know where you sleep.” Scared now, she blocked his number.

She blocked him on all social media, not that he had many. She was beginning to suspect now that Jake wasn’t who he said he was. She looked up photos of miniature poodles, finding the picture that he claimed was of his dog in the first ten. The photos he had taken around London were merely grabbed off of the internet. 

She reached out to Alya, who merely scolded her about trusting Internet strangers, believing Lila that this was just an attention grabber from Marinette. After all, her boyfriend hadn’t been real, had he?

She went to Adrien after the first threatening text from an unknown number appeared, with just a photo, the photo that she had taken. He offered no advice, merrily telling her to ignore it.

So, she did. Stupidly, naïvely. The video showed up on her public fashion design’s Instagram. Shock rippled around the gossip sites. She tried to take it down, but it had already been downloaded by many people. It was quickly spread around the internet, with various people calling her out. She deleted her instagram. The source was unknown, so she couldn’t sue whoever it was. Her parents were ashamed; furious that she had trusted this boy.

The next video was merely an explicit of some guy jerking off to a photo of her. It was clearly not a teenage boy. it came from the same account. Jake.

Her future was ruined. Each time someone searched up her name, the photos would appear. She was ridiculed at school, even more so. They called her a slut, a whore. So, even though her parents couldn’t move their bakery, they offered to let her transfer schools to somewhere else in Paris when the year ended. She accepted.

The new school was fine, at first. She made a few friends. Soon the video made its appearance again, and everything was ruined. Her old classmates slandered her online, taking no mercy. They now ignored her. She wasn’t sure what she preferred. 

Who was he? Why was he doing this? She was ostracized at school for something she couldn’t control. Hawkmoth was never defeated under her time as ladybug, and she resigned from the position. She was the keeper of the miraculous now, so she sought out heroes who could defeat him. When she turned 18, Hawkmoth was revealed as Gabriel Agreste and sentenced to 12 life sentences in prison. 

Finally, after pleading with her parents, she moved to the United States for college. Fashion was a far off dream now, slowly sinking below the horizon. 

She went by Marie Dupain. She tried to remain invisible, sure that if she was noticed, she would be recognized. Marinette dyed her hair a darker black and wore baggy sweatshirts. 

Years passed and she had never achieved her dream of becoming a fashion icon. She still designed for different celebrities and high caliber clients, but she spent her days at a law firm after getting her degree in textiles and then achieving her law degree. She never returned to Paris unless it was to visit her family. 

It was just her luck that on the tenth Christmas she spent at her parents bakery, she would run into Alya, who was followed by a tall, freckled, ginger man. With a sharp inhale, she greeted her former best friend with a wan smile. 

“Girl! I haven’t seen you in ages!” Marinette shied away from the enthusiasm and attention. Alya prattled on before remembering her companion and purpose. 

“Oh, this is Shane.” She said, gesturing to her red-headed friend. “He’s a friend from university.” Marinette nodded slowly, wondering as she always did if this man was the one from the photos. 

Shane seemed agreeable enough, and Alya speedily roped Marinette into plans for them to reconnect. Marinette resolved to be on the next plane back to the US after Christmas. 

When Shane turned around, she noticed the peculiar birthmark on the back of his hand. It was shaped like a cat. A sleeping one, in fact. Marinette ran upstairs, abandoning her parents to take care of the rush. 

They never did find who posted those photos. The true identity of “Jake” was never revealed, nor did Marinette ever tell Shane that his photos were used against her. You see, happy endings don’t always come true. The bad guy isn’t always captured and killed in a grisly fire. That’s the power of being hidden behind a screen. 

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

More than 500,000 predators are online everyday. Kids 12 to 15 are susceptible to being groomed and manipulated by offenders online. FBI stats show that more than 50 percent of victims of online sexual exploitation are 12-15 years old.

- According to the University of New Hampshire's Youth Internet Safety Study (YISS), reports of unwanted sexual solicitations declined 53 percent between 2000 and 2010. As of 2010 only 9 percent of kids who use the internet received an unwanted sexual solicitation.

- The YISS report also found that two specific kinds of contact -- requests for offline meetings and situations that kids found extremely upsetting -- declined between 2005 and 2010.

- When there’s a report of an online predator (like the one about Roblox in 2017), multiple news outlets jump on the story, and they often appear in many outlets over a week or two, so it may feel like it's more common than it is. Also, it makes for a popular article since it plays on parents' fears.

- The University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center reports that kids are more likely to pressure each other to send or post sexual content than an adult.

-According to the New England Journal of Public Policy, contact with online predators happens mostly in chat rooms, on social media, or in the chat feature of a multiplayer game (Roblox, Minecraft, Clash of Clans, World of Warcraft, and so on).

-Most games meant for kids -- like Roblox and Animal Jam -- have built-in features and settings that are designed to prevent inappropriate comments and chat. Though they’re often imperfect, they do help.

-Games that aren’t designed only for kids have fewer controls, settings, and safeguards.

-Any app or online space that allows contact with strangers without moderation or age verification can allow contact between kids and adult strangers.Teens sometimes visit adult sites, chat rooms, and dating apps out of curiosity about sex and romance

-Only 5 percent of online predators pretend they're kids. Most reveal that they're older -- which is especially appealing to 12-to-15-year-olds who are most often targeted.

-Some predators initiate sexual talk or request pictures immediately and back off if refused. They're in it for an immediate result.

-In contrast, some predators engage in "bunny hunting," which is the process of picking a potential victim for "grooming": They'll look at social media posts and public chats to learn about the kid first.

-Once they've selected someone, they may begin the grooming phase, which often involves friending the target's contacts, engaging in increasingly personal conversations to build trust, taking the conversation to other platforms (like instant messaging), requesting pictures, and finally requesting offline contact.

-Sometimes if a kid shares one compromising picture, a predator will engage in "sextortion," which involves demanding more pictures or contact under threat of exposure or harm.

Be careful. Don’t trust anyone. Read up on what to do. Look up stories of victims like Amanda Todd. This is an unfortunately common thing, and I ask that people are aware of it. Marinette was targeted because of how open and vulnerable she was. Take care!

[robotslenderman]

Behind the Scenes at Gabriel (the company)

AU takes place in my unwritten fic where Nathalie didn’t know Gabriel was Hawk Moth, quit her job because she was done with Gabe’s shit and fucked off, but still ended up with the [fixed] Peacock and Stuff Happened that involves Hawk Moth having to join forces with Ladybug and Chat to defeat a greater enemy, etc etc etc. AU where Emilie died and Hawk Moth is trying to get her back.

Basically, I have a bunch of minor OCs who work at Gabriel’s company, and this is how they handle Gabriel’s moods -- which get worse after Nathalie quits...

Gabriel’s new assistant is Marcel. Marcel has been filling in for Nathalie whenever she’s not around, but one day he’s basically told “welp you’re Gabriel’s assistant full time now” and he’s like “??????”

He knows better than to ask Gabriel about it. Nathalie is gone, nobody has a clue why, and nobody is dumb enough to try and find out.

Gabriel, meanwhile, has gone off the deep end more than usual. Sure, he does ask Marcel to arrange some therapy and starts interacting more with Adrien, but Gabriel is clearly Not Okay. Marcel has no idea what to do with this, and when he tries to text Nathalie for help she flat out refuses to talk about Gabriel.

All Marcel knows is that Nathalie is Extremely Pissed Off at Gabriel. Nobody knows if she walked off the job in the middle of the day or was fired. Neither party is talking about it.

How Marcel finds out the truth? Juliette, head of Legal, gains the wrath of Gabriel -- Nathalie walked out of the job instead of giving the two months notice that Gabriel is entitled to under French law, so Juliette tried to take legal action. Gabriel found out and lost his fucking mind and Marcel is amazed that Juliette not only survived the experience, but didn’t burst into tears.

Marcel barely sees the rest of the company at Gabriel now that he’s working with the agoraphobe, but he keeps in touch with them.

Marguerite, the CEO, constantly walks around with a funny look on her face. There’s an office pool going on as to when she’s going to go “fuck it” and quit, since she’s known for being an independent thinker and one of the few people who can stand up to Gabriel, and she is so done with his shit.

Juliette’s work has always been exemplary, but ever since pissing off Gabriel it’s become even more so.

Jean-Luc Chevrolet, the managing director, seems really jumpy, and interacts with Marcel instead of Gabriel whenever he can.

Lucas Marie, the vice president, is eyeing up Gabriel’s job as president/chairman/chief of operations and is quietly gathering support to stage a revolt. The only thing keeping him in check is Marguerite’s loyalty, and the fact she hasn’t left yet, so Gabriel loyalists are doing everything they can to keep Marguerite happy because they fucking hate Lucas.

As Gabriel further withdraws from his company to pay attention to his son and do whatever else he’s been doing, a power vacuum has begun to form and people are picking factions and/or keeping their heads down to weather out the oncoming storm.

Weird shit is happening outside the office. There’s a new supervillain, Hawk Moth is working with Chat Noir and Ladybug, there’s new heroes -- this Mayura person seems to be the only one who can keep Hawk Moth and the others from killing each other.

Whatever, that gets handled.

Then one day Gabriel seems to be in a better mood than usual. He doesn’t seem to be avoiding people as much, taking some of Marcel’s calls off him to handle things himself. He goes to meetings personally instead of over video call.

Adrien is extremely happy. Like, over the moon. He’s been cheering up since his father’s been paying attention to him, but he’s really, really happy now and just about bounces everywhere he goes.

Marcel finds out why a few days later when he accidentally runs into Nathalie at the manor, who’s wearing Gabriel’s shirt and boxers at the time. It’s hard to tell who’s more embarrassed, her or Marcel. Clearly they’ve, uh, reconciled. Intimately.

Marcel keeps his mouth shut about it because Gabriel is fucking terrifying.

Lucas retreats back under his rock, hissing, because Gabriel figured out what he was doing and smacked him back into his place. Marguerite stops packing her bags, but is very confused over Gabriel’s sudden improvement.

A few months in, while at the office, Juliette mentions Gabriel’s change of manner off-handedly to Marcel and Marcel mentions, “Uh, yeah, probably because he has a girlfriend now.”

“He has a WHAT”

“You... didn’t know? Oh crap he’s gonna kill me”

Juliette drags Marcel to the water cooler and demands he spills the beans.

(”You’re head of legal, you should know better!”

“When it comes to gossip about our illustrious leader, there is no low to which I won’t stoop!”)

Marguerite, upon finding out Gabe now has a girlfriend, immediately guesses who it is. “He’s seeing Nathalie? Oh thank GOD, ever since she walked out he’s been even more unbearable than when Emilie died!”

Currently-unnamed head of HR, who saw Nathalie’s departure as a total nightmare, is relieved for the first time that Nathalie did quit because “at least I don’t have to worry about ethics violations.”

Jean-Luc is just thanking his lucky stars it’s Nathalie because “there is literally nobody else in the world I would trust to keep him in line. He’s actually running the company now. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to keep Lucas from playing office politics and going all Game of Thrones on Gabriel? Jesus.”

Lucas, upon finding out, “This is Nathalie’s fault? Dammit! I should have known!”

Marguerite spins some excuses to get Gabriel and Nathalie in the same room together at the head office, just to see what would happen.

Gabriel, upon spotting Nathalie visiting, immediately perks up and trots over to her to greet her. He’s absolutely delighted she’s there.

Everyone watching is quietly smothering their OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHs. (Doesn’t matter, Gabriel can sense the excitement but ignores it because Nathalie! Is! Here!)

Nobody misses the loving gazes between them. Or how Gabriel, who’s only had one other girlfriend in his life (Emilie), is slightly awkward and adorkable around his new girlfriend.

After people witness what Nath and Gabriel are like in the room together, they quickly start up a marriage/engagement betting pool.

Marcel is banned from participating because he “knows too much.”

(Doesn’t matter; Marcel guessed eighteen months until they’re hitched, but Gabriel genuinely forgets that Nathalie isn’t his wife for a few years until one day he abruptly realises “wait, fuck, we’re not married, I should fix that!”)

(Lucas won with four years, because he was the only one counting on Gabriel’s tendency to neglect things that are right in front of his face.)

Juliette sheepishly apologises to Nathalie about trying to sue her. Nathalie accepts; she was just doing her job.

Head of HR is still miffed that Nathalie quit without notice.

During the wedding, there is not a dry eye in the house. Especially Adrien, the best man, who basically cries for the whole thing.

Marguerite gets really drunk at the wedding and swears up and down she saw some fairies in the bushes at the reception; a purple and a blue one. The blue one was making a flower crown and gave it to her while the purple one tried to drag the blue one out of sight.

Despite still having the flower crown, nobody believes Marguerite.

[honeymoonjin]

bts reaction - you break up

A/N: requested by a lovely anon. In case you hadn’t guessed, this one is angst. The request was for a 8-10 year-long relationship but I thought I’d change it up a little bit for each member. Update: i just finished writing this and made myself sad so good luck.

Jin

some couples stay together just because it would be too exhausting to start over again

you and jin were that couple

you had been married for six, going on seven years, and everyone could see that neither of you were particularly happy

but at this point, divorcing seemed like too much effort

you two had a dog together, a massive fluffy monster that loved jin and loved chewing your shoes

you of course had a house, with belongings and furniture that would have to be divided between you two

it wasn’t that bad, you’d tell yourself

he was always gone anyway, on tour or spending most of his waking ours out with the boys

in a way, it was like the two of you were roommates

jin used the excuse of not wanting to wake you as a reason to have his own bed, so you two didn’t even share a bed

some weeks, you wouldn’t see him at all

it was a pretty clear sign of a bad relationship that those were the good times

because when he was home, it seemed like all you did was argue

he loved cooking, but got you to make dinner anyway and would complain when it didn’t taste as good as his

he wasn’t satisfied with the way you folded his laundry

you would always forget important dates

anything was enough to set the two of you off

arguments usually consisted of you spitting nasty words at him, and him yelling at you loudly enough that he would drown you out completely and you’d be unable to defend whatever he was throwing at you

in the end, they’d always finish with you walking out in tears, and him sulking on the couch like he hadn’t done a thing wrong

just last week the guys gave their hyung an intervention

even though you knew breaking up made sense, it felt like fucking shit to be told that six of your closest friends sat down your husband and told him to divorce you

but secretly, it would be a relief for jin to just make a decision for once in his life and end it

one of the secrets you’d never tell another soul is the divorce papers you keep underneath your framed graduation certificate on the wall

you would dream of a life, of being free and able to start again, and fantasise about handing him those documents, already signed on your behalf

but you knew you never could

as much as you didn’t like each other, you still loved each other

two days before your seventh anniversary, jin sneaks into your bedroom just after midnight and slips into your bed

you gasp at his cold feet but allow him to pull you into an embrace, one you hadn’t felt for too long

he sniffled and whispered into your ear 

“i think we need to get a divorce”

“i know”

and so the two of you cry, mourning the death of a relationship that went stale long ago

somehow that night, you two were closer than you had been in years

you supported each other when you cried, even had sex for what would be the last time when you needed more comfort

and you woke up the next morning to your graduation certificate dumped on the bed, and jin signing the document you thought he didn’t know about

just like near strangers can lean on each other in times of need, the two of you actually become friends again throughout the divorce process

because as hard and unpleasant as it is, you know that at least you’re doing it with him

once you break out of that monotony of a miserable marriage, you’re free to actually enjoy each other’s company again

and when jin finds a new woman and asks her to marry him, it’s tears of happiness for him that you shed

and maybe a little self pity... but that will go away with time

Yoongi

you always knew going in that yoongi could be a very erratic person

distracted when you were together, but focused when it came to work

and you had told yourself for a long time that you didn’t mind

you had been together so long that for a while it was just your new normal

it wasn’t until you spontaneously developed a bit of a crush on hoseok that you realized just how not-normal this whole thing was

it wasn’t that you seriously fell for hoseok, but one night you had fought with yoongi about finances, him thinking it was dumb you wanted to work when he could provide

after he stormed out in anger, he must’ve messaged the group chat to complain about you, because all of a sudden hobi was calling you up asking for your side of the story

that night, he came over and let you cry on his shoulder and tell him all of your worries and concerns, offering advice when you wanted it and support when you needed it

after that, you started looking at hobi a little differently

you weren’t even really crushing on him that badly

you loved yoongi you always will, but you would admit you were more than a little infatuated with hobi just because of how good a friend he was

you couldn’t help but picture what it would be like to have someone like him as a boyfriend

and that thought led everything downhill for you and yoongi

you started to realize that hobi wasn’t a saint, he was what any caring friend/partner should be, and that it was yoongi that was lacking

you hated yourself for thinking like that, but the thought took a hold of you and you eventually had to break things off

after he refused to come home to you when you asked one night, you went to his studio and did it there

telling him that you loved him but that you needed more from a relationship, something that he just wasn’t giving you

he nodded, said nothing, and went back to his work

you stormed out eventually after he continued to ignore you, and for a long time you were angry. furious that he didn’t even care

but you could see in later press events and interviews (you didn’t know why you couldn’t stop watching him them) that he was even more glum and reserved than usual

but he was too proud to ask for your forgiveness, and one day he must have found it in himself to move on, staying single for a long time but slowly cheering up over time

you had several relationships after that, each one with men far more affectionate and attentive than yoongi, but you weren’t really happy

because now those embraces seemed smothering and their reliance on you suffocating

you missed the way yoongi and you were

but it was too late to get him back

Hoseok

maybe the hardest thing you’ve ever had to face is having your boyfriend of three years wake up one day and realize he’s not in love with you anymore

no

the hardest thing is that he was probably never in love with you at all, not really

you were the perfect girlfriend, even hobi admits it

when he was spending more and more time with sweet hani, one of the young trainees in the background dancer team, you didn’t become a tiger girlfriend

you were really happy he was making good friends, and you could see how genuinely content he seemed to be after meeting here

so you never pried, and you just trusted him

he didn’t cheat on you, of course, he could never do that

in fact, he was so honest with you it hurt

he told you as soon as he was having feelings for her, saying that he didn’t know what to do

and you, the masochist you were, told him as long as he didn’t cheat, he should allow himself to explore those feelings

you had kinda hoped he’d get to know her better and change his mind, but the opposite happened

almost every night, he’d get into bed, guilty as anything, telling you exactly what happened and how he was feeling

he kept telling you he’d cut contact if it made you uncomfortable, but all you wanted was to see him happy, even if it tore you up inside

one day, when you were a little sick of hearing him gush over her right after fucking you for two hours, you snapped and told him he should just dump you and get with her instead

he just laughed uncomfortably and said goodnight

but the next morning, the bed was cold when you woke up

he was in the kitchen, eyes weary

he had been thinking, hobi told you, thinking all night

“i think spending more time with hani has helped me realize that while i love you, i really do, i’m not in love with you”

“and you’re in love with hani?”

“...i really think so. y/n, i’m so sorry, i’ll stay with you if you want-”

but you weren’t a fucking charity. you couldn’t stand to see him catering to you and being miserable, so you broke up with him

you weren’t ashamed to admit that it fucking destroyed you to see him bounce back so fast

you were stopping by the dorm to pick up tae (the two of you were friends from high school, and he introduced you to hoseok in the first place)

and there was hobi, practically fucking glowing as he scrolled through pictures of him and hani on a date, showing the best ones to an over-excited jimin

you, on the other hand, felt sick from the diet of ice-cream and wine you had picked up, and just wished you could wind back time to when you were naive and happy

but what hani gave him, you couldn’t provide, so you had to accept it

an attempt at acceptance turned into revenge, however, and any semblance of goodwill between you two was destroyed when him and hani came home to you enjoying the company of jungkook and jin rather loudly

sue you for wanting a little tlc. hoseok was getting his dick wet; why shouldn’t you get some action too?

since that day, he had stubbornly refused to acknowledge your existence, even as you began warming the beds of his friends more often than not

at least with jinnie and kookie, you all knew it was nothing more than sex

Namjoon

perhaps the most genial break-up ever

you two seriously wanted to make it work, you really did

but your fourth year anniversary was less than a month away and you honestly didn’t think you would make it that long

see, namjoon and you worked out perfectly on paper

you were his type and he was yours, and the two of you got on like a house on fire

but then, just over two months into the relationship, you realized you weren’t even really dating

sure, you had sex every now and again, but most of the time it was two much effort, and namjoon would get home only to tell you he already jacked off in his studio and wasn’t in the mood

and sure, you went out on date nights, but you really couldn’t make out a single difference between the atmosphere of your date nights and of gatherings of friends

when jimin and tae crashed your romantic night in, neither of you were that bothered

namjoon realized a lot sooner than you did that the two of you weren’t really going to be more than friends, but he was so sick of being alone and single, that he selfishly stuck at it in the hopes that it would get better

it became almost a ridiculous game between you two

you were obstinately doing everything by the book

you bought sex dice (”how long do we have to do each turn for?” “i don’t know joon, but rubbing my stomach with your foot for eight minutes seems excessive” “yeah, these suggestions aren’t that sexy, let’s watch some game of thrones”)

he bought you flowers every day when coming home from work (”i love them baby, but my allergies are going nuts and my eyes have been watering for the past three hours”)

you gave each other cutesy nicknames (”hey honey bear, can you pass me the salt?” “sure thing, my little dove” “you’re so kind, baby boo” “okay, that’s enough, let’s stop this” “oh thank god”)

but when namjoon caught you zoning out during a handjob, he decided it just wasn’t going to happen

the two of you drove your mutual friends mad over the following weeks

neither of you wanted to make a ‘rushed’ decision, so you spent hours making pro/con lists, powerpoint presentations, and even going to a medium before you finally called it quits

post-breakup, it was a relief to be around each other with no more expectations, but you’ll admit that both of you kind of missed having a partner, even if it wasn’t as lovey-dovey as you wanted

one night, after his fourth failed first date that week (it was a tuesday afternoon) namjoon called you up and asked to get back together

“we’ll do it better this time! we can be platonic partners?”

“what now?”

basically, namjoon wanted the two of you to do all the couple-y things like supporting each other, going grocery shopping together and sharing a bed, just with the knowledge that neither of you were romantically or sexually interested

and so that was were you now stood

the two of you had casual sex on the side, but just let yourselves enjoy each other’s company

Jimin

back to angst

not everyone is as reasonable and unaffected as namjoon

you’ve been with jimin for five years now, but the two of you had been friends with benefits for two years before that

everything had changed back then when jimin confessed he had feelings for you, and you made a very poor decision

you said yes to a relationship, even though you didn’t feel the same

you’ve never been good at saying no, and to be fair, jimin was the best fuck of your life, and perhaps you were a little scared of getting cut off completely if you rejected him

you expected he’d get sick of you after spending more time with you when he wasn’t balls deep in you

but the opposite was true

very quickly, your time become monopolized by jimin

he spent the night every night, unless he was on tour, in which case he’d want to stay on the phone for hours with you, often crying if he missed you

he offered to pay your rent and buy groceries so that you could quit your job, because he wanted you to be able to visit him on set 

you declined, and he reluctantly accepted it was a big ask

that didn’t stop him from sending you sometimes over fifty or sixty texts a day

he felt the need to share every aspect of his workday with you, and was put out when you didn’t do the same

in short, jimin was a very needy boyfriend, and it scared you a little

but you stayed with him, because against all odds the sex had gotten even better (jimin claimed it was the ‘emotional connection’)

and maybe it was kinda flattering to have someone want you like that

but you let it get too far, and by the time you figured you should end it, or tell him to slow down, you were celebrating your first anniversary, already in too deep

jimin proposed to you on september 3, exactly two years after he first confessed his feelings to you

you said no, that you weren’t ready 

jimin proposed to you on september 3, exactly three years after he confessed his feelings

you, a coward and a pushover, said yes

and now here you were, wearing a delicate and unbelievably pricey wedding gown, shaking with stress as your mother told you everything would be okay, wondering what the fuck you were doing

when you first sucked jimin’s dick in the disabled bathroom at the met gala, you had never intended or wanted it to go this far

there’s a knock on the door and it’s tae, jimin’s best man, and the go-between before the actual service

“i can’t do this, tae”

he looks unbelievably dashing in his suit, but his face is crumpled with stress

“y/n, i know maybe this is a bit much for you, but... he’s so fucking excited. i’ve never seen him this happy. if you don’t go through with it, it’ll destroy him.”

you sigh, wiggling your nose to push away the sting of impending tears. you’re the villain in your own life. selfish and scared, and stuck so far down this rabbit hole that you can never hope to crawl out again

“i’m gonna vomit, tae. i’m making a huge mistake.”

“you already made your huge mistake, y/n. every single day that you chose not to end it. it’s too late. this is me begging you, y/n. don’t leave him on his wedding day.”

but you do

you can’t face him

and you run away like the pathetic coward you are

well, you run as far the gates of the church and realize you’re even more of a coward than you thought you were

because you turn back around again, and marry park jimin 

he cries of happiness, holding your hand the entire night and telling you constantly how beautiful you are and how lucky he is and you internally decide that tae is right. it’s too late.

Taehyung

taehyung and you were really, truly happy for a long time

the first four years of your relationship were the best years of your life

he was so unbelievably smart, and talented, and artistic, and just a beautiful soul all around

you couldn’t believe your luck, that you got to wake up next to him every morning

but then, a couple months after moving in, something strange happened

he seemed to always be grumpy whenever he was around you

in fact, the reverse was true as well, you found yourself weirdly irritated by him

it became a vicious cycle of you annoying each other and just getting more riled up because of it

you started to become more aware of his flaws, things you had previously dismissed

he started pointing out the things about you he didn’t like

and one day the two of you sat down, and he suggested maybe it was a simple case of cabin fever

maybe you two just weren’t used to being around each other all the time

his solution: take a break

and you knew that taking a break had a reputation of meaning ‘breaking up’, but tae assured you it was just for a 

then, once you had moved back out temporarily, you realized how much happier you were without him

not having to always consider someone else when making plans, having the freedom to be a little selfish now and again

it felt liberating to not have to message him and arrange dates around his schedule

but you missed him late at night when your bed was cold

and you missed him early in the morning when you ate breakfast in a silent kitchen

and you missed him when you were exploring town, constantly finding small little things that you wished you could share with him

you finally decided after just under a fortnight that you missed him too much to be on a break

and naive little y/n was actually excited

you thought that this break was exactly what the both of you needed, that you’d go to his apartment and surprise him and he’d jump for joy, having missed you as much as you missed him

you didn’t expect to let yourself in and be greeted by him sprawled out on the couch, with a familiar head of platinum hair between his legs

he quickly tapped yoongi’s shoulder, and the elder man sat up in shock at the sight of you

“i thought you said you guys broke up?”

after yoongi had left, adjusting his pants subtly, but not subtly enough, you and tae sat down and had a long talk

apparently tae had seen the ‘taking a break’ as something a little more hard-set than you had

and he admitted to you that for him, what was missing from the relationship was attraction

and so you sat on the couch, the couch he had just got sucked off on, and listened as he came out to you as gay

you tried not to get angry

sexuality was a very personal journey, and he deserved sympathy and understanding, but your heart was broken

then, after you officially broke it off, you started realizing something over the coming weeks

the similarities you had to yoongi both physically and personality-wise

and you had to accept that for you it was always tae, but for tae it was always yoongi

they made a happy couple

but you couldn’t bring yourself to attend their wedding three years later

Jungkook

with jungkook, there was always the matter of experience

not just sexually, although that definitely impacted things, but just in terms of being in a relationship

as much as he argued passionately against the idea, he was inexperienced and naive when it came to being a couple

at his best, he was romantic but a little inconsistent

he wanted to sweep you off your feet, and worship you, and spend quality time with you, but it was always completely unpredictable when his romantic streak would come into effect

you’d be filing reports after your lunch break and get a call that jungkook had booked out your afternoon

and as a business coaching consultant, you had to drop everything to go to whatever location he put along with a fake name 

the worst part was, he never actually would tell you it was him, and you’d bring all your stuff along in your company car expecting to help out Tim Sanders with his ball pumping service (in parentheses ‘sports balls’) only for the address to be a small Italian restaurant, with your boyfriend in a tux out front

some part of you, okay, a big part of you, loved the grandiose way he did everything, but he didn’t understand how it affected your work, and the life outside of him

then there were periods where he made no effort at all

one of jungkook’s problem areas was how flaky he was

he had no reserves about providing a half-assed apology for why he wasn’t coming home, or ghosting you completely when he was on tour

white lies became the norm for him, and white lies have a tendency to grow

you found that you couldn’t trust him anymore, and it was affecting your relationship hugely

so one day when he was off work, you sat him down and told him you were breaking up

he didn’t take it well

you weren’t expecting it, but he reacted with anger rather than confusion or hurt

he kicked the coffee table over and punched a hole in your wall (which he paid for)

because you didn’t yet live together, he would show up to your work or call in, wanting to talk with you

he didn’t understand why you were breaking things off, but the break-up showed his true colors

he started posting vague captions on twitter, like ‘the grass is greener on your side :(’ or videos of him staring at the camera morosely as a sad pop song played in the background

it seemed that he took personal offense to being dumped, and it felt like that offense was more than his want to actually be with you, which was why you could never change your mind

the final straw which confirmed that was him telling news outlets in interviews that he broke up with you, because you ‘didn’t understand him’

the only silver lining was that once that anger and self-righteousness faded away, he had matured enough through that experience to be . better man and a better boyfriend to his next girlfriend

one night, years later, he sent you a text thanking you for giving him that reality check, and apologising for the person he was back then

you were just sad it wasn’t present-jungkook that you were dating, maybe then it wouldn’t have ended so badly

[nie7027]

For some reason i really wanted to write some reformed super5 headcanons so here i go

Edit: Part1    Part2    Part 3    Part 4   Part 5

I havent read the manga so I dont know exactly what happens to them therefore this probably wont follow canon

Minegishi being the one who faced the worst possible way to realize all his wrondoing assumes as his responsability to make sure the others, who didnt had to go through such drastic measures, take seriously their redemption

"What do you mean the boy just offered to be your friend??? I HAD TO FACE DEATH HIMSELF AND ALMOST DIE WHILE BEGGING FOR ONE CHANCE" says a perfectly not traumatized Minegishi after Seri tells them what happened up there

So he essentially becomes the mom friend, making a group chat to know what all of them are up to and pestering them to find a job you bunch of useless

How he manages to be both the mom friend and the asshole friend is anybody guess

hatori and shibata move in together to split bills, seri goes with Reigen so Minegishi ends up renting a tiny flat on his own

Minegishi (actually all of them) doesnt trust Reigen, and neither Mob(afterall he saw him talking with that terrifying spirit) but it looks like Seri is doing fine and he is too busy looking for a job

He ends up being a florist(i think this is canon) and Hatori works repairing computers because thats all they know to do

Minegishi still doesnt actually like like plants but he has come to appreciate them and they are part of him so he starts to learn about them

Hatori canonically knows nothing about IT so now that its his work he does the same and lears to program too (It turns out without his powers he sucks at it)

Cue some strange study session and chats talking about their experiences

Minegishi: Did you know that apple seeds contain cyanide, a very lethal sustance, so you could kill a man if you feed him too many apples?

Hatori: Did you know computers are super stupid? seriously for some reason it tells me there two kinds of 0 and it wont do what i want OH MANS GREATEST INVENT HOW COME YOU CANNOT RUN THIS SIMPLE PROGRAM

Hatori:

Minegishi: you forgot another ; didnt you?

Hatori:

Hatori: yeah..but it still tells me the are 2 zeroe's

Shibata jumps from work to work(construction worker, security guard, retail) getting frustrated each time. The only things constant in his life are the super5 and his weekly visits to the gym because even if he was passing out he remembers what ekubo said to him about appreciating real trained muscles over fake physics muscles and decides to train until he deserves those muscles

It turns everybody in the gym admires his muscles and the fact that shibata follows a healthy routine and never oveworks like those who exercise for the sake of having muscles(he could use his physics powers if he wanted to just show off) motivates them to do the same so they gym owners, exvited about this' go to him and beg him to work there as gym instructor. Shibata has to go thought lots of capacitation but he is finally doing something he believes in and helping other people.

They do mostly fine and are sastified with the way they are becoming better...of course there times when old habits cannot be forgotten

One time Hatori is asked to repair one of the computers of a mildly important company and he does it without realizing he used his powers. so when another computer brokes in the same way and the company, to save money, triesto repeat what he did, it doesnt work and they acusse hatori of somehow doing this on purporse so the company is forced to hire him everytime and threaten to sue. Shibata hearing this walks up to the company in his inflated form and force them to retract everything the said, apologize to Hatori, hire him to repair the other computer and then leave him alone

Hatoris way to say thanks is to hack the gyms system and change shibatas schedule so his days of fall on the same day there new episodes of his favorite shows. He does the same for Minegishi sometimes.

Even if a florist shop is a calmer enviroment there are times he really wants to estrangulate the customers with some vines. He of course doesnt do it but he cant be blamed when a customer trips on a random root that appeared out of nowhere. Seriously? This root is too sturdy to be from any pf the plants they have Minegishis coworkers complain

Once they see a clean shaved, suit wearing more confident standing Seri for the first time they stare dumbfoundedly(they might had even gaped) but they recover quickly and compliment him which makes Seri so happy which is a nice change because he was so nervous he couldnt even button his shirt and Reigen had to sit him down and help him. They go for a drink and catch up on their lives. This becomes soon a routine.

And it goes like this(with them working, adjusting to normal lives and going for drinks every once in awhile) for about a year until one afternoon minegishi comes back to his apartment from grocery shopping to a powerful aura that is making his plants nervously recoil and finds Shimazaki resting on his couch eating cereal out of the box and watching tv

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Watching tv"

"You are blind"

"And you are dumb. Wheres the milk? I couldnt find it"

I have a part 2 ready but i really need to do my homework now so this was a good point to cut it. ill edit it later to fix any mistakes when im on my computer

(The cyanide thing is more difficult than just feeding someone apples but i did that on purpose to show Minegishi is just as dumb as Hatori)

[golgoterror]

Alright, this is ungodly long, but I just wanted to talk about something regarding Jake. 

A lot of this fandom -- at least, from what I’ve seen -- label Jake as stupid. Some may even say Jake and smart are antonyms. This could not be further from the truth. It almost irritates me how much the fandom places this mischaracterization on him. Also, I get to talk about The Lad™ for about ten pages worth of words on Google docs, which is always very, very fun for me.

Well, first things first, let’s talk about the child genius and multi-billionaire polymath that is Jake English.

Puzzle Modus.

Let’s begin with something small. Jake’s modus is of puzzlekind! This is described as:

It's quite a handy modus, allowing you to captchalogue objects of any size, as long as you can fit them all in a finite space by maneuvering the cards around like a big game of Tetris. You like it because it keeps you sharp for solving any puzzles you might find when you go out raiding hallowed tombs, which is never. (x)

He likes puzzles! This is a huge headcanon I absolutely adore that has a basis in the comic: He’s a puzzles guy! This is just sort of a neat little fact about him that I adore to the moon and back. Just the idea of Jake fiddling about with a Rubik’s Cube is kind of adorable.

This is how he goes about doing everything every day of his life. I think that’s just amazing! And incredibly smart of him, I might add.

Skaianet. 

Jake is shown in the credits to take over Skaianet after the game ended. For those unfamiliar, Skaianet made many things for the game, including but not limited to: the interstellar travel we see, transportalizers, the lab by Rose’s house, all Jake’s fancy-schmancy computers, and Sburb itself. In the beta timeline, Grandpa Harley founded Skaianet. In the alpha timeline, Grandma English did. I know Jake didn’t start it up and trying to pass off his alt-timeline self as him is a bit far-fetched at best, but he had the spoons to take it over. I think that speaks volumes for Jake’s intelligence -- this implies, at the very least, he can understand mathematics and physics at a high level. Remind you of someone we already know?

It is also important to note that Jake does, in fact, build the company back from the ground up, because it went to shit before his grandmother died:

GT: Pretty sure her company made a tidy fortune til it went belly up. At least i still have a few of her knickknacks for keepsakes. (x)

So he built an interstellar company back up -- using what his intelligent grandmother had once used -- to being very useful and practical once again. 

As someone with a degree in mathematics and about to finish a degree in physics, I can say this sort of work would for sure require at the very least a decent understanding of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, electrodynamics, calculus (vector and differential forms), ordinary and partial differential equations, and perhaps other things like topology. I don’t know about you -- and I’m probably tooting my own horn a bit by saying this -- but I think that’s pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. 

Actor.

Once again, I’m reaching into the credits to show that Jake has become a movie star after the game ends. Memorizing all those lines, slipping into characters... Being an actor is no easy feat. 

( Side note: This leads into my headcanon that Jake can imitate accents and voices on a whim. No more arguing about whether he has a British, American, or Australian accent -- you’re all right! )

And I would like to add he has two jobs! Skaianet and being a movie star! This guy’s a fucking polymath for Christ’s sake.

Reading People.

Let’s start of simple: Brain Ghost Dirk. I can hear the outcries now of Dirk’s powers being the cause for this. And, yes, I can’t ignore Dirk’s influence in this, but Jake’s hope powers were also needed for the projection to come alive. And the fact he was able to make such a startlingly accurate projecting of Dirk in his own mind is astounding -- even BGD himself thinks so!

TT: You could view me as a projection of the real Dirk within your mind, as expressed through all of your thought patterns about him. TT: So I'm kind of a splinter of his corporeal self who happens to live in your awareness. TT: I'm a startlingly close approximation to the real thing, for all intents and purposes. GT: Just how startlingly close are we talking? TT: I'm not going to give you a bogus percentage like the glasses cause that's not my shtick. TT: But pretty damn close. (x)

A very deep understanding of the other is needed for Jake to do this. That is pretty fucking incredible. He can clearly read people really well -- he had a few times where he was cluing in on Jane and Dirk have feelings for him:

TG: its one of those things jane likes about u so much GT: It is? TG: which TG: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr im not supposed to talk about 2 u evr so nm GT: Talk about what? TG: nope GT: You mean how um... GT: Well a way in which i suppose... TG: no nope GT: Jane is prone to looking upon me with what i fathom to be more than just friendly affection? (x)

TT: I guess call it an extra birthday present. But instead of a present that's awesome, consider it more like a weird confession that may change the way you feel about me. GT: Whoa uh... GT: Dirk are you... uh... GT: Saying what i think? (x)

He’s not completely clueless on people! In fact, he seems to have a really good understanding of his friends. That’s something a lot of people seem to forget because of the incident that I will be getting to later on.

Fending For Himself.

I’ve already written quite a bit on this, but I’ll sum it up here: Jake is exceptionally good at living in the wild and taking care of himself. Sort of like a wild garden; he doesn’t need to be taken care of. Survival skills, especially around fighting and fending off things, aren’t something everyone has. This, once again, counts in his favour, even if it doesn’t line-up with “book smarts”.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

That’s five things! It’s clear Jake is, in fact, a polymath and incredibly intelligent. So, what’s with the fandom painting him as being dumb? What’s with people actually thinking he’s stupid? I think we can all take several wild guesses as to why that’s the case.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Takes things literally.

This is something that plagues Jake quite a lot. Case in point:

GT: Wow like the epic kevin costner film? TT: Almost exactly. Especially by the same degree of shittiness. GT: Oh man does that mean you have to drink your own pee?????? TT: You get used to the taste. Welcome it, even. TT: That takes about 15 days in a row of hard piss drinking though. GT: Ewwwwwwwwwwww no dude. No ew. :( TT: Relax, I don't drink any goddamn piss, ok? GT: Oh ok. Whew. (x)

But, well, let’s address the elephant in the room. The chat I laughed so hard at when I read it the first time due to pure, unadulterated second-hand embarrassment: Jake asking Jane if she had feelings for him.

Let’s analyze this, shall we? Jake starts off by being vague as all Hell, and I’ll spare those details, until finally...

GT: Just come out and say it. Do you fancy me? GG: No! GT: I see. GT: Very well then. GT: Jeez i mustve really misread that one! I feel like kind of a bone head now. (x / x)

Okay, she says no, and he backs off. That’s fine and dand--

GG: No!!!!!! GG: Oh my God, what am I saying here? GG: Jake, I didn't mean it! I didn't want to make you feel that way! GT: Now jane lets not backpedal here. GT: Youve spoken the truth and i greatly appreciate and respect you for that. GT: But now that i think about it you know what? GG: ... GG: No? :( GT: Please dont take this the wrong way but your answer is actually kind of a relief! (x)

... Oh, right. Yeah. It keeps going. It just keeps--

GT: Actually since youve made your feelings apparent and only see me as a friend that makes it a lot easier! GG: Haha, yes! GG: Friends!!!! GT: Maybe you could help me sort out some stuff that has been weighing on me lately? GG: Well what are friends for Jake!!!!! (x)

Sweet Jesus, Jake.

GG: Me? GG: HOO HOO HOO! GG: I'm just GG: Terrific! GG: I'm feeling so... GG: Friendly!!! GG: I clearly just want to be a good friend and bring all my AMAZING FRIENDLINESS to bear on your problems. GG: Friendlystyle! Ahahahah? GG: Shit I mean GG: Ahahahah! GT: Thats aces. Jane youre a sweetheart. (x)

Alright, alright, enough! You all remember the fucking chat. 

Regardless, it’s very apparent Jake takes things at face value. I also will cite him talking to Jane before her birthday, but not list examples, because what happened above will just happen once again. 

Okay, so he takes things at face value. What’s wrong with that? He trusts people to not lie to his face -- to not sugarcoat things or beat around any bushes. Perhaps I’m projecting a bit, but I do the same damn thing. I think a lot of people do! I don’t think reading things as fact over text is a good measure of someone’s intellect. All it does is show he has issues with communication. Okay, so he struggles with one thing. Sue me.

Doesn’t catch things right away.

Yeah okay I’m just gonna dump a few examples of this.

GT: Haha wow. Must have been a hell of a guy. TT: So... TT: You're not making any connections there? GT: Where? Huh? TT: Famous comedian, about the age of your grandma, inheriting the family name of the Baroness... TT: Not ringing a bell? GT: What are you talking about! Dirk stop speaking in riddles and keep telling the story i am on tenterhooks here! TT: Ok, well it's not like it's that important. Just a super obvious thing that'll probably occur to you later when you're looking in the fridge you don't have, at which point you'll feel like an idiot. GT: Oh my god you can be one opaque motherfucker just clue me in bro! TT: Nah, it'll be funnier this way. GT: STRIIIIIIDEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!! TT: Moving on. (x)

GT: Whats going on? TT: Took you long enough to figure it out. TT: Pages really are a slow burning class. Damn. GT: Figure what out! TT: You're asleep. (x)

This leads into the point above. His mind doesn’t work that way -- but that doesn’t mean he’s not intelligent. He needs everything laid out in front of him so he can make the connections and understand what’s happening, but there’s no real harm in this, and it certainly doesn’t dictate whether the guy is “intelligent” or not.

There are many, many more examples in canon depicting Jake as having difficulties with communication and you all can open most of his pesterlogs and probably find one. I’m not going to list anymore. But, hold your horses, I swear I’m getting to a point!

Difficulty reading.

A lot of the media Jake consumes is picture-based. Movies, comics, even the puzzles are most likely spacial and probably not riddles. It’s not far to imagine Jake might not be a terribly good reader, considering nobody was really around to make him read. Of course, his grandmother was around when he was little, so he can read -- and he can read just fine. But he probably isn’t very good at it simply from lack of practice. He also has terrible grammar, something Jane picks on him for, so it’s entirely possible that’s a contributing factor. He may just have trouble reading and writing.

Speaking from experience, I have dyslexia. As such, reading and writing are incredibly hard for me. I never read the books in my literature classes -- both in English and French -- but I did get the gist of the books (enough to get a decent mark in the class at least) by watching a movie adaptation of the novel. I don’t think it’s that far-off to think Jake may, indeed, do the same thing.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

NOTE: This next part is a bit hard for me to write, because I don’t want to vilify any of you. It might not have clued in on anyone or maybe you just saw Jake as a sort of comic relief and meant no harm by it. And I hope shining a light on this will make you all think twice about the guy. However, I can’t really avoid this next part, and I may get a bit emotional in it. Just a bit of a warning.

All of the above points are just me trying to say Jake probably has undiagnosed learning disabilities and perhaps autism. I don’t think I need to go into detail about how those don’t make someone “stupid”. If you think that’s the case, fuck you. I can’t argue with ableists, much less do I actually want to. 

NOTE: I wrote a thing on his speech impediments. That may be of interest too. I don’t really know, but here it is nonetheless.

My take-away message here is: just because someone struggles with socialization or other things doesn’t mean fucking anything in terms of their intelligence. Jake is very clearly smart and has the ability to read people incredibly well -- to the point of making copies of them! Perhaps it’s just a bit easy to underestimate the guy compared to other characters, though.

There are other things that muddy this up a bit, unfortunately.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Trolling.

Jake is such a fucking troll. Jesus shitting Christ, does he get a kick out of acting stupid just to make the other person look silly. Or perhaps even to make himself laugh in the process. Case in point:

uu: I WILL JUST BE YOUR PATRON DUDE. uu: OR MAYBE. YOUR PATRON MANBRO. GT: Sounds pretty gay. uu: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? GT: Whats what? uu: GAY. WHAT'S GAY YOU IDIOT FUCK. GT: Oh right. GT: Forgive me i forget you arent familiar with all of my earth lingo. GT: Its like... GT: How do i explain. GT: You know. Its a rather old fashioned term for being jolly and festive together. GT: Like "that rollicking time we had scrumming the other eve sure was gay." uu: I SEE. uu: THEN YES. YOU ARE CORRECT. uu: THIS IS GOING TO BE GAY AS HELL. (x)

Look at his goddamn face during this exchange:

That little bastard knows exactly what he’s doing. 

And these aren’t stand-alone events! Jake is very, very silly and will use the fact others see him as stupid to have a little fun. May as well, right? And, in the process, he makes others look pretty damn stupid. 

But sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell when he’s acting stupid against when he’s genuinely not getting something. I think he even fools himself sometimes! So you have to be a bit careful about fake-outs. I’m sure even the other alphas have trouble deducing when he’s doing this -- which only adds to the myth of him actually being “stupid” when viewed on first-glace.

He probably also does this with crushes, purposefully ignoring the signs because he doesn’t want to deal with it or may not believe anyone could like him that way. After all, if he’s wrong, he may think himself to be conceded and having a big head. So, he ignores the signs, thus convincing himself the feelings aren’t there. Then he gets absolutely fucking bamboozled beyond belief to find out they actually do like him. But that’s just a little side-note.

Thinks he’s stupid.

This one is just a bit... Sad. Very sad. Jake genuinely does think he’s stupid. Quite a lot, really. 

GT: I shoulda asked where he fit into the picture if you were raised alone. I can be dumb as a bag of penny candy sometimes. (x)

Just... Man, he’s been called and treated as stupid so many times, he’s at the point where he believes it. If you asked him, he’d say Dirk is a genius, Roxy is always smart and sassy, and Jane is brilliant. (I don’t have a source for that last one but... Come on. She lectures him about grammar. Don’t fuck with me.) But when it comes to himself? He can’t say the same. Of course he then acts that way. He sees himself as a burly adventurer who is also a gentleman and tries to live up to that. No where along those lines does he think he’s intelligent. And that’s just... a little heartbreaking, really, all things considered.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Can’t believe this blog is just me going, “Wanna see how fast I can talk about Jake?”, and a shit-ton of people all nodding before I talk for six hours straight. Anyway, take-home message is: Jake’s smart. Jake’s very, very smart. He’s also a himbo, but he’s incredibly smart. Just because he has learning disabilities doesn’t mean fuck-all. 

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. There are drinks and refreshments in the back. Have a safe trip home. Remember to tip your waiters and waitresses. Jesus fuck can I run this gag any harder into the ground? Giving me language was a mistake. No but, really, if you read this whole damn thing, thank you! I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write.

[spnfanficpond]

February 2019 Pond LiveChat Recap

We had a great time chatting today with @impala-dreamer!! Thank you so much, Beka, for joining us!

We talked about self-publishing through Amazon, how to do it, what the benefits are, and the challenges to making a finished product. A rundown of the chat, as well as some general Pond news, is below the cut!

Q: What sort of music do you listen to when you write?

Beka: Oh, uh... Well, Actually, I have a lot of playlists on youtube. So it depends. I have a hardcore smut list that is just music that gets my hips moving... then a romance thing which is feely stuff. A "Deanspiration" list that oddly has zero Zepplin in it, just stuff that reminds me of him or gives me ideas. Sometimes I hear a song and it instantly snaps an idea. I write to music a lot.

Q: For everyone, do you reblog everything you read or do you think likes have the same “power” behind them?

Beka: No. If I read it, I reblog, unless it’s iffy. Iffy means, I read it, but wasn’t up my alley or I think it would be too triggering for people. I avoid those types of fics, anyway.

@mrswhozeewhatsis: There is a very small percentage of things I read that I won't reblog, but then, I haven't really read them, I've noped out for one reason or another. Usually grammar/formatting or content, not writing style, to be clear.

@girl-with-a-fandom-fettish: I guess one reason I suck at reblogging is a lot of the stuff I read has nothing to do with what is currently reblogged on my blog and that just doesn't match in my very matchy brain...is that just me?

@mrswhozeewhatsis: I believe that everyone should be able to put on their blog what they want. Some folks see their blog as a collection like in a museum. Some folks, like me, see it as more of a news feed. Collectors are less likely to reblog because they're carefully curating their blog. My advice to collectors is to then make a side blog where you can reblog the things you don't want to collect.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge you find in writing?

Beka: I think the biggest challenge for me is writing in the moment. I can't write if it's not flowing, and sometimes I try to force myself just to get the story out bc i fear i'm letting people down by not posting enough? But it’s not good when I do that, so I have to let myself go with the story that's with me at the moment. Sometimes it's two at once, like today. lol. Also, Sam is hard. (heheh no really, he is. also he is. but pg13)

Q: There are so many questions to about this process!

Beka: I do really get asked about it a lot, and it's really not that hard once you do it. It's annoying to navigate and decide what you want to do, but it really is awesome and not too frustrating. Amazon is really great because they do have an extensive help section AND message boards so you can ask and talk to other self publishers so it's like having someone with you.

Q: You said you chose to publish through Amazon. Out of curiosity, were there any other ways you heard about or considered before you settled on Amazon, and if so, was there a specific reason you didn't use them?

Beka:  I'm basically a Google fanatic, so when I decided to do this, I had no idea what I was doing so basically I goggled "How to self publish a book" and there were THOUSANDS of sites thrown at me. I honestly can't remember the other sites I looked at, but it basically came down to amazon was a company name I knew, I trusted, and had the best help and resources. And I have a kindle, so I figured that was easiest. I think I only looked into one or two others but I can't remember what they were. Amazon just stood out.  I did read up on like actually doing it yourself like through a book binder and all that and it was SOOOO much work this was just the easiest and most cost effective.

Q: Okay, but with Amazon, do they, like, own part of your content if you publish through them?

Beka: NOPE. I hold copyright to all my works. they just are the people who produce the actual physical book.

Q: What was the time frame, like from start to finish, I guess? Or the process if you don't mind. What did you have to do to get set up with Amazon?

Beka: Ok- so getting set up was easy. if you have an amazon account, you're good. Or you just make one. then there is a website- kdp.amazon.com -and they literally walk you through the entire process.  Someone up there asked how long it took -  I rushed it. my novel started as fanfic, which I wrote in about 2 months, then I took 2 weeks re-editing and changing to non-fanfic, then about a week editing again and formatting and then i had my hard copy. So, all in- maybe 3 months, but the actual amazon stuff takes a few days to get you a book in hand.

@kittenofdoomage: One thing I will say about Amazon, it's very convenient but I struggled with the covers and formatting.

Q: Did you have to use special software to submit your work?

Beka: I write in google docs, but amazon no likey- so I had to move everything over to Microsoft Word. and from there it gets updated. HOWEVER, there is now in beta testing an amazon program which I downloaded for my 3rd book but was too frustrated to figure out so I never used it. it's specifically for Kindle, but kindle didn't like my poetry format so I couldn’t do it.

@kittenofdoomage: They have step by step guides. And I use Google Docs, too, but you can download into a PDF or .doc file from there.

Q: So it's not a copy-paste thing, you upload the completed file then reformat it for amazon?

Beka: well... it's two different things for paperback and kindle. There are specific formatting guidelines for paperback such as margin sizes and gutters and such so when you turn a page it's not all wonky. Kindle formatting is MUCH easier to do. you just upload and it does it for you. The files for paperback need to be formatted with specific things. it's not hard... just annoying.

Q: You mentioned changing your fanfic into non-fanfic. Does that mean you can't have any fan elements in a story to publish it?

Beka: Well... my novel was basically a J2 x Reader BDSM fanfic, and so I changed J2 to original characters, I changed the show, the car, the everything. If you know that I write SPN fic, and you read it, you can see it's clearly SPN, but those who don't know SPN don't know that, because I've asked. lol. Also- someone read it recently and thought the Jared character was Jensen, so I guess I changed it enough.  I personally would not publish anything that actually said SPN or J2 or anything because those are copy-written characters and not mine so it does seem illegal to make money off of them, ya know? 

@mrswhozeewhatsis: It is actually illegal to make money off of fan fiction. The WB owns the characters and the show. If anyone else tries to make money off the characters or identifiable elements of the show, the WB can sue and win.

@kittenofdoomage: Those who use Patreon are covered under fair usage only because Patreon is a donation site.

Q: Were there any parts of the process that surprised you?

Beka:  Honestly, the entire thing surprised me. I went into it like just to see if it was possible and then i realized- I CAN’T publish my work. they WILL sell it. People WILL buy it. and it was all very shocking. It was scary, and I know people are intimidated by it, but it really was simple in the end, and if you want to do it- do it. It's awesome to look over at my bookshelf and see my name on actual, physical books ya know?

@kittenofdoomage: I was the same, Beka. I procrastinated for months. And okay, it wasn't a huge success but I learned from the first time, bettered myself the second time, and now.... I'm procrastinating again but that's not the point lol

Q: How much money do you make per sale?

Beka: It depends on the format and the cost you put. Like, for my short story and poetry book I make PROBABLY a few cents on it. My novel I make around $2 depending on the price I set. You set the selling price, and you can do sales and freebies. 

@kittenofdoomage: You can choose everything. They tell you how much you'll make from each copy sold.

Q: Do they tell you how much other authors sell similar works for, to give you an idea what others think is reasonable?

Beka: Yeah, you can look it up, too. They have a chart that's like, "This is your sale price. This is how much we take to make it. This is how much you get," and you can fiddle with it.

Q: Is there any kind of marketing happening on Amazon’s side, or is it all you?

Beka: They can do promotions, but you have to pay them to promote it.

Q: Did you look into promotion costs through Amazon? What kind of money are we talking, here?

Beka: Honestly, I don’t remember. When I see a fee of any kind I run for the hills because I'm cheap like that. lol. It's prob not too cheap BUT they also have this thing you can sign up for that's like a library kinda deal where your book can go on the free book a month kindle deal- i didn't do it bc you don't get royalties for it. but more people read it? idk what's best. It's all very over my head marketing.

@mrswhozeewhatsis: I guess if you're looking to become a popular selling author, and you have the cash to pay to promote it, then after a few books, it would pay off when you develop an audience.

Q: Do you think self publishing is the way to go long term, or maybe a better in terms of testing the waters? I realize you are still in the latter stage but I'm curious about your opinion...

Beka: Here's my thoughts: I used to be a singer/songwriter. I played in Manhattan. I had paying gigs. I recorded an album. I thought I could make it work. But I didn't go for it. No one handed me a record contract. I let it all go to have my kids and family.  I want to write. I realize no one's gonna stick their hand out and hand me a publishing deal. BUT I might be able to pay some bills with my books. I might be able to write enough, well enough to sell some books. and if i sell enough books, maybe a publisher WILL see me and then I can attempt the next stage.  I think self publishing is great. Why not? Do it if you want to do it. If you want to write, write. If you want to share it, share it. Who's to stop you? And if you can share it through self publishing with people all over the world?? freaking do it, man. 

Q: What is your best piece of writing advice?

Beka: OK, my best writing advice is... See it, feel it, write it. If you don't feel what you're writing, I'm not gonna feel it reading it. I think i'm more of an emotional writer than a descriptive. I can't tell you what the room looks like that they're in, but I can tell you how it feels that Dean just stepped on that Lego. ya know? Idk. Write what you see and feel, and put yourself into it, and it'll be amazing. 

Q: Are you a planner or a pantser?

Beka: Planner? SOMETIMES. It depends. I have plans for series, but shorter things I just go with the flow. I'm constantly messaging Ashley like "DEAN JUST DID X. I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!" lol

Q: Do you outline at all, or just have a general goal in mind?

Beka: I do outline series. but not... strictly or drastically. Like, right now i'm working on a series for my kink bingo that's alternates between the brothers. I have a general plot line over all to follow, but i've also set it up like c1- flogging. c2- spanking, etc. 

Q: What is something you know now that you wish you knew before you published?

Beka: I think I'd tell myself to not worry and just freaking write what I want.

Q: Do you have a writing schedule or something that keeps you productive?

Beka: No. I try very hard to have a schedule, but I'm a little... slightly... bipolar I think and my writing follows my moods. I can write 20K in a weekend and then nothing for a week. I just literally ride the wave of ideas. Like, currently I'm in a slump. but I wrote 10K this week before the slump hit. It's quite annoying.

Except for some general conversation about the stupid places and times we all get ideas and the incomprehensible notes we’ve all left for ourselves, the chat ended. A good time was had by all, I think!! Thanks to everyone who was there! @littlegreenplasticsoldier @kittenofdoomage @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish @because-imma-lady-assface @canadianspnhunter (And two folks whose URLs I never got: Cassie and Shaila)

General Pond Updates and Reminders

Angel Fish Award nominations are due soon! Click the link for the list of raffle prizes! Remember, every nomination is an entry! So far, we’ve only received three or four nominations. If you have sent in a nomination, but have not received a private message confirming we received it, we didn’t get it. Send it in again! Be sure to use Submit instead of Ask!

Don’t forget to submit your stories to be posted to the blog! When your stories are on the blog, then they are easier to nominate for Angel Fish Awards!

SPNFanFicPond Season 14 Weekly Episode Writing Challenge - New prompts go up after every new episode, and there’s no deadline! Check out the prompts and rules at the link!

Say hi to February’s New Members!

Check the Pond CALENDAR to see when Big Fish will be in the chat room and other Pond and SPN events are happening! Know of something that’s not on the calendar, send us an ask or submission with the deets info details!  The calendar offers a lot of features, such as showing you when things are in your own timezone! Since we’re an international group, that’s a definite plus!!

Next month’s LiveChat details will be published as soon as we know them! Hope to see you there!

[fuck-customers]

Idk if it's petty revenge or not but I'm petty and I wanted a little revenge

*looongg rant, TL;DR at bottom* So, local goth store ASM here. A few months back within about 1 week my SM, the current ASM, and one of my fav SA's all left the store, either due to moving in the company or just moving. I was then the Acting SM since I was the 'senior' keyholder. Trust me when I say I have stories from that time. Part of my duties as Acting SM was to make the schedule every week, in which half of it was begging others in the district to come out to my store (only one in the southern part of my state) and the other half was dealing with my other KH bullshit callouts. She requested off opening Monday and Wednesday due to school. Okay that's chill, I got someone to help out those days, I need you to close Friday so that I can have off and sleep. Oh wait, you called out for that due to an emergency? Okay fine I'll make it work, hope everything is okay! Just to find out she called out for a fucking tattoo convention. Another time it was because of a festival, or I don't like closing, etc etc. One time she tried to get me to switch her from a Sunday and she would take one of my shifts because she was GOING to call out. Not that she had, but was GOING to. This was after 2 months straight of me working every.single.Sunday. I called my DM to make sure I could deny, which I could. So I did. And while yes I should've been a bit more assertive and tried to stop this shit, 1 I had never been trained for SM so most of what I did was Dear God don't fall apart hope this works and 2 this girl had already mentioned she had been thinking of stepping down to a SA and getting another job, and I didnt want to run a store with just me. Sue me. I did get upgraded to an ASM which was greatly appreciated tho. Fast forward to today (8/2) we've now had a SM for about 3 months (god time flies) and after all of the above, plus a visit from the Regional Manager scaring all of us, plus some pet deaths in my family, and a possible cancer scare for my mother (turned out not to be, just an infection that felt like a lump), I went on a week long vacation. Loved it, got back today refreshed. Now me and my old SA are in a group chat with my KH, and I was talking with the SA about how my paycheck was going to be sad since I was gone a week. Oh well, whatever I'll make it work right? Well, my KH says, how about you take my Sunday shift? I'm tired after this week and I'm working more hours than you (not sure if that's BS or not) I'm about to say yes because money when I remember my mom had had 2 surgeries while I was away and needs very minor help from me since my dad is leaving for a business trip. Oh there is a God Me: *input woe is me voice* oh I would but I was hoping to have it off so that I could see my family and help my mom with recovery after her 2 surgeries. But if the SM needs me to I can make it work Yall I've never seen her backtrack so fast. KH: oh no don't, I can work it, I was just feeling lazy lol Now like I says, the help us very minor, like getting my mom her water or holding something for her in the shower, something my brother can easily do, but if it means I can make my KH work when she's just feeling lazy? I'll take it TL;DR: KH drives me insane with scheduling demands for a couple months, then tries to get me to take her shift after i get back from a week's vacation due to being lazy and expecting me to take it. Mother's surgery + some nice little exaggerations for pity = fuck you, I'm not working that shift