#its not technically old enough i just went back to the latest one w the cat icon bcuz i knew kitty meant workaround

[skeletonmaster69]

finally installed old tumblr :D

[allkinds-oftrash]

Ya girl is watching the latest HSM series ep and Imma live blog it hshshs and will add my reactions under the cut so it doesn't end up a long post. Anyways, let's goo:

AHHHH THE MORNING SHOW WITH GINA AND EJ WE LOVE TO SEE IT

They really said we're gonna let life imitate art with Nini and Olivia huh

Ricky was SUPPORTIVE??? Damnn I really thought we gonna get a classic Ricky tantrum....

But also wow sir that sounds salty and should definitely talk to someone abt how you're feeling...A therapist maybe 👀

I know we needed to contextualise how Ricky felt abt the song but I really wanted to see Nini's interview in full!!

Sebby you're so cute I do wanna see yall do DEH

Shjshshs not the rights not being available for another 5 years 😭😭

I dunno how they're in great shape and closer to the Menkies Gold after not having a single proper rehearsal, but go off Miss Jenn

Omg honestly Kourt's costumes are always amazing and on point Imma excited to see it

Kourt is such a simp we love to see it

Carlos is so pissy this episode we love to see it shshhs

Also love the way Seb calms him down and keeps him nice it's such a funny dynamic

"We had 20 people make our Belle dress over 50 hours" Okay North High shut the fuck up

I'm calling it now the reason North High knows so much is cos Howie is the leak and Kourt has been unwittingly telling him. The way her phone keeps going off as they discuss how North High knows everything is really good foreshadowing if my prediction is right

Also like her phone went off just as Carlos said "How did they know that?" THAT'S PEAK FORESHADOWING

If Howie ain't in North High, I dunno what Tim is doing

GSJAGSHAH KOURTNEY MAKING ABS FOR EJ I CANNOT

"I have abs" We know sweetie

"I PADDED THE THUSH FOR YOU" "AWW THANKS KOURT I NEEDED THAT" THIS INTERACTION IS EVERYTHING THAT WAS SO FUNNY!! I love that it is now canon that EJ has abs but no butt love that for him

Okay but like damn these costumes are great!! North High can fuck right off with its high end ones I just wanna see lowkey homemade costumes by students; I'd watch a Broadway show if I wanted to see professional costumes okay

Damn Carlos has killer eyesight clocking in that mask in the trunk

GINA BBY DON'T SAY THAT AND HAHSGSH NINI NUDGING HER WAS SO FUNNY

Nini's little look over at Gina was like "Omg you guys my girlfriend is so cute and dumb" GINI STANS HOW WE FEELING?

Miss Jenn don't be that naive, your boyfriend probably put them up to it

That Insta page is prophetic with their timing tbh; all the info is a leak obviously looking at your Howie but like the timing of it all. Those kiddos don't know that they are discussing the stolen mask at this exact moment (Kourt has put down her phone after Carlos snapped at her so Howie doesn't know they are talking abt it rn)

"We don't dance with the enemy" *cuts to her dancing with Zackey later*

SEBBY WEARING THE TEACUP COSTUME OMG HE'S GOING MAKE SUCH A CUTE CHIP (yes I am still mad Seb/Joe was robbed but Imma fangirl over the costume anyway)

Wtf why does North High look so expensive - they are literally in the same district as East High right??? How did they get this much funding

North High is a very artsy and rich for a public school; they should have had Nini go here instead of YAC tbh (like this campus feels like what YAC should have been) NOW THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AN INTERESTING STORYLINE

Seblos' dynamic IS ON POINT THIS EP I really love my bois so much and their back and forth is hilarious

Shhshs DIANE who loves volleyball and North High okay I totally believe it

WHY ARE RED AND ASHLYN SO KINKY EVERY DAMN EPISODE TIM THESE ARE UNDERAGED CHARACTERS STOP IT

Shshsh we love Gina knowing herself and practicing self control by volunteering to be the lookout

Omg yall listen to Carlos and stfu they are so lucky no one saw or heard them yelling Wildcats

Oh no no no no no Miss Jenn you gonna get sucked in; this is gonna be so messy

Omg I saw someone post about this scene before I watched the ep YALL ARE RIGHT THAT BOI HITTING ON GINA IS SO FINE Babes go for that one, not EJ

NOT THEM FAKE DATING UGH E W TIM STOP MAKING ROMANTIC PORTWELL A T H I N G I honestly do not understand how some of yall can ship it romantically knowing Sofia is a whole underaged babey and Matty is a whole ass grown man - like I get the appeal of the Wonderstudies getting together and they do have chemistry but the irl age gap is creepy and outweighs the appeal of shipping them romantically

As I always say; Portwell/Wonderstudies should be a BROTP not an OTP

Ugh Brotp Portwell would have clocked Lily right away; romantic Portwell making googly eyes at each other isn't helping anyone

Living for Nini getting the recognition she deserves - I really like her solo arc this season she's so much more interesting without Ricky tbh

Aww Kourt you simp I love her and I'm so happy she's happy I wanna be wrong about Howie being a North High kid

Where is the mask??

OHMYGOD THESE KIDS COMING IN LIKE A HORROR MOVIE

Lily really wishes she was Jesse St. James huh; you could never Lily so stop

Andrew Barth Feldman and his cute little French accent I love him so much

Hnng Miss Jenn gonna get manipulated by this hoe. Omg wowow Zackey really is a hoe, making out with another girl before the show THE AUDACITY OF HIM SAYING MISS JENN WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH I WILL THROW HANDS WITH THIS MOFO

Wait the kids didn't steal it BUT WHAT IF ZACKEY DID

Ssjsgfajhdfg I CANNOT WITH ANDREW'S ACCENT but I can't tell if its really bad or really good but I'm also confused why didn't they just cast a French person as Antonie shshhs Antoine is adorableee and a little shit the best type of character

Lily is so annoying b y e sis bye and Olivia Keegan is talented I just wish they didn't make her character such a cartoony villain type

"How about if we bop to the top" SEBBY I LOVE YOU AND NEVER STOP BEING SO CUTE I SWEAR and Awww Carlos called him Honey I am s o f t

Hnng why do these fools are really gonna give into North High calling them chickens

OHHH NO SHE DIDN'T JUST SAY THAT ABOUT ASHLYN FUCK A DANCE OFF I AM ABOUT TO THROW HANDS WITH A 16 YEAR OLD

"She told us not to dance with the enemy. She's better than this" No Sebby, she's not *cuts to her dancing with Zackey* AND OMG THE WAY I SAW THIS EDIT COMING BEFORE IT CAME

Ooooh I like this song wayyy more whatever the mess The Mob Song became (when I first heard it drop on Spotify yesterday) Around You is such a great song musically and lyrically very relevant to these two and gosh I love their voices together

They have so much chemistry damn, go home Mike (well he technically has oop) and Mr. Mazzara

YES YOU DO MISS JENN YOU ALWAYS HAD IT

Oh god this is the scene from the trailer; she's gonna make a move on Ricky isn't she?? Leave him alone Lily he doesn't need a 3rd girl to be confused about he needs a therapist

Lily shut the fuck up with quasi; STOP TRYING TO MAKE QUASI HAPPEN

"I love Nini's song" Sure, Jan.

...Okay yes you should have called him out but don't bait him LIKE THAT oop there's the scene from the trailer

Ohmygod is Andrew Barth Feldman gonna hit on Ashlyn

Okay this is so cute but also I am VERY annoyed with the way this show handles its characters like they aren't relevant or important unless they get into a relationship or a love triangle?? That's such a shitty way to give out screentime and arcs to characters. Is it not enough to develop the characters on their own and strengthen their friendship???

HUH TIM why you so obsessed with compulsory heterosexuality??(well also homosexuality for Seblos but they are the only ones I'm not annoyed with their relationship cos its a hella big step for Disney to have a gay couple and their relationship isn't in our faces or overshadows the plot and its just spinkles of cuteness every time they interact - they are honestly who Rini wishes they were; besties in love. They are a couple that Tim should be taking notes from; leave the relationship drama in the background, focus on the theatre and friendship aspect of everything)

My mini rant aside; this is a very adorable interaction between Ashlyn and Antoine.

"TOM HOLLAND ON STILTS" GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE WITH THAT COMPARISON I AM SCREAMING ANTOINE THAT'S SO FUNNY

This is so funny he keeps picking out the hottest guys of the group; as if he himself isn't the French version of Big Red they look super alike ngl shshsh

WHY YOU RUIN IT WITH THAT ANTOINE I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU

Drama between Antoine and Red is already spicing up shshsh I cannot

Why are you so dramatic with the shuffle Lily gtfo of here...also this doesn't make sense?? She wasn't even on a BATB playlist; what if a non BATB song came on ahahah

Good to know they aren't big fans of The Mob Song like I am Awww EJ you cutie, okay I will appreciate the OG Mob Song just for you

OH WAIT HE PROLLY LIKES IT COS ITS A GASTON LED SONG TIM GIMME THE EJ SOLO I DESERVE IN THIS NUMBER

I'm being robbed of Gaston for the last 7 eps I at least deserve an EJ solo for compensation

The way the set looks straight out of Broadway but also like omg the blue lighting and fancy stage gave me intense flashbacks to that Glee episode where Vocal Adrenaline sang Bohemian Rhapsody

RICKY STOP BEING SALTY AND ACTUALLY COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND LIKE A NORMAL PERSON

OMG THE SUBTITLES SAID ITS HOWIE SINGING AS THE BEAST I FUCKING CALLED IT

Howie you hoe you gonna break my girl Kourtney's heart

Yeah...still not a fan of Antoine's Dance Remix

Yall know Gina would kill the dance number if she wasn't wearing that fit

Okay but it's Gaston led song WHY DOES EVERYONE BUT EJ HAVE A SOLO IN THIS SONG??

First the Beasts led it (Howie sounded better than Ricky ngl), then the Lumieres (their voices worked hella well together; I always forget what a talented singer Frankie is THEY NEED TO GIVE HIM A SOLO SONG) and now the Belles are going at it (Ashlyn's voice is superior)

BIG RED BEING JEALOUS AND SALTY IS SO FUNNY ITS LIKE A PUPPY BEING ANGRY I CRI

...Did anyone really win, Lily??? STFU

CARLOS IS RIGHT AND HE SHOULD SAY IT

Oooh I did see someone talk about this when the Rose Song dropped last week, apparently its illegal to add songs to a musical you're doing for a school play; I really thought the show would brush past that irl rule but I guess they are playing into it

THE WAY EVERYONE TURNED TO EJ FOR THE SPORTS METAPHOR I AM D Y I N G AND HIS FACE WAS GOLDEN! ITS LIKE THAT LISA SIMPSON MEME SHHSHSH

Okay Nini is being a little pissy about leaving her song out of the show and its a little selfish to wanna keep it at the risk of being disqualified but I also understand why she's hurt

Everyone is dog piling on her right now being against her idea and it feels like they are being against her song and her herself instead of them not wanting to be disqualified. Also like she poured her heart and soul into the song after Miss Jenn lowkey rushed her to write it. So I can see why this feels like a rejection of her and her song and why she's so hurt rather than her seeing the big picture right now

It doesn't help that Ricky said the final blow causing her to walk off

Okay maybe Zackey gets some rights for being chill and wanting the kids to be peers

THIS MOTHERFUCKER I KNEW HE WAS SHADY Also the way I gasped even though I predicted he stole the mask halfway through this ep shshsh

Stab him Miss Jenn STAB HIM

Bitch why you so threatened by East High if yall have such a Broadway-esque show planned??? They honestly should have stuck to the Little Mermaid; I really wanted to see the aquarium

"It's just a song Ricky" "A song can mean everything" Do you get deja vu? Anyone else getting intense flashbacks to Jan when DL first dropped and all the drama happened 👀

YES PLEASE STAY CO ANCHORS Gosh I love them so much esp once you take the romantic connotations out of their interactions

ROUGE GRAND I'M SCREAMING

I love this long take of checking in with everyone's relationship status (still hate how romantically focused this show has become but still a cool shot)

I K N E W IT I WAS RIGHT

Okay but like looking at Kourtney's face I have never wanted to be wrong so bad GOD I HATE IT HERE I really think he likes her and I hope they work it out

Nini setting up her own music acc feels like when Olivia rebranded her whole IG to be just for her music stuff - love this for both of them

AHHHHH SHE'S NINA NOW YALL

I know everyone loves her as Nini but like I have always loved the name Nina and it really suits her to be honest also shows how she's growing up now and kind of leans into the lyric "I won't be confined to your point of view" from The Rose Song because Nini is the nickname Ricky gave her so it shows that she's outgrowing him too and I love that for her!

Overall thoughts; they really crammed all the North High drama into one ep huh. Personally would have liked it if all of this was spread out throughout the last few episodes; like different hijinks for every episode. I'm just a big fan of properly setting up the overall arc over the season instead of patching it together closer to the climax/end of the show. Cos now it lowkey feels like two different seasons - 2A felt like The Rini/Rina Show esp with YAC storyline and whatever was going on with Rina and now 2B is finally feeling like what this season should have been all this time

[the-headbop-wraith]

X

3 _ 42 The Land Time Forgot

  Part 4 - Final

 An extended time later, dedicated to the intense and unrelenting search for their friend, all of which resulted in no leads or inspiration to where he might’ve been hauled off. It was possible Arthur was still within the park, but it was also as likely that he was hauled out to a parking lot and smuggled away in an unmarked van. Vivi doubted those orchestrated events, given only one person was viewed dragging Arthur away. By the build they were larger than Arthur, not the same dimensions as Lewis, but enough muscles and mass to bully their thin friend into restraints.

 Nothing positive came from Mystery’s searching. It was harder for him to track scent trails if a possession or shoe didn’t make direct contact with the ground or standing structures, such as plants or fences. Likewise, the cart that got away was speculated to not have returned to the park grounds. If he was not within the park, their search was near impossible.

The remaining three made their way through the Historically Accurate Old West district, with Mystery leading the way sniffing on the air or scanning the ground. By now, the park was nearly deserted aside from the work crews roving around, cleaning up the plots of ambient landmarks – in the case of the Old West ™ - they touched up bleached out paint on stagecoaches and trimmed back cactuses amid a gravel patch. Technical crews descended on the rides, to give last checks before the attractions shut down for the evening. Natural light faded away, permitting the intense lamps dotted across the park to award visibility to the current groups.

 “This isn’t working,” Lewis noted. “We just have to go by the security offices and see about examining those cameras.”

 Vivi sighed. “I know you’re right, but searching through all those cameras can lead us to the same situation. Trying to figure out where they went, after the train.” She paused for a moment and observed the work crews, expertly raking the gravel around a tall saguaro cactus.

 Asking people if they saw a ‘lizard man’ driving a golf cart around, had warranted many obtuse gawks, gaggles, and some giggles. Most people thought they were acting out some sort of park gag or something, and a few others asked if a hidden camera was involved. People.

 “It would be a lead though,” Vivi supposed. She gave a whistle, and Mystery whipped his head up.

 “Better than nothing,” Lewis quipped.

 Unbeknownst to the group, a golf cart rolled through the pathway of the Historically Accurate Old West district. The vehicle only halted when the driver spied the group from a distance, headed for the district exit. The driver wore a park merch hoody, and under the rustic eave of a shut-up memento shop, the shadows draped them near completely.

 “There they are,” he muttered, exasperated. He struck the steering wheel, then pulled up the phone. The pale light of the screen traced across the lower features of his face, and a downcast frown. “Last warning. There won’t be another.”

  __

  Darkness pressed in upon the expanse of the storage chamber. The noises outside, the screaming and thunder of music rolled off an hour or something ago. There was no certifiable way to figure how much time passed, aside from the pins and needles prickling through his arms, and the claws pinching into his sides.

 He didn’t recall when the golf cart lost power. It was motionless, and the steady drone of electric current – something he was accustomed to with car batteries – brought about an unnatural stillness. Like being stuck in a long abandoned, and likely haunted house. Arthur shivered.

 No response was coming from the Allosaur. It remained dormant and stiff, some of its features became perceivable as the gloom molded around his senses. He couldn’t see it, but he could perceive the presence of its hull. And the cheese-shredder claws locked into his vest.

 At this point, his vest must have been reduced to ribbons. He worked diligently for the past hour, with his wrists bent and knotted into his lower back. Through a grand deal of effort and shifting, cautiously biding his actions by the minute – fearful that any drastic movement might activate the machine (and then what he didn’t know, and he didn’t want to find out) – Arthur managed to haul his entire body up by a mere foot. But that meager amount of transfer set his bound wrists high enough to reach the Allosaur’s sharp talons, where he rubbed the thin fabric of cloth. He was exhausted and hungry, the circulation in his arms hummed. Too focused on the work, laboring to fix this latest fuck up.

 The bind on his wrists snapped. Arthur wriggled, twisting his legs beneath him. With the Allosaur’s talons latched around his torso, he was forced to squirm upward. It didn’t have a grip over his shoulders, which permitted him to get one arm free. He hesitated, thus far the Allosaur hadn’t budge, and the servos remained locked. With a lot more twisting and more effort, he heaved his waist free—

 And plummeted to the floor at Allosaur’s feet. The dust swirled around his head, and he sneezed. No response and no shift from the Allosaur. Movement. It was waiting on movement. If he could get his legs free, he might could outrun it.

 As was suspected, the claws of the Allosaur feet were sharp. He rolled his legs over and, with some fumbling knocked the binds against the dagger claw of a toe.

 Without warning the Allosaur shifted, the machine whirred to life. Arthur cringed down, trying to make himself as small and minuscule as possible. Damn! DamnDamnDamn! He winced. The animatronic creaked to life and took a step. It was moving… away? It didn’t notice him? Unable to see, Arthur remained stony and alert. The hissing hydraulics and low grumble of the mechanical dinosaur continued, becoming fainter as it roamed further away. It wasn’t coming back. Of course, it shouldn’t. The machine only knew what the puppeteer told it.

 He grappled with the bind on his ankles, tearing out bits and chunks of the threads until his legs could rip the sash free. Then, he stumbled through the murk, up until he collided with the golf cart. He stilled upon impact, certain the machine would come thundering back with a shriek. That didn’t happen. It was called away, and he was fearful of why.

 Where was it? The guy dumped it all in— Found it! He unrolled the magazine, and groped around for his phone. The screen lit up when he brushed it, and he was immediately thumbing through the contact list. Shit! He needed to get moving!

 Arthur shoved the essentials back into his pockets, save for the magazines. He used the light of his phone to gather his bearings and began moving. “Pick up, c’mon,” he grumbled.

 The third ring got a response. “Arthur!” Vivi screeched, “Where are you?”

 “I’m in the Bahamas, having the time of my life,” he groused.

 “Arthur…” she growled, over the line.

 “I dunno!”

 Lewis was in the background, yelping, “What ya mean, y’don’t know?”

 “I didn’t write up a detailed map of where he took me!” He tossed an arm high, as if they could witness the exasperation. “I’m just calling to say I’m dandee, and also I hope you three are prepped for bagging dino.” He slowed down some when the noises of the Allosaur’s jog echoed ahead. He didn’t want to test its limits, or intents. “I think it’s got your scent.”

 In the background flew some fervent discussion, Mystery barking, and Lewis proclaiming they are not prepared at all.

 “Where are you?” Vivi returned.

 “I. don’t. Know.” The floor slopped beneath his feet and he nearly tumbled. The Allosaurs reverberating march continued ahead, stinted by the curvature of the corridor. “I’m trying to get out of here, so I’m following the Allo. You guys should probably think of something, get to work. I’ll call you back here in a bit.”

 “What’re you gunna do?” Lewis called. “Art?”

 “I sure as hell ain’t gunna lasso the thing.” He had to slow down at the base of the slope and tone the voice down. Having the pitiful light of the phone didn’t benefit his vision in the abyss surrounding him, but he could make out the noises of… a metal creaking. Familiar metal creaking. The door. That was the entrance. “I’m gonna keep tabs on it, while I can. I’ll call you if anything changes.” He hung up, barring further discussion or argument to follow. Knowing Vivi, she wouldn’t waste time calling back.

 The gate clinked, and a bar of light sliced through the barrier of black. The Allosaur’s feathered shape squeezed through the thin veil, its tail zipped out of sight. From a distance, Arthur pursued, cautious of moving through the entry too quickly. He needed to get outside and get his bearings, reconnect with the others.

 It was a short ascent to reach the ground floor and the district pathway. The walls surrounding him appeared to be brick, and the ground cobblestone themed. Arthur hurried the remainder of the way out of the alley for cast access, and stopped on the curb to catch his breath. It felt good to drink in that fresh air, after hours trapped in the musty storage chamber.

 Upon raising his head back, he choked on the air. Or maybe that was a bug, buzzing around. Or it was the fresh air, and the shock.

 Across from him stood the Allosaur, stooped and snarling. That wasn’t so terrifying since it wasn’t facing him. What stole his breath away were the figures directly in its line of sight, those cutouts he knew better than anything else in the world.

 They actually didn’t have a lot of time to prep.

 The team was well on their way to security headquarters when the call came through. Arthur was all right, excited and out of breath but he managed to make a call. It was a lot to unpack, where to even begin? Then the Allosaur emerged from a narrow crevice in the castles wall. Lewis spied it first, and sagged Vivi by the shoulder before she could take another step.

 Allo locked onto them immediately. It crouched down and emitted a low, deadly snarl.

 Vivi leaned toward Lewis. “Maybe it’s vision is based on movement.”

 “This isn’t a movie,” Lewis warned. Regardless, he pegged survival on not moving.

 One of the golfcarts driven by the maintenance crews cruised by, like a tumbleweed sweeping across an old western set. The Mystery Skulls watched it go on its way and keep going; the Allosaur didn’t shift an inch.

 Woof.

 “New plan,” Lewis hissed. He began pushing Vivi by the shoulders. “Scram while the scrammin’ is good.”

 At once the Allosaur flexed the talons decorating its arms and gave a grating growl. It coiled back, gears shifting in its spine and ankles as it measured out its weight. Before it could launch, a screeching theme song began playing… off at its side. The Allosaur shuddered, and swung its snout

 Arthur was in mad dash across the pathway, phone held above his head. “Hey guys! Small world!” He gave a piercing wail when the Allosaur gave chase.

 Lewis face palmed. “What’re you doing man?!”

 A mock crystal display decorated the center of the pathway, with small multicolored chambers, and light glittering within. Arthur ducked into the small crawl space. “Buy ya some time!” He zipped through on his hands and feet; the display was built for smaller guests, with twisting tunnels and chambers within. The Allosaur got its head trapped at the entrance, while Arthur scrambled through the whole thing like a hamster.

 “Guys got the control!” Arthur sprang from the exit slide, and swung his phone up high. “He has to be somewhere around here!”

 Vivi cupped her hands around her mouth. “What doe she look like?” Lewis tapped her on the shoulder.

 “Gotta be someone around here, watching – keeping tabs.” He ran over to a cobblestone wall and leapt onto it, adding some height to his impressive stance. He curled his hands over his brows and began scoping the area.

 Vivi grabbed Mystery by the collar. “Go take care of Artie in case he runs out of lives.”

 Mystery whimpered and turned his lips down. No, you can’t be serious!

 “You got two pairs of legs he’s got one,” Vivi scolded. “It’s just a boring old machine.”

 RAWWR!

 “With teeth. Go!” She pushed Mystery off, until he got his legs working and galloped on his way. Then, she raced over to the wall where Lewis stood and climbed up. Lewis reached down and took her arm, he hoisted her all the way up to plop down onto his shoulders.

 “Not seein’ much. Aside from a giant chicken chasing a scrawny worm.”

 Vivi got into Lewis backpack and pulled out a uniocular. “The phone. He might see what our dino sees.”

 “Only what the dino sees,” Lewis speculated. He began walking along the wall top, keeping his balance despite Vivi’s insistent leaning and tugging on his shirt collar. “Did Allo hear Arthur, or did our guy see Arthur first?”

 “That’s a good question!” Vivi winced, and focused her attention the opposite way Lewis was facing. “Lew!”

 “Present.” He reached up for Vivi, to stop her from toppling off. She leaned down over his head, took his chin and angled his view around.

 “Over yonder.”

 Lewis twisted around and did his best to align his view of sight, with whatever Vivi was fixated on. It wasn’t hard to make out, a vague silhouette fitted at a balcony of some tavern themed building. The figure was not paying heed to the surroundings, but focused on the softly glowing device in their hands.

 “They could just be slacking off, and texting somebody,” he offered.. Vivi began slipping off his shoulders, easing down to the wall by her own accord.

 The figure moved their interest from the comforting glimmer of their phone, and spied Vivi with Lewis, inspecting their stance. With a jolt, the person swung away and dove off into the gloom of the balcony – towards a door or alternative exit.

 “Sure,” Vivi mocked. She tugged Lewis off the wall to ground level with her.

 “Hey!” Lewis harked, “You won’t get away this time!” He started running, leading Vivi by the hand. She couldn’t help the sappy smile set on her face. Classic Lewis.

 The door to the shop was locked tight. Lewis barreled into it and gave it a firm shake, rattling the plexiglass. “Damn!”

 Vivi fixed her headband. “He’d have gotten away anyway, by time Arth—” A sound caught her immediate attention and she whipped around. The guy had tripped, or had fallen, or stumbled on something – point was he was sneaking off behind them. The guy twisted around and scrambled on the descending steps as they flopped about, trying to dart one way or the other in the failed retreat.

 “You there!” she screamed, pointing.

 The person pulled their legs under them and charged off, towards a cluster of maintenance workers repairing a short fence post and the frayed rope. They slapped their hands over their hoody, keeping it in place while they zoomed.

 “You might as well stop running!” she hooted, taking pursuit. “We’ve done this gig a dozen times.”

 “Huh?” A touch oblivious, Lewis spun about searching for his teammate. “I uh… yeah! It’s over for you now!”

 The cloaked figure dove into one of the unguarded golfcarts and hit the acceleration. His first and only thought get away from these nuts; the last thought he had, and of miniscule importance, was the fact he dropped the phone somewhere.

 __

 It would be the most excellent of days if Arthur got out of this without getting snapped in two. He managed to gather some speed and distance on the mecha dino by taking a downward sloping path, which was open only to the maintenance vehicles and golf carts. The path was narrow, but didn’t pause the Allosaur at all in its pursuit; it did however force the machine to slow its movement in order to calibrate for the offset in its balance. That didn’t stop it from hissing and being a friggin’ terrifying attraction.

 Mystery gave a yip and hopped the decorative little lattice fence and plopped into a lush shrubbery plot. The garden ran either side of the pathway and was aesthetic in its mission to conceal the vehicles as they roamed. Light flashed through the canopy of the grove, the patterns glittered across Mystery’s white pelt and flashed over his glasses. He gave a sequence of yips as he burst through the undergrowth.

 In a breathy lunge, Arthur followed the pooch. “Getting that cardio, eh Misty?” The response was a bark. “Good tu hear!” He stumbled when scrambled off the clear path and into the thicket, his shoelaces snagging on the sinister crooked limbs.

 The two burst from the brush, leaves flying everywhere. Arthur spat out a few as he kept pace, taking the left that Mystery tilted into. A small grouping of the groundskeepers halted work blowing leaves and trimming trees, in order to behold the scene. Up until the Allosaur crashed from the barrier of trees, a terrible shriek igniting from its sound system. They scattered with yelps and dives.

 Mystery ducked and vaulted over metal guard rails, the scene encircling the zone displayed bright colored metal and cement. Arthur was above, scrambling atop the bars like some anime character in intense training. He slipped on the third to last and tumbled, crashing within the barriers. Mystery zipped back over and took his shredded vast sleeve and dragged him off behind a wall.

 A few meters away, the Allosaur came to a halt and stood steely on the pavement. Slowly and with deliberate precision, its head began moving side-to-side scanning the walls and fabrication of the park, examining cement walls and decorative displays, labeling attractions and directions to rides. Nothing caught it’s attention, despite crew members racing around in the background and bailing the site.

 Behind the wall, Arthur was struggling to calm his panting. A little black paw pressed over his lips. He frowned. “Where have those been, Mister?”

 Mystery snorted.

 “You!” Someone snapped, from the side. Arthur’s face paled and her jerked, knocking Mystery off his lap. “What d’you think you’re doing here?” The guy in a park uniform carried a clipboard, metal box combo – the same or near identical to ones used at the shop. This guy tugged at the communicator clipped to his shoulder, a garble of obnoxious static and overlaying conversations rolled through.

 “Security! I got some kid here, snuck into the park.” He took his thumb off the transmitter. “Stay put right where you are. Don’t even breathe.”

 Mystery grimaced, and brought a paw to his face. “Shh!”

 “Dude!” Arthur snapped, on the verge of tears. “Shaddup!”

 The guy blinked, clear astonishment radiating from him. “Don’t you dare tell me to shut up! You know how much trouble—”

 A bellowing yowl cut him off.

 “What was that!?”

 “Fuck!” Both Arthur and Mystery sprang up and darted around either side of the guy, provoking him to whirl around like a top.

 An instant later, the Allosaur clambered over the metal dividers of the ride entrance. Once it bypassed the obstacles, it swung its snout and all its teeth to the ride mechanic.

 “Ho-shit!” The mechanic properly noped out and took a dive into the nearest shrubs.

 It was too late for Arthur and Mystery, the two dashed down the ride dock. An open door to the side caught the hounds immediate interest and he shot in, followed by Arthur. Arthur flipped the lights off and shut the door, but there was no lock.

 “Not like it’d use the handle.” A dull thump broke his fantasy of safety, and he looked over to the Plexiglas barrier that displayed the full length of the ride, the rollercoaster train, and the Allosaur glaring in. “Is… that bullet proof? Ya think?”

 Mystery woofed. Does it really matter, ya think?

 The Allosaur shoved its snout against the clear barrier, its eyes flashing ominously in the lights cast by the attraction twisting around it.  A crack formed in the window, but the substance held firm. Snarling and hissing, it slammed its head and claws against the window. The clear material snapped in two, one portion warped and slid out of the frame. The Allosaur began climbing through, its jaws snapped inches from Arthur’s face.

 He let loose an ear splinting wail and snatched up an empty Styrofoam cup. The projectile bounced off the menacing snout. Mystery yapped and dove under the Allosaurs line of sight, he stopped at the door and stood on his rear legs scrambling at the door handle.

 “Are you nuts?!” he shrieked.

 Mystery barked, his dogs ears bobbing. Enjoy your corner!

 Arthur cursed and, following a grand deal of prayer, crawled under the Allosaur’s gnashing jaws. He was still crawling on his stomach, though he was very clear of the dinosaurs reach, even when he reached the door. With a flick of his wrist, the door popped open and Mystery bounded out.

 The Allosaur twisted, its reading and interpretation code aware its quarry was escaping. Yet, it was confined by the shattered barrier. It wriggled, talons tearing at the control panel beneath it. Lights rolling throughout the coaster track blazed, and with a gush of hydraulics not from within the mecha dino, the train carts became active. The animatronic continued the fight to dislodge itself and renew pursuit, all before it had successfully wriggled lose. Its tail swung dangerously through the docking station, nearly taking off Arthur’s head.

 Luckily he was spry and managed to stunt roll, following with a few rolls that relocated him far beyond the Allosaur’s range of movement. Mystery was galloping ahead, going for the divers end and the cultivated grove ahead.

 With a final wrench the Allosaur tore the Plexiglas loose, and swung its shoulders free. It gave chase after the targets, lunging and snapping.

 Arthur wobbled, nearly pitching over the side of the dock. The rollercoaster cart chugged into view on the leveled track, and he made the leap. “Mystery!” He whistled, and waved the dog over.

 The hound wasn’t the dinosaurs immediate focus, he still cowered beneath the feet when it snapped out. On Arthur’s lead, he sprang like a gazelle and landed gracefully on the front cart. Then, the coaster hit the divider in the track and the Mystery dog lost his balance and spiraled sideways, off the vehicle and into the shrubs below.

 “Whoa, wait! Where’d you go?” Arthur leaned over, searching the five or something foot drop. The divider activated a failsafe in the rollercoaster’s train cart, and the safety bar swung downward over Arthur’s arm, braced to the headrest. “Um?” At first, he mistaken the error as an easy fix. Pull the bar up and loose. But it was a safety mechanism, with a manual override in the control office. Somewhere. He jerked at the bar, even as the coaster train began up the steep incline that initiated the ride. “Fuck… fuck-fuck-fuck! Oh my fucks!” He tried to angle his knee against the backrest, the bar was really digging into his arm. “Feck-fo-FREK!”

 Below, the Allosaur watched with perceivable agitation as the roller coaster train inched out of range. Unable to reach its target for the time, it swung away and sought out a new location to reengage.

 There was no better option open to Arthur, but hunker down and brace himself. His mind ran through the threats and dangers, what sort of coaster was this? He didn’t see. The g-force could be enough to rip his arm off, he would be lucky if he only suffered a broken limb. Worse could happen, if he didn’t wedge himself down good and tight.

 The coaster train peaked at the initiating drop, and Arthur nearly blacked out. A ninety-degree drop loomed, and illuminated here and there were the more prominent twisty-curves of the ride. He tasted blood, he either bit his lip or his tongue, he wasn’t sure which. The others, they had no idea where he was. There was Mystery, but where was he?

 A pensive hiss issued from the coaster train when it paused and drew out the agonizing seconds. He patted through his vest and pants, searching for his phone. Then the train slid forward, gaining speed as the vehicle dipped into its full and unrestrained plummet. Its wheels rattled and the whole train vibrated. Arthur held on for dear life and shrieked.

  __

  “I say the guy ditched the giddup, and is somewhere mingling with the work crews,” Lewis theorized. He was waiting for Vivi to catch her breath, near a fence and a lush plot of trees. The acreage was mostly thick shrubbery growing beside a sheer and expansive cliff face. “Or, he could be hiding anywhere.” One hand cradled his chin, while he examined the fostered brush.

 Some of the lights across the park went off for the long hours of the night, while others remained on to stylize the attraction for all hours of the late. And also safety ordinances with aircraft and tall structures. The intrusive lamps were not the same as the on-ride decorative colors and aesthetic luminosities which thrilled the riders.

 “We need Mystery,” Vivi spoke, still gasping and hanging off the fence. “More importantly, we need to get that dino wrangled. It’s really thrown a wrench in the situation.”

 “Yeah,” Lewis huffed, trying to blow hair out of his eyes. “It kinda doesn’t let up, huh?” He bent a brow at Vivi when she snapped her head up.

 “I think something’s gone wrong. My Arthur senses are tingling.” She looked around. The scenery was placid, the maintenance guys doing their thing, not paying them any mind.

 “‘Arthur senses’?” Lewis mused, with a smirk. “Is that a thing now?”

 “I’m gonna start it, watch me!” She crossed her arms and nodded, affirming dedication.

 “Look, I’m certain the Allo didn’t catch him, or Mystery.”

 The careening thunder of the roller coaster ttain swooping by on a nearby, previously cold track, caught his focus for the moment. The churning rumble was no contest to the distinct pitch of wailing assaulting the evening sky, rising in intensity as the whole cart blasted by and then dying out as the coaster train shot out of an inverted twirl. Both Vivi and Lewis observed, deadpan.

 “Technically speaking,” he began, “it didn’t catch him.”

 Vivi fixed her glasses, cleaned them, then set them back on her face. “Somehow, I think this is worst.”

 Across the pathway, the maintenance workers began diving and bolting for the cover of the landscapes they were working around or in. The Allosaur went charging through, a white blur right in its sights.

 “All right,” she grumbled. “Allosaur two, us zilch.”

 Lewis spun around and hoped the fence. “But who’s keeping score?” He bypassed one of the signs, warning of danger to bodily harm due to the coasters proximity. A slope eased down, to the low point the coaster would pass through. In the distance, Arthur’s harrowing squeal became more pronounced.

 “Lew!” Vivi yelped, leaning over the first barrier. “What d’ya think you’re doing? Danger!”

 He waved over his shoulder. “No worries! I’m a professional!”

 “Of what?! Stunts gone wrong?” Vivi hit her fist to the barrier and winced. She wrenched around, the Allosaur gave a grating and ravenous snarl. “I’ve just about had enough of this!” In the chase of the man in the mask, or shroud, or whatever, they sped through the game zone. There were more food vendors within, along with pistol games that utilized water guns, and some that used projectile disks. If she had to, she’d go Rambo on that hunk of metal.

 In the background, Mystery was still leading the mecha dino across the district. He dove under a set of que ropes, scrambling like a spider among the poles. The Allosaur came to a stuttering halt and swayed, its feet pawed at the ground as it sidestepped. Vivi shot by without a glance, toward the entrance of the arcade and carnie games.

 While Vivi took off to initiate a fool proof plan, Lewis swung over the last and tallest fence, to place himself within the rollercoaster track lane. Above, the hurtling cart came whizzing through at a speed peaking on fifty miles an hour, minimum. Along with it, the terrorized passenger screeching.

 “Hold on Artie!” Lewis sprinted, following the overhead track as it jerked and spiraled.

 “Are you nuts?” Arthur howled. He was losing vigor, barely able to keep his legs within the coaster box. “NO! Lew! It’s too— AARRRRRRRRRRRGH!” The rollercoaster twisted and hurtled downward into a steep dip, the track cleaved through an alcove within the ground. When the full train passed through the chasm, it decelerated significantly – enough that Lewis could leap up and snag that last cart, without losing a hand or being belted aside like a ragdoll.

 “Hah! Nailed it—” Lewis nearly missed latching onto the safety bar, a fraction before the whole train flew into a sharp series of loops. Once again, the coaster is off on its bullshit, accelerating to sixty-five or something miles per hour, diving and curving.

 Whenever the coaster calmed down for a sporadic pause, Lewis inched up a cart. It was tedious, as the cart dividers were somewhat sleek and slippery from being cleaned. The full body braces assisted, in that they were sturdy and didn’t unhook.

 “Don’t worry, I’m here!” Lewis proclaimed, when he at last reached Arthur.

 Arthur glared back as the coaster inched its way up the steep climb, back at square one. “WHY! Didn’t you just shut off the coaster?”

 The grin on Lewis’ face dissolved. “Um, well, that might’ve been a worthwhile option….”

 “You meathead!”

 “Hey, I’m not the mechanic here!”

 Once more, Arthur fought at his arm trapped in the brace. “We’re both gunna DAI, and then we’ll be the latest attractions for this park!”

 “Think positive, Artie!” Lewis climbed onto the first and foremost train cart and gave the device a quick look over.

 “It’s jammed!” He tried to squeeze down, and jam his elbow under the brace. However, he was short on energy to supply, and flopped sideways when he lost his footing. Lewis wrapped an arm around his shoulder and grabbed ahold of the brace.

 “Take it easy, I’ll get you off.” The coaster came to the topmost of its track and paused. Lewis frowned. “Darn.”

 “Trust me,” Arthur wheezed, “The first nine times, and you get used to it.” They flew into the drop, and Arthur was pretty certain Lewis was clinging to him so he wouldn’t get thrown off. “Fun, eh?!”

 “We’re gunna DAI!”

 “That’s the spirit!” Arthur cackled.

 The coaster accelerated into a chute and eased off the speed, but it rumbled on with sinister purpose. Lewis released his grip on Arthur. “Brace yourself!”

 Before Arthur could inquire why, or really prepare, Lewis smashed his knee against the brace forcing the bar down hard against Arthur’s already strained arm. A pitiful creaking lurched from Arthur’s gullet as the pain zipped through his arm.

 “Sorry! Had to reset the mechanism,” Lewis huffed. He shoved the bar up and out of the way, but doubled down on restraining Arthur to the coaster cart, as the train swung into another reckless dive. His sneakers skipped across the slippery metal plate of the floor, while the coaster vibrated along the tracks.

 Down below, one of the canopies for the prize corner loomed. It was the basket hoop toss, and there was a sizable net stretched between the poles on the three sides.

 Lewis didn’t get the chance to warn Arthur. His shoe already snapped loose, and it was either get flung like a marionette or choose a landing pad. The support of the roller coaster whistled by his ear, he wasn’t really certain if they would hit the mark he aimed for – given the velocity and trajectory of the coaster’s movement. It was swinging into a turn, gaining momentum. Arthur tried to get out some other sort of noise, but he was likely still stunned from his arm that he couldn’t generate the sort of sound appropriate to free flight.

 The entire basketball court collapsed when Lewis hit the bar, which suspended one side of the nets. Fortunately, he and Arthur tumbled into the prize corral beneath, among the giant stuffed toys and packaged sport balls. A cacophony of squeaks and deflating balloons, among the toppled metal bars punctuated all ambition for recovery.

 “Ow….” Arthur groaned. “Lew. Why?”

 “I just wanted off,” he moaned. “No matter the cost.”

 “Was it worth it?”

 “Ask me in the morning.”

 “Lew.”

 “Hunh?”

 “If it’s not too much trouble… could you get off me?”

 It took several agonizing minutes for the two to untangle from the knotted snare, the mountain of cushy prizes, and each other; all in near total darkness. Aside from a lamp gleaming down on the side of the coaster, and it whooshing by periodically and rattling around the tracks, they might’ve lost track of where they’d dropped. Lewis dragged Arthur out by the collar of his vest, some of the netting remained snagged on his scrawny limbs.

 “C’mon Art, use your feet.”

 “I have been running… for five years now.” He caught himself on his fists, before his nose could smack the pavement. “Wha’s that?”

 A blazing shape zigzagged around the faux tents of carnie games, speeding as it closed in on Lewis and Arthur. At last it came in for a landing, skidding right into Arthur’s face. Lewis knelt and pet the dog.

 “Wait,” the taller figure said, a flash of worry in his face. “Wait-wait-wait… last I saw you—”

 The harking cry of the Allosaur obliterated through the screech of the roller coaster surging through, one more. It’s head twitched and the talons on its fists opened, another peeling shriek plunged through the open air as it lunged, teeth glistening..

 Arthur yelped and flipped over, fighting with his sneakers tangled in the net still. Lewis snatched up one of the basketballs and threw it at the Allosaur with all his might, the force and speed would’ve been something to admire. The sports ball merely deflected off the dinosaurs hard plastic frame. Arthur yowled and held Mystery tight—

 “KII-YAHH!”

 Everyone dove to the side, Lewis one way and Arthur with Mystery to the other. The Allosaur kept going, but it was stumbling and its feet came down in a frenzy when it lost all balance. In a fumbled miss step, the animatronic stalled and spun three times then came down in a heap beside the netted basket hoop tangle.

 Likewise, Vivi was still spinning, the bat clasped in her hands whizzing through the air before she crashed into one of the awning shields tied over a carnival game.

 “Vivi!” Lewis leapt out from behind the wall he took shelter beside, recoiling immediately when the Allosaur’s head skid into the corner of the solid barrier.

 “Did you see that!” Vivi whooped. She jumped up and swung the bat again, like a pro-pitcher. “Lew, you were all ‘I’m gunna wrestle this dino crocodile Dun-Dee style!’ And Arthur, you’re legs got all tangled! What the heck?” She mimed out another thunder-bashing swing. “And I was like, ‘Don’t touch my dog!’ Wham!”

 Arthur poked his head up from behind a stage set, Mystery latched to his skull like a koala. “Holy shit.”

 Lewis gawked. “I think I’m in love.”

 Arthur inched around and prodded the mechanical head with his foot. “Gimmie a break. All this time, we just had to release Vivi on it with a baseball bat. Really?”

 “Well,” Lewis chuckled, “you did say the metal wasn’t very sustancial.” He stood by and let Arthur beat the living bolts out of the inactive mechanical head. “Guess it was all bark, and not bite.”

 Woof. Mystery let go of Arthur and dropped to the pavement. He moved aside of the drama and flopped over. Gimmie five minutes, folks.

 “Should you really be messing with that thing?” Lewis muttered. He took a full step back.

 “I’m gonna get my kicks in!”

 “Hey! Are you listening to me!” Vivi hurried over. “But seriously, you three okay? Mystery? All puppered out?” She leaned low using the bat as a cane, and gave the poor pooch a well-deserved head rub. “You had us worried, Artie. It’s a good thing you managed to get loose.”

 The dino head stuttered, the jaw quivered and the mechanical eyes twitched. Arthur jolted and scrambled behind Lewis.

 “You know how the movies go,” Lewis mentioned.

 Arthur peeked out. “This isn’t a movie. It should’ve shut down completely, with the power source severed.” He noted Lewis had a vacant and very concerned stare, and followed the line of sight to where the Allosaur was squirming. Trying to stand, with no head. “Welp, that looks horrifying!”

 Whatever calibrated the Allosaur’s balance was gone, and also it shuffled sideways onto the collapsed basket court netting. The talons couldn’t coordinate and untangle from the woven netting, forcing the thing to topple sideways over and over.

 “I… guess it’s not going anywhere?” Lewis speculated.

 “But did you see me? Wasn’t that amazing? I never swung so hard in my whole damn life!” Vivi threw herself at Lewis, and he caught her in his arms.

 “I was a bit preoccupied with not getting trampled. But yeah, that was something else!” Lewis was about to pull Vivi in closer, but his attention snapped to a figure a distance from their gathering. A secluded, isolated figure strategically placed within the shade of the arcade patio, sifting through the gloom only enough to view the fate of the Allosaur.

 When he refocused altogether, Vivi’s curiosity searched for the cause. She frowned when her eyes alit on the same suspect. “Let’s see if we can get around him and—” The spectator either got wise to their sudden shift in mood, or freaked out completely on the loss of their asset. They took off.

 Vivi tore out of Lewis’ arms and snatched up the bat. Losing no time, she darted around the corny carnival tent stations. “I’ve had it with you!” She lined up with the guy, still barred on one side by the boarder of the shuttered-up arcade wall. There was no time to waste. With a decisive swing, the bat went whirling through the air like a saw.

 And cracked the wall short of her target. The guy kept running, but cast a fretful look over their shoulder.

 “Drat!”

 Lewis charged up behind her, winding back his arm. “My turn!” The basketball flew like it was shot out of a cannon and slammed directly into the person’s back, launching them two feet into the air. “Score!”

 The person recovered quickly, though they hadn’t gotten their bearing together. Before they could take a full and not lopsided-tipsy step, Lewis grabbed them from behind. The two toppled forward, Lewis on top of the guy and holding one of his wrists.

 “We gunna do this quietly, or you wanna make it ugly?”

 “Let me go!” The person shouted. “You don’t have the right!”

 “We don’t, do we?” Vivi retorted. She knelt beside the guy as he struggled, but Lewis was pressing measured weight onto the person. “This is a citizens arrest, my fine fellow. It would be in your best interest to cooperate until the police arrive, and we can sort this all out.”

 “What am I being arrested for?”

 Lewis pulled the person’s hoody back. “Being shady as fuck, that’s one,” he muttered.

 “Trespassing,” Vivi quipped. “I don’t recognize you, which is interesting. But I know someone who might.”

 “You! You can’t do this!” he snarled. Lewis pulled his other arm back, and Vivi applied one of the parks unbreakable wrist bands. “This is unlawful! I’ll sue!”

 “Oh no, oh please don’t.” Lewis hefted the guy onto his feet and kept him steady. “In all my life, I have never been threatened in such a way. Oh, the sleepless nights I’ll suffer.” He ushered the guy ahead, making sure to keep his elbows restrained.

 “But did you see that pitch!” Vivi proclaimed. “Out of this world!”

 Lewis snickered. “Oh Dio mío, Vivi. Calm down.”

 When they returned to the site where the Allosaur had its head cleaved off, the animatronic nuisance was still wallowing in the tattered remnants of the basketball netting. Large squeaky toys and some of the sport balls rolled around, or completely pulverized by the broken machine struggling to function without essential system readers. It looked very much like a cocooned lizard, or a spool of finely spun thread – in a clunky mess.

 Above the wall where the Allosaur head dropped, Arthur sat with Mystery at his side; the dogs head resting on his lap. He was giving the tuckered pupper shoulder massages after his traumatic and daring evening.

 “Ooh, you really did get someone,” he praised. “Y’sure that’s the guy, though?”

 “Did you call the police?” Lewis prompted.

 Arthur cringed down. “That’s Vivi’s job.”

 “You really going to do this?” the guy seethed. “Assaulted me, and now you’re trying to frame me for some… crime!” He struggled at Lewis’ grip, but made no profound effort to break loose.

 Vivi whistled. The Mystery dog shot his head up, ears high. “Mystery, hunny. We have a very special job for you.”

 Mystery slid back from Arthur and did that dog stretch, with his fore paws stretched all the way forward and his dog claws stretched to their fullest. With a shake of his pelt, he did a roll and flopped off the backside of the wall. Arthur watched this play out, apathetic.

 “Absolutely,” Arthur chimed. “You’re our guy.”

 “This is slander!” The guy erupted. Arthur lunged over the wall to hide.

 Vivi hauled out her backpack and located her phone. “I’m callin’ the cops.”

 It wasn’t actually the police that Vivi called, it was the security office, then the security office reached out to the appropriate department. While they waited for security to show up, Lewis returned Arthur’s backpack to him, and Arthur got to work on compiling the evidence the group collected. This evidence included the pictures Lewis caught while he and Arthur investigated around the park, and serial numbers from the materials torn from the Allosaur’s arm. He stuffed all of this onto two USBs the police could have, which was standard procedure for the group.

 At length, Mystery trotted back over with something in his teeth.

 “Nice going,” Arthur praised. “Didn’t crack it or anything. Clean as a whistle.”

 Vivi snatched the phone from Arthur and held it up to the guy, currently seated on the inactive Allosaur head. “How ‘bout you unlock this for us?”

 He glared at the device, the locked screen gleamed in his face. “I’ve never seen this before. Ever. I have no idea what’s going on here.” He checked on Lewis at his side, keeping him stationary with his presence alone.

 “Mm hmm.” She swept away, and returned the phone back to Arthur. Without a word, Arthur began tapping at the screen. He knelt on the ground beside Mystery, while the hound observed with all the intensity of a teacher overseeing his student. “Yet, you’re not curious about all this crazy we got here.” She motioned a hand towards the broken Allosaur.

 The machine body at long last ceased moving. It looked creepy, bent and knotted up the way it was.

 “Question.” Arthur rose and moved closer to the guy, holding the phone all the way out to the full extent of his arm. “This you?”

 It was a selfie of the guy.

 Vivi took the phone and continued scrolling. “Was it really a good idea documenting the whole process of building your dino?”

 He scoffed. “You can’t prove I built it.”

 “You built animatronics though.” Vivi stuck the phone into a plastic baggy Arthur produced. “Not a lot of people can do that. Your friends, they have a very specialized skillset.” She took the baggy from Arthur and held it toward the guy. “You wouldn’t happen to have their pics on the phone, would you? Of course not, who would do that?”

 A large hand capped down on the guy’s shoulder, and Lewis stooped. “It would be a shame if they could be cited as accomplices. Not that we’d touch the topic, pero ya sabes, that is evidence for the authorities to pick—”

 “They let me go from the team,” the guy blurted. He dropped his gaze from Vivi’s unimpressed face, and scrutinized his shoes. “When they found out I used parts from another job, to build a substitute.”

 Vivi nodded. “You and your colleagues began work for a competitor to Fanatical Hypes ™, and that resulted in the bust contract. A violation. But then you took it upon yourself to sabotage Geoff’s park, and make him fold under the pressure of those lost profits, so he’d compensate for the assets. Do I have that right?”

 The guy took a deep breath. “It’s not that simple. It was a percentile in those cancelled payments, and they still have to do something with the skins. A lot of uppity businesses do this all the time, and commissions are hard enough to get right without the client throwing a fit in the midst of finalizations. And getting the courts to recognize contract agreements, it’s a bitch! You get that?”

 “Yeah,” Vivi uttered. “We know what that’s like.”

 Where he sat beside the wall, Mystery tilted his head and raised one ear.

 The guy dipped his head further. “Trust me, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

 “I sort of have a hard time believing the, ‘oh woes and pity me’ spiel,” Lewis grumbled. He still loomed over the cringing guy, face stern. “The animatronics you built.”

 “And programed,” Arthur prompted.

 “And programed. They’re not toys, they’re super dangerous when not handled correctly. You put an AI in a bulldozer that identifies as a raptor, and set it loose in a recreational setting.”

 “Lovin’ the PSA vibe.” Arthur remained seated by the wall working on his computer to compile essential info, fully engrossed in shuffling files. “Also, you kidnapped me and shoved lots of threats in my face.”

 “Did he?” Lewis growled. “That’s seriously F’ed up.”

 “Boys-boys.” Vivi pushed Lewis back, before he could… likely haul the guy off the ground and throttle him. “That’s not our business anymore. Now, this becomes law enforcement jurisdiction.” She pointed to a series of golfcarts ambling in their general direction. She looked to the guy. “Our job ended with the Allosaur’s capture. But I recommend you cooperate with the authorities. They’re usually a lot less forgiving than us.”

 “Y’know dude,” Arthur stood, and ejected one of the USBs from his computer. “You could’ve just not messed around with us. Taken the dishwasher with teeth and vamoosed. But making a statement, and gettin’ Geoff to crumble under the pressure meant more. You’re lucky, you know that.” He tossed the USB to Vivi.

 The guy frowned. “How am I lucky? I’m going to jail for this.”

 Arthur shrugged. “We stopped ya before this could escalate. You think soulless corporate would cave, and pay out what he’s not putting to use?” He shook his head, and sat on the wall, finishing up the last USB. “We got you before someone could get seriously hurt. But sure, it’s our fault.”

  The golf carts arrived and the enlisted law enforcement along with Fanatical Hypes ™ escort, took over the situation of officially taking the guy into custody. The engineers names was Yandel Jenkins, and there was a little more information about his history tied to the group of creatures builders that supplied assets to the theme park. However, since that was out of the Mystery Skulls hands, Arthur finished compiling and cross referencing the evidence that was collected and handed over the USBs. Whatever else the park security required, they’d assemble it on their own following involved statements.

 Hours later the group was on their way out of the park, it was very late and most the work crews fulfilling their nocturnal duties pilfered out. The area resumed relative normalcy, aside from the spare shift tugged out to organize the area where the Allosaur fell. That was way on the far side of the park.

 “Seriously a shame,” Arthur was saying, as the crew discussed the recent case. They were going through the events, trying to figure who was where when this or that situation came about. And how Arthur managed to get stuck on a roller coaster. “All that work and talent. I don’t get why people like him do it.” He walked with his arms folded behind his head, stretching out his aching muscles from where the Allosaur pinched him.

 Lewis curled a thoughtful hand over his chin. “Well, if you’re company anticipated that extra point something percentage in incurring payments, it can mean the difference in leasing and supplies. Not saying our guy was in the right, but it’s something to regard when reviewing possible motivations.”

 “Oh yeah, I guess,” Arthur mumbled.

 “My family started their own business,” Lewis elaborated. “Any little profit you can squeeze out go towards improving your services, or the product. They did it without cutting corners, and it was heckin’ hard. Food expires fast, car parts and oil has a longer shelf life.”

 Arthur shrugged.

 “I guess they’ll have the park opened tomorrow and everything,” Vivi supposed. They made their way down the last stretch, the main road to the grand entrance and exit. “We can come on by and see how it looks. Catch some more rides, if we want. Certify those lifetime passes.”

 Mystery gave a little yap and bounced ahead. He wouldn’t need to wear that ridiculous vest, either.

 A low groan issued from Arthur, and he fitted his hands down over his face. “I dunno, I’m kinda all vacationed out. I think I’m ready to hit the road. Seriously missin’ the cramped space of the van.”

 “What about the food?” Vivi prompted. “Free food. Drinks. Treats. Desserts. Concessions.”

 “Mehhh….” Mystery padded over and walked beside Arthur’s legs, bumping his knees. “Pass. Free stuff is great, but kinda burnt out on carnie goodies. Nothing beats Pepper Paradiso’s. ‘Least, when someone’s lil sisters aren’t sabotaging a perfectly good sundae.”

 Lewis groaned. “I don’t even know how that’s possible. Lechería is supposed to counteract the burn.”

 “Who said that was dairy?”

 Vivi tried very hard not to giggle. “If that’s the final verdict, we can start snooping on where we’ll go next. Hmm? Speaking of which.” She pulled her backpack around to her front, and opened it from the side. “Got a something for our scrapbook.” Unanimously, Arthur and Lewis groaned. “I promise it’s really good.”

 Pulling out a card, she began moving to one of the tall lampposts that stood beside the pathway. “Check it.” The three followed.

 “Oh please, is that what I think it is.” Arthur was first to take the side of the stiff booklet, and shifted it by a fraction under the light. “No, Vivi!”

 “What?” Lewis posed. Arthur handed him the card, and he flipped the cover back. “Oh no! Vivi!”

 She pulled her collar higher over her lower face. “The machine automatically printed it, I guess. I couldn’t leave it, you both look… excited.”

 “Excitement is an understatement!” Arthur whooped. He reached for the card, but Lewis held it up high out of his reach. “Gimmie! I don’t want my near-death experience immortalized!”

 Lewis backed away, pushing Arthur off before he could climb up his shoulders. “C’mon Artie! Calm down, we got out of this unscathed.”

 “Unscathed! My arm is numb still!”

 “Relatively,” Lewis insisted. “It’s a memento. We’ll keep it, and check it out sometimes to remind us to be more careful. Suena bien?” He arched his arm high over Arthur’s head, and handed the card back to Vivi. She secluded it away in her backpack, where it would be safe.

 “Mark my words!” Arthur hastened his steps, leaving the protective cone of light. “When you least expect it, I’ll chuck that incriminating evidence!” Mystery barked and scurried after him.

 “Admit it!” Vivi slapped an arm around Arthur’s lower back. “You love it! Ten years from now, we’ll have a great ol’laugh.”

 Lewis joined on the other side, nearly throwing the two over as he put his arm around Arthur’s shoulders. “I’m laughin’ right now. Don’t deny it. You’re smiling. Don’t smile, Arthur.”

 “Stop! That’s not fair!” Arthur capped his hands over his face and muffled a scream.

 “Try not to smile Arthur,” Vivi goaded.

 “Oh, he’s blushing!”

 “It’s too dark to see blushing,” Arthur countered. Regardless, he still fought to hide his face all the more. “Jerks.”

 “Don’t blush Arthur,” Vivi chimed. “Don’t—”

 Arthur broke free and took off in a run. “Stop it! You’re ganging up on me!”

 With a jolly bark, Mystery galloped beside Arthur, his dog collar jingling. He gave off a few yips, nearly stumbling when he veered into Arthur’s legs.

 “No we’re not!” Lewis called, staggering into the chase. Vivi skipped along, taking on a couple leaping bounds as they flashed under the bars of light.

 “What are you trying to hide Arthur!” From the distance, Mystery barked. “Really?”

 “No! Never!” Arthur vaulted through the tall cage of the turnstile and kept going. “I promise!”

 Lewis crashed into the turnstile and got stuck. “You’re laughing! Whoa… HEY!” Arthur’s wild cackling rang across the dark parking lot. “HEY!”

 Vivi caught up to Lewis and stood, observing. “Um?”

 “A little help!”

 She sighed, and got out a flashlight. “You tried to follow Arthur.” She clicked on the light. “He kinda slipped through the side here. Just come back through, carefully.”

 “OoOOh.” Lewis moved back and shuffled into the opposing slot, where guests were meant to exit. Vivi crammed in with him, and the two nearly got stuck again. However, with some shoving and bickering the two made their way out safely, and caught up to Arthur and Mystery hurtling with reckless abandon.

 Concluding a case was not always so brimming with mirth or effortless, despite how well everything turned out. There had been plenty of cases they walked out on, Failed Cases, too dangerous to continue through to a final conclusion. When they had the chance to celebrate, the team sometimes went all out. Or, such as the case with the Allosaur, it felt better to get back on the road and move on. Sometimes staying too long in one location, one that was not home base, it didn’t rejuvenate like the endless road.

 No doubt though, by the time they arrived – or collided – with the next case, they would be primed and ready to tackle the demands. There would be fascinating creatures, thrilling perils, and challenges the Mystery Skulls crew would meet.

 The night swirled around them, the four racing through the empty parking lot. It was their mission to seek out mysteries, prove what they could or debunk the frauds. Nothing but the passion for work and the ambition to find the truth, and perhaps a steady supply of coffee, fast-food, and junky tabloids.

[sylvanfreckles]

Turnabout Handicap

Just resurrecting my old works from ff.net. Presented in its entirety, including original author's notes, as published on February 17th, 2015: Turnabout Handicap!

Summary: Apollo finally bought the latest edition of Rock Mix, just in time to be stuck in the office with Trucy while Athena and Mr. Wright were off on another case without him. Of course, as bad luck would have it, this would be the day Klavier Gavin stops by.

...

Babysitting again.

Apollo glanced over at Trucy, thumbing through a magazine on the couch, and let out a slight sigh. He liked Trucy all right—she was like the little sister he never had—but why did he always get stuck here while Mr. Wright and Athena were in court? It just wasn't fair.

"Didja get it plugged in yet, Polly?"

"Just a second," he called back. There was a lot of dust behind Mr. Wright's TV and he could barely see the connections, but Apollo was finally able to plug in the adapter for his GameStar. He was a little surprised they still made adapters for sets as old as this one but since his own TV was just a little bigger than his microwave he wasn't going to complain.

Trucy gave a whoop as the GameStar whirred to life. "It's starting! What are we gonna play?"

Apollo backed out from behind the TV, trying to brush the dust off his suit. "I only brought one multiplayer game, Trucy," he replied, but she was already elbows-deep in the box of games he'd brought over with him. Technically he was donating it to the office...in reality he and Athena had agreed they were tired of cleaning the toilet when they didn't have clients, so something like this would help pass the time even if he didn't play much anymore.

"Rock Mix!" Trucy shouted and held a guitar-shaped controller over her head. "I've seen this on TV! Who knew you were so musical, Polly?"

"Be careful, I had to buy the controllers used and they're not in the best shape," Apollo rescued the controller from Trucy and connected the cable with his GameStar. "I lost the memory card a long time ago, just give me a second to set up a profile."

"Aw, don't do that now," Trucy complained. "Let's just play! You can do the boring stuff later."

Apollo sighed. He'd really liked the game's character customization when he first bought it...without that they'd be playing with the game's standard avatars based on well-known rock stars. Rock stars like...

"Look, Polly, it's Mr. Gavin!"

It wasn't. Well...it sort of was. The avatar's name was Kevin Gawain, but he looked an awful lot like the rock-star prosecutor.

"Ooh, and we can play one of his songs," Trucy said excitedly, flipping through the songlist on the game's menu. "I'm playing lead guitar, of course. Would you rather be rhythm or bass?"

Apollo felt a headache coming on. "Trucy, that's not exactly what I had in mind. They have a lot of classics in there, too."

But the girl was ignoring him. "Which one, Polly? 'Guilty Love' or 'Atroquinine'?"

"Trucy..."

She jumped up on the couch, controller in hands, posing like the avatar on the cover of the game. "Love, slow-acting and new," Trucy sang, miming strumming strings over the game's controller.

"Get down from there, you could fall."

"Oh, but you have a microphone, too," Trucy scrambled back down to the floor. "What do you think, Polly, should I be lead guitar or lead vocals?"

Apollo sighed and plugged in the second controller. "The karaoke part isn't as fun. I think you should stick to guitar."

"Aw, I wish I could be both," she let the microphone fall back into the box. "Then I'd really be like Mr. Gavin."

"Look, Trucy, I get enough of him in court, can't you pick a different avatar?"

Someone on the other side of the room cleared their throat. "Did I come at a bad time?"

Both Apollo and Trucy yelped and spun around. Klavier Gavin was standing behind them, folder tucked under one arm, smirking that damned smirk.

"W-what are you doing here?" Apollo stammered, quickly setting his controller down against the couch. How much had Gavin seen and heard? Had he said anything embarrassing?

"I'm here to drop off a file for Herr Wright," Gavin explained, holding out the folder. "His case is linked to one I prosecuted last year."

"Oh, right," Apollo took the folder, glanced at it for a moment, and added it to the pile next to the phone. "He's in court now, you know."

"Ja," Gavin nodded and hooked his thumbs in his belt. "He said I could leave it with you."

"Mr. Gavin!" Trucy hopped over the back of the couch, nearly knocking Apollo aside. "You should play with us, I bet you're really good at this game."

Gavin looked over at the screen. He didn't seem to know how to answer...sometimes Trucy's enthusiasm was like that.

"C'mon, Trucy. he doesn't have time to play Rock Mix with you," Apollo interjected, uncrossing his arms to rest his elbows on the back of the couch. "Besides, I doubt he'd want to."

"Rock...Mix?" Gavin leaned over the couch to study the controllers. "The video game?"

"It's only the best ever," Trucy explained, despite the fact that this was her first time playing it. "You get to be a rock star and play all kinds of hit songs for your adoring fans all over the world!"

Apollo covered his face with one hand. He was pretty sure Gavin had already done all of that. "Trucy..."

"Ah, well, Herr Forehead's right. I don't really have time to play games with you." He tweaked the brim of Trucy's hat down to cover her eyes. "Maybe next time I'll stick around for a few rounds with you kids."

"Kids?" Apollo's eyebrows shot up. "Hey, you're not that much older than me."

"Well, experience and genius speak for themselves," Gavin said, flipping his hair out of his eyes.

"Funny, they've never helped you win a case against me."

The room went strangely silent. Apollo's eyes widened as he realized he'd actually said that out loud. "I, uh...that came out wrong. I just meant...I meant to say something else," he finished lamely.

"Really?" Gavin drawled, walking around the couch to pick up one of the controllers. "Maybe I haven't won a case against you, Herr Forehead...but maybe I don't need to. My ego can take a bruising, can yours?"

"Yes!" Trucy pumped one fist in the air. "Here, Polly, you can play bass, it's more fun that rhythm guitar."

"Huh?" Apollo found the second controller shoved into his hands. "Hey, wait, I thought you wanted to play, Trucy?"

"Ta-da!" Trucy pulled a microphone out of the game's box. "This is perfect, Polly, now I don't have to choose."

"We can't possibly lose now," Gavin commented, holding up one hand for a high-five from Trucy. "Ready, Herr Forehead?"

Apollo just gaped. How had...why had...why was he always getting in the middle of things like this?

"Polly," Trucy, hands on hips, glowered at him from her place in front of the TV. "Remember, you're representing the Wright Anything Agency with me."

Oh well. "Fine, but he has to have a handicap!"

...

"Tired?" Phoenix Wright asked the young woman walking next to him.

"Hngh...maybe a little," Athena admitted, stretching her arms up. "That last witness was really tough to get through to. I'm still not sure we got to the bottom of his emotional turmoil."

"There's always tomorrow. Gavin should have dropped off that folder by now, maybe there'll be some info in there to help you."

"I hope so," she said with a sigh. She turned the corner toward the agency but stopped as an unusual sound caught her attention. "Mr. Wright, do you hear that?"

"Sounds like Trucy's singing," he said. "Huh, that's an old one...'Mirror, Mirror', I haven't heard that since college."

"Mirror, mirror, tell me why...do I hide these tender eyes..."

Athena winced and covered her ears. "Is she singing karaoke? The guitar part's all right, but something's wrong with the bass track."

"I'd better tell her to turn it down," Phoenix commented, leading the way up the stairs to the office. "We don't want the neighbors to...oh."

Athena peered around her boss to see what had stopped him at the door. And stared.

Trucy, Apollo, and Klavier Gavin were gathered in front of the TV playing some kind of guitar-karaoke game. At least, that's what she assumed was happening. Trucy was singing her heart out, but Apollo seemed to be having trouble with his guitar. Gavin, on the other hand...

He was standing with his back to the TV, Apollo's necktie tied around his eyes, and a pair of bright yellow rubber gloves on his hands. And he was still hitting every note perfectly.

"Polly, come on! I can't believe you lost again!" Trucy complained. "Maybe we should pick something easier."

"It's not my fault he's a better player," Apollo replied, frustrated. "I think he needs another handicap, like tying one of his arms behind his back."

"Come, come, Herr Forehead," Gavin lifted the edge of his blindfold just enough to wink at Apollo. "You've already blindfolded me to see how I perform in a game of rhythm and dexterity, and now you want to tie me up? Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"I suppose we should rescue him," Mr. Wright murmured to Athena as Apollo blustered out an answer.

Athena grinned evilly. "Let me, boss," she whispered back. "Excuse me, are we interrupting?" she called.

The three players turned to face them: Trucy with a yell of greeting, Apollo with a face red enough to match his suit, and Gavin with an almost embarrassed smirk.

"Come on, Daddy," Trucy ran over to grab Mr. Wright by the arm. "You've got to take over bass for Polly, he's just terrible at it! Maybe you can beat Mr. Gavin."

"It's not my fault," Apollo protested again, relinquishing the control gladly.

"He was on expert and you were on beginner, Polly," Trucy retorted, trying to settle the guitar's strap over Mr. Wright's shoulders despite his protests. "I really don't see how we could have made it more fair."

Apollo gave a good-natured sort of grumble and stalked over to stand beside Athena. "He's got cotton in one ear, too," he muttered. "I can't believe he's just that much better than me."

Athena leaned back against the door frame and fiddled with her earring, studying the scene for a few moments as Trucy tried to convince her father to play. Something was prickling in her memory, something she really should have noticed right away. "Hey, Apollo?" she finally asked. "The gloves Mr. Gavin's wearing...aren't they the ones we use when we're cleaning the toilet?"

...

Original author's note:

Been stuck in my head for days now. What would happen if Klavier played Guitar Hero against Apollo? Yes, I understand it's different from playing a guitar, but it really does come down to a sense of rhythm, timing, and dexterity. Besides...I never said he hadn't played it before, did I?

Reminds me of my childhood. We had a winter Olympics game for the Atari, and I was so good at the bobsledding event my brothers used to stand in front of the TV to try to make me crash. I still won gold almost every time...mostly because they didn't think to cover the track map in the upper corner.

This story is not meant to be slash, but...come on, if you had the chance to tease Apollo Justice with a thinly-veiled innuendo wouldn't you take it? No matter your orientation? It's like when someone at work or school complains "I'm hot" and you say "Yeah, but you don't have to brag about it", it just has to be done.

[wcamino-confessions]

hi I’ve been waiting for species to come up in here, and now that it has, hold on to your asses boys we’re going for a ride

it’s another long one, sorry, but I’m very passionate about the species debate and whether or not you agree with me, you can’t say I’m wrong with some of these points

firstly, species are various ‘hybrids’ or evolutionized/mutated subversions of cats that are commonly found around amino. sometimes they’re simply cats with odd traits that serve no real purpose and were mainly created for aesthetic. some more popular species include delicats, mermyxns, and slimetails. each species has traits that are specific to their genes, although MOST (not all) have the same base traits (horns, wings, steam, fish tails, spikes, random inanimate objects as tails, socks, bandaids, unnatural whiskers, antennae, glass body parts, liquidated body parts, etc).

species really got big upon the first notable creation of warriors species called slimetails back in late 2018/early 2019. the cats featured various colored, themed, textured and substanced tails made from slime after radioactivity consumed the clans homes and resulted in the genetic mutation. they grew very popular very quickly as they were, and are, an open original species. from there, species quickly took off with the members of WA, and with no regulations about who could make them and how you went about doing so, they were quickly overwhelming. well, maybe overwhelming isn’t the right term. the community absolutely ate up the prospect of unnatural, oftentimes irrelevant, cats with pretty features and levels of trait rarity. they’re still a very popular aspect of WA today.

and in today’s standards, they are oftentimes associated with a users level of “popularity.” although this is definitely not the case with all species owners and affiliates, no one can deny that the only reason some members are popular is because of their status as creators, GA’s, or fervent members of that species communities. now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does tend to rile small bouts of drama in some cases. luckily, they usually remain off of WA, or at least out of the BIG drama category of WA. but there is plenty of drama associated with species nonetheless.

firstly, there is the matter of relevancy that needs to be addressed within species. although the LT did reform their guidelines to ensure that all species do have some form of relation to the warriors books in their lore, we haven’t seen much of a change. in order to “abide” by this new guidelines, many species creators simply said that the cats in their species could be found living in clans either in the wild, on their own accord, or as a whole. WITHOUT altering their lore as required. that’s all fine and dandy. but how does it derive species from the books? well. it doesn’t. because in order for a species to be truly relevant to the warriors fandom, they must have descended DIRECTLY from one of the five clans in the books, or a tribe. rogues and loners, while apart of the series, have never been found to go off and create their own clan(s) for the fun of it. and we have no reason to believe that would change in the series. even the Skyclan cats didn’t reform Skyclan for shits and giggles. they were influenced by clan cats and received prophetic dreams from Starclan cats that basically guilt tripped them into doing this really random thing that they otherwise wouldn’t have even known of.

so, in all technicality, rogue/loner species derivatives do not pertain to the books. in order for a species to be genuinely, unquestionably relevant to warriors they need to either be mutated/evolved counterparts to the clans/tribe, or they need to, by direct lineage, be related to the original clan cats. of course no one expects you to go draw up a family tree on how your flying monkey cats have someone come from Firestar the Greats bloodline. but simply saying so isn’t enough. if they’re truly relevant to the books, then species owners need to add it. to. the lore. yeah, that guideline has already been passed. but it was not followed efficiently. your quirky cats with a clan/tribe hierarchy or something similar to such does not make them relevant. fix the damn lore like the guidelines originally stated. oh, and sorry to break it to you, but this means that your mythical god-like cats, your robo-cats, and your human object cats are immediately out of the running for relevancy. I can see how wings might have some semblance of realistism, but your sparkly candle tailed cats or cats who grow moss in cute little bubbles serve no evolutionary purpose and wouldn’t have any possibility of existing within the warriors universe.

now, onto the next topic of relevancy: evolution. some people say that cats developing fish tails or wings defies the laws of evolution. it probably does. but then again, we are dealing with four territorial cult cats who are very religious and, on occasion, will fight ghost cats and lose so. I’m actually defending species on this part, but don’t get used to it. because in all honesty, who are we to defy the lengths that evolution will go to? we didn’t expect fish to grow legs, but here we are. who’s to say that in this hypothetical universes cats can’t evolve to accommodate wings? don’t get me wrong, I hate the idea of it, but it isn’t COMPLETELY unreasonable.

next on the agenda, we have attribute individuality. granted, there are only so many different ways to make your species unique and really genuinely original, seeing the same handful of base traits repeat themselves in multiple different species (that could honestly just be considered one species altogether) does get old. there are not infinite options for creating a species that is going to be genuinely relevant in some remote aspect, and at some point people need to realize its time to stop. new species sprout up on what seems like a monthly basis on several occasions. and, although they don’t always get big, they still hold a place in clogging the latest feed. specifically with their borderline unacceptably irrelevant adopts. species really test the limits in relevancy, and so do adopts, but that’s for another day. and I’m not saying adopts are bad, so don’t single that out from this entire confess.

there’s another thing. species adopts. they’re constantly flooding the latest feed and drowning out actual warriors/oc related content. “it’s not your place to tell people what they should and shouldn’t post!” yeah, no dip. that’s not what I’m doing. I’m simply expressing my grievances with the amount of UNBEARABLY absurd species adopts that are constantly being uploaded and sold. and pricing? yeesh, that’s also for another day. but I am, again, not blatantly telling anyone to “stop posting species adopts!” or “lower your prices!” so that’s not something that needs to be brought up. so, whether or not you continue to post species adopts is your business. I’m positive that plenty of people adore them and are eating them up like candy. but, coming from a rare non-species lover, it does get tiring to trudge through all those horned bases and eye bleed neons to find some actual content.

don’t get me wrong, I’m not against species, per se. but I am against them being on WA. they don’t serve any actual purpose to the fandom in terms of relevancy. in most cases at least. and while I do applaud the creativity, the uniqueness and the overall joy it brings to the table, I just think that they’d be better off elsewhere. this is not a cat amino. this is a warriors amino. meaning we are only inclusive of cats pertaining to the warriors fandom for validated use in the community. validated use consists of realistic role playing, realistic story writing, realistic artistry and/or realistic character development by any means. so, looking outside of species, any unrealistic characters are still fine for the community because they cannot actually be implimented into WA in the ways that species can for their unnatural complexions. the only reason species are justified for their unnatural complexions is because of loopholes that make them seem relevant and viable for validated use, simple because they are completely feline in the genetic sense.

I hope that paragraph made sense, shit got a little complex right there. but, anyways, I’d like to reiterate relevancy. again. because I don’t see anyone giving up their species on WA for the sake of being canonically relevant because they’re going to find some off the wall way to make their quirky cats seem applicable. to be fair, I wouldn’t want to give up by hard earned creation so easily either. but there ARE other places to take them. and it isn’t up to us to figure out where, it’s up to the species owners. so it’s not like the species would be thrown out altogether, it would just be the irrelevant ones. and the relevant ones would be required to ACTUALLY abide by the guidelines instead of finding loopholes or countering valid points as to how their species are not canonically derived with “they lives in clans.” again, sorry if this paragraph was hard to follow. I’m perfectly fine with clearing up any misunderstandings in those last two paragraphs^^

so, to sum up, I believe the guidelines should be fixed and species should be properly mandated to abide by these new guidelines in order to ensure ACTUAL relevancy. I don’t like species. I don’t want anything to do with them. but I like that they bring a new sense of community and likeness to WA. and I don’t give a rats ass if you choose to associate with them. I personally believe that NONE of the species have any place on WA, but that would be unfair of me, wouldn’t it. so, I did my best to accommodate rationality in this entry, and I apologize if I came off as a stuck up bitch at any point. it wasn’t my intention, but I sure it did happen at some point.

oh, and let me derail any “WA would be boring if it were 100% relevant” arguments. because firstly, it WAS 100% relevant when it first started out, and it thrived. secondly, no where did I claim that species need to be 100% relevant. I made it very clear that it was the lore and the traits that needed to match up to accommodate the terms of relevancy. and thirdly, even on the off chance that species were subtracted from the equation, there are still plenty of other aspects that leave WA out of the running for total relevancy. thank you for coming to my ted talk, have a nice day loves <3

[nayutai]

5 | Linked

⇢ Pairing Taehyung x OC x Namjoon

⇢ Word Count 5.303

⇢ Warnings foul language and heavy petting

⇢ Summary What is meant to be will be. Not even the strongest of evil can stop destiny.

Two and a half weeks of frantic research later and we are still no closer to finding a way to fix the partially broken bond between Tae and I. Elder Ashlyn believes that whatever Antoinette had managed to do before she’d been interrupted partially degraded the bond between us because the burning in my nerves is still intermittent even though Tae is still comatose. The existence of the second bond with Namjoon only serves to further complicate matters. Elder Ashlyn decides to call upon some of the older members of the Council for their assistance.

The group of witches and warlocks barricade themselves in the downstairs study of the French estate. Apparently, the library collection at this residence is larger than the one back at her other residence so the elder witch had opted to remain in France until she and Jimin could come up with some answers. Namjoon and I definitely aren’t complaining as we spend our days exploring the country side. I always make sure to take as many pictures as I can so I can have something to show Tae when we finally wake him up. In the meantime, I make sure to tell him about all of our adventures, clinging to the hope that somewhere in there he can hear me.

Jimin looks stressed when he emerges from the conference room ahead of everyone else. I’ve been sat on a small couch in the hallway impatiently waiting for nearly three hours and I shoot to my feet when he emerges from the room. His brightly colored hair is jutting out wildly in all directions so he’s probably been incessantly running his hands through it even more than usual.

“Jimin, what’s wrong?” I question. My heart beats wildly in my throat at the way his shoulders sag in defeat. Before he even opens his mouth, I know it won’t be good news.

“We know how to fix your bond with Tae.” His face still looks drawn with stress though. There’s got to be a catch somewhere that he’s not telling me yet.

A door clicks shut somewhere off to my right. The sound is followed closely by Namjoon joining us in the hallway. He takes one look at my face and covers my hand in his larger one. The warmth of his skin seeps into mine, keeping me calm and grounded before I get too far off kilter.

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? That’s what we wanted.” My voice pitches higher at the end, the fear at what Jimin could say taking over my vocal chords.

He motions towards the couch that I’d been sitting on just minutes ago. His hands find their way back through his hair as he explains everything to us. Apparently, the dark faeries had written a book called the Torquem Contritum, literally meaning Broken Chain. 

“Every spell they faeries ever created to either break or repair soulmate bonds is in that book.” Jimin sounds defeated so I know that there’s something he’s not telling me. Some evil little twist that is holding us hostage at square one despite all of this new information that should catapult us to success. “Unfortunately for us, the book is missing and has been for nearly three centuries. It was stolen by a pack of werewolves centuries ago and no one has seen it since.”

This can’t be happening. Every time it seems that we’re on the verge of a breakthrough something knocks us twelve steps back. My stomach feels like it’s going to fall right out of my ass. Somewhere out there are the answers to all of our problems and we have no way of finding it. Hysterical laughter bursts forth from my lips before I can stop it. This is just perfect.

The search for answers shifts as Jimin and Elder Ashlyn focus their efforts on trying to find the ancient faerie text. The walls of the manor seem to be practically humming with power from the sheer amount of different tracking spells being cast. Even as mere mortals, Namjoon and I can feel the magic in the air. It’s when Jimin sneezes and bubbles fly out of his nostrils that he becomes completely fed up with the lack of results.

“Fuck this.” Jimin shouts as he aggressively shoves away from the kitchen table where he’d been sat eating the stack of waffles I’d made for him. As if sensing that something is wrong, Elder Ashlyn materializes directly behind him. Her eyes are glowing an even brighter blue than normal and they’re narrowed at the back of Jimin’s head.

“You better not be about to do what I think you’re about to do, Park.” To his credit, Jimin doesn’t even flinch at the Elder’s voice suddenly sounding off behind him. If anything, hearing her makes him even more determined to follow through with whatever plan he’s conjured up in his head.

“Well I sure don’t see you coming up with anything better. I don’t see you sneezing bubbles out of your damn nose because your body doesn’t know when to stop doing spells either.” He bites out. His scathing words weren’t directed at me but I flinch at the harsh tone of his voice nonetheless. Elder Ashlyn opens her mouth to respond but Jimin disappears right before our eyes. It happens so fast that I can almost see the void he’d left in the air. Elder Ashlyn pinches the bridge of her nose before she vanishes just as quickly as she’d appeared. Namjoon and I are left staring at each other in stunned silence as we try to figure out the significance of what just happened.

Nearly a week goes by without a single word from Jimin at all. I’ve tried calling, texting, and even emailing but there’s been nothing but radio silence from his end. Elder Ashlyn has stayed mum on the situation for the sake of our “plausible deniability” but that just leaves me even more confused. What would we need to deny? What is going on that could be that bad? Namjoon is just as confused as I am so he’s not exactly helpful beyond emotional consolation. Of course, Taehyung is no help either but he’s a great sounding board for my thoughts.

I’m cuddled up next to Tae’s sleeping form when the sound of the front door slamming shut reaches my ears. It has to be Jimin. It just has to be. Namjoon is asleep in the room next door and Elder Ashlyn has been locked in her study for hours. No one else would have the balls to just waltz through the front door like this other than Jimin.

Sure enough, the familiar warlock is standing in the middle of the foyer toeing off his muddy boots when I reach the entrance. A large sack rests on the floor at his feet. Judging from its shape and the ominous aura it radiates, I can only guess that it must be the infamous book that he and Elder Ashlyn have been searching for. 

“Don’t you ever disappear like that again, you ass.” I mumble into his neck after I quite literally launch myself at him. His arms wrap around me and I feel like I can finally breathe again knowing that he’s back. After everything that we’ve been through together, I consider Jimin to be just as much a part of my family as my own flesh and blood.

“How did you find it?” I ask, motioning towards the bag at Jimin’s feet. He goes on to tell me about how the missing tome was said to have been written in the blood of the dark faeries that authored it. Knowing that, all he needed to do was obtain some dark faerie blood and perform a tracking spell which was easier said than done. To make matters worse he couldn’t cast just any old tracking spell. In order to find dark magic you have to use dark magic. Now I understand why Elder Ashlyn wanted to maintain our “plausible deniability”. The council definitely won’t like this.

“I can’t believe that you really went through with this foolishness.” I startle at the sound of Elder Ashlyn’s voice slicing through the air like a blade. It’s obvious that she’s not happy in the slightest.

“You can yell at me later but I think we’ve got work to do.” Jimin grabs the bag holding the book and offers it to his superior. She hesitates for a second before grabbing it, holding it at arm’s length as though it might grow teeth and attack her. 

“Meet me in the workroom.” For once, the elder witch chooses to walk rather than teleporting herself through time and space to get where she’s going. It’s almost too weird for me to process. Jimin gives my shoulders a squeeze before following directions and heading for the workroom himself. I immediately turn and run to find Taehyung to tell my sleeping beauty that it won’t be much longer now. Our parents are just as excited when I shoot them all a quick text to update them on this latest development.

I don’t see or hear anything from Jimin and Elder Ashlyn for the rest of the day. Late in the evening while Namjoon and I are sat cross-legged next to Tae, telling him stupid jokes, Jimin makes an appearance. My heart clenches at the pinched look on his face. 

“I have good news and I have bad news, which one do you want first?” He questions softly after a minute of seemingly trying to gather his thoughts.

“Bad news.” I reply. Better to go ahead and rip the bandaid off and then placate my sadness with good news.

Jimin takes a deep, shuddering breath before he answers me. “There is a ritual for fixing broken soulmate bonds.” An excited squeal flies out of my mouth as I grip one of Tae’s large hands in mine. Then I remember that I asked for the bad news first.

“How is that bad news?” Namjoon questions with an adorably confused look on his face. We’re both looking at Jimin with hopeful expectations and the reluctant warlock before looks like he’s going to be physically ill. 

“The ritual exists and has been proven to work but both soulmates have to willingly participate and Jess has two. A technical anomaly that shouldn’t exist and because of that once we wake Tae up and totally sever the bond we won’t be able to fix it because her body will reject attempts to create a bond when one already exists.”

The world seems to stop spinning on its axis, bringing everything to a halt as my brain comprehends the news that Jimin has just delivered. This can’t be real life. Just when I thought that things were finally on the up and up it comes crashing back down around me. I feel absolutely numb. I stretch out next to Tae, burying my face in his chest as I cling to him. Jimin has yet to deliver the good news but at this point I don’t really care to hear anything else.

“So what’s the good news?” I hear Namjoon ask as he reaches over to rub my back soothingly. It helps a little but it doesn’t completely ease the ache in my chest. 

“There was a footnote that said soulmate bonds could possibly repair themselves naturally but it didn’t mention whether or not it could happen in the case of a person with two soulmates.” I peeked over Tae’s shoulder at Jimin. There’s hope swirling in the distress I see in his eyes. 

“What do you want to do?” Namjoon poses a question that I have no idea how to answer. 

The selfless thing to do would be to let Elder Ashlyn wake Taehyung up despite the depressing consequences. He is quite literally sleeping away the best part of his life the longer he remains comatose and it’s not fair to him at all. But I don’t want to be selfless. I want to keep him. I want him to always be mine. Who’s to say that the connection between us would ever naturally rebuild itself? My heart and mind are at war between what I want and what I know is right. 

I loving run my hand through Tae’s hair that’s steadily grown out over the past few months. He looks so at peace like this. Blissfully unaware of the turmoil swirling around us. I do my best to commit his every feature to memory just as he is now. My heart aches under the weight of what I know to be right. 

A single tear slides down my cheek as I bend to kiss his lips one final time. “Wake him up.”

Jimin looks at me with a questioning look on his face as he and Elder Ashlyn stand at Tae’s bedside. I know what he’s trying to say. This is your last chance. A single tear slides down my cheek but I nod my head. Knowing Taehyung, he is going to be far from happy about the decision I’ve chosen to make but I love him too much to just let him slumber in oblivion like this. He deserves to live his life to the fullest even if that means I have to give him up.

The air above my beloved shimmers and sparkles as the sleep spell is lifted. His face twists up in that cute way it always does when he’s just waking up but his features are twisted up in pain in the next second. He lets out a strangled shout. His back arches at an angle that can’t be anything but painful. I move to step out of Namjoon’s arms to put a stop to Taehyung’s suffering, but Elder Ashlyn lifts her hand and my feet freeze in place. The burning sensation in my arm that had become a constant part of my life fades and fades until it completely fizzles out at the same time that Tae calms down. Elder Ashlyn finally releases her hold on me and I’m by his side before his eyes even open completely. Tae’s jaw is taut as he looks around dazed and confused while I gently wipe at his sweaty forehead.

He coughs a few times to clear his throat, licking his lips as he looks up into my eyes. I feel sick to my stomach. “Baby, what’s going on? Did you stop her?” The worried look on his face increases tenfold when he notices the way my bottom lip starts to tremble. I open my mouth to explain everything that’s happened but the words feel like they’re choking me.

“Elder Ashlyn? Jimin, what’s happening?” Tae cranes his neck to the side to see the witches standing off to my left. Neither one of them will meet his eyes.

“Tae, baby, look at me.” I lovingly cup his face in my hand, taking in all of his features. His one monolid and one double lid. The elegant slope of his nose. His long lashes. “We couldn’t stop her. She…she broke the bond. Our bond.”

“But I thought being under the sleeping spell was supposed to stop that from happening?” His voice rises as he gets more and more hysterical. I’m trying to explain everything about how the sleeping spell only protected him and not both of us like we thought it would when Tae takes notice of Namjoon standing in a far corner of the room trying to go unnoticed. Kinda hard when he’s so tall but the effort was there.

Tae nearly loses it when I tell him exactly who Namjoon is. I’ve never seen him this angry. Ever. If looks could kill, everyone in the room would drop dead in an instant. There was a time when I didn’t think anything could rile him up like this but I see that I’ve found his one trigger point. To his credit, Namjoon takes every harsh word in stride and remains quiet while I do my best to regain control of the situation. 

“Are you fucking kidding me, Jessica? You let go of me and everything we had for him? What type of bullshit is that?” I wince at his bellowed words. He’s never yelled at me. Never even raised his voice. I couldn’t have kept myself from flinching even if I’d tried but right now he’s too mad to even care. 

“Tae it’s not like that I promise. Plus, Jimin said that there’s a chance that our bond could naturally rebuild itself.” I try to pacify his anger in the only way I know how but it seems that was the exact wrong thing to say. If we were in a cartoon, he’d be blowing steam out of his ears right now with how irate he is.

“A chance?! You did Antoinette’s dirty work for her based on some bullshit chance?” He yanks his hand out of mine as if I disgust him. “I would’ve preferred to sleep until the world ends if it meant that you would still be mine.”

Jimin and Elder Ashlyn have stayed silent throughout this entire fiasco, choosing to leave the explaining up to me since I know Taehyung better than anyone in this room. Although, that may be up for debate now. 

“Kim Taehyung, you shut your ass up right now and listen. There was absolutely nothing more we could do.” Elder Ashlyn breaks her silence and halts Tae’s tirade in the process. Every pair of eyes is glued to her face. “Whether you remained under the sleeping spell or not, your bond with Jessica had been severed and because of the second soul connection no magic on Earth can fix it. Now you can either get yourself together and do what you can to provoke a natural reconnection or you can go on about your business but what you’re not going to do is berate Jessica like this. None of this is her fault.”

Tae’s head droops forward as he takes in the elder’s words. I know what this means. His anger has dissipated but that leaves nothing but sadness and despair. When his shoulders start to shake with the force of his sobs, I reach forward to comfort him. The pain I felt when Antoinette snapped our bond like a rubberband is nothing compared to the agony of Tae shrugging my hand off of his shoulder. Never has he rejected me like this. Ever. I choke back a sob. What did I do? If only I had been more selfish with my choices. If only I had let him stay asleep. 

“I want to leave.” Tae chokes out after a few minutes. “I want to leave right now.” He looks over my crying figure once more and the pain in my chest only increases with the anguished longing I see reflected in his eyes.

“As you wish.” Elder Ashlyn makes him vanish with a wave of her hand. The tears are flowing freely now as Namjoon gathers me into his arms. I vaguely register the odd sound of air collapsing as Jimin and Elder Ashlyn leave me to my misery. 

At some point, I must have cried myself to sleep because I wake up in an unfamiliar apartment to the smell of bacon frying. There’s wood features everywhere I look so I know I’m not at home nor am I at my tiny apartment near the campus. I follow the smell to a kitchen that is equally unfamiliar to see Namjoon standing over the stove.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” He abandons the pan to walk over to me, kissing my forehead softly when he reaches me. “Sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up. Thought I’d have time to finish breakfast first.”

“Is this your place?”

“Yeah…” He scratches at the back of his neck nervously before leading me to a stool at the breakfast bar. “I didn’t think it would be a good idea for you to be alone after what happened so I had Elder Ashlyn teleport you back here with me. I hope that was okay.” My mind drifts back to Taehyung and what he might be doing right now. It’s no surprise that tears well up in my eyes once more. I’ve lost my first love and gained another yet I still feel empty.

“It’s fine.” I absentmindedly run my thumbnail back and forth along a small scratch in the countertop while Namjoon continues to cook. 

Everything is definitely not fine. 

I excuse myself back to the bedroom after forcing down a few pieces of bacon and a piece of toast. Namjoon looks like he wants to say something but thinks better of it, choosing instead to grab one of my hands and gently kiss each of my knuckles before letting me go. My heart swells with affection for the gentle giant in front of me but the fresh wound of losing Tae still stings. There’s only one person who can help me now.

“Hey, baby girl. We haven’t heard from you in a few days. I was beginning to worry.”

“Mom.” The tears that I’d thought had finally stopped flowing come bursting forth like someone had turned on a faucet behind my eyelids the second her voice comes through the phone speaker. She immediately goes into mother bear mode as she tries to interpret my blubbering to get to the root of what’s wrong.

“Send me your location. I’m coming.” I nod though I’m aware she can’t see me and hang up the phone. 

Namjoon knocks lightly on the door, but at this point I don’t have the energy to do anything more than lay in his bed like a starfish and cry. He pokes his head in and immediately crosses the room to wipe your tears away despite the fact that more just keep falling. He whispers something about going to get tissues and water, but I latch on to his arm before he can get too far away.

“No. Please stay.” Namjoon doesn’t say a word as he crawls into bed with me. The solid warmth of his chest. Strong arms holding me close. For once, I feel like maybe everything will work out. For once, I have hope for the future.

I stare intently at the smooth skin of my left wrist. Sometimes, if I stare hard enough, I swear that I can see a faint outline of the the three little letters that used to mark my skin. Today is my twenty second birthday. A day that I thought I’d be spending with the man those three missing letters had brought to me. Namjoon breaks me out of my reverie with a lingering kiss to my shoulder as wakes up. 

Guilt used to overwhelm me with every intimate touch or brush of his lips against any part of me but over the month or so since we left Elder Ashlyn’s sprawling estate I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching. It’s still a process, but I’ve largely come to terms with the fact that my feelings for the gentle giant currently wrapped around me like a koala are nothing for me to feel guilty about. He was always destined to be mine. I’ll always wish that we could’ve met under much more favorable circumstances, but we’re here together navigating the fallout of the chaos of the past year together.

“Happy birthday, baby.” His voice is low and raspy in that beautiful way it always is when he first wakes up. I twist around in his arms until I can properly face him, lovingly tracing the outline of his full lips before covering them with my own. 

“Thanks, babe.” My eyes drift closed as Namjoon peppers kisses all across my face. His talented fingers slip beneath the t-shirt I’d worn to bed to run his fingers up and down my spine, making me shiver. A breathy moan escapes me when he pulls back to shove my shirt up below my chin and exposes my bare chest to his hungry gaze. The chilly air in the room is a pleasurable contrast to his warm hands cupping my breasts as circles his thumbs around my raised buds. 

Namjoon’s head hovers above my chest, tongue seeking my skin when the door bell echoes through my quiet apartment. Were it not for the a strong gut feeling, I would have ignored the uninvited guest in favor of allowing Namjoon to continue to have his way with me.  But I have to answer the door. It’s a pressing need at this point.

“I’ll be right back.” Surprisingly, Namjoon offers up no protest when I extricated myself from his web of lust. I blindly redo the bun I’d slept in so it looks less like I’m just rolling out of bed. 

Frantic energy accelerates my heart beat the closer I get to the front door of my apartment. When I finally fling open the door, whoever it was is gone. I look left and right down the walkway and just barely catch sight of a tall, lanky man rounding the corner to the stairwell. An oversized gift bag in tow. My heart clenches in my chest at the quick view I’d managed to catch of his side profile. I’d recognize him anywhere.

“Taehyung!” My lack of dress and proper footwear is totally forgotten. Nothing short of an act of God could’ve kept me from bolting down the walkway after him. I hadn’t expected him to hear me yelling since he’d already started down the stairs, but the man in question nearly takes me down in his haste to get to me.

He steadies me on my feet only to stagger back himself when I launch myself into his arms. My emotions are all over to the place to the point that my brain feels like it’s vibrating. Taehyung takes a deep shuddering breath as he succumbs to the tears that soak into my shirt. He’s mumbling something into the crook of my neck but he’s speaking too low to properly make out what he’s saying. 

“I missed you, Tae.” I pull back from him to wipe the tears from his cheeks. He leans his forehead against mine, seemingly content to just be in the moment.

“I missed you more than you’ll ever know, Jessica.” 

“I’m glad that we all missed each other, but it’s cold as fuck out here and one of you is barely dressed.” We both jump when Namjoon appears out of nowhere with a blanket that he doesn’t hesitate to throw around my shoulders when Taehyung finally lets me down. “Good to see you again, Taehyung.” 

Taehyung stares down at the hand that Namjoon holds out to him. My heart jumps for joy when he shakes it firmly, accepting Namjoon’s olive branch. I try to stop it, but ever since the state of the weather was brought to my attention I can practically feel the chill seeping into my bones. 

“Okay let’s get you back inside.” The two hulking men on either side of me look more like mother hens as they herd me back into the apartment. 

I find myself quickly sat on the couch as Taehyung and Namjoon continue to fuss over me. Taehyung insists on tea which is met with a swift agreement followed up by Taehyung’s fascination at the wide variety of teas that Namjoon has stocked my cabinets with. The last time Taehyung and I had been in this apartment together our world was crumbling beneath our feet. It’s odd to think about just how much time has changed in the months between then and now. The events that litter our timeline almost feel like they happened to someone else. As I look around my apartment, I spot the large gift bag that Taehyung had been carrying earlier resting on the dining table. 

“Tae, what’s in the bag?” Taehyung crosses the room to bring the bag to me.

“Happy birthday, babe.”

I tear into the bag, shrieking when I lift out a signed Ella Fitzgerald vinyl. It’s obviously an original and not a remastered vinyl which means Ella herself held this record in her hands and signed it. I hug the framed album to my chest in fear that I let go of it for even a second it might disappear. 

“I love it so much, Tae.” I hop up off of the couch, connecting my lips to his before I can stop to think about whether or not I should. Taehyung is stunned for all of two seconds, kissing me back with a ferocity I’ve never felt before. 

Fear seizes me as once again a joyous, carefree moment is interrupted by a burning in my left wrist. I can feel the panic rising up to choke off my oxygen supply at the thought of reliving the hell that we’d just escaped. History repeats itself as Taehyung grabs at my arm when he puts two and two together. Namjoon is by our sides in an instant when he senses the sudden shift in our moods. The frame in my hands nearly tumbles to the ground but I manage to keep my grip on it, tucking it under my free arm. 

“What’s wrong? Jess, baby, are you okay? Is something wrong with our bond?” Namjoon’s words trigger a lightbulb in my brain. Our bond. His initials are emblazoned in my wrist just as clear as the day that they first appeared. My right wrist that is. The weird sensation that had sent me into a mental spiral isn’t the sharp burn that I’d thought it to be. No, this is an itch. An intense and persistent itch beneath the skin of my left wrist. The same persistent itch I’d felt when the letters KNJ had first made their presence known.

Taehyung is still holding my wrist, staring at it in shocked amazement. Jimin had said that this was a possibility but I’d refused to get myself wrapped up in any expectations to ward off any unnecessary disappointments. And yet, there it is clear as day. KTH. Namjoon lets out a whoop of celebration as he pulls both me and Taehyung into a bear hug. 

“Fuck tea! This calls for wine.” He pecks my forehead, clapping Taehyung on the back as he returns to the kitchen for the rest of the bottle of sangria he’d brought with him when he came over last night. 

“You know what this means right?”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

“No, it means you now have two people to yell at you for standing in chairs to reach things, shortie.” Taehyung bolts when I raise my vinyl over my head as if to strike him with it. He screams for Namjoon to come to his rescue as I chase him around the room.

“So she can hit me? I think I’m good on that.” Namjoon takes a sip from the wine he’d poured for himself as he enjoys the show before him. A smart man.

I eventually get tired of running around as I’m sure they both expected, gratefully accepting a wine glass from Namjoon. I pucker my lips up for a kiss which he gladly gives me. He tastes like sangria and pure joy. 

“To happiness and rekindled connections.” Taehyung and I clink our raised glasses against Namjoon’s excitedly. The cheap wine tastes like liquid gold when I tip it down my throat. There was a time when I thought that the love of a lifetime was going to be permanently ripped from me and now here I stand with love two fold. I don’t know how we’re going to make this work but I do know that I’ll do everything I can to make sure it does.

[gllded]

*dj khaled vc* anotha one -- DJ KHALED.  i’m mac, if y’all didn’t know, coming in hot with a second character !! please welcome maharani jodha devi of karnataka, india to genovia. she’s here for strictly diplomatic reasons, but who knows 👀 that can change  .... anyway, take a look under the cut to know more about her and if you want to plot  ( not just w/ jodha but also with madeline if we haven’t already something going on ), just come bother me on discord -- i am in the group chat -- or if you’re old school, send me an ask and i’ll answer you back privately (; 

THE GOOGLE SEARCH

⋆ ° ⟡ ( DEEPIKA PADUKONE, thirty-three, cis female, she/her ) has JODHA DEVI, the MAHARANI (QUEEN) from KARNATAKA (INDIA) arrived yet? i heard they can be quite MILITANT, but also CHARISMATIC. there’s rumours they’ve come to genovia for STRENGTHENING DIPLOMATIC TIES, but you never know. FAMILY JEWELS HANDED DOWN FOR CENTURIES, CEDAR WOOD INCENSE BURNING, and HER FATHER’S LEATHER-BOUND JOURNAL always remind me of them. ( its mac and cheese )

THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE  ( cw. death, authoritarian ideologies )

her father told her she was blessed by the gods the day she was born, as a warm summer storm drowned out the sound of her mother’s cries while in labor. a bolt of lightning struck just outside the gardens of the summer palace just as she took her first breath --- a premonition, her grandmother would tell her --- solidifying her as an heir of the maharaja of the great naval state. her mother named her jodha, after the great warrior queen, hoping to give her daughter strength and compassion. all of these things were destiny, she’d later claim, that she was a force to be reckoned with; that she was unstoppable, unavoidable, untamable by even the ones closest to her. 

she lived, like many other rajkumaris, never wanting for anything, so beloved by her family and cherished by her servants. she was the jewel of their kingdom, a beauty to behold, and so so lovely. yet none of what they thought could compare to the love and adoration the people had to her older brother, the crown prince and first born son. 

jodha would always be second, but she would never be satisfied. while she loves her brother, she just knew it was she who deserved to be in his position. so even from an early age, she prepared herself. while he was being groomed by scholars and their father’s advisers in the palace and the capital city, she was out making trips to the country, walking along the paths of local marketplaces and visiting remote sugarcane farmers. while he discussed history and policy with the lords and high-borns, she talked about sports and the latest film with other kids her age. he was becoming the figure to be looked up to by the people, meanwhile jodha was becoming the figure to eventually lead the people. 

in her own strategy, she had seen so much of her country, had gotten to know its people, had gotten to know what made it so beautiful, and had gotten to know its fundamental imperfections. she aimed to be of the people, seeing the flaws in the infrastructure built by her own ancestors, and devised policies of her own that would fix all of it. it only took a strong enough ruler and unfortunately, jodha knew her brother wasn’t going to be that ruler. 

it had begun in earnest, after she graduated university, having enlisted in the military. at first for basic training, and then slowly up the ranks after she realized she would need support. jodha campaigned for herself as she befriended cadets, made loyalties with the commanding officers, and even spread lies and conspiracies about her brother to further weaken the image of his ability. she had played the long game, hoping eventually to request an audience with her father to prove to him that she was right for the throne, but the maharaja’s illness and sudden death following threw a wrench into her plans. 

jodha was still in mourning when they organized, knowing her brother’s coronation was just around the corner. they had to act quickly and brashly, sending troops to the nobles who would support her brother’s claim and leading her own small infantry into her brother’s chambers. with tears forming in her eyes forced her brother to concede the throne to her, never once failing to tell him that she loves him, but she loves her kingdom more. 

nearly a year later, karnataka flourished under jodha’s rule. she was able to provide education to the poorest of villages, establish more free clinics than the other indian states, promote equal rights for women, and introduce tax reform that would benefit the common people as a whole. she took her kingdom above and beyond what her forefathers were able to -- what her brother would have been able to -- but did so with an iron fist. 

in order to get all of that done so quickly, jodha took more than a few liberties in implementing her policies. certain nobles were stripped of their titles and riches. select industries and universities were punished if they did not meet the 50/50 gender requirement. people who vehemently opposed her were to just disappear without trace. she held her kingdom and her people on a very short leash, but the results speak for itself. and a few fundamental freedoms is a small price to pay in return for a society with a better quality of life for everyone. 

but because her claim is still so new, jodha knows she needs strong allies. she’s been on a world wide tour to establish diplomatic ties, and genovia, in all its pomp in finding its crown princess a spouse, just so happened to be a central hub for a number of royals. 

THE DOSSIER

- in this verse, india was never colonized by the british and therefore never unified into one homogeneous contry. instead, india stands as different states / regions, each governed independently by a royal / high-caste family. jodha and her family has ruled over karnataka, a coastal state in the south western part of india, for centuries. her ruling palace lies in the capital city of bangalore, and her state is best known for its navy as well as its abundance of aged temples and picture-perfect landscapes.  

- jodha’s mother died when she was a young child, only providing her father with two legitimate heirs. her father did remarry, at one point, but did not bear any children with the second wife. because of her mother’s untimely death, the maharaja kept his daughter close, finding the qualities he fell in love with surviving in their child. she became his favorite, being allowed privileges her brother was not allowed because he was in line to rule. to this day jodha still can’t say for certain that her father would have allowed her to rule instead of her brother. 

- jodha keeps her brother under military arrest in their ancestral palace somewhere in the remote countryside. to the public, he willingly abdicated his throne to live a private due to the overwhelming loss of his father. as expected, the nobles and scholars who would have supported him raised questions to which jodha either imprisoned them or had them quietly executed for treason and conspiracy. 

- while it is technically a monarchy, karnataka now runs under a loose authoritarian structure. while people are free to pursue happiness, they are limited, namely, in their freedom of speech and political affiliation. all media outlets are government owned and regulates its content to ensure no negative rhetoric of the queen and her regime slips through to the public. evidently this means that no one, but the key figures involved, know about the militant coup that occurred to place jodha at the seat of power. 

- she believes the ends justify the means. she understands the implications of her rule and how she overthrew her own brother, but believes she is right in doing so to ensure the well-being of her people. 

THE RELATIONSHIPS

- diplomatic allies. their respective countries could already have diplomatic relations or they’re building. either way, jodha needs allies, not only to strengthen her kingdom but also her claim as international recognition of her legitimacy can help her reputation as a whole in the public eye. 

- old schoolmates / people from her past. she went to university in europe to better her english skills before going back to join the military. as a part of the military she could have also traveled to your country and met with you in that capacity.  ( think of how prince harry was allowed to serve in the military ) 

- friendlies / acquaintances. jodha is charismatic and people-oriented at heart. she doesn’t believe she is inherently malicious, and she sure as hell wouldn’t show it if she were. but in keeping diplomacy, she’s friendly and will try to handle situations with ease. 

- enemies. maybe you just think she’s suspicious or that she has ulterior motives. either way, not everyone has to get along, and jodha is not going to back down from a fight. 

[quadcorenewkids]

Touching the Void - Chapter 1

I’m posting this because, although I like a lot of parts about this, it feels too dragged out for a first chapter... too slow. Idk, I just have some mixed feelings, and since it’s the first chapter, I don’t mind posting it because... it’s not technically spoilers? 8D

Man, I hate how different things look from the word program to the actual post, no matter where it is. It never looks quite right :/

An evening in the McCormick household where one didn't need to fight to have dibs on the TV was a rare fucking evening indeed. In fact, Kenny's parents weren't even home... or so he assumed. If there wasn't yelling and bitching coming from somewhere within earshot, they must've been out and about. Didn't surprise him in the slightest. Kevin - pretty quiet as per usual - probably locked himself in his room so he could drink all night, and Karen - sweet, naive Karen - was already in bed at this hour, having had her dinner and going straight to bed. Hard to believe she was in Fourth Grade already. Felt like yesterday when he was back at the wonderful age of 10.             He remembered playing their games, the boys and him... being afraid of the Sixth Graders, and everything. Yet now they were he Sixth Graders... that still hadn't settled with him, even if it didn't really feel like they'd grown up at all. And having Middle School looming around the corner come next year? Yuck. He had a similar reaction when flipping the channel to the next fuzzy one. Fucking figures, the one night he didn't have to wrestle his drunk-ass brother or parents for the remote, and there was nothing good on. No sports aside from re-runs. Not even much late-night adult content to be found either. Just the fucking shopping channel - god, he hated that with an immense passion - and some boring documentaries and talk shows. He flipped over to one idly and stared blankly at the screen while the voice continued to narrate. The content on the screen wasn't memorable to him in the slightest.           "-and it begs to offer this yet unsolved question that we ask ourselves constantly: 'What were we put on this Earth to do? What is our purpose?' A-and there's just no rightful way of answering that, try as we may. It's a solution that we, as individuals must come to understand and learn for ourselves. All we can do to aid the process along, is by pushing ourselves in the general direction of self-discovery."             He had his finger on the button to switch the channel, before - at the last second - the guy on the TV added, "Which brings me to ask you... why do some people long to die?"             That caught Kenny's attention for an extra moment, "W-When you have the potential of a great, grand purpose in our lives as a result of what we were put on this Earth to do, why would you want to knowingly take your own life away? Why do most of us fear Death so greatly... but others don't? What in the world makes us so unique from one another in such a queer manner? What drives these people to do these things?"

The other man on the TV laughed at him, "Sounds more like we've got a 'Q&Q' show than a 'Q&A' now, Abe."

"These are trying topics. You try to come up with an answer. A real answer. It ain't so easy, is it?"             "Well, if you had to ask me, I'd say some people are obviously just more miserable than others. The quality of life and the gap and all that mumbo-jumbo. If you're down in the dumps long enough, it might seem like that's what you were put on the Earth to be - a metaphorical punching bag."             "Is that what you view yourself to be? You know, some experts say that our words and actions reflect how we feel about ourselves more than they affect others."             "Pfffff. You think I'm a punching bag? I'm living the dream, Abe. Or what feels like the dream... that's good enough for me."           The 'Abe' guy opened his mouth to talk again, but Kenny flipped the TV off before he could utter another word. God this night fucking sucked so far. He got up to get a drink - not a drink drink. Seeing what that shit does to other people sure has its way of souring you on even touching the stuff. Shoving the dozens of beer bottles and cans aside in the dirty old fridge, he pulled out a soda he'd stashed in the very back. It'd been opened before, so it was completely flat by now... but he honestly didn't give much of a shit. Flat or fizzy, it was still a nice treat to have, now and again.             While he sat and chugged back what was left of his week-old cola, his mind wandered back to that dumb-ass talk show again. 'What were we put on this Earth to do? What is our purpose?'

Did it really matter what the purpose was? You make something of yourself, or you don't. Either way, everyone has access to titties on the internet, and that was enough of a reason alone for some people to work and pay the bills. Can't even get a good magazine nowadays without having to pay like twenty dollars plus shipping... they don't even ship it in discreet packaging anymore! What a fucking time to be alive, when your neighbour can walk by and see the latest issue of Playboy sitting on your front step in broad daylight because some asshole couldn't be bothered to stuff it in the mailbox.

Not that he really cared... wasn't his name plastered all over it. He'd used his brother's name when ordering the subscriptions, and he didn't think anything of it when he'd answered the door the first time to pick them up. He'd probably just assumed his drunk-ass couldn't remember ordering it. He'd never complain about free titty magazines though, that would be fucking blasphemy. Kenny just had to make sure he got up early enough on mail days to be able to snag them first when he saw them... he wasn't the biggest fan of second-hand merchandise. Who could blame him?             He crunched the can up with one hand and tossed it in the general direction of the trash can. It hadn't been emptied in weeks, so it just kind of harmlessly bounced off the heaping pile of other cans and rolled on the floor. He'd have to do something about that at some point soon.

He once caught Karen trying to clean up the disaster that was the kitchen. Poor girl almost cut herself on a bottle that'd been broken at some point. After that, Kenny told her that she shouldn't clean up broken bottles and cans - at the very least, not without using a towel or something to protect her hands with. He'd insisted that he'd try to tidy up a bit in her place... but he'd gotten lazy. It gets to a point where if you're the only one in the whole fuckin' house making an effort to clean up, you just don't feel like it's even worth trying. But he'd do it eventually. For Karen's sake, at the very least.             With a sigh, he sauntered over to his room and shut the door quietly behind him. He always made a note to try and do that. No reason to slam doors around and, on the off-chance, wake up his sister. His parents did that enough, that quiet days like this were just... unheard of. This whole evening had been a fucking weird one. He flopped down on his bed and stared at the ceiling for a moment.           "Some people are obviously just more miserable than others. The quality of life and the gap and all that mumbo-jumbo. If you're down in the dumps long enough, it might seem like that's what you were put on the Earth to be - a metaphorical punching bag."             He snatched his pillow and buried his face into it, heaving another sigh. Maybe he shouldn't of even bothered trying to watch TV, if all he can think about is a stupid fucking talk show... but when he thought about it, Kenny kind of felt like a punching bag. Some days, more literally than others. No matter what people threw at him though, he would bounce back from anything. Always coming back, to no one ever remembering. No one remembers the punching bag. He rolled over and glared at the wall. It was going to be one of these nights again, huh? He hadn't gone on such a downward spiral since... since Fourth Grade. Everything had fuckin flown by the past couple years. The usual weird shit would happen every once in a while, but he felt like he was getting involved in it less and less. Stan, Kyle, and Cartman would go off and do shit on their own after school somedays, and it was like they never thought to ask him to join. On one hand, Kenny wasn't complaining – fuck no. That meant he'd been through less shit that could end up with him dead again.           On the other hand... he sort of missed it. He hadn't even worn the Mysterion outfit in what felt like fucking forever... when had he last gone out in it? He got up and went over to the dresser to take a look. It was exactly where he'd left it last time - placed in the bottom drawer. Forgotten. He picked it up and held it out to get a good look at it. It was so small, to him. Had it really been that long? He slowly took his parka off and put the cape on overtop of his shirt. It didn't drag on the floor like it used to, that was for sure. The first few times he'd worn it, he remembered being a dumbass and tripping over it on a few occasions. He'd twisted his ankle once or twice, and one instance actually involved him falling off a roof. That had been agony.             Yet he hadn't cut it any shorter or anything. He'd instead persevered and got used to knowing where it was and how to not trip on it. He casually grabbed an edge of the cape and brought it close to his face in what was meant to be a dramatic pose. At least it was long enough to do that, anyway. The hood was a bit small though... and he didn't even dare try on that light purple one-piece. He took a look in the drawer again to find the half-mask sitting at the bottom. He slipped it on over his head, but it was so tight on his eyes. With a scoff, he'd pulled the ensemble off and shoved it back in the drawer. Maybe there was a fucking reason he'd stopped wearing that thing. All it did now was bring back memories of that fucking cult.             But it had good memories associated with it too. He'd protected his little sister against bullies in Greely as Mysterion... he'd even become a 'Guardian Angel' to her. That, was what made it worth it. That was why he'd kept wearing it up until last year. He wanted to protect people that couldn't do it alone. He wanted to be this stupid little mountain town's 'guardian angel'... to keep it safe from fucking monsters. He scowled at the open drawer now, at the outfit thrown into a ball and wrinkled to hell. Cartman had been one of those monsters... he'd been fucking insane to drag an Elder God into his schemes. He certainly didn't miss hanging out with him. "Friend" or not.           Kenny didn't bother to close the drawer before stumbling back to his bed and throwing himself upon it again - this time sans parka. Maybe he'd bring back the persona... maybe he wouldn't. He honestly didn't want to think about it anymore... he just wanted the night to be over so he could just go back to school tomorrow - words he never thought would pass his mind. But all that kept coming back to mind was that... Fucking... Talk show.             "'What were we put on this Earth to do? What is our purpose?'... It's a solution that we, as individuals must come to understand and learn for ourselves. All we can do to aid the process along, is... push... ourselves in the general direction of self-discovery."           He'd tried that once. It didn't end up all that great.

People don't really realize when they drift off to sleep. It's just a quiet cloak of darkness that overtakes the mind... it's nigh undetectable.         He wasn't any different, at first. He didn't know he was dreaming. It felt... too real.             This place felt familiar... but for the life of him, he couldn't fucking remember where he was, exactly. It was like it kept changing... shifting... the lighting bounced around the ground like water at the bottom of a pool. The sand was red... no, not sand. Dirt. Or... stone? Kenny couldn't focus on it at all, like he'd pulled an all-nighter and hit the point where he just couldn't *mentally* stay awake anymore. The area around him was hazy, and alien. Strange plants - if you could even call them 'plants' - and formations were all around him... nothing familiar besides that feeling deep down that he'd been here once before.             The only thing that knocked him out of his stupor was a voice from behind him, but it sounded like he'd missed part of the conversation before it... "...maybe we should just find a place to hide and wait for help!"           That sounded like... someone he knew... Another voice reverberated, this time right next to him, "What help, dude? Nobody in the real world even knows we're here."           Kenny finally looked towards the source of the voices. They were like mirages... blurry... but he recognized them. He recognized the words. Clyde and Kyle. Mentioning the real world? But that meant... This was R'Lyeh. It came to him like a slap in the face, waking him from the hazy phase he'd just been in. The weird lighting, the even weirder tentacle plants and shit... the other boys in costumes... and then he saw himself walk from where he stood, like he'd waltzed right out of his own body, donned as Mysterion. He felt a distant pain in his gut, as he watched himself take charge and insist he'd find help. He knew what was coming all too well.             Quite frankly, he didn't want to fucking relive it a second time. He closed his eyes to block it out as he heard Clyde call his name. He'd forgotten to block the sound out... and it was a horrid sound. And the pain! The pain hit him like a fucking truck, like he'd actually gone and done it again! Seething agony for what felt like an eternity... and then darkness overcame him again.

He woke up in a cold sweat, grasping at his chest for the spikes he'd known were there when he'd purposefully plunged himself upon them. He laid there, catching his breath and trying to cement himself back in reality for a good long moment, before glancing over at the clock. Four in the morning. It didn't feel that long had passed, but who the fuck knew, when you were asleep, right? Time flew by like nobody's damn business... he'd wished for it earlier in the night. Now, he regretted it. That's not what he fucking meant by it at all.

He glanced at his hands, then passed them through his hair, cringing when he realized it had slicked back somewhat from the sweat on his brow.             Fuck this night sucked.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

BUT THEY MAY NOT CONSCIOUSLY REALIZE IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO GUESS YOUR VALUE TO THE USER LIKE SOFTWARE, THIS TECHNIQUE STARTS TO HAVE ASPECTS OF A PRACTICAL JOKE

I began with, that it doesn't even seem like the most important ingredient in a startup is the feeling that what you're doing isn't working. It depends on investors, because until you're profitable that's who you have to work hard to make something users want.1 The reason Yahoo didn't care about targeting. They may feel they have nothing to invest. Making a better mousetrap, people beat a path to your door as promised. Several of the fractal buds that have exploded since ancient times involve inventing and discovering new things. But in fact they're famous within YC for aggressive early user acquisition. I'm increasingly convinced this type of mail. They won't necessarily buy them outright. Spams tend to have a hacker-centric. When you're excluded, you can no longer claim to have invented a new language, but only to have designed a new dialect of Lisp;-Though useful to present-day programmers, it's strange to describe Lisp in terms of its variation from the random expedients other languages adopted.

I bought was back-ordered, and a party reminder from Evite.2 His body switches to an emergency source of energy that's faster than regular aerobic respiration. Partly because you can figure out some hack that will at least conceal the problem. Think about it. Third, Pantel and Lin stemmed the tokens, whereas I only use the 15 most significant. Your early twenties are exactly the time to take insane career risks. But perhaps the biggest thing preventing founders from realizing how attentive they could be to their users is that they've been diverging.3

It would be ironic if, as hackers fear, recent measures intended to protect national security and intellectual property turned out to be. I don't mean to suggest we should never do this—just that we should ignore cases where someone knows what to do in most situations, while a smart person to work in a place where the best ideas aren't the ones that put users first. In that respect they're more like the small man sad, said Confucius. For example, the token dalco occurs 3 times in my spam corpus and never in my legitimate corpus. So by this point you've been riding on a subway line for twenty years, and the useful half is the payload. As long as you keep morphing your idea.4 How can the richest country in the world between them and the truth: money.

Over time, the powers that be were cooperating to develop the official next generation operating system, Multics. I'll take services over goods any day. I did enjoy developing for the iPhone, the control they place on the App Store does not give me the drive to develop applications now is to launch fast is not so much the money itself as what comes with it. The good languages have been those that were designed for their own creators: C, Perl, Smalltalk, and Lisp programmers love their languages. Your unconscious won't even let you think of as having one founder? Think about it. If the only spams left were unsolicited offers of contract programming services from Bulgaria, we could all probably move on to working on something else.5 We have created, for the first time, with misgivings. They treat iPhone apps the way they have to choose between them.

Look at the individual, not where they went to college with a lot of kids grow up feeling it's part of their identity to be honest and industrious.6 Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Matz, Jackie McDonough, Robert Morris, and my father for reading drafts of this. What they want is the development team and the software they've built so far. When startups die, the official cause of death in a startup is too hard for one person. I got back I didn't discard so much as one that, if I don't find that I'm eager to learn it. The latest laws make this a crime. There are plenty of undergrads with enough technical skill to write good software, and undergrads are not especially prone to waste money. I don't like the look of Java: It has been so energetically hyped. Someone arguing against the tone of something he disagrees with may believe he's really saying something.

They want to believe they're living in a comfortable, safe world as much as a box of it. But this model doesn't work for software. Not counting these, I've had a few different colleges to choose between the two, but it may at least be relevant to the case.7 And users don't care where you went to.8 Peter Mayle wrote one called Why Are We Getting a Divorce? That was a big problem for me when I had no money. But you may have noticed I didn't mention anything about having the right business model. And it seems great for 10 year olds. But that's not the route to intelligence. Or more precisely, their CEO is. It seems like the best problems to solve are ones that affect you personally.

Notes

In practice it's more like determination is proportionate to wd m-k w-d n, where there were no strong central governments. At the moment it's created indeed, from hour to hour that the government.

So it's a harder problem than Hall realizes.

Ironically, one variant of compound bug where one bug, the growth is genuine. The problem with most of the biggest discoveries in any case, not like soccer; you have to do it is less than 500, because they are building, they were regarded as 'just' even after the Physics in the sense of the fatal pinch where your idea is that it's doubly important for societies to remember and pass on the person. In fact the less powerful language by writing library functions.

Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously. This form of bad customs as well, so x% usage growth predicts x% revenue growth. Icio. These points don't apply to the average NBA player's salary at the 30-foot table Kate Courteau designed for us.

Donald Hall said young would-be startup founders and one is now very slow, but economically that's how both publishers and audiences treat it.

Y Combinator is we can't figure out yet whether you'll succeed. There is usually a stupid move, but one way, be forthright with investors. Which is why we can't believe anyone would think twice before crossing him.

Cell phone handset makers are satisfied to sell, or much energy would be better for explaining software than English. Ian Hogarth suggests a way to be like a conversation reaches a certain level of incivility, the same. Probably the reason this works is that you're not allowed to discriminate on any basis you want to help SCO sue them. I see a lot easier now for a sufficiently identifiable style, you have two choices, choose the harder.

But it's easy for small children, we're going to visit 20 different communities regularly. The reason Y Combinator. Teenagers don't tell 5 year olds the truth about the meaning of the 20th century. Throw in the cover.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Sarah Harlin, Robert Morris, Ross Boucher, Jackie McDonough, Dan Giffin, and Geoff Ralston for the lulz.

[justmissjewelz]

Say Hello! Desaru !

The thought of revisiting Desaru after almost 9 years excited me more than the Xterra event itself. Desaru is known being super hot!! It is coastal beach area located in the Kota Tinggi district. If you are not familiar with Desaru, or Kota Tinggi for that matter, this post might be a somewhat brief introduction to you.

Johor is one of the 13 states in Malaysia (besides 3 Federal Territories ; Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya), and is located on the southern most part of Peninsular Malaysia. There 10 districts in this state with Tangkak and Kulai being the latest district to be ‘inducted’ as part of Johor’s administrative district. So most of you if you are a Malaysia (myself included) would probably be familiar with Johor Bahru being the capital of the Johor state and its proximity with neighbouring country, Singapore.

So what about Desaru? As triathlete coming in from Kuala Lumpur, I know its a hot town, far away, and not as developed as the other larger or more populated districts.  By statistics, Kota Tinggi’s population is 220 thousand ++  in 2017, 5 times lesser than Johor Bahru, standing at 1.5million ++according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM). By virtue of my memory (or lack of), the only things I remember — apart from the events which took place around the 2 races which I have participated in Desaru 9 and 10 years ago were that Desaru was a pretty quite area, scarcely populated, HOT, but with amazing beach spots. Suitable for quiet weekend aways from the bustling cities. Desaru to me was still able to maintain its serenity despite being a tourist attraction. To give us an idea of where Kota Tinggi and Desaru is, check out the Google Maps below:-

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Last weekend though, I had a mixed feeling as I approached Desaru. There was highway which opened after the last time I went to Desaru, so in my definition it was a new highway, and…. the actual crossing over Johor river (look at the photo slide above for Johor river). This was totally new, and awesome ! I looked it up, and it mentioned that the bridge, opened in June 2011 is the longest river bridge in Malaysia ! Aaa…no wonder ! Same kind of feeling when crossing over to Pulau Pinang on the Sultan Abdul Hamid Bridge @ the crooked bridge ! My daughter asked if we are over the ocean, or lake..and I answered, I am not sure ! Now that I know, I am sharing this interesting fact with you ! The Johor river spans 122.7 km from its source in Mt.

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Our group arrived at our accommodation in a new development area north west of Bandar Penawar and Desaru. It was pleasant as it it 10-12 minutes away from race venue, located just of E22, the Senai-Desaru express away, and just a couple of minutes away from endless rows of shops, supermarkets and restaurants lining Jalan Desaru. No traffic light too ! It was convenient, and our homestay was a proper one too ! The hotels where the race venue was have not officially opened, but I think some rooms were let for the race purpose and soft launch (at least Hard Rock Desaru). There are 3 hotels situated in Desaru Coast are Hard Rock Hotel Desaru Coast, The Westin Desaru Coast and Anantara Desaru Coast Resort and Villas. Attached to this development is the now opened Desaru Coast Adventure Waterpark and  The Els Club Desaru Coast ( a 45 hole golf course).

We checked in to our accommodation, rested for a bit (kids needed to refresh!!), before making our way to the race venue, Riverside Desaru Coast, for kit collection.

    Race day

The thing about participating in a 1-discipline only event is that I do not have to worry of the logistics. I had enough on my plate already ie. having the kids with me this trip ! Plus I am just getting my gig back gradually, so a trail run is good enough ! I did my mandatory round at the start/transition area to say Hello! to colleagues. I arrived early if not on time to do my warm up and a lil stretching. The aim was to just run without pushing it and finish in one piece.

  The Xterra duathlon event started first, followed by the run only event. Quite a number of us but not as big as the previous Xterra in Putrajaya, or the one in Kuantan many years back. Anyways, I did look forward for a somewhat challenging trail, and hoped the route wasn’t ‘boring’. Based on the event info water station is available at every 2.5km. Well, I looked forward to that too ! Having experienced Desaru, it can be pretty hot quickly earlier in the day, and worse in the afternoon !

  Gun-off. Didn’t scurry (some runners tend to do that as a way to ‘exit’ the crowd and be at the front, early. Me..? Just run lah. Took it easy and was well-aware that trail running is somewhat like, but not like trail running. Especially on a longer course. The official distance for this event is 11km. So, yeah, one step at a time. We had to do 2 loops around the Desaru coast area.

  I think it took less than 5 minutes before reaching the beach ! Yeahh !!! Soft-sand run time ! haha.. i really enjoy this section as the beach wasn’t flat, in other words its like running along the slope of a small hill. No jelly fish spotted, just a beautiful horizon on my right, and hundreds of others making their way through the sands. The waves were kind, hence not disturbing any of us. I couldn’t quite tell at the start of the beach section how long or how far it would be. I was just focused on making sure I run one step at a time ! So first loop, plenty of runners around me, and it was fun starting a run on the beach 🙂

My old buddies making an appearance, again !

Hard Rock Desaru Coast

Adele 🙂 Lovely Adele

Geoff, Adele and a participant catching up before race start

Jeya Murali ! Nice to see you mate !

with Zafrul, tri buddy from Kelantan. also runs a cafe in KB. Lue-wak !

Sporting athletes !

Panjang on the move

Azmar, defying !

Cute stairs section here

Yeppa, thats the slope !

This section felt like a city run

Water station.. not placed as expected… but better than nothing !

Off the sandy path, we passed through a series of old-barrack styled houses. Not sure who were the occupants before. Most of the houses are abandoned already. Not long after the houses, I bumped into Fong’s brother whom I met earlier before the race.  So natural for me to start chatting whenever I see a familiar face ! So there we were, chatting away. Fong (Tan Suet Fong) took part in the duathlon category. There were marked presence of participants from the army. Spotted Sangup the day before, and his army colleagues.

Anyways, 2.5km passed and no sign of a water station.. Passed the barrack houses and not long before hitting the main road which is parallel to the beach, before turning off into a patch of land to the left, crossed a road, and on to the next patch of green. This section was somewhat weird to me cause we were running not across a hill, but actually on its slope. It wasn’t exactly a long stretch… say 1km ish.. but the fact the foot wasn’t landing and taking off in a neutral position and angle, made running felt a bit weird. What came to mind, why this section ? Well, I didn’t really think about it that much.. but come round 2…. I think the heat is turning on… not just for me, but I think the rest of us too.

About 1km to the transition/start area, finally, there was a water station.. filled myself up, and continued running. I knew I needed a toilet break, so after saying Hi! to Adele and Boss who were at the transition area, supporting and MC-ing away, I took a short toilet break (aaa..so relieved alhamdulillah !) hheahaa…! Weirdly enough, there was a water station there too, I assume for the duathletes taking part. Continued running now with a less full bladder. Now the beach section was very quite !! It got pretty lonely quickly, and testing towards the end of the section.. mak dah start rasa penat..hehehe (I started getting tired), but kept going..The running stance was a bit all over the place. I know this is the second loop, and I am almost half way through that second loop. Keep going I told myself (yeah, small self-talks work!). Happy to see that patch of green again, the road cross before heading to that weird slope section.

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Surprisingly, everyone is running on the tarmac instead on the slope. Well, would be just weird for me to be running up there myself. I looked around and the marshalls nearby seem okay about it. The technical director, Geoff passed by, on a bicycle, and he said nothing. So I continued to run. A bit more motivated now as I am not too far off from the finish line already. Again, weird positioning of that water station ie end of the run, and too near to finish line. But whatever, picked up some speed [read: most of the time I tend to reserve energy vs bringing up the pace], and finally there I was at the finish line !!! Yeayyy, alhamdulillah !!! Got a pretty Xterra medal too ! So thank you Xterra for the slot ! Totally appreciate it. Based on official result, I am positioned numero uno for Malaysia Women Open Category. But because I did not receive any updates on the official results, and the actual categories division eligible to claim prizes (trophies). Only was hinted by Lie Wei (official time keeper that she saw my name at the top of the rank.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting any ranking given that I was still getting back to proper fitness baseline and that I haven’t been running on the trail (nor sand) for quite sometimes now. You can see also that its a very colourful post with lots of photos ! But the point is, (for my future reference too), official results have to be placed in full to manage expectations of competitors and non-competitors who have traveled and invested in coming and supporting your event. Should any deliverable which can’t be committed, then take that off the list early on, or simple inform the participants. It doesn’t paint a good picture to the race branding, organiser, and even those committee who were not directly involved. Xterra is a big name, and I hope the event can come back stronger, better with a bit more of natural terrain to challenge the competitors.

  I was on the road back again slightly before 4pm for another run event the next day (Heart in Action Run 2018 (AXA)) in Putrajaya – got a complimentary slot! Thanks Naluri !

  Race result summary :

a) Xterra Malaysia Special Edition 2018 (29 September 2018)

Distance : 12.63km

Time: 1: 42’31

Race type: Off-road run

Position: 1/17 (Cat) , 3/22 (Gen) Results link here

  b) AXA Hearts in Action Run 2018 (30 September 2018)

Distance: 5.85km (Official distance 6km)

Time: 38:33’8

Race type: Road run

    Xterra HOT ! – Xterra Desaru Special Edition 2018 (A belated race report) Say Hello! Desaru ! The thought of revisiting Desaru after almost 9 years excited me more than the Xterra event itself.

[alternative-eyes]

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W3AWx4xK6SY/Ww7BQnTgy-I/AAAAAAAAj1w/hkZVPNz9-jcUa6wjMUJ46vtdSEapJlY2gCLcBGAs/s72-c/Nova%2BWonders.jpg

Are we redundant?

     Ohh, PBS – you are such a slut! Flashing that UFO booty in De Void’s face like Sally Rand’s ostrich feathers on the front end, as if you really liked me. Then you go and make me sit through an entire hour-long performance of what turned out to be an update of the same old G-rated middle-aged where’s-ET? ho-hum I’ve been enduring for 20 years now. And you never give me another jiggle of that UFO money-maker. Ohh, you are so lowdown.

By Billy Cox De Void 5-15-18

In case you missed it: “Are We Alone?” – the latest installment of PBS’ new “NOVA Wonders” series – really grabbed De Void by the eyeballs last week when it opened near the top with a clip of the now-famous F-18 “gimbal” video, the one that left experienced Navy fighter pilots so jazzed and openly baffled. Unfortunately, the sequence wasn’t the subject, just a segue. There was a but coming. There is always a but coming. “But,” wonders the narrator, “what’s the reality?” The reality is a formula, a formula we’ve seen more times than we can count. The “Are We Alone?” playbook goes something like this: Discuss ongoing and future NASA projects for detecting ET life elsewhere — check. A bit about how microscopic extremophiles thriving in acidic heat vents might mimic alien life on planetary moons — check. Celebrate SETI visionaries Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak — check. Blow off the UFO stuff with maybe a line or two — got it. The most unique thing about “Are We Alone?” was the timing. It aired last Wednesday, just hours after The Atlantic broke a story about a congressional committee attempting (in April) to funnel $10 million in NASA funds into the quote “search for technosignatures, such as radio transmissions.” It’s a big deal only in the sense that Congress hasn’t seen fit to toss SETI any bones in more than 20 years. $10 million isn’t a lot of money, barely enough to cover three (3) Bradley Fighting Vehicles. But “technosignatures” – that’s a pretty broad category, right? And what have the MSM been covering, albeit erratically, for the past five months or so: Navy pilot testimony, the F-18 footage, and real-time recordings among commercial pilots, air traffic controllers and the FAA concerning UFO incursions into American skyways. Why wouldn’t these qualify as technosignatures? Well, if you read The Atlantic piece – “Congress Is Quietly Nudging NASA to Look for Aliens” – you’d never know any of that stuff ever happened. The article focused exclusively on the “such as radio transmissions” clause, which set the tone for every last syllable of subsequent media parroting, from Fox News (“Alien Shocker”) to Fleet Street. Between the Atlantic spread and the publicity bounce from its prime-time PBS platform, SETI might’ve gotten more coverage in one news cycle than it has over the last couple of years combined. And that’s a pretty nifty trick, given how ostensibly enamored the media was of last December’s reveal about the Pentagon’s deeply buried UFO research program. What gave the news about the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program a special zing was its bipartisan initiation by three powerful senior U.S. Senators. Considering how AATIP commanded a $22 million expense account, or more than twice the proposed SETI funding, why wouldn’t a reporter with national resources leverage that precedent by asking House sponsors something like, “Hey, shouldn’t some of the focus be conducted in our own atmosphere, especially since the DoD’s Threat ID Program made it a priority?” Too bad The Atlantic didn’t go there. At least they found time to mention how one SETI enthusiast, GOP Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, is a climate change denier. Anyhow, for whatever reason, it looks like Capitol Hill may be ready once again to invest in combing deep space for technosignatures. Even though, thanks to a paper published in February by scientists at the Sonneberg Observatory and the University of Hawaii’s physics and astronomy department, there may be a little less incentive to follow through now. They warned that ET radio messages could pose an “existential threat” to Earthlings. Conceding the odds are minimal, the authors nevertheless argue Earth can’t discount the possibility that ET’s first message to us could involve extortion. Earth mortals: Do XYZ or we’ll ABC. Or maybe the act of downloading ET’s promised recipe for curing cancer will unleash a worldwide computer virus. “Our main argument,” they write, “is that a message from ETI cannot be decontaminated with certainty … The technical risks are impossible to assess beforehand. We may only choose to destroy such a message, or take the risk. The risk for humanity may be small, but not zero.” “Hey, check this out. It’s been 1.2 million years but it looks like we finally got the callback signal from ET we’ve been waiting for.” “Too bad. Guess we oughtta go ahead and delete …” The last time astronomers went to Congress hat in hand, back in 2014, Shostak and SETI colleague Dan Werthimer ran into a bunch of committee fishheads who barely knew what SETI was. But the guests were challenged by at least one pol who was all too familiar with the pitch. “What’s intriguing about this conversation,” Rep. Donna Edwards, (D-MD), former Lockheed-Martin contractor for Goddard Space Flight Center, told them, “is the idea that – and it’s a lot of hubris, right? – somehow we’re waiting to find them as opposed to them finding us.” Science has never addressed Edwards’ skepticism in a meaningful, systematic way. Too bad she’s not in office anymore. She might ask for hearings. Meanwhile, thanks to a $100 million gift from Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, the SETI Institute forges ahead in its search for ET intelligence at a safe and manageable distance. With the recent assist from PBS, and the media’s corroding attention span, maybe SETI will find a way to keep searching forever and ever and ever. But. Who knows — maybe they received ET’s message awhile back and destroyed it for our own good.

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"And You Never Give Me Another Jiggle of That UFO Money-Maker" http://www.theufochronicles.com/2018/05/another-jiggle-of-ufo-money-maker.html

[activistnewsnetwork]

The case of Wilbur Ross’ phantom $2 billion

Fresh off a tour through Thailand, Laos and China, United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross Jr. picked up the phone on a Sunday afternoon in October to discuss something deeply personal: how much money he has. A year earlier, Forbes had listed his net worth at $2.9 billion on The Forbes 400, a number Ross claimed was far too low: He maintained he was closer to $3.7 billion. Now, after examining the financial-disclosure forms he filed after his nomination to President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, which showed less than $700 million in assets, Forbes was intent on removing him entirely. Ross protested, citing trusts for his family that he said he did not have to disclose in federal filings. “You’re apparently not counting those, which are more than $2 billion,” he said. When asked for documentation, the 79-year-old demurred, citing “privacy issues.” Told that Forbes nonetheless planned to remove him from the list for the first time in 13 years, he responded: “As long as you explain that the reason is that assets were put into trust, I’m fine with that.” And when did he make the transfer that allowed him to not disclose over $2 billion? “Between the election and the nomination.” So began the mystery of Wilbur Ross’ missing $2 billion. And after one month of digging, Forbes is confident it has found the answer: That money never existed. It seems clear that Ross lied to us, the latest in an apparent sequence of fibs, exaggerations, omissions, fabrications and whoppers that have been going on with Forbes since 2004. In addition to just padding his ego, Ross’ machinations helped bolster his standing in a way that translated into business opportunities. And based on our interviews with ten former employees at Ross’ private equity firm, WL Ross & Co., who all confirmed parts of the same story line, his penchant for misleading extended to colleagues and investors, resulting in millions of dollars in fines, tens of millions refunded to backers and numerous lawsuits. Additionally, according to six U.S. senators, Ross failed to initially mention 19 suits in response to a questionnaire during his confirmation process. Nearly a week before this article went to press, both Ross and his team at the Commerce Department were sent a detailed list of questions. “Secretary Ross has filed all required disclosures in accordance with the law and in consultation with both legal counsel and ethics officials at the Department of Commerce and Office of Government Ethics. As we have said before, any misunderstanding from your previous conversation with Secretary Ross is unfortunate.” They declined to provide further answers on the record. But Ross’ questionable assertions to Forbes, combined with a recent controversy about a multimillion-dollar stake in a shipping company that does big business with close associates of Vladimir Putin, paint a clearer picture of the commerce secretary’s tactics. His slippery statements during his confirmation hearings–“I intend to be quite scrupulous about recusal and any topic where there is the slightest scintilla of doubt”–came as no surprise to those who have known Ross for decades. “Wilbur doesn’t have an issue with bending the truth,” says David Wax, who worked alongside Ross for 25 years and served as the No. 3 person in his firm. Another former colleague, who requested anonymity, was less circumspect: “He’s lied to a lot of people.” Twenty-six years before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, Wilbur Ross disappeared. It was 1990, corporate America was sick on junk bonds, and Ross was a top bankruptcy negotiator. But one November day, he failed to show up at an important meeting to brief bondholders in a furniture company’s bankruptcy. They didn’t know where he had gone. Until they went home and turned on the television. There was Ross, with Donald Trump, announcing a deal to recapitalize Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, which was then careening toward bankruptcy. They were technically adversaries, with Ross representing one group of bondholders–at one point Trump asked them to fire Ross after he dismissed a Trump proposal to keep 100% of his equity, saying, “It’s too early for Christmas.” But Ross eventually brokered a deal among Trump, debt holder Carl Icahn and Ross’ own clients that allowed Trump to keep a 50% stake. “I think [Ross] is very talented, a fantastic negotiator,” Trump said at the time. The son of a judge, he always has been. He grew up in New Jersey, attended Yale and then Harvard Business School and eventually wound up as the bankruptcy work-out specialist at the investment bank Rothschild, where he was known for his ability to quickly distill complex situations. “He was very, very sharp,” says someone who worked with him back then. “Very tough.” By the early 1990s, his unit was bringing in around $18 million a year, with Ross personally pocketing more than a third of that. Ross was an extremely well-paid professional, but he yearned for the big money and big spotlight that come with having your own shop. “People knew of him,” says another former colleague, “but not on his own.” At first, he worked within Rothschild, raising $200 million for an internal private equity fund that would leverage his bankruptcy expertise to pick up companies on the cheap. Three years later, in 2000, he bought out the fund and slapped his name on the door. At 62, when most investment bankers start dabbling in golf and vineyards, Ross was poised to claim some glory for himself. Says Wax: “He viewed it as an opportunity to have a pulpit, to name something after himself and to potentially make a lot of money.” Ross quickly accomplished all three of those things. In 2002, his firm invested in the bankrupt steelmaker LTV. According to a Harvard Business School case study, LTV had put $1.2 billion into new plants and equipment but laid off 7,500 union employees and faced a $3.4 billion pension burden. As a master of work-outs, Ross knew he could get the federal government to take over the pensions. According to people who worked at the firm then, Ross told the unions he’d buy the business if they let him hire back just 3,500 workers. Figuring 3,500 jobs were better than none, the union agreed, and WL Ross picked up most of LTV’s assets, without the pension headaches, for $135 million and about $165 million in annual environmental liabilities. Ross’ timing was impeccable. One week later, President George W. Bush issued a stiff tariff on steel imports, sending U.S. prices soaring and making Ross look like a genius. He rolled up several more steel companies, including Bethlehem Steel, into International Steel Group, which filed for an IPO in 2003. Ross was technically the beneficial owner of nearly $1 billion worth of the stock. But most of that belonged to his investors, not Ross personally. In 2005, Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal bought the business for around $4.5 billion in cash and stock. Ross personally invested only about $3 million in his firm’s first two funds, according to former employees. Buoyed by International Steel Group, he roughly tripled that money, but the bigger payout came from carried interest–the manager’s cut of overall profits, typically 20%. In all, Ross made an estimated $260 million. A huge score, yes, though not nearly enough to be one of the 400 richest people in America. But when a Forbes reporter reached out to Ross, apparently crediting him with his investors’ money, the future commerce secretary did nothing to clarify the situation, according to notes at the time. “I just spoke to Ross,” the reporter wrote. “He’s one of the easiest new guys I’ve put on [The Forbes 400] in a while. Very low-key, said he didn’t really want to be on, but at the same time wasn’t going to fight success. He says he doesn’t want to juice up his numbers at all.” “I told him we’re going to start him at $1 billion,” added the reporter, who no longer works at Forbes . “And he said ‘Yep, fine, thank you.’ ” Ross appeared on The Forbes 400 for the first time in 2004, with a net worth listed at $1 billion. It was nearly four times as much as he was likely worth. “Everyone that I knew that worked with Wilbur knew it wasn’t true,” says a former colleague of Ross. A legend was born, and like most legends, this one had its roots in a myth. Within days of that fateful issue of Forbes, Ross married for the third time at a beachside church in Southampton, New York. His bride, Hilary, 12 years younger, had spent much of her life in the Hamptons and Palm Beach, two of the East Coast’s most famous billionaire playgrounds. “She brought him a certain kind of prominence, socially,” says David Patrick Columbia, who publishes Hilary’s musings on his website, New York Social Diary. “It was a perfect merger.” Adds another contemporary: “She wants her husband to be on The Forbes 400.” Life began to change for Ross. Once known for quirky suspenders, he now wore impeccable suits. A workaholic for most of his career, he began spending much of the year outside of New York. He started flying private, built up a collection of paintings by the Belgian artist René Magritte and bought a Palm Beach estate for $13 million. His fundraising kept pace with his spending. In 2005, he raised a $1.1 billion flagship fund, his largest yet. The next year, he sold WL Ross & Co. to the publicly traded investment-management company Invesco for $100 million up front and the ability to earn an additional $275 million, depending on how much money he was able to raise in later funds. With Invesco and a big incentive behind him, Ross raised a massive $4.1 billion fund in 2007, putting roughly $70 million of his own money into that one and the 2005 predecessor, according to three former employees. His net worth at this time was likely around $400 million, thanks to the sale of WL Ross & Co. But when contacted by Forbes that year, he gave valuations for his firm’s investments as if the money belonged to him. The myth, with Forbes compounding it based on our original mistake and Ross’ exhortations, got bigger. Now Forbes listed Ross with a net worth of $1.7 billion. That wasn’t enough. “I would say the total now is a bit more than $2 billion,” Ross wrote in a 2011 email, according to notes taken at the time. In 2013, a different Forbes reporter realized that prior estimates seemed to include not just Ross’ money but that of the investors in his funds. Ross strung us along, leading us to believe he would provide evidence of his assets, but never did. Just months later, he was insisting that he was even richer, and Forbes continued to largely fall for it. “2.75 [billion] is a bit low but probably close enough,” he wrote in an email around the start of 2014. In September, he was arguing for a valuation of $3.45 billion but begrudgingly accepted a smaller figure: “3.1 [billion] is low, but I understand why you wish to be conservative.” Why wouldn’t Ross be satisfied with $400 million? “You’re talking about someone as egotistical as they come,” Wax says. Five other former employees add a more tangible reason: The more money Ross appeared to be worth, the more money investors seemed willing to give him. “Really, for us, it was a bet on him, ” says Sam Green, who helped put $300 million into Ross’ funds on behalf of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund, citing his personal wealth as one factor. “I don’t know of any better indicator of future success than having been successful in the past.” Ross had seemed to figure out how to make fake numbers generate real assets. In 2010, Ross set out to raise a new private equity fund, hoping to come up with another $4 billion. It was an audacious goal in the wake of the financial crisis, far more than many of his partners thought would be possible. After two years of fundraising, Ross closed it with just $640 million of investments. Still, he told the media he had raised $2.2 billion. Technically true but also misleading. Most of the other $1.6 billion or so came from other funds or accounts that paid little or no fee to Invesco. Given that shareholders might assume that the firm had an extra $2.2 billion of assets generating fees for its private equity arm, which was not true, Invesco later clarified the matter on an earnings call. There were also charges related to transparency inside the funds. In August 2016, the SEC announced a settlement with Invesco-owned WL Ross after investigating whether the firm had charged its investors improper fees from 2001 to 2011. WL Ross agreed to pay a $2.3 million fine, without admitting or denying the findings of the investigation. It also agreed to refund $11.8 million to investors. And that was small potatoes: Buried in its 2015 annual report, Invesco disclosed that it had paid an additional $43 million in reimbursements and regulatory expenses associated with its private equity business in the previous two years. The filings don’t explicitly connect that money to WL Ross–and these payments have never before been reported–but four former employees said they were all tied to Wilbur Ross’ firm. Invesco declined to comment for this story. In 2012, Ross’ longtime No. 2, David Storper, left the firm but said he retained interests in many of the funds. Three years later, Storper alleged in a lawsuit that the firm sent him inaccurate financial information after his departure and that Wilbur Ross stole his interests outright. Ross denied the allegations, and the lawsuit remains ongoing. A few years earlier, a vice chairman of WL Ross sued Wilbur Ross for more than $20 million, alleging that Ross tried to cut him out of interest and fees he had been promised. The parties had reached a settlement by 2007, which former employees say cost about $10 million. The Storper case has other ex-employees looking back to be sure they were sent proper information. Joseph Mullin, a former member of WL Ross’ 15-person investment team, filed his own suit against WL Ross & Co., also alleging that Ross took his interests after he left. The firm filed a motion to dismiss in February, but the case remains active. A third ex-colleague, who is not in litigation, argues that Ross’ tactics went beyond hard-nosed negotiating: “Everybody does some cheating, everybody does some lying. Not everybody steals from their employees.” On November 8, 2016, the night that upended American politics, Wilbur Ross was with Donald Trump, his family and top backers in New York City. The relationships inside this inner sanctum ran deep. Billionaire Phillip Ruffin, the president’s Las Vegas partner who had Trump serve as best man at his wedding, was there. So was Icahn and apparently Richard LeFrak, the real estate tycoon who was part of the Palm Beach circle that included Trump and Ross. But Ross was the only one who left his day job to join Trump in government. “I’d rather hang myself,” Ruffin told Forbes earlier this year. “I don’t know why Wilbur took it.” But viewed in the context of Ross’ career arc, it makes perfect sense. The steel deal made him rich, but his returns have been mediocre since, so much so that WL Ross filed documents to raise a sixth flagship fund last year, but nothing seemed to come of it. Trump, the guy he kept afloat 26 years before, offered his fellow attention-seeking dealmaker a lifeline to relevance. Ross’ appointment as secretary of commerce came with one catch: He had to disclose his assets, providing evidence that he was not as rich as he had long claimed. In 2015, he sent Forbes a detailed breakdown of his supposed holdings, listing $1.25 billion in partnership interests, $1.1 billion in municipal bonds, $500 million in equities, $200 million in art, $110 million in real estate and $200 million in cash, for a fanciful total of $3.4 billion, according to notes taken at the time. We eventually listed him at $2.9 billion. Last year, Ross’ assistant claimed $3.7 billion; we stuck with $2.9 billion. His former colleagues saw the moment of reckoning coming as soon as he accepted a Cabinet role. “It was surprising because he would have to reveal to the world that he wasn’t a billionaire,” one ex-employee said. “I was surprised that he would take that risk.” But Ross was ready to double down, even while he was a Cabinet member, telling Forbes about the putative $2 billion asset transfer to his family members after the election. That opened up a storm of questions from ethics and tax experts. If Ross had owned $2 billion of additional assets before the election, wouldn’t they have produced income that he was required to disclose, even if he no longer owned the assets? And why would someone apparently transfer $2 billion to his family, thereby triggering more than $800 million in gift taxes, especially with a president in the White House who was prepared to eliminate the estate tax and therefore much of the cost of transferring fortunes to later generations? “I am aware of the ethics and tax rules and have complied with all of them,” Ross wrote in an October email to Forbes . “Aren’t you going a bit overboard on this? I have explained my situation to you and am surprised and disappointed by the seemingly accusatory tone of your email. For more than 50 years I have had a good relationship with your publication and with the Forbes family. And never have had a bad experience with either. In fact I was just the featured speaker at your magazine’s hundredth anniversary CEO conference in Hong Kong.” After Forbes published an online story on October 16 laying out those questions, six Senate Democrats wrote a letter to the top ethics official in the federal government, asking him to figure out what was going on with Ross’ finances. “It is imperative that Congress and the Office of Government Ethics know the full extent of Mr. Ross’s holdings to ensure he is not putting personal gain ahead of the interests of the American people.” The Department of Commerce issued a statement saying the $2 billion gift never happened. “Contrary to the report in Forbes, there was no major asset transfer to a trust in the period between the election and Secretary Ross’s confirmation.” The only problem with that statement: The person who told Forbes that the transfer had taken place, that it had happened after the election and that it had meant more than $2 billion of family assets weren’t on the disclosure was none other than the sitting secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross.

      Credit to Dan Alexander – Forbes – Tuesday, November 7, 2017

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