#sorry if the number of contestants is inaccurate

[cheechdog1]

“Welcome… to BFB.”

“Erm, what the Cary?”

@skekthesilly

[peaceoutofthepieces]

meet me in another universe

I wasn’t entirely sure whether to post this or not (and I had some trouble getting it finished), but in honour of ‘meeting’ @dreamy-slytherin a year ago, here’s a fic about five ways VDS could have met, and one way they do :)

~^~

1. Evak/Davenzi Style

Jens is only sitting on the toilet for about two minutes when he hears the footsteps and quiet cursing as someone rattles the door of his stall. He freezes, looking up from his phone with wide eyes. He supposes it’s someone looking to use the bathroom, but then he hears the ruffle of the tissue dispenser on the wall rather than the door in the stall next to him. 

He hesitates for a moment, then stands, stuffing his phone in his pocket and opening the door carefully. 

Surely enough, there’s a boy standing by the sinks, fiddling futilely at the empty box. Jens only has time to take in ratty converse, light-wash blue jeans and a matching denim jacket before the boy is turning and glancing at him. Jens’s breath gets caught up in his throat at the sight of striking blue eyes and bronze curls. 

He’s seen this boy, once. He had passed him in the courtyard earlier in the week, and the boy had met his gaze and continued walking, and Jens was left looking over his shoulder after him and wondering why. He thought it was the unfamiliar face. That could be the reason, now, that something curious and excited flutters in his stomach and urges him, this time, to interact. 

“Fuck, sorry, you’re looking for tissues,” he says. 

The boy only looks at him as Jens retreats into the stall long enough to tear off a strip of toilet paper. He comes out and hands it to the boy now stood stock still in the dim fluorescent lights, who takes it from him hesitantly. Jens only then notices the damp drips drying into the boy’s pink sweater. The weight of his eyes on the spot seems to be what snaps the other boy into motion, as he immediately begins dabbing at his clothes in an attempt to sop up the water. 

“Fountain mishap, or something more embarrassing?” Jens finds himself asking, leaning back against the sinks. 

“Uhm.” The boy glances up at him, cheeks tinted red. It’s cute. “Fountain. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Jens shakes his head, smiling, ignoring that this is his first time hearing the boy’s voice and that it’s accented and pretty. “Nah, I’ve been using it for years and it still acts up on me, don’t stress. You’re new.”

It isn’t a question, because now that Jens has heard him speak and the boy had admitted his confusion, it’s obvious. 

“That’s why I was supposed to be going to the group thing, but this didn’t feel like the best first impression.” He gestures at his sweater, where the stain has faded slightly but also spread in retaliation. 

Jens shrugs. “I wouldn’t go in there, if I were you. They’re doing trust circles. Hand holding and all.”

When the boy looks at him curiously, Jens explains, “Whatever they’re doing in there is the reason I was in here.”

This earns him a huff of laughter, as the boy tosses his wad of tissue in the bin and glances at the door, then back at Jens. Jens pulls the joint from behind his ear and holds it up for the boy to see, raising his brows. There’s a moment of hesitation, and then Jens simply heads out the door and nods for the boy to follow him. 

He leads them outside, and finally settles atop one of the tables in the courtyard with his feet on the bench. By the time the boy joins him, Jens has already lit the joint and taken a drag. The boy accepts it when Jens offers it to him and climbs up onto the table himself, shoulders curling against the cold as he brings the joint to his lips. 

“What’s your name?” 

The boy looks at him and passes the joint back, cheeks and nose red now. “Lucas.”

Lucas, Lucas, Lucas.

Jens lets the name settle for a second and then says, “I’m Jens.”

Lucas simply nods, but he’s smiling as he tucks his hands into his pockets and hugs his jacket tighter around himself. It’s obvious, looking at him, that he’s cold, but he radiates warmth all along Jens’s side. Jens allows himself to shift just an inch closer, imperceptibly, stretching a leg out as he does it in the hope that Lucas won’t notice. But Lucas remains unphased and silent, and Jens misses his gaze and his voice. 

“So, who roped you into Amber’s cult?” Jens asks. 

This time, Lucas’s laugh is full-bodied and beautiful, paired with a small but brilliant smile as he looks at Jens incredulously. “That would‘ve been Amber herself, but Luca was oddly more convincing. You know them well?”

Jens hums in confirmation, but doesn’t bother offering the story. Instead he says, “It only took me about thirty seconds to realise that’s why I should’ve known better.”

“Okay,” Lucas laughs again. “I feel kind of bad for skipping out. They’ve been very welcoming.”

“Are you in our year?” Jens questions. 

Lucas shakes his head. “Sixth.”

Jens furrows his brows, suddenly intrigued. “Transferring in your last year?”

Lucas simply shrugs. 

“From Amsterdam?” Jens guesses. 

“Utrecht,” Lucas corrects. Then, with a glint to his smile, “I’m on the run.”

Jens whistles. “Amber would’ve loved you sharing that in her party games. She’s gonna be so jealous I got the gossip first.”

Lucas heaves a sigh. “And, test failed. Now I’m going to have to kill you too and hide somewhere else.”

Jens starts laughing in the middle of a drag and chokes slightly, but it doesn’t deter him. He just coughs into his fist and lets his laughter continue, loud in his surprise, smile stretched so wide his cheeks might split. He shakes his head in amusement while Lucas tries to keep his expression stoic, though his lips twitch at the corners. “Come on, if I’d known it was a test I would’ve passed,” Jens protests. “Give me a second chance.”

After an intense staring contest, in which Lucas slowly loses his unimpressed gaze and Jens does his best to look pleading, Lucas is the one to cave. He looks away from Jens with another sigh, smile finally breaking out. “Fine. Since you shared.” Lucas gestures to the joint, and Jens grins and offers it to him again. 

Jens thinks the meeting might have been a good idea after all. 

2. Elu Style

Lucas shakes his head at Kes and Jayden’s antics, stretching his legs out in front of him and reclining back in the chair, meeting Liv’s pointed look and resisting the urge to offer her a mocking salute. He does, however, allow a smug smile, and Liv simply rolls her eyes and tunes back into the conversation between the girls. Lucas has already blocked them out, and Kes and Jayden gave up their complaining after a mere few minutes, so he hasn’t had to listen to them either. Instead he lets them all fade into a buzz, and only curiously looks around when the door opens again and more students trickle in. 

His heart jumps up and lodges itself in his throat. 

Amidst the miniature crowd is a tall boy with raven hair and bright brown eyes, whom Lucas has definitely never seen before at this school but is possibly the most beautiful person he’s ever laid his eyes on. 

The boy sits at the edge of the row behind Lucas, caught in conversation with the girl sitting next to him. However, as he settles, he glances around. It’s possible this description of his actions is inaccurate, because in fact his eyes seem to go straight to Lucas’s without taking in any other aspect of the room. Lucas freezes as the boy’s smile seems to grow just slightly, and quickly looks away, focusing his attention back on Engel, who has now begun giving some sort of introduction. 

Lucas would be dishonest if he said he took in a word, but he hadn’t planned on it to begin with. He’d just thought it would be due to zoning out rather than an unexpected distraction. 

But he’s raptly focused on the rapid beat of his heart, and he can’t help throwing another glance over his shoulder. 

Throughout the whole meeting, it’s a repetitive process. Lucas glances over his shoulder and then away again, every time the boy meets his eyes and smiles wider and doesn’t avert his own gaze. Lucas’s cheeks are warm, the heat having crawled slowly up his neck and continuing to spread. He’s glad of the light tan he’d earned over the summer, hoping that it keeps the blush mostly secret. He doubts it, however, especially when he looks back to find the boy’s eyes already on him and his pulse rockets to a worrying speed. 

“—cas?” 

Lucas tunes back in as Kes elbows him, willing his blush down and letting out a hum. Jayden huffs a laugh, shaking his head, but the furrow of Kes’s brow belies his smile. “The girl, last night. What happened?”

“Yeah,” Lucas says, making Kes’s brows raise and Jayden make another noise of exasperation. “I mean, yeah, it was cool.”

Jayden leans in as Kes nods, expectant. “Did you get her number?”

Lucas murmurs a confirmation, and mostly blocks out their cheers and praises. He keeps his gaze on the girls, but still doesn’t know what they’re talking about, still only has one image fixed in his mind and his heartbeat loud in his ears. He glances over his shoulder one more time and the boy is no longer looking at him. 

He avoids glancing back for the rest of the meeting and is dismayed to realise the boy has already left by the time he shuffles out with Kes and Jayden. The only saving grace is that they seem not to have minded the meeting much, and don’t give Lucas any shit on their way to the gate, rather talking idly amidst themselves and leaving Lucas lost in his own head. They depart once they make it onto the dark street, both offering him their traditional handshake and a wave, and Lucas turns towards the bus-stop on his own. 

Lucas instantly recognises the lone figure beyond the stop, poised in front of the vending machine with his back to the street. The same boy from the meeting. He hesitates as he bypasses the bench and hovers a few feet away, leaving himself with a view of the boy’s side profile and the anxious tap of his fingers over his bag strap. He’s gazing at the vending machine in deep concentration, contemplating his options with more seriousness than Lucas has ever witnessed. 

After a moment, in which the boy fails to acknowledge him, Lucas clears his throat. “Twenty-one is the best, in my opinion,” he offers. 

He politely ignores the way the boy jumps, though has to purse his lips to stop a smile. The boy looks him over consideringly, then shrugs and slots some coins into the machine before pressing the buttons. The bar falls from the twenty-one rack and the boy repeats the process, watching the one remaining snack fall and then ducking down to dig them both out. 

Lucas watches the whole affair in awe and mild offence. 

Then the boy turns to him and raises one of the bars and his brows; a silent offering. Lucas simply stares at him, and the boy tosses him the chocolate without a word, and then nods towards the bench. 

There’s no reason not to, so Lucas follows with the bar clutched in his hands. 

They settle onto opposite ends of the cool seat. Lucas watches as the boy tears the wrapper and takes an experimental bite. He chews, looking out at the street rather than at Lucas, until he swallows and allows a nod. Then he turns to Lucas with the same smile as earlier and simply says, “Not bad.”

Lucas shrugs, letting a smile of his own surface and cataloguing the accent, rather than allowing himself to focus on the boy’s lips. He holds up his own bar and gives it a little wave. “When it’s free, it’s easy to enjoy even more.”

The boy huffs, accepting this with an amused nod before popping another square of chocolate in his mouth. The silence stretches in the time it takes him to swallow, and then he looks at Lucas with a squinty smile and says, “The meeting was kind of weird.”

“Yeah.” It’s Lucas’s turn to huff, his smile growing. “You’ll learn to expect that from Engel. Did you understand what the survey was about?”

“No,” the boy admits with a laugh. He tears the wrapper of his bar a little further and Lucas’s gaze is drawn to his hands. He shrugs and looks back up at Lucas. “Still, it’s cool.”

“The survey?” Lucas raises a brow. 

The boy huffs another laugh. “No, but the common room. It’s a good way to meet new people.”

Lucas absorbs this, then tests out his earlier deduction. “You’re new?”

“Started a couple of weeks ago,” the boy confirms. 

“Isn’t that a little weird?” Lucas asks. “Transferring a few months before graduation?”

The boy looks at him again, now with raised brows. “Do you just find everything weird?”

Lucas huffs, feeling some of his flush return, but he mimics the other’s expression. “Wasn’t it you calling the meeting weird first?”

The boy accepts this loss with a shrug, smiling at Lucas before setting a square of chocolate between his teeth. “I must be weird too, then.”

“I didn’t mean—“ Lucas begins the protest, but falters when he notices the amused glimmer in the boy’s gaze. Then he closes his eyes and lets out a breath, poking his tongue into his cheek in an attempt to control his smile. The boy laughs, and Lucas shakes his head. “No, I’m sure you’re great…”

He trails off, realising he hasn’t asked for the other’s name. Thankfully, the boy seems to understand, and simply says, “Jens.” He sets his now empty wrapper in his lap and brushes his hands off on his jeans, then holds one out towards Lucas. “I’m Jens.”

Lucas takes his hand somewhat cautiously, feeling the thrum of his heartbeat kick up again. He stashes the name away alongside the smile and the eyes and the accent. Then he returns, “Lucas.”

3. Crisana Style

Jens weaves his way through the crowd and towards the front door, where he’s immediately stopped by the bouncer. Jens holds up his free hand and whirls around to abandon his mostly-empty beer bottle on the nearest flat surface, then finally makes his way into the cooler air. He sucks in a breath and releases it on a sigh, moving along the side of the building to collapse on one of the benches. He leans back against the wall and lets out another sigh, closing his eyes in contentment as he enjoys the relatively silent surroundings. 

Then someone says, “Hey.”

Jens starts, blinking his eyes open and turning his head to the left to find a boy sitting next to him. At first, Jens is slightly dubious, because meeting a stranger sitting outside a club in the dark isn’t often a good outcome. But the boy is young, at least, around Jens’s own age as far as he can tell. His eyes are clear, not bloodshot or misty, though he does have a joint between his fingers. There’s an amused, curious curve to his lips as he watches Jens. Jens swallows down the sudden lump in his throat and manages, “Hey.”

The boy raises his brows at him, and Jens swallows and blinks all over again. “I’m Lucas,” the boy says, still watching Jens closely. Jens just keeps staring. “We have literature together?”

Jens’s lips part, and then recognition shines through the alcohol-induced haze. “Fuck, sorry, you’re the new guy.” Lucas huffs, but he’s still smiling and he nods in acknowledgment, flicking some ash off the end of the joint. Jens follows the movement, then returns to gazing at Lucas’s face, and he finds that he’s smiling back. It’s not that he’s been waiting for this opportunity, but, well, he might have spent some time those first few days staring across the room at the back of Lucas’s head and the occasional tilt of his side profile. He hasn’t made any attempts at connecting with Lucas himself, but he’d heard all the stories and felt all the same curiosity. He can’t deny that he’s a little excited, now, to get the opportunity to interact. “I’m Jens.”

Lucas simply raises his brows, his smile widening. “I know.”

It doesn’t make it easy to continue the conversation, but it sends a few rivulets of warmth flowing through Jens’s chest. It’s a curious feeling, and one that he doesn’t want to think much about. Instead he keeps staring at Lucas and watches as he brings the joint back to his lips, taking another drag. Lucas is dressed much more stylishly and a lot less conveniently than Jens. He’s shivering in his dark button-down and jeans, and his hair attempts to flutter out of the neat waves he has lain over his forehead. Jens compares it to his own usual hoodie while realising he’s staring, and then quickly looks away. 

He pats down his pockets, eventually finding the small bag in his jeans and pulling it out only to realise it’s empty. He blows out a sigh and stows the plastic away and hears another huff next to him. Lucas’s hand comes into his line of sight, joint held out in offering. “Here.”

Jens takes it gratefully, drawing a long inhale and then stiffening at Lucas’s sound of protest. 

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Lucas orders. “That’s the last of my home stash.”

Jens huffs in understanding, passing the joint back and ignoring the sparks of heat as Lucas’s fingers brush his. “And where’s that? You’re Dutch, right?”

Lucas nods. “I moved from Utrecht.” He flicks some more ash off the joint then hands it to Jens. 

This time, Jens takes a small puff and blows the smoke upward, letting it curl into the space between them. Now Lucas’s eyes appear hazy. Pretty. Jens rolls the joint between his fingers and takes another drag when Lucas simply leans back and watches him. Jens looks at him curiously. “Why’d you do that? Move in the middle of the year? It’s a little weird, no?”

He waits for an answer, but Lucas has already lost interest in him, diverting his gaze past Jens with a raised hand. “Wait, this song.”

He looks at Jens excitedly. Jens looks back, listening. He can faintly hear the music filtering through the open doorway, but he doesn’t recognise it. He purses his lips and shakes his head, admitting his confusion. Lucas’s jaw drops and he nudges his shoulder. “Come on. From Romeo and Juliet?” 

Jens slowly shakes his head again, biting down a smile as Lucas scoffs and snatches the joint back out of his hand. 

“Seriously? You’ve never seen it?” At Jens’s denial, Lucas’s smile turns teasing. “I can’t believe you take literature and you’re this uncultured.”

“Hey,” Jens protests, laughing slightly. Lucas’s eyes are very blue. He’s got a ring on the index finger of his right hand. Jens watches it glimmer as Lucas lifts his hand to his mouth for another drag. The joint has dwindled down so far his fingers are almost brushing his lips. “I’ve read Romeo and Juliet.” Plus, he knows Robbe has watched it, and he had sat through a scene or two, but he’d never felt a desire to watch the whole thing. It didn’t feel like his kind of film. He hadn’t thought it would be Lucas’s, either, but he doesn’t know how he’d know that in the first place. 

“Yeah, but everyone knows the Baz Luhrmann production is the best version.” Lucas points at him, both brows raised. “You have to watch it before you’re allowed to watch any other new film. Even just for this soundtrack. Look.”

Before Jens knows what’s happening, Lucas is grabbing his hand with the one still holding the joint and pulling it towards himself, pressing Jens’s palm to his own chest, over his heartbeat. Jens sucks in a breath. 

Lucas doesn’t notice, eyes bright as he continues speaking. “Do you ever get songs like that? Ones that just move you and you can’t even explain why?”

Jens can’t answer, simply watching Lucas with rapt attention. He’s focused on the soft fabric of Lucas’s shirt crinkling between his fingers, and the thump of Lucas’s heart against his hand, quick but not overly so. He’s focused on the sturdy plane of Lucas’s chest and the soft touch of Lucas’s hand. His own heartbeat is loud in his ears. 

Then Lucas lays his free hand over Jens’s chest, in the open gap of his hoodie, splaying slowly over his thin t-shirt. Jens holds his breath and looks up at Lucas’s smile. 

“See,” Lucas says softly. Jens half expects him to sound smug, but he doesn’t. He’s just quietly pleased, eyes flicking between Jens’s as if he’s searching for something. “It’s not just me. Your heart’s going faster than mine.”

Jens feels like he should protest. He can’t lie about his heartbeat, because it speeds up even further at Lucas’s touch, but he can explain that it isn’t about the music. He can’t even hear it any more. It has all whited out in favour of the sound of Lucas’s voice and his own pulse. Maybe he had drunk more than he’d thought, or Dutch weed is stronger, but he feels lightheaded and loose. Floaty. Still, he has enough sense to know he can’t tell Lucas the truth. That it has nothing to do with the music and everything to do with him, and his proximity, much closer than it had been when Jens first sat down. 

Instead of telling him any of this, Jens simply huffs again, but he’s unable to hide his grin. 

4. Nicotino Style

Lucas drums his fingers over his knee and glances away from Engel to his phone. The boy in his peripheral laughs at whatever Janna says, and Lucas purposefully doesn’t look at him, swallowing the desire and getting to his feet. He holds up his phone to the girls in apology and points towards the door, putting the phone to his ear and uttering a greeting. He keeps it up as he wanders down the hallway, trailing his fingers along the wall as he goes, talking nonsense until he makes it into the small radio room and gets the door closed behind him. Then he mutters a curse as a ‘goodbye’ and drops into the lone swivel chair, setting his phone on the table next to the microphone. 

He does a few slow rotations, taking in the small recording space with faint intrigue. He glances over the various buttons and tools as he completes his round, leaning forward and hovering his fingers over a few. He looks at the microphone in front of him and then picks up the headphones next to it, settling them over his ears. He leans forward hesitantly and speaks into the mic. “Testing, testing, one, two, three.”

As expected, nothing happens. He clears his throat and settles his arms across the tabletop. “Hallo,” he continues, smiling now. “This broadcast is coming to you from Radio Lieve. Today’s talk will be a lesson on how to grow weed from your closet, a highly recommended practice by our very own Engel Beekman, whom we thank. To start—“

He cuts himself off abruptly as the light flicks on across the window and he sees the boy from the meeting through the glass. He’s all dark hair and contrasting features; sharp jaw and nose, soft eyes and lips. They all morph with his smile, as he leans forward and raises his brows at Lucas. “Why did you stop?”

“Uhm,” Lucas says. His mind has gone blank. “I wasn’t recording, just...messing around.”

“Pity,” the boy sighs, sitting back. “I really wanted to see where that was going.” 

Lucas can’t help but respond to his smile. His lips curl up involuntarily even in his surprise. He has seen the boy around, but only once or twice, all within the past week. He doesn’t know why he’s never seen him before that, because he’s sure he would have noticed. Now, though, the accent feels like a hint. 

Lucas looks at the boy and the boy looks around the small space. “This place is actually kind of cool,” he admits. 

“Yeah, well, the place isn’t the problem,” Lucas explains. 

The boy laughs quietly. “What is, then?”

Lucas shrugs, slumping back and swiveling side to side in his chair as he thinks, letting his smile slip into a smirk. “Well, the food for one thing. I’m always up for something sweet, but that cake…” he trails off, grimacing, and earns himself a louder bout of laughter. 

“And the discipline guide,” the boy points out. “Scheduled bathroom breaks and a dress code? It’s a radio show.”

This time Lucas is the one who laughs. He doesn’t know why he expected to feel nerves. They are present, faintly, but only as a mild flutter in his stomach and sweat on his palms. Overall, he feels pleasantly surprised and mostly relaxed. He’d half thought someone so pretty would be more intimidating, but the boy looks the exact opposite in his cuffed jeans and worn-out hoodie. Especially with the grin on his face. 

He turns it past Lucas all of a sudden and brightens. “Is that the balcony?”

Lucas turns around and glances out the window behind him. “Uh, yeah, but I think it’s closed.”

The boy hums, pursing his lips and tilting his head to the side. “Do you think it also shows you how to break into that in this video they talked about?”

Lucas huffs as his smile spreads again. “Probably, but the wifi is terrible here.”

“My phone’s dead,” the boy admits, sighing. Then he raises his brows at Lucas, and holds up a blunt. “Shall we try anyway?”

Lucas raises his brows back and grins. 

There are more obstacles than he expects, but the most difficult part is definitely climbing through the broken gate. There’s only one bar taken out, and Lucas thinks if they both weren’t quite as thin, there’s no way they’d make it through. It’s a tight squeeze for the other boy purely due to his height, though he manages with considerably more grace than Lucas. Once they’re finally through, it’s only a matter of trekking up the stairwell and walking out onto the balcony with ease. 

The boy whistles as Lucas follows a few steps behind him, looking out at the view. “Damn, this is a pretty nice city.”

“Yeah,” Lucas agrees, vaguely impressed himself. “It’s probably better from up here.”

The boy shrugs and settles himself on the ground, reproducing his blunt and a lighter along with it. Lucas watches as he places the blunt between his lips and lights up, flame illuminating his face in a soft glow for just a second. He looks at Lucas as he’s tucking his lighter back into his pocket, blowing smoke out the corner of his mouth. “Do you already know Engel, then?”

“Kind of,” Lucas shrugs. “Mostly through my friend, Isa.”

The boy nods and passes him the blunt, which Lucas accepts with a quiet thanks. “You don’t seem overly excited about this radio thing, though.”

“It’s complicated,” Lucas admits. He takes a drag and it settles his racing heart a bit, but it can only help so much with the boy’s eyes still on him. “You can’t be that into it, either, if you’re hanging out here with me instead of in there.”

“Blame your friend, Isa,” the boy says with a laugh, before groaning as he tilts his head back. “I needed an extra-curricular and there wasn’t too many options. I figured if I could post dumb vlogs on YouTube I could speak on a school radio show.”

Lucas raises his brows and his eyes widen. He’s sure he looks ridiculous, can see it in the boy’s amused expression, but he can’t quite contain his shock or his desire to know more. “You post vlogs on YouTube? Who the hell are you and why don’t I know already?”

The boy laughs again. It’s an unfairly pretty sound. This time, Lucas thinks there’s a faint blush accompanying it. “I’m Jens,” he offers. “I lived in Belgium until a few weeks ago, so I wouldn’t expect you to know me.”

Lucas blinks. He’d already guessed as much, but it’s still strange to hear. “You moved mid-semester?”

“Yep,” Jens says. He steals the blunt out of Lucas’s hand. “I’m the talk of the town. Gotta say it’s a little disappointing you don’t know me, actually.”

“Plus you’re apparently internet famous,” Lucas says, lingering on Jens’s lips as he wraps them around the blunt. He wouldn’t be entirely surprised. That kind of beauty must have garnered some popularity, somewhere. 

Jens shakes his head, amused. “I wouldn’t say that,” he dismisses. “But you’re probably going to stalk me anyway now.”

“Absolutely,” Lucas confirms. Jens shakes his head again, laughs again, and Lucas feels the nerves dissipate into an old, familiar warmth, and instead of squashing it down, lets it spread along with his smile. 

5. Sobbe Style

Jens walks back towards the house and catches his first glimpse of the boy through the windows. He glances at Jens briefly through the glass, but doesn’t linger like Jens does. Jens keeps looking over his shoulder until he makes it to the door, and then he steps in just in time for the boy to turn around and look at him. They’d come back to the house Amber had rented previously for break, all the same crew with the addition of Senne, but definitely not this boy. This boy is unfamiliar and pretty and Jens would definitely have noticed if he was supposed to be standing in their kitchen. 

“Hey,” Jens says curiously. 

“Do you know where the sugar is?” the boy asks, ignoring him. “Or the coffee itself?”

Jens blinks. “Uhm.”

“Any food?” The boy huffs when Jens simply continues to stare at him. “Seriously, are you the manager or what?”

Jens is baffled, and he has no hope of hiding it. “What?”

The boy waves a hand, brows high on his forehead. “I made sure this place was a B&B. Honestly, how hard is it to stock a fridge at least? And what about the little free soaps?”

“Sorry—“ Jens starts. 

“Are you so careless of your guests that you don’t even provide bottled water?” the boy cuts him off, seeming genuinely incredulous. “Well?”

Jens parts his lips a few times before actually managing to speak, entirely confused and slightly irritated. “Sorry,” he repeats, “but who actually are you?”

The boy holds his stare for another minute and then breaks into a laugh, covering his face with his hand. He peeks at Jens through his fingers. “Oh my god, sorry.” He chuckles. “You really should’ve seen your face, though.” 

When Jens only continues to stare blankly, the boy sobers slightly and offers a hand. “Sorry. I’m Lucas.”

Jens carefully takes his hand and gives one shake, still feeling lost. “Jens.”

“Yeah,” Lucas smiles, then laughs again. “You probably forgot. I’m Sander’s friend. He told me he did this to Robbe last year, made a bet with me that I couldn’t pull it off with one of you guys, too.” Lucas shrugs. His grin appears only faintly apologetic. “So, sorry, you were just the unlucky target.”

Finally, the name rings a bell. Jens had forgotten that Sander invited anyone on this trip, because in his experience it was odd that Sander had any sort of attention span for anyone other than Robbe. But as Jens skims his gaze over Lucas, takes in the artfully ruffled hair and paint-stained clothing and old-fashioned converse, he kind of understands. 

“What makes you think Sander will believe you?” Jens finds himself asking, narrowing his eyes at Lucas in a somewhat teasing gesture. It’s the best way he knows to gain back some traction, here, and settle more firmly on his feet. 

Lucas is unfazed. “I have a trustworthy witness,” he says easily. 

Jens holds his challenging gaze for only a few seconds before relenting, tucking his hands into his pockets and matching Lucas’s leaning pose against the wall. “Your little act was weirdly convincing, I admit.”

Lucas offers a small smile and bow. Jens doesn’t think he has quite the dramatic flair of his friend, but he has some of the cheekiness, the sparkle and the daunting aura. There’s something inexplicably cool and instantly likable—qualities Jens himself has always envied. Lucas had seemed a little embarrassed after his stunt, but he doesn’t appear shy, instead holding a quiet confidence not unlike Robbe’s. 

“How do you know Sander?” Jens decides to question, because he really does get it but he also really doesn’t. 

He’s surprised when Lucas simply answers, “The Academy.”

Jens raises his brows. He hadn’t thought Lucas was older than him. “You’re in college?”

“Yeah,” Lucas says, faintly amused. “Not just any college, though. Art college.”

“Yeah,” Jens muses, “that’s much better.”

Lucas instantly flips him off, and Jens laughs and instantly decides that he likes this stranger. He supposes that’s a good thing, considering Lucas is to spend the next week with them, and Robbe would probably be pissed if Jens decided not to get along with Sander’s friends. He can’t help thinking none of them have to worry. He’s actually a little awed by Lucas’s small prank and the guts he had to break it out immediately. 

“I thought that meant I was supposed to be the pretentious one, but your hospitality is shit,” Lucas informs him. But he’s still grinning, so Jens thinks they’re probably okay. 

“Your little joke was very pretentious, don’t worry,” Jens reassures, although he’s not sure he means it. Nothing about Lucas seems overly cocky or irritating. Pretentious isn’t quite a word that fits. 

Lucas simply huffs another laugh and then makes his way around him. He grabs a denim jacket from the sofa and then opens the front door, beckoning Jens after him. “Alright, come on.”

Jens blinks, instantly falling back to his confused state. “Huh?” When Lucas simply raises his brows expectantly, Jens clarifies, “Where are we going?”

“You actually don’t have any sugar. Or water,” Lucas says. “We’re going to buy some.”

“But Sander—“

“Is still locked in that room and probably won’t be out for a while.” Lucas raises his brows pointedly as Jens tamps down a grimace. “Do you have anything better to do? Unless you want to stay around and listen, which,” Lucas pulls a face, and the start of a laugh bubbles out of Jens again. 

“Robbe’s my best friend, so, no thanks,” Jens explains, mimicking his expression. “I’m in the same boat as you.”

Lucas nods, pleased, like this is information he already knew. Jens supposes he probably did. “So?” Lucas presses. “You coming?”

Jens glances at the sofa, where he could spend the morning lazing around on his own until all the couples emerge and let Lucas wander about the town on his own. Then he looks back at Lucas and the stark blue of his eyes now paired with his denim jacket, still watching Jens back expectantly. 

Jens follows him out the door without another word. 

+1

Lucas is too lost in his own head to notice the person coming towards him until he collides with them. 

The breath is knocked out of him and he stumbles off his skateboard with a curse. Another low voice accompanies him, and the owner’s quick reflexes are the only thing that stops him from tumbling out into the street. A hand grips onto his shoulder and steadies him, and Lucas lets the weight ground him until gravity regains its hold on him.

“Shit, sorry,” Lucas says, finally looking up at the person he’d barelled into. His breath escapes him again at the sight. It’s a boy roughly his age, but with a few inches on him, as well as an overwhelming amount of beauty. There’s no other way to put it—Lucas has long ago begun to acknowledge the attractiveness of every male he meets, and he has no doubt that this boy is utterly gorgeous. 

It complicates all of his already messy thoughts. Especially since the boy still hasn’t released Lucas’s shoulder. 

He’s staring back at Lucas, skimming his gaze down his frame as if checking for injury. “I think neither of us were watching where we were going there,” the boy admits, laughing slightly as he meets Lucas’s eyes. “You okay?”

Lucas has to take a moment to gather his words. “Yeah,” he breathes. Then he clears his throat. “Thanks.”

The boy huffs and finally (sadly) drops his hand. “What, for almost running you over?” 

“No.” Lucas blinks, managing to shake himself out of it enough to smile. “No, I mean, for the hand.”

The boy nods, then tucks those hands in his pockets and curiously tilts his head. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Lucas nods, but the boy immediately continues, “I can’t find a way to make it up to you?”

“I thought it was a mutual collision,” Lucas points out, then immediately wants to smack himself. It’s not every day he sees a gorgeous boy, never mind bumps into one. Beyond that, this boy hadn’t immediately left, when he could have easily cursed Lucas out and left it at that. Instead he’s still talking, and offering more, and Lucas is stupid. He should not be trying to put the boy off. He has no idea what he is supposed to do. 

It doesn’t seem to matter, because the boy merely shrugs. “Yeah, but you looked more in need of a hand than me.”

Even Lucas isn’t stupid enough to argue with that. 

“Can I ask your name, at least?” the boy tries. 

That’s usually a good place to start, Lucas thinks. “Yeah, sorry. Lucas. You?”

“Jens.” 

Lucas tucks the information away with a nod. He almost expects Jens to offer his hand again, this time to shake, but instead he gets another curious tilt of the head. 

“Where were you headed?” Jens questions. 

“Uhm.” Lucas blanks. He isn’t out with a destination in mind—only the departure had felt necessary. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m not familiar with anywhere yet.”

“You’re not from here?” Jens questions. He doesn’t seem surprised, though, as if the answer is already obvious, which it probably is. Lucas shakes his head anyway. Jens actually seems pleased with the information. “Let me show you around a bit, then. Might at least stop you from taking down anyone else.”

Lucas thinks he should feel mildly offended, but he can only smile in response. “If you can show me somewhere with good desserts, I’ll fully consider you a life-saver.”

Jens accepts this challenge with a small laugh, and turns around on the street to face the way Lucas had been heading. He leans down to pick up his board and collects Lucas’s while he’s at it, passing it over to him after a brief damage check. “No bodies or boards seem to have been injured, so that’s something.”

“Internal damage, though,” Lucas finds himself arguing. “Wounded pride that can only be healed by the unhealthiest mound of ice cream.”

“Seriously?” Jens laughs again. “Okay, I can manage that.” 

They start down the street, and Lucas wonders if this is weird. He’d just crashed into Jens, and the boy is apparently taking him for ice cream. That’s not something strangers do, is it? Not even strangers in Belgium. Not anyone without an ulterior motive. He glances at Jens out of the side of his eye and tries a subtle examination, but it’s not as if he thinks Jens is dangerous. 

He honestly just can’t quite believe his luck. 

“Don’t freak out,” Jens huffs, and Lucas does his best not to blush. “I’ve seen you at school.”

Oh. “You have?”

Jens hums. “You’re in class with Robbe, right?”

Lucas is. The name instantly rings a bell, because Robbe is one of the few people that had bothered to introduce himself to Lucas over the past week. His first week adjusting to Antwerp. He nods. 

“He mentioned you,” Jens informs him. “Pointed you out one day by he lockers, but you disappeared before we could talk to you.” Jens smiles over at him. “I was hoping I’d get another opportunity.”

“You were?” Lucas asks, disbelieving. “Why?”

“Well, I can’t have Robbe having first access to all the gossip,” Jens laments. “That’s supposed to be my job.”

Lucas still doesn’t quite understand, but he knows how to joke. “So you’re inviting me for ice cream because you’re nosy?”

Jens nods seriously. “That is exactly it.”

They look at each other for a minute, walking slower, before they both crack up in a laugh. Lucas wonders if Jens is actually telling the truth and it just happens to be funny, or if he knows how to work a conversation to alleviate all awkwardness and tension. Either way, Lucas is grateful. He’s also slightly disappointed in himself, for being so unsure of his new surroundings that he’d prevented Jens from being able to meet him sooner. 

“I haven’t seen you around,” Lucas admits. He knows it’s the truth, because he would have remembered. “But I haven’t spoken to all that many people yet.”

Jens hums, frowning slightly. “It’s hard, moving this late, and especially after missing the first few weeks of the year. I’m sorry no one’s tried to make it easier for you.”

Lucas doesn’t bother mentioning that it’s probably his own fault. “Yeah, well,” he shrugs. “I guess now someone is.” 

At this Jens grins, nodding in acknowledgement or acceptance; it might as well be admittance. Lucas decides that he doesn’t care, as long as it’s accompanied by that smile and Jens’s continued presence. 

[spill-tears-but-never-coffee]

Mornings are for coffee and second-degree burns

So this is my first story. It’s a Naito x reader. italics denotes Japanese while bold depicts internal dialogue. Please be kind.

Waiting for Sanda was getting ridiculous, the man would show up late to his own funeral. “Probably still sleeping,” Naito mumbles to himself. Heaving a deep sigh, he pushes himself away from the table and stands up to grab a coffee.

The shop was busy this morning with students from the nearby high school taking their time figuring out a more complicated way to order overpriced milkshakes. While glaring daggers into the backs of teenagers he’s startled by a high pitch squeal coming directly behind him. He swings his head around and observers two women; one gripping the other in a bear hug, while the other looked utterly baffled at the sudden turn of events.

The bear hugger is making that atrocious nail on a chalk board noise.  She looks like a typical office worker: non-descript blue blouse, tight but not to revealing skirt, high heels and pearl earrings. The other, a gaijin is pretty, but not that pretty. She’s wearing a similar outfit, but with a white shirt and tight black skirt that shows off her narrow waist and slim ankles that end in a pair of red heels.

As if feeling his gaze, the gaijin makes eye contact and gives a sort of lop-sided smile, he frowns, unamused at the intrusion to his thoughts, and spins around.

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

You walked into the shop with your co-worker Niko and came to a complete halt. The Japanese characters everywhere briefly overwhelm you despite the fact you regularly ordered from this coffee chain at home.

“Y/L/N-san, is everything okay?”

Being formally addressed like this breaks you out of your brief culture shock, “Niko, you don’t need to use san with me.”

The other woman frowns slightly, “Not using san is bad manners” she begins to educate you. You nod your head familiar with this argument. Hell, it had been made in every Welcome to Japan book your family had foisted on you before you reached Tokyo.

Blowing out a breath  and struggling to right this situation without offending your co-worker you start, “Even between friends,” while stepping into line.

“Friends,” Niko’s voice shakes a little, like she is about to cry. No longer sure if this if this is such a brilliant idea, you nod your head anyway doubling down on your gamble. “Oh! Y/N-chan you are so sweet,” she exclaims.

Seriously? What is with the damned titles in this country you think. You aren’t used to the titles that everyone seems to have in the country as back home, life is far easier. Sure, you could say Mr. or Mrs., or occasionally Your Honor, but the Japanese have a title for the grandmother of your closest female friend since birth. Your train of thought is abruptly derailed by Niko literally squeezing you to death. “Oh,” you wheeze all breath leaving your body as your arms are pinned to your side.

“We’re friends,” she shrieks in a near inaudible level it is so high pitched.

“Of course,” you smile and try to disengage your new friend.

“This is the best,” she squeals. To your chagrin the man in front of you turns around and makes eye contact with you. You can tell he is not pleased by this and is eyeing up the situation in disdain. “Sorry,” you offer, but he isn’t paying attention any more.

“So, Niko,” you say extricating yourself from her grasp. “How do I order a Java-chip Frappuccino in Japanese?”

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

His phone begins to vibrate in his pocket. He pulls out the device and eyes the screen. Languidly he taps the green button and holds up the phone to his ear, “Hey.”

“Hey,” the caller begins.

“You’re late,” Naito deadpans. He is trying not to convey annoyance as he had also gone out late last night with the rest of LIJ and yet he was up, but he doesn’t say a thing. 

“I know,” Sanda’s laughter echoes from the other side, “Get a large cappuccino for me. I just got up from a rough night.” he rolls his eyes skyward as the other man brags, “…missing a shoe and I’m pretty sure a pint of blood from that girl we met at the bar.”

Naito makes eye contact with the barista and gives him a slight head nod as he retrieves his caffeine fix. “You can get it yourself,” he growls not amused by his stablemate’s lazy attitude.

Sanda tries to sound remorseful but comes off unconcerned with his friend’s frustration at his late arrival, “Sure, Sure, I’ll be there in a minute.”

Grunting in agreement he attempts to end the call while carrying his coffee and getting out of the shop. All of which is apparently too much to do at once and he collides with a solid force. “Oh shit,” a voice rings out. He hadn’t realized it, but when he turned around to leave he had run right into the gaijin behind him and spilled his hot coffee all over her.

Eyes wide she sucks in a deep breath and peels the now see through fabric away from her skin. He’s stuck dumb for a moment as registers her distress. “I’m sorry,” he mutters while trying to find something to wipe off the burning coffee. He sees a barista rushing over with a towel, grabbing it from the service worker’s hands and he begins to try and sop up the coffee.

“Oh fuck,” she whimpers pulling the ruined fabric away from her skin and fanning it in a futile effort to cool off.

He doesn’t need to understand English all that well to know she is in pain and it’s his fault. He doubles down on his efforts to dry her off. That is until he’s interrupted by the least menacing growl in history, “What are you doing?” Momentarily taking his eyes of the fabric in front of him he makes eye contact with the voice. It’s Bear Hugger.

“Admiring the stitching,” he deadpans while going back to the task at hand, except this time he picks his eyes off the fabric and looks at the woman in front of him. Her big eyes are filled with tears, her face flushed with heat or embarrassment he can’t be sure at this point. Realizing that the towel in his hand has cleaned up as much of the mess at it can, he pulls away, sees the faint outline of the bra, and her body’s reaction to sudden change in temperature.

He forces his attention elsewhere. Bear Hugger is speaking English with Coffee Gaijin who looks embarrassed. He can’t understand other than “okay”. But what he lacks for in vocabulary he makes up for in perception. She is breathing in deeply through her nose, warding off further tears and it strikes him as oddly brave. The words leave his mouth before they register in his brain, “Tell your friend I’ll buy her another blouse.”

Coffee Gaijin looks confused at the turn of events. Bear Hugger steps into the conversation, “What?”

“I’ll buy you another shirt,” he repeats slowly and with better diction. Sometimes women need things to be repeated.

Bear Hugger rudely replies, “She doesn’t speak Japanese.”

“Well then tell her what I said.” He doesn’t make the statement a suggestion.

They have a staring contest before she breaks eye contact and turns to Coffee Gaijin. Naito is now keenly aware that the entire coffee shop is watching them with morbid fascination. Fucking Sanda. They have a brief conversation before Hugger replies, “She says it’s just a shirt, no worries.”

He grits his teeth, “Tell the gaijin I’ll buy her another shirt,” he pauses his anger rising at being rejected, “One that isn’t so cheap you can see everything.”

Hugger’s black eyes widen, and her mouth drops open, “I can’t say that!”

“Well tell her something that will get her to buy a better shirt,” he seethes. Hugger glares at him he teases his lips into what could be construed as a smile. Coffee Gaijin is utterly confused at the tension between the two until Hugger sighs and begins a long and he guess a wholly inaccurate translation of his offer. Realizing that he won’t take no for an answer Coffee Gaijin looks at him and nods her head.

“We finish work at 5.00, we’ll meet here,” Hugger hesitates before adding, “and you’ll buy her whatever she wants.”

He raises an eyebrow, “That’s what she said?” Somehow Coffee Gaijin doesn’t strike him as the extortion type.

“No that’s what I said,” Hugger glares at him again, but this time he smirks and turns to the topic of their negotiation.

Holding out a hand, Coffee Gaijin needs no translation and digs into her purse. She pulls out a phone so new it still has protective plastic on it. Fumbling to unlock the screen she eventually places the phone into his hand gently. Her fingers momentarily brush against him and his world tilts just a little. Brushing it off he types in his number and calls his phone to ensure she has his number, but before he hands it back he briefly browses through her contacts, they’re sparse and mostly in English. He grimaces and hands it back to her. “Five o’clock,” he enunciates in English and turns away from the foreigner and Bear Hugger marching out the door to find Sanda.

[macmillanusa]

Macmillan's YA Sneak Peek Sweepstakes 2019

Just because you may have missed BookCon, doesn't mean you need to miss out on new and upcoming YA! 

Enter our YA Sneak Peek Sweepstakes on Twitter, Facebook, and/or Instagram for a chance to win from Saturday, June 1, 2019 - Sunday, June 9, 2019. Official rules below. 

OFFICIAL RULES

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[fate-hates-faraday]

Close Your Eyes: The Host

Mostly because I’m planning a story, I decided to go back over CYE and pay attention to its characters, particularly Marshmallow Monk and the Host. 

Marshmallow Monk is surprisingly straightforward in a sense. Where they come from, what they are, that’s a mystery. What they do and why, and their overall feelings, while tweakable by the player, is still fairly clear: they are a murderer to help their sister, and they are loyal to her, somewhat blind to their own nature, willing to go forth to survive, and childlike/childish in some aspects. Also afraid of heights. 

The Host, though, is another story entirely. Not helping is the role he plays in not one, but three different games (I won’t count his appearance in Take the Dream IX, because I feel that’s more of a cameo than an example of his nature) and his goals remaining ambiguous in each game. 

tl;dr:

To all people, the Host presents as affable and focused on his ‘game’ at a basic level. He is also, however, brutally honest in his opinions about people’s lives, and is not above trolling them. He may desire to genuinely help people while letting them fall victim to their true natures, or he just may want a ‘challenge’ in working with people and ensnaring them.

The Host’s true goals and his method of picking contestants is unknown. His standards for these contestants is also unknown.

Not everyone who meets him is a contestant. He can manifest due to being summoned for a deal. The limits of these deals are unknown, although of the two deals known, one involved future sight, and the other seemed to involve manipulating the afterlife of the person (or three people. It’s not clear).

The Host’s abilities are not clear. Potential possibilities include reality warping, the formation of a pocket dimension under his control, or teleportation/clairvoyance/immortality/manipulation of perception. Regardless of the answer, the Host is incredibly dangerous.

Whatever the Host is, he is NOT human.

As for the extended take, I’m going to start with his very first game, Close Your Eyes. For any followers who just decided to read this, Close Your Eyes is a free RPGMaker horror game following the adventure of one small creature known as Marshmallow Monk, who escapes their own execution and runs into a subway station to hide. It becomes rapidly clear, however, that the station is something else entirely, and what lies at the end of this road may be even worse than death.

The Host is the first character we actually meet - standing onstage, introducing himself and announcing his ‘contestant’, Marshmallow Monk (let’s call them MM from now on). We don’t see a similar-looking stage until well into the game and far from the station’s entrance. This raises a number of questions. Is this opening scene happening in a pocket dimension at the same time as the execution? Is the station a part of it? Come to think of it, how is the host related to the station? Is the Host the one choosing the contestants and directing the station to them, or does the station collect these people and the Host just rolls with it? The two are clearly linked, as the Host is able to quiz MM in the station and hear their answers despite not having a visible presence. Further lending credence to this is the sheer number of outright BIZARRE locations you will meet the Host at as you continue the game, with no evidence of how he could’ve arrived before you.

Now, the Host is not nice. He wants something from you - to close your eyes, whatever that means - and he gets mad when you don’t play along the way he wants you to, his voice deepening and making fewer jokes. However, he never lies to MM and seems to be trying to make MM recognize their situation. He points out the obvious issues MM’s sister had, keeps asking if you know where you are or where you’re going and, in a first ending, half-hysterically asks “YOU STILL HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT YET?” (This ending, incidentally, provides some of the least information about MM and what’s going on). Another ending has him remark, “Everything has happened, and is going to happen”, which suggests he’s aware of every outcome the game can have - so perhaps he knows, at one point, he will succeed.

Most of the harm that befalls MM is not from the Host - rather, he tries to give advice. For example, he mentions he doesn’t trust the sister; if you choose to stay with her, you get a second ending where MM doesn’t escape their execution. The exception is a third ending where MM shoots the Host in the head - wherein not only does the Host laugh it off, MM is teleported into a small bathroom with a monstrous Host coming out of the darkness and MM desperately aware of their inability to flee. As I said, the Host is not nice.

That all said, though, there’s a fourth ending where you’re given the option to not murder someone and instead realize all the awful things you’ve done. If you pick that ending, the Host claims you aren’t really sorry at all - but you’re still “exactly what we’ve been looking for”and drags MM off to god-knows-where. What does he want? A killer with a conscience and sense of guilt? Someone who has nothing left for them? I don’t really know. The Intermission and Close Your Eyes 2 will be out eventually, and maybe they’ll shed some light on his motivations?

Next game I’ll discuss is the paid DLC for CYE: Girl Graveyard, a difficult maze sort of game that rapidly descends into hell. Most of the game isn’t important - the Host makes no appearance after all. The only detail that needs to be known is that the protagonist killed her best friend and in turn was killed by her boyfriend (who she’d been trying to seduce).

At the end, the girl has a monologue where she talks about ancient forces manipulating people to this day and a legend: The Face. The Smiling One. The Grinning Demon.

Yeah, look at the picture of the Host and you tell me if you don’t think it’s him.

Anyways, following a “tough and painful ritual”, you can make a deal with this being. The protagonist’s grandmother apparently made a deal with him, able to see the future in return for talking with him and, at the end, allowing him to take her away. The protagonist goes on to say how she plans to also make a deal so she and her best friend’s boyfriend can be together forever. Judging by the game, she made the deal and the Host followed through. She just didn’t tell him HOW she wanted it done and so even in death is left to suffer.

After giving this some thought, I wondered if maybe MM and their sister made a deal with the Host, and that’s how MM became a contestant. She brought up a book and a need for sacrifice, which was likely why MM was killing people. However, looking at Red Haze brings that into doubt.

Minor disclaimer: as of this writing, I haven’t finished Red Haze and have been trying to avoid spoilers mostly. Things may be inaccurate. Nonetheless: Red Haze follows the story of a teenager named Rockette who arrives at a dilapidated apartment building seeking drugs from someone called Auntie G. She’s rough around the edges, to say the least, and very capable of mistreating one of the few NPCs you can interact with. During your exploration of the building, you’ll come across a ‘construction worker’ - in fact, obviously the Host. It takes two meetings before the Host brings Rockette into his ‘game’ (complete with a contestant podium) and, based on her outfit, will start talking about some very significant character flaws of hers. On the fourth game, he goes into her backstory a little, says she’s too ‘easy’ for him and he’s not here to fix her problems, and points out she can fix this on her own.

The apartment building doesn’t seem to be the equivalent of the station in CYE - it’s acknowledged as existing independently of the protagonist - and the Host is confined to appearing in one room. His powers may be limited - or maybe he just isn’t that interested in Rockette and therefore doesn’t see the need to flex his powers. However, this casts an interesting light on his treatment of Rockette. He encourages her to show up for the game and, though his analysis of her is downright cruel at times, it’s never indicated that he’s mistaken: Rockette really does have these issues, driven by her addiction, that she needs to confront and deal with at some point. While he tells her she’s too easy for him, he also points out that, while it may not feel like it, she has choices and she can turn things around if she recognizes that fact. Rockette doesn’t seem to realize who or what he is, so it’s doubtful she actively summoned him to the building, so he’s not here because she called him. Did he see a prospective contestant but turn her away when it was clear her problems were fixable without his work? Was he just scouting the area and decided to have some fun? Is he in the habit of seeking out people who aren’t entirely gone and giving them a kick in the rear to try to fix their own issues?

Regardless, he never refers to Rockette as a contestant, nor does he ever offer her a deal, so his role in Red Haze is much different from that in Close Your Eyes or Girl Graveyard - and yet the character feels consistent across all three, so it’s hard to just chalk it up to bad writing or something like that. Without knowledge of his goals, it’s hard to explain the differences in his roles. Without knowledge of his abilities, it’s hard to even determine what the scope of his goals could even be. Doing this analysis just raised further questions about the Host’s nature. In conclusion, to quote a friend:

“This lore is deep as fuck, yo.”

[cupkayke]

Cupkayke Rewatches/Liveblogs Boueibu!

Season 1, Episode 3

So I dropped off the face of Tumblr for awhile, sorry guys! I also rewatched the entirety of Yuri on Ice with my boyfriend and he now likes ice skating anime so that took some time lol But I am back JUST IN TIME FOR YUMOTO’S BIRTHDAY OMG HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRECIOUS CHILD. So, have a liveblog/collection of my stupid thoughts about one of the more ridiculous episodes! Yay! 

Also, I apologize in advance- some of this episode’s subtext led to an impromptu dissection of the boys’ sexualities/orientations and there are some brief mentions of unsavory teachers (because what kind of teacher holds a pretty boy contest???) so if any of my terminology/speculation is incorrect or you find any of my discussions potentially triggering or in need of tags PLEASE inbox me and I will tag the post as such/correct any misinformation! I am a literature student- I like to analyze things. Sometimes I get carried away~

I SAW THE PREVIEW IMAGE FOR THIS EP ON CRUNCHYROLL AND IMMEDIATELY THOUGHT ‘HERE WE GO I REMEMBER THIS EPISODE IT’S GONNA BE A TRASH PARADE AND WTF CITY LET’S GO’

Okay- I always wondered about the pretty boy contest… like why? What purpose does it serve? Why are there posters put up in a fucking BATHHOUSE advertising the local boys’ high school’s PRETTY BOY CONTEST. .3 seconds into the episode and it’s ridiculous. 

What do you mean ‘weight with the ladies’ c’mon man I have a hard time believing you care ANYTHING about ‘the ladies’ -eyebrow waggle-

He’s doing pirouettes in a towel… okay seriously bro I danced ballet for like 10 years and I never pirouetted in a towel OKAY THAT’S PROBABLY A LIE BUT YOU CAN’T PROVE IT OTHERWISE

"EWWWW TEACHER DICK”

Aww Yumoto. So innocent. So naive. So willing to point out he just saw his teacher’s penis-

...well that’s an odd question. Yumoto why would you ask-

Oh, shew, it’s because you’re not ashamed of bodies! How sweet and innocent and refreshi-

WAIT BACK UP NEVERMIND YUMOTO WTF THAT’S CALLED VOUYERISM

Those are the faces of some senpais that just came to the realization that their kouhai has probably been checking them out.

Well he got dressed fast.

How do you hire someone by accident?

Took the words right out of my mouth, Atsushi.

This is disturbing on several levels. Pedo Principal? -shudders-

FEET SHOULD NOT BEND THAT WAY

GUYS. GUYS. GUYS. AKOYA AS A BALLET DANCER OMG. IMAGINE. HAS THIS BEEN DRAWN? THIS NEEDS TO BE FANART SOMEWHERE. HE’D BE SO PRETTY JUST IMAGINE HIM IN TIGHTS BEING THE PRINCIPAL MALE LEAD IN SWAN LAKE OR FUCK EVEN IN A FUCKING TUTU BECAUSE HE’D BE GORGEOUS IN EITHER ROLE I CAN’T EVEN AWKEJFLASJFASLDJFOSIJFOAJ -Cupkayke Explodes-

Arima speaks truth

Io why do you have an exact copy of the calculator I use at work that’s terrifying.

RYUU YOU ARE LYING YOU GO TO AN ALL BOYS SCHOOL THAT IS APPROXIMATELY 0% WOMEN TRY AGAIN

Io looks so disappointed he can’t talk numbers with Ryuu

THEIR CHEESY CATCHPHRASE AGAIN

Side note I feel like the quirkiness of the school got toned down in later eps but perhaps that’s my faulty memory. Which is why I’m rewatching it lol.

Pretty and savage AF

PINK RIVALRY! I mean seriously, “you can’t seem to take your eyes off of me?” Maybe not even a rivalry but something else ohohohohohoh I’m alone on this ship

Okay this creepy teacher apparently calls all the boys ‘sweet honey’ which is disturbing on its own level but that got cranked up to 11 on the creep scale when he referred to YUMOTO as sweet honey. 

Yumoto is a precious cinnamon roll you freak

Paper airplane contest lololol why do I feel like this happened at my school back in the day?

Wombat sounds like a jealous lover lolol

OH BOY! PUNS!

RYUU AND AKOYA TIED FOR THIRD???

HOW DOES AKOYA NOT WIN IN THE LINEUP OF THE SC???

LIKE SERIOUSLY KINSHIROU????

AKOYA IS TEN TIMES PRETTIER!

This school must have a thing for ice princes I s2g

En's boredom is dangerous. I mean... the face says it all.

Ryuu is all “this is NOT up my alley”

A bit slow on the uptake, Yumoto.

Io that’s so sweet... I guess? Well Ryuu seems to think it is- look at his face!

...nevermind. His expression is all “Thanks... I guess...”

Either Yumoto was hoping his senpais would teach him how to be popular with the ladies, or he’s just confused as to what in the hell it is that older boys want. This entire scene is just a clusterfuck of innuendo BUT I’M GONNA OVER ANALYZE IT ANYWAY.

The surface meaning of En and Atsushi’s statements here- or what the audience is supposed to get- is that being popular with girls will only get you so far. It may get you ‘love’ but having a girlfriend means jack squat if you don’t have guy friends (most likely to brag to). 

It also could be taken that En at least would rather appreciate women than exert his energy into making them lust after him, which is rather sweet if you think about it.

Atsushi’s point also draws attention to the fact that stereotypical displays of machismo are much more well-received by other men than women- ie outward displays of strength, aggression, bragging about sexual encounters... er- yeah. No need to go on, there.

So. In order to be a well-rounded man, a man needs to be popular/be admired by other men! So you aren’t a lonely loser the rest of your days.

Buuut... because I’m me... LET’S LOOK AT THE SUBTEXT IN RELATIONSHIP TO THEIR SPECULATED SEXUALITIES 8D

En basically says straight up it’s more beneficial to be admired by men. Putting aside the above statements about admiring women... En’s likely gay. Fosho.

And the top screencap of Yumoto, instead of just clarifying his senpai’s intentions, that could mean that he’s more interested in girls. HOWEVER-

With a c: face, Yumoto admits his heart flutters watching rugged young men!

Bi Yumoto anyone? (He also unironically uses the word ‘flicks’ but that’s either a translator thing or another example of a mysterious dialect but ON TOPIC-)

At least within the context of this scene, Yumoto implies he’d be interested in being popular with girls and he is attracted to at very least a certain type of man. Buuut the rest of this episode (which I will get to later) potentially directly contradicts this implication as to Yumoto’s romantic and/or otherwise attraction.

It’s too bad that we don’t get Ryuu or Atsushi’s opinions on the matter- although Ryuu makes his attractions pretty clear just from his character (and then the subtext with Io). Atsushi is a bit of a mystery, for now. 

As for Io, we get this  exchange-

Le sigh. Io is moneysexual. Anyway...

Wombat so salty- I guess helping Ryuu win a contest is more entertaining than being superheroes.

Me about halfway through this post

En's expressions in this scene are great.

Tho does anyone else now headcanon En as really into athletics when he isn’t being lazy?

Like him really liking competition just fits so well but without a goal he’s just like ‘why bother’

Atsushi sounds so awkward calling him Yufuin

“I can’t just announce him as Enchan that’s weird but I don’t think I’ve ever said his last name ughhhhhhhhh”

Io is NOT playing by the unspoken one urinal in between rule

ALSO I JUST NOTICED YOU CAN SEE THE GUY ON THE LEFT ACTUALLY PEEING WTF

Water go swoosh swoosh

Also their bathrooms are fancy AF

GDI why does Io make the best seduction face

Even tho it’s more predatory here still...

THEY WERE REALLY HEAVY HANDED WITH THE INNUENDO IN S1

The triplets WHY ARE THEIR EYES SO WEIRD

WHAT IS IT WITH THIS SHOW AND SIDE CHARACTERS WITH WEIRD EYES

Ryuu so destructive lol

I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID ABOUT EN BEING ATHLETIC RYUU DOES FUCKING KARATE

Sparkles

Ibushi is still savage AF

I had to giggle and cap his character card because the image of Atsushi doing gigantic jigsaw puzzles was adorable

YOU’RE A TEACHER WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE A PRETTY BOY?

LIKE SERIOUSLY WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE VALIDATED BY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Did he get scorned and that’s why his self esteem is in the toilet???

1579th pretty boy contest??? Damn Pedo Principal is thirsty AF I am still shuddering at the implications

Tho seriously that’s -does math- ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE YEARS OF PRETTY BOY CONTESTS WHAT THE FUCK

And that isn’t taking into account there would probably be a month or two where school isn’t in session on the 27th to have the pretty boy contest. Like December wouldn’t they be on break? And don’t they have a summer holiday at some point?

IT ISN’T JUST ONE PEDO PRINCIPAL IT’S A DYNASTY

EWWWWWWWWW.

YUMOTO AND RYUU BROTHER RELATIONSHIP I FRIENDSHIP IT LOOK RYUU IS BLUSHING

Yumoto knows he’s a lil shit

What the fuck kind of sound effect is swan swan???

I’m suddenly reminded of Kronk doing his own theme music-

Ryuu so salty he wanted to know the winner

Yumoto that writhing mob of students is pretty gross I agree

SO ZUNDAR WANTS THE ENTIRE WORLD TO BE GAY

THAT’S HIS EVIL PLAN TURN EVERYONE GAY

HE SOUNDS LIKE A SHITTY GROSS POLITICIAN

With that shot angle I was just waiting for him to lay a fucking egg but thankfully that didn’t happen

The subtitle is inaccurate- he actually said ‘GIMME HUG’ which is slightly more unsettling.

EN YOU WANT TO MARRY IT WTF

Yumoto still just like c: “I have no idea what’s going on”

I NOW PRESENT TO YOU THE BEST BOUEIBU SCREENCAPS IN THE HISTORY OF SCREENCAPS 

ATSUSHI SO GRACEFUL

SO ROMANTIC

EN IS JEALOUS

THEY’RE ALL RIDICULOUS

Speaks for itself

And here is where Yumoto contradicts his earlier implications. Okay. 1) Writers make up your minds, although 2) ...shades of gray here.

Perhaps Kurotori’s feather spell represents sexual love (Eros for all you YOI fans~) and Yumoto is either a) too young/innocent to understand or b) somewhere on the ace spectrum. The others were affected because they are either simply older than Yumoto/past puberty or allosexual to the point where the spell could manipulate their feelings despite their existing attractions whatever those may be.

Yumoto’s earlier comments, then, could be taken to mean simply romantic attraction, even though his wording of his “heart fluttering” thanks to Yakuza men is a bit misleading in that respect. (Disclaimer: I am not on the ace spectrum so perhaps I am misrepresenting/misinterpreting here- please correct me if I have made a mistake in my understanding of asexuality- I definitely do not want to offend anyone! Just analyzing~) 

Though to play the other side, En’s comment about marriage, even though he’s under the influence of a spell, also indicates that the spell has romantic components as well as potentially sexual ones. If the spell plays to BOTH- wouldn’t Yumoto be affected as well, based on his earlier assertions?

OR PERHAPS- if it is both, Yumoto is ALSO potentially aromantic and his comments were purely of an aesthetic nature or self projection (that is, he wants to be a dashing Yakuza heartthrob, not necessarily date one). Or he was simply trying to relate to his senpais and was bluffing the entire time.

Damn, this episode can seem REALLY deep if you squint hard enough. Headcanons, abound!

Moving on- WHEN IN DOUBT, HUG THE ENEMY!

Now I’m starting to see some cleverness on the part of the writers- hear me out below- but first- MORE CUDDLES

With this, Yumoto can be read several different ways. 

On the surface and probably most importantly, regardless of what Yumoto’s personal attraction/orientation is (if he’s even figured it out at this point), he knows love at its purest form. He loves his brother. He loves his senpais (even though at this point they barely know each other- Yumoto probably latches on quickly). But more importantly, he is so in tune with his own feelings he realizes that self love is at the core of any type of love. That if you aren’t secure in yourself, if you don’t care about yourself on some level, how can anyone else care about you either?

This is another reason why I love Yumoto even though he can get a bit heavy-handed at times and seem like a one-note character; HE ISN’T.

Yumoto is incredibly introspective and even though his senapis make comments about how he just kind of shoves everything together to fit the situation he really does understand the monster-ified characters’ insecurities.

(Which can lead to some sad headcanons about how Yumoto has probably felt all of these things at one point or another... oh no...)

But back to my over-analysis of Yumoto’s orientation- with this... it’s really up to interpretation.

He can be read as a young character who hasn’t figured things out yet, he can be read as interested in romantic relationships of any variety but not necessarily anything else, he can be read as only interested in platonic relationships- anything. And while the inconsistency in his portrayal can be a bit maddening- it’s GREAT headcanon opportunity.

Thus, unless s3 gives Yumoto a canon interest- he’s whatever you think he is. Which is AWESOME! DO YOU SEE WHY I LOVE THIS SMOL CINNAMON ROLL?

Aaaand some closing, not very deep thoughts to wrap up-

SO BLUSHY. MUCH ANGELIC. WOW.

En you’re always tired

Kinchan... why do you want people to grovel at your feet...?

That’s certainly a random question, En- but for shits and giggles; these are their responses if I’m hearing their voices right:

Atsushi - My neck, I guess?

Yumoto - My arms

Ryuu - Armpits

Io - The nape of the neck.

My brain hurts so I have NO idea what these could mean but I highly doubt they’re throwaway lines- SO YOU GUYS TELL ME. Over-analyze what parts they wash first LOL

OKAY WOW THAT WAS LONG AS FUCK AND I GOT TOO DEEP. Again, let me know if I fucked anything up or need to add tags~ And let me know what you think/what your headcanons are/if there’s something from another canon source that could add to this!

I’ll try to get ep 4 up today as well since it took me forever to get back to this but this shit takes longer than I thought. I watch the ep first and take notes, then go back and re-watch and screencap and take more notes, then copy/pasta everything into tumblr and add more thoughts and make it readable. Shew.

[crookedlycasualwonderland]

Scammed on Christmas Day

Below is a letter of explanation from the New York Literary Magazine.  Here is the perfect example why you don’t OUTSOURCE.  Would have been better to hire your own people to do it right.  I received one of these ‘nominations’ for BEST STORY AWARD.  It all seemed legit because it came from an official email.  I was told I could now use my nominee status in my author bio.  It all sounded good.  Hey, no harm in telling authors they were ‘nominated’ to lure them into a contest.  All for a lousy $15.  It shows the greed of people.  Playing games with the dreams of authors for a few pieces of silver.  Sad, sorry times.

Re: NY Literary Magazine Scam Dear Author, This is an official email from the NY Literary Magazine (NYLiteraryMagazine.com) regarding the Best Story Award contest, the nomination emails, the scam complaints, and the cyberbullying attacks upon our authors and our magazine. (This is the last email you will ever receive from us.) What is this about? On Christmas, an email was sent from NYLiteraryMag.org telling authors they were nominated for the Best Story Award contest and inviting them to submit their book to our contest. It appears these emails angered people and caused them to believe our contest is a scam. We would like to apologize for any annoyance, confusion, disappointment, or aggravation which the marketing email you received on Christmas may have caused you. Additionally, there have been many inaccurate accusations circling around and cyberbully attacks upon authors who were awarded our award. This has ruined our business and caused us to permanently shut down our magazine and contests. Everyone who purchased an entry into our contest has been refunded. After years of work on this magazine, we have had to fire our entire team of loyal, hard-working, full-time employees. Who are we? The NY Literary Magazine was a print and digital magazine. We published free-to-read digital poetry anthologies, ran free-to-enter short story contests and poetry contests, interviewed authors, and wrote helpful articles. The scam allegations are regarding an email sent out from NYLiteraryMag.org about our "Best Story Award" contest. This is indeed a book contest we started and were running on our website with an extremely affordable reading fee. What happened? Regretfully, we outsourced our marketing to an Asian company to help us spread the word about our Best Story Award contest. We believed they were experts and could help us reach authors. It was our terrible mistake to entrust the entire marketing campaign in their hands including the marketing methods, approach, and text. They sent out a marketing email on our behalf, from an email at nyliterarymag.org, at an unexpected time for USA time zone on Christmas. Unfortunately, it appears they chose the wrong approach and terminology when inviting authors to our contest by telling them they were nominated instead of simply informing them of our contest and inviting them to join it. It was our terrible mistake not to closely supervise and monitor each marketing action they did and the text they used. For other businesses such as VIP Entrepreneur clubs (with ~$1,000 annual membership fees), sending a nomination email instead of an invite to join their clubs worked very well. Our marketing agency, therefore, presumed this was a good way to approach authors as well. They even thought that authors who didn't want to/couldn't afford the $15 entry fee to our contest would still be happy to be nominated and be able to mention it in their bio. They did not think there would be an issue with nominating multiple authors. Nor did they think it would annoy authors to be nominated. We apologize to all the authors who feel they were misled by being nominated. In reply to the inaccurate accusations: We are shocked at the number of inaccurate allegations which are circling on social media regarding us, our magazine, our anthologies, and contest. To make matters worse, some forum threads are locked and comments disabled on websites so we can't even answer the accusations. "The award seal is fake." The award seal is a PNG image. What exactly can be fake or "real" about a PNG image? We never claimed winners would receive a physical, solid gold sticker for their book. "You're selling award seals for $15. Everyone is an award winner, you just have to buy the award to win." These accusations are completely false. We are not selling award seals. We never have and we never will. Nowhere on the sales page does it say we're selling award seals. $14.95 was the initial entry fee (which was later raised to $19.95) for the contest. Award winners were to receive an award seal for free. Stating "everyone is a winner" is also false. We have 1 winner per month per genre. Obviously, those spreading these false accusations and outright lies didn't even visit the website or the contest's page. "The nomination email came from a mailing list. Only scammers use mailing lists!" It takes a lot of time to contact people one by one. Even authors use mailing services to contact all their readers in one go rather than sitting for days sending individual emails. "The authors you say won an award don't have it on their book covers. It's a scam! They didn't really win!" It is up to the award-winners if and how they choose to use our award seal. All we do is inform the winners. Whether or not they choose to use our award seal is up to them. We showed 3 examples of how awards CAN be used on a book's cover for illustration purposes. "Their free contests prove they're scammers. It's a trick, a way to make you like their magazine." Interesting. So we're a "scammer" if we charge entry fees and we're a scammer if we don't charge entry fees. Hard to please everyone. At least our poetry contest winners were happy when they won our free-to-enter contests. "They say you were nominated but have to pay to be nominated." Authors nominated were not required to pay anything to be nominated. Some nominated authors posted the picture of our trophy statute they were nominated for and used it for their marketing without paying to enter our contest. They didn't have to pay to be nominated. If they did not want to enter our contest, they did not have to. No one was forced to enter. Those who wished to have a chance to win the awards paid the low entry fee and entered their book. "Your contest is a scam. You are stealing people's money." Some authors think our contest and magazine is a scam due to the marketing email they received about being nominated. Our contest was a normal book contest with a low entry fee. Many contests have entry fees. Whether or not the marketing email was misleading or annoying is another matter but that does not turn our entire magazine and contest into a scam. "There is no submission page! It's a scam!" Due to a PayPal IPN issue, clients who purchased an entry were not automatically redirected to the contest submission page. Moreover, after many people reported us as spammers, our confirmation emails no longer reached our clients' inboxes. We have been dealing for the past days with hundreds of support tickets. Each of our clients has been given the URL to the submission page where they successfully managed to submit their work, while we worked on fixing the IPN and form issue. It was only today that we realized what the issue was after PayPal sent us the email you see us above. There is a contest submission page. People have been using it to submit their work. These allegations that there is no submission page are false. "Your stealing money! People can enter the same contest for free on another page on your site." Someone claimed our Best Story Award contest (which is a full-length story/book contest) is the exact same contest as our free-to-enter short fiction story contest. These two contests are completely different. One is for books the other for short fiction stories up to 2,000 words. Seemingly, this person did not visit the contest page or bother verifying facts. "Stop trying to pretend you're a literary agency!" This comment which was posted on our "List of 20 Top Literary Agents Representing Fiction Authors" really surprised us. The article is a resource listing 20 top literary agents with contacts to them or links to their websites. Nowhere on or off our site did we ever claim to be a literary agency in any form or manner. We are not a literary agency. We are a magazine. "Scammers always put "NY" in their name. It's a red alert flag." NY is one of the biggest publishing centers. We had no idea the city/state's name has a reputation as a scammer. That person should perhaps inform the NY Times to change their name and branding as well. "The reviews you quote from authors are fake! They didn't enter your contest. You're using them to bait others." The authors who were featured on our sales page were all indeed awarded the "Best Story Award" by our magazine. Yes, they did not pay to enter this contest. They submitted their book for review to our magazine on their own accord at some point during 2017. We awarded them this honor because we believe their book is great and they deserve the award. We have a right to award an award to anyone we want to. We quoted exactly what they said in reply to our email in which we told them they won our award. We did not quote anything which they did not say. We did not invent, modify, or add anything to what they said. "On the PayPal receipt, it says Goodwin Media Group not NY Literary Magazine! Scaaaaam!" Yes, the magazine is run under the umbrella of Goodwin Media Group (GMG). Many websites are owned by companies which have different names than the actual website domain name. We informed our customers on the thank you page after payment that they would see GMG on their PayPal receipt. "The quotes on your page are fake." We have a section talking in general about how winning an award can help an author. We quoted what various reliable sources such as The Independent Publisher and others have to say about how winning an award or being placed in contests is helpful for an author's career, for their credibility, and for getting more sales etc. We quoted true facts about winning awards and contests in general. We did not lie and say this is what they said about our contest. "Your anthologies are fake." There is nothing fake about our anthologies. They are filled with original art and with poems written by real people who submitted their work to our mag and were overjoyed about being published. We even offer the anthologies in a free-to-read digital format. Since the founding of the NY Literary Magazine, we have worked long and hard to turn it into a beloved and respectable magazine. We worked hard to design each of our free-to-read anthologies, read through thousands of free poetry and short story submissions, write articles to help authors, provide useful resources, and grow our readership. We did all this work in the past years at our own cost. "You hired an Asian provider. Ha! That proves you're scammer." American marketing agencies charge extremely high fees. Many companies outsource their marketing to Asia/India. There are tens of thousands of Asian marketing companies on sites such as Upwork.com It is very hard to know who is good or not. Simply hiring an Asian marketing company does not make us a scammer. If an author hires a Phillipino assistant for $300/mo to answer emails, this doesn't make the author a scammer either. "The poor Asians! All the scammers always blame them." We are not the only company who has had bad experiences with outsourced providers. It's a matter of luck. Yes, we know we made a mistake by not monitoring all the marketing campaigns. But that one wrongly worded email does not make us scammers. A big apology to all the authors who are suffering due to the lies spread about them "buying" an award seal from us... For two years, we've been running free-to-enter poetry and short story contests and publishing free-to-read digital magazines and print anthologies. We even spent time training and monitoring 20 interns who read through thousands of free poetry submissions this summer. We made tens of writers around the world happy. Writers published by our magazine sent us heartwarming thank you notes. Some said being published is what gave them the strength to continue writing especially after receiving discouraging letters from agents and publishers they contacted. Others from extremely poor countries (Nigeria, Botswana, India) were overjoyed to have an opportunity to submit their work for free to a magazine and to have their voices heard. We featured writers of every nationality, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Even our interns enjoyed working for us and were grateful for all the things they learned. Since our anthologies are free, our poetry contests are free, and submissions to our magazine are free, we needed a way to sustain our magazine for the future, which is why we launched the Best Story Award contest. We are completely devastated and shattered from the extent of hate mail, comments, messages, tweets, lies and false accusations that were posted online which have totally blackened our name and destroyed our magazine - all based on a single email with one wrongly-worded sentence. It's shocking how many people have posted blatant lies which weren't based on any facts and how many more people have shared, retweeted, and quoted those lies without ever checking to see if it's true or at least visiting our website. Worse still, it is truly horrible to see how cruel some humans can be. Some unsuccessful, jealous authors are spending days contacting the fans of authors who won an award from us or received a book review, telling their fans lies in an attempt to ruin the author's reputation, turn their readers against them, destroy years of their hard work to build up their careers and readership, and ruin their lives for no reason and under the guise of "saving them from a scam". We love our authors and feel terrible to hear what some of them are going through thanks to these misguided people! This has been a heartbreaking Christmas. We hope those people who spread the lies and worked so hard to destroy honest people's lives are now satisfied. We have closed our contest. Refunded everyone who entered. There will be no more free-to-enter contests. No more free-to-read anthologies. No more articles. No more anything. We had the heartbreaking task of firing our team of loyal, hard-working employees. 10 people are now jobless after Christmas. Please leave the poor authors alone. They did nothing wrong by receiving a book review from our magazine or receiving an award from us. Stop ruining their lives for no reason. Go work on your book instead. To all the rest of you, we wish you all the best success in your career and a happy life! Sincerely, The NY Literary Magazine Team

[newstwitter-blog]

New Post has been published on News Twitter

New Post has been published on http://www.news-twitter.com/2017/02/15/bbc-nuttall-aide-offers-to-quit-over-hillsborough-mistakes-12/

BBC: Nuttall aide offers to quit over Hillsborough mistakes

Media captionPaul Nuttall was shown the comments on his website, which he said were not accurate and not published by him

Paul Nuttall’s press officer has offered to resign after saying she was to blame for “mistakes” in statements about the UKIP leader and the Hillsborough disaster.

Mr Nuttall earlier admitted claims on his website that he had lost close friends in the 1989 tragedy were false.

Lynda Roughley said she was “entirely responsible” for two press releases that were posted in 2011 and 2012.

Hillsborough campaigners have accused Mr Nuttall of “insensitivity”.

Ms Roughley’s comments follow a day of confusion in which Mr Nuttall, who is contesting the Stoke Central by-election, was forced to issue a statement clarifying his position and emphasise once again that he had witnessed the tragedy in person with his family.

While he said he knew people who had died in the disaster, the MEP for the North West of England said he was “appalled” the impression had been given by the statements that he was personally close to any of the 96 victims who died in a crush at Hillsborough football stadium.

He said he did not check press releases posted by an aide on the subject suggesting as much and was “very sorry” for the oversight.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Hillsborough is the worst sporting disaster in British history

In her statement, Ms Roughley said she was “mortified” at the distress caused.

“I am entirely responsible for the website post regarding Paul’s comments about having ‘close friends’ who died at Hillsborough,” she said.

“Paul is a man of great integrity and would not say something he knew to be untrue. It’s me who has made this mistake, and one I feel absolutely terrible about.”

A UKIP source told the BBC on Wednesday “there’s no way he’s (Mr Nuttall) going to accept her resignation. She’s been a good and loyal servant. People make mistakes and errors happen. He’s not going to throw her under a bus”.

Mr Nuttall was pressed about the posts on his website during an interview with Liverpool’s Radio City station on Tuesday.

In the first from August 2011, the Bootle-born politician urged the government to release files on the Hillsborough tragedy.

‘Lost close friends’

He was quoted as saying: “Without them being made public we will never get to the bottom of that appalling tragedy when 96 Liverpool fans including close personal friends of mine lost their lives.”

In a second release published six months later, he was quoted as saying: “I lost close friends at the match and understand as well as anyone how deep the scars of that tragedy go.”

But during his radio interview, Mr Nuttall conceded the comments were inaccurate.

“I haven’t lost anyone who was a close personal friend,” he said. “It was people I knew through football and things like that.”

The comments were “wrong” and had not “come from him”, he added.

In the statement issued a few hours later, he said that while he took responsibility for everything published in his name, he was “genuinely taken aback when this claim was brought to my attention and am both appalled and very sorry that an impression was given that was not accurate”.

Image caption The Hillsborough disaster occurred during an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest

The politician has long said he attended the match with his father and two uncles.

But a recent article in the Guardian quoted a number of people – including an unnamed former classmate and two Labour politicians – questioning why he had not spoken about his experience.

He later responded to questions about whether he was at the match by speaking in more detail of the effect the occasion had on him.

“As a 12-year-old boy, I travelled to Sheffield that day, as did so many others, to enjoy watching the team that I loved,” he said.

“From the upper tier of the Leppings Lane End, I watched the events of that day unfold with horror… Like everybody connected to the Hillsborough disaster, memories of 15 April 1989 bring me nothing but pain and upset.”

But Hillsborough Family Support Group chairwoman Margaret Aspinall told LBC the website errors were “an insult” to people who did lose somebody on that day.

And Barry Downside – whose son Christopher died in the tragedy – said the UKIP leader should have “known better”.

“It’s insensitive. We are still awaiting the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service as to whether charges will be brought and we don’t need this kind of thing.”

This post has been harvested from the source link, and News-Twitter has no responsibility on its content. Source link

[mavwrekmarketing]

Media captionPaul Nuttall was shown the comments on his website, which he said were not accurate and not published by him

Paul Nuttall’s press officer has offered to resign after saying she was to blame for “mistakes” in statements about the UKIP leader’s involvement in the Hillsborough disaster.

Mr Nuttall earlier admitted claims on his website that he had lost close friends in the 1989 tragedy were false.

Lynda Roughley said she was “entirely responsible” for two press releases that were posted in 2011 and 2012.

Hillsborough campaigners have accused Mr Nuttall of “insensitivity”.

Ms Roughley’s comments follow a day of confusion in which Mr Nuttall, who is contesting the Stoke Central by-election, was forced to issue a statement clarifying his position and emphasise once again that he had witnessed the tragedy in person with his family.

While he said he knew people who had died in the disaster, the MEP for the North West of England said he was “appalled” the impression had been given by the statements that he was personally close to any of the 96 victims who died in a crush at Hillsborough football stadium.

He said he did not check press releases posted by an aide on the subject suggesting as much and was “very sorry” for the oversight.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Hillsborough is the worst sporting disaster in British history

In her statement, Ms Roughley said she was “mortified” at the distress caused.

“I am entirely responsible for the website post regarding Paul’s comments about having ‘close friends’ who died at Hillsborough,” she said.

“Paul is a man of great integrity and would not say something he knew to be untrue. It’s me who has made this mistake, and one I feel absolutely terrible about.”

The Sun reported that Ms Roughley’s resignation had been turned down.

Mr Nuttall was pressed about the posts on his website during an interview with Liverpool’s Radio City station on Tuesday.

In the first from August 2011, the Bootle-born politician urged the government to release files on the Hillsborough tragedy.

‘Lost close friends’

He was quoted as saying: “Without them being made public we will never get to the bottom of that appalling tragedy when 96 Liverpool fans including close personal friends of mine lost their lives.”

In a second release published six months later, he was quoted as saying: “I lost close friends at the match and understand as well as anyone how deep the scars of that tragedy go.”

But during his radio interview, Mr Nuttall conceded the comments were inaccurate.

“I haven’t lost anyone who was a close personal friend,” he said. “It was people I knew through football and things like that.”

The comments were “wrong” and had not “come from him”, he added.

In the statement issued a few hours later, he said that while he took responsibility for everything published in his name, he was “genuinely taken aback when this claim was brought to my attention and am both appalled and very sorry that an impression was given that was not accurate”.

Image caption The Hillsborough disaster occurred during an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest

The politician has long said he attended the match with his father and two uncles.

But a recent article in the Guardian quoted a number of people – including an unnamed former classmate and two Labour politicians – questioning why he had not spoken about his experience.

He later responded to questions about whether he was at the match by speaking in more detail of the effect the occasion had on him.

“As a 12-year-old boy, I travelled to Sheffield that day, as did so many others, to enjoy watching the team that I loved,” he said.

“From the upper tier of the Leppings Lane End, I watched the events of that day unfold with horror… Like everybody connected to the Hillsborough disaster, memories of 15 April 1989 bring me nothing but pain and upset.”

But Hillsborough Family Support Group chairwoman Margaret Aspinall told LBC the website errors were “an insult” to people who did lose somebody on that day.

And Barry Downside – whose son Christopher died in the tragedy – said the UKIP leader should have “known better”.

“It’s insensitive. We are still awaiting the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service as to whether charges will be brought and we don’t need this kind of thing.”

Related Topics

Paul Nuttall

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    The post Nuttall aide offers to quit over Hillsborough mistakes – BBC News appeared first on MavWrek Marketing by Jason

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[macmillanusa]

Macmillan’s Best of 2019 Sweepstakes!

In the #Bestof2019 spirit, it's time for a sweepstakes! Enter on @MacmillanUSA’s Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram for a chance to win 8 books to gift to your (or let's be honest, yourself) this season 🎁

OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES. OPEN ONLY TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE 50 UNITED STATES AND D.C. WHO ARE 13 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER AT THE TIME OF ENTRY. U.S. LAW GOVERNS THIS SWEEPSTAKES. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

ELIGIBILITY: The Macmillan’s Best of 2019 Sweepstakes (the “Sweepstakes”) is open only to persons who as of the date of entry (and, if a winner, as of the date of prize fulfillment) are a legal resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia and who are 13 years of age or older. We are sorry for the geographic restrictions, unfortunately it is required for various legal reasons. Persons who as of the date of entry (and, if a winner, as of the date of prize fulfillment) are an employee of Macmillan Publishers  (“Sponsor”) or any of Sponsor’s Affiliates (as defined in Section 7), and members of the immediate family or household (whether or not related) of any such employee, are not eligible. Eligibility determinations will be made by Sponsor in its discretion and will be final and binding. U.S. law governs this Sweepstakes. Void where prohibited by law.

HOW TO ENTER: The entry period for the Sweepstakes begins at 09:00 A.M.  Eastern Time (ET) on Monday, December 16, 2019 and continues through 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, December 22, 2019 (the “Entry Period”). No purchase is necessary. Any entrant who is under 18 years of age or otherwise under the legal age of majority in the jurisdiction in which the entrant resides (a “Minor”) must obtain permission to enter from his or her parent or legal guardian, and the agreement of the parent or legal guardian to these Official Rules, prior to entry. Entrants may enter the Sweepstakes via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. The social media platform used by the entrant to enter will not affect his or her odds of winning. Twitter Entry: To enter the Sweepstakes via Twitter, during the Entry Period, entrants must retweet a tweet sent from Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Twitter account that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a tweet indicating that by retweeting the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes).  To be eligible, the entrant must “follow” Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Twitter account and the entrant’s retweet must include @MacmillanUSA and the following hashtags: #sweepstakes and #bestof2019. Each entry tweet must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Twitter, including without limitation the Twitter Terms of Service and the Twitter Rules. Instagram Entry: To enter the Sweepstakes via Instagram, during the Entry Period, entrants must make an Instagram comment on an Instagram post sent from Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Instagram account that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a Instagram post indicating that by making a comment on the post, the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes). To be eligible, the entrant must “follow” Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Instagram account. Each Instagram comment must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Instagram, including without limitation the Terms of Use and the Community Guidelines. Entrants are prohibited from inaccurately tagging content or encouraging other Instagram users to inaccurately tag content in any Instagram comment or post. Facebook Entry: To enter the Sweepstakes via Facebook, during the Entry Period, entrants must make a Facebook comment on a Facebook post sent from Sponsor’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MacmillanUSA/) that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a Facebook post indicating that by making a comment on the post, the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes).  To be eligible, the entrant must “like” Sponsor’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MacmillanUSA/). Each Facebook comment must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Facebook, including without limitation the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Community Standards. General Entry Terms and Conditions: A Facebook comment, tweet or Instagram comment that is submitted for purposes of Sweepstakes entry is referred to in these Official Rules as a “Submission.” Submitting a Submission during the Entry Period constitutes acknowledgement of and consent to these Official Rules. Each Submission must comply with all of the submission guidelines set forth in this Section 2 and in Section 3 below. Each Submission may be submitted only once. If a particular Submission is submitted more than once, Sponsor will have the right to disqualify all entrants who submitted the duplicative Submission. There is a limit of one entry per person, regardless of the method of entry used. All entries must be completed and received by Sponsor prior to the conclusion of the Entry Period. Entry times will be determined by the timestamp attributed to the entrant’s Submission by the social media platform used by the entrant to enter. The entrant must be the registered user of the social media account used to submit the Submission. Normal time rates, if any, charged by the entrant’s Internet or mobile service provider will apply. All entries are subject to verification at any time. Proof of submission does not constitute proof of entry. Sponsor will have the right, in its discretion, to require proof of identity and/or eligibility in a form acceptable to Sponsor (including, without limitation, government-issued photo identification). Failure to provide such proof to the satisfaction of Sponsor in a timely manner may result in disqualification. The entrant must be able to receive private messages from the social media account used by the entrant to enter the Sweepstakes (i.e., a Direct Message for Twitter entrants, an Instagram Direct message for Instagram entrants and a private message for Facebook entrants) from the time of submission through sixty days after the end of the Entry Period to enable Sponsor to communicate with potential winners.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Each Submission (except to the extent that the Submission consists of a retweet of Sponsor’s tweet] must comply with the following guidelines: (a) the Submission must be original and have been created solely by the entrant; (b) the entrant must own the copyright in the Submission; (c) the Submission must not previously have been submitted in connection with any sweepstakes or contest, published for commercial purposes or won any award; (d) the Submission must be truthful and accurate; (e) if the Submission identifies, depicts, contains or otherwise uses any Personality Rights (as defined below) of any person (except for the entrant and if entrant is a Minor, his or her parent or legal guardian, or any author or subject of a book promoted in this Sweepstakes, or any person identified in Sponsor’s social media communications relating to this Sweepstakes), the entrant must have prior to submitting the Submission obtained written consent from such person (or his or her parent or legal guardian, if the person is a Minor) to the use of such person’s Personality Rights, as applicable, in the Submission and the use by the Licensees (as defined in Section 6) of the Submission including such person’s Personality Rights, as applicable, as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules; (f) the Submission must not contain any email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, or, except as permitted in clause (e) directly above, other personally identifying information of any person; (g) the Submission must not include any brand name, trademark or logo of any entity (other than brand names, trademarks or logos associated with Sponsor or referenced in Sponsor’s social media communications relating to this Sweepstakes); (h) the Submission must not contain any material that violates or infringes upon the rights of any third party, including without limitation any copyright, trademark or right of privacy or publicity, or that is unlawful, in violation of or contrary to any applicable law or regulation, or the use of which by the Licensees as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules would require a license or permission from (other than pursuant to clause (e) above) or payment to any third party; (i) the Submission must not exhibit the entrant engaging in or otherwise promoting any illegal, sexually explicit, violent or dangerous behavior; (j) the Submission must not contain any material that is disparaging, defamatory, discriminatory, bigoted, threatening, indecent, violent, obscene or offensive; and (k) the Submission must not contain any material that Sponsor, in its sole discretion, deems inappropriate for public viewing, display and/or promoting Sponsor’s or its affiliates content, authors and imprints. “Personality Rights” means the name, likeness, image, voice and biographical information of or any statement attributed to any person. By submitting a Submission, the entrant and if entrant is a Minor, his or her parent or legal guardian, each represents and warrants that the entrant has complied with all of the foregoing requirements and has obtained all permissions, licenses and consents that are necessary for the submitting of the Submission and to the use by the Licensees of the Submission as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules and to verify compliance with the foregoing requirements. Each entrant agrees to provide to Sponsor at Sponsor’s request copies of all such permissions, licenses and consents and, if requested by Sponsor, to obtain additional permissions, licenses and consents from the applicable parties in a form specified by Sponsor. Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any Submission that Sponsor determines does not comply with these guidelines, to require the entrant to remove the Submission from the applicable social media platform, or to require the entrant to make such changes to any Submission as are necessary to make it compliant.  Sponsor will also have the right to take such actions relating to its social media accounts as are permitted pursuant to the applicable social media platform’s policies.

WINNER SELECTION AND NOTIFICATION: Following the conclusion of the Entry Period, one potential Grand Prize winner will be selected in a random drawing conducted by Sponsor or its agent from among all eligible entries received during the Entry Period from  Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The odds of winning will depend on the number of eligible entries received. Potential winners will be notified via [a private message sent to the social media account used by the potential winner to enter the Sweepstakes (i.e., a Direct Message for Twitter entrants, an Instagram Direct message for Instagram entrants and a private message for Facebook entrants), and if Sponsor’s notification requires a response, the potential winner must respond to Sponsor’s initial notification attempt within 72 hours with such personal and/or contact information as Sponsor may require (for example, the potential winner’s email address, name and/or mailing address). The potential winner is subject to verification of eligibility and may, in Sponsor’s discretion, be required to complete, sign and return to Sponsor an Affidavit of Eligibility/Release of Liability or an Affirmation of Eligibility/Release of Liability, as determined by Sponsor, and, if legally permissible, a Publicity Release, and any other documentation provided by Sponsor in connection with verification of the potential winner’s eligibility and confirmation of the releases and grant of rights set forth herein (as applicable, “Winner Verification Documents”), within seven days of attempted delivery of same. The potential winner may also in Sponsor’s discretion be required to complete and return to Sponsor an IRS Form W-9 within seven days of attempted delivery of same. If the potential winner is a Minor, Sponsor will have the right to request that the potential winner’s parent or legal guardian sign the Winner Verification Documents on behalf of the winner, or to award the prize directly in the name of the winner’s parent or legal guardian, who in such event will be required to sign the Winner Verification Documents and/or an IRS Form W-9. If the potential winner cannot be reached or does not respond within 72 hours of the initial notification attempt or fails to complete, sign, and return any required Winner Verification Documents or IRS Form W-9 within seven days of attempted delivery of same, or if the potential winner does not otherwise comply with these Official Rules and/or cannot accept the prize as awarded for any reason, then the potential winner may be disqualified and an alternate winner may, at Sponsor’s discretion, be selected from among the remaining eligible entries as specified in these Official Rules (in which case the foregoing provisions will apply to such newly-selected entrant).

PRIZE: One Grand Prize will be offered. The Grand Prize consists of a hardcover copy of  THE SILENT PATIENT by Alex Michaelides, a hardcover copy of THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE by Annalee Newitz, a hardcover copy of TRUST EXERCISE by Susan Choi, a hardcover copy of NINTH HOUSE by Leigh Bardugo, a hardcover copy of THE TOPEKA SCHOOL by Ben Lerner, a paperback copy of THIS WAS OUR PACT by Ryan Andrew, a trade paperback copy of RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE by Casey McQuiston, and an audiobook CD set of WAYWARD SON by Rainbow Rowell. The approximate retail value (“ARV”) of the Grand Prize is $207.94 USD. The aggregate ARV of all prizes is $207.94 USD. [The exact value will depend on where the winner resides and market conditions at the time of prize fulfillment.] All prize details that are not expressly specified in these Official Rules will be determined by Sponsor in its discretion. The prize will be awarded if properly claimed. No substitution, cash redemption or transfer of the right to receive the prize is permitted, except in the discretion of Sponsor, which has the right to substitute the prize or any component of the prize with a prize or prize component of equal or greater value selected by Sponsor in its discretion. The prize consists only of the item(s) expressly specified in these Official Rules. All expenses or costs associated with the acceptance or use of the prize or any component of the prize are the responsibility of the winner. If a prize component consists of digital content, entrant may need a compatible reading application to read the content. The prize is awarded “as is” and without any warranty, except as required by law. In no event will more than the number of prizes stated in these Official Rules be awarded. All federal, state and local taxes on the value of the prize are the responsibility of the winner. An IRS form 1099 will be issued if required by law.

GRANT OF RIGHTS :  By submitting a Submission, each entrant irrevocably grants to the Sponsor, each of Sponsor’s Affiliates, and the agents and licensees of each of the foregoing (collectively, the “Licensees”):  (i) a non-exclusive license to publish, display, reproduce, modify, edit, create derivative works based on and otherwise use the Submission, in whole or in part, and (ii) the right to use in connection with the Submission or any part of the Submission the entrant’s social media user name or handle and likeness, and for winners the name, in perpetuity, throughout the world, in all media and formats whether now or later known or developed (including without limitation on Sponsor’s websites and Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media channels), including without limitation for commercial use and in advertising and promotions, without further notice or compensation.

RELEASE AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: By entering the Sweepstakes, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and anyone who succeeds to entrant’s rights and responsibilities including without limitation entrant’s heirs, executors, administrators, personal representatives, successors, assigns, agents, and attorneys, and with respect to minors entrant’s parents and legal guardians (collectively the “Entrant Parties”) releases Sponsor, each of Sponsor’s Affiliates, the licensees and licensors other than Entrant Parties including authors of each of the foregoing, all other companies involved in the development or operation of the Sweepstakes, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, the successors and assigns of each of the foregoing and the directors, officers, employees and agents of each of the foregoing (collectively, the “Released Parties”) from and against any and all claims and causes of action of any kind that entrant and/or the Entrant Parties ever had, now have or might in the future have arising out of or relating to the Sweepstakes, participation in the Sweepstakes, the use of Twitter, Instagram Facebook, the provision, acceptance or use of any prize or any component thereof, or any exercise by the Licensees of any of the rights granted in Section 6 above, including without limitation any and all claims and causes of action: (a) relating to any personal injury, death or property damage or loss sustained by any entrant or any other person, (b) based upon any allegation of violation of the right of privacy or publicity, misappropriation, defamation, or violation of any other personal or proprietary right, (c) based upon any allegation of infringement of copyright, trademark, trade dress, patent, trade secrets, moral rights or any intellectual property right, or (d) or based upon any allegation of a violation of the laws, rules or regulations relating to personal information and data security. Each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties agrees not to assert any such claim or cause of action against any of the Released Parties. Each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties assumes the risk of, and all liability for, any injury, loss or damage caused, or claimed to be caused, by participation in this Sweepstakes, the use of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or the provision, acceptance or use of any prize or any component of any prize. The Released Parties are not responsible for, and will not have any liability in connection with, any typographical or other error in the printing of the offer, administration of the Sweepstakes or in the announcement of the prize. The Released Parties are not responsible for, and will not have any liability in connection with, late, lost, delayed, illegible, damaged, corrupted or incomplete entries, incorrect or inaccurate capture of, damage to, or loss of entries or entry information, or any other human, mechanical or technical error of any kind relating to the operation of Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, communications or attempted communications with any entrant or Entrant Parties, the submission, collection, storage and/or processing of entries or the administration of the Sweepstakes. The term “Affiliate” of Sponsor means any entity that directly or indirectly, through one or more intermediaries, controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with Sponsor. The term “control” means the possession, directly or indirectly, of the power to direct or cause the direction of management and policies of an entity, or the ownership, directly or indirectly, of more than fifty percent (50%) of the equity interests of the entity.

GENERAL RULES: Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to modify these Official Rules (including without limitation by adjusting any of the dates and/or timeframes stipulated in these Official Rules) and to cancel, modify or suspend this Sweepstakes at any time in its discretion, including without limitation if a virus, bug, technical problem, entrant fraud or misconduct, failure or refusal of any person or entity involved in the development or operation of the Sweepstakes (including without limitation any author) to comply with such party’s obligations in connection with the Sweepstakes, failure or unavailability of any website or social media channel, account or platform on which the Sweepstakes is to be offered or other cause beyond the control of the Sponsor corrupts the administration, integrity, security or proper operation of the Sweepstakes or if for any other reason Sponsor is not able to conduct the Sweepstakes as planned (including without limitation in the event the Sweepstakes is interfered with by any fire, flood, epidemic, earthquake, explosion, labor dispute or strike, act of God or of public enemy, communications failure, riot or civil disturbance, war (declared or undeclared), terrorist threat or activity, federal, state or local law, order or regulation or court order) or in the event of any change to the terms governing the use of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or the application or interpretation of such terms. In the event of termination of the Sweepstakes, a notice will be posted on Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Twitter account, Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Instagram account and Sponsor’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MacmillanUSA/) and a random drawing will be conducted to award the prize from among all eligible entries received prior to the time of termination. Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify or prohibit from participating in the Sweepstakes any individual who, in Sponsor’s discretion, Sponsor determines or believes (i) has tampered with the entry process or has undermined the legitimate operation of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or the Sweepstakes by cheating, hacking, deception or other unfair practices, (ii) has engaged in conduct that annoys, abuses, threatens or harasses any other entrant or any representative of Sponsor or (iii) has attempted or intends to attempt any of the foregoing. CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SWEEPSTAKES OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THIS SWEEPSTAKES IS A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAW. SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, SPONSOR HAS THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES (INCLUDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES) FROM ANY PERSON INVOLVED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. The use of agents or automated devices, programs or methods to submit entries is prohibited and Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any entry that it believes may have been submitted using such an agent or automated device, program or method. In the event of a dispute regarding who submitted an entry, the entry will be deemed to have been submitted by the registered user of the social media account used to submit the Submission on the applicable platform. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. All entries become the property of Sponsor and will not be verified or returned. By participating in this Sweepstakes, entrants on behalf of themselves, and to the extent permitted by law on behalf of the Entrant Parties agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding in all respects. These Official Rules may not be reprinted or republished in any way without the prior written consent of Sponsor.

DISPUTES: By entering the Sweepstakes, each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties agrees that, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, (a) any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of or connected with the Sweepstakes, or the provision, acceptance and/or use of any prize or prize component, will be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action (Note: Some jurisdictions do not allow restricting access to class actions. This provision will not apply to entrant if entrant lives in such a jurisdiction); (b) any and all claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with entering the Sweepstakes, but in no event attorneys’ fees; and (c) under no circumstances will any entrant or Entrant Party be permitted to obtain any award for, and each entrant and Entrant Party hereby waives all rights to claim, punitive, special, incidental or consequential damages and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased and any other damages, other than for actual out-of-pocket expenses. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules or the rights and obligations of the entrants, Entrant Parties and Sponsor in connection with the Sweepstakes shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of New York in the United States of America without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules or provisions that would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than the State of New York. Any legal proceedings arising out of this Sweepstakes or relating to these Official Rules shall be instituted only in the federal or state courts located in New York County in the State of New York, waiving any right to trial by jury, and each entrant and Entrant Party consents to jurisdiction therein with respect to any legal proceedings or disputes of whatever nature arising under or relating to these rules or the Sweepstakes. In the event of any conflict between these Official Rules and any Sweepstakes information provided elsewhere (including but not limited in advertising or marketing materials), these Official Rules shall prevail.

USE OF INFORMATION: Personal information supplied is subject to applicable data protection laws and Sponsor's Privacy Notice at https://us.macmillan.com/privacy-notice. By entering the sweepstakes, entrants acknowledge that they have read Sponsor's Privacy Notice and hereby agree to Sponsor’s collection and use of their personal information in accordance with such laws and Privacy Notice.

WINNER NAME AND RULES REQUESTS: For the name(s) of the winner(s) (or, if Sponsor does not collect the name(s) of the winner(s), the user name(s) or handles of the winner(s)), which will be available two weeks after the conclusion of the Entry Period, or a copy of these Official Rules, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Macmillan’s Best Gifts of 2018 Sweepstakes, Internal Communications, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. Winner name requests must be received by Sponsor within six months after the conclusion of the Entry Period.

SPONSOR: Macmillan Publishers, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.  The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

©2019 Macmillan Publishers. All rights reserved.

[macmillanusa]

Macmillan at NYCC 2019 Win from Home Sweepstakes

Macmillan at NYCC 2019 Win from Home Sweepstakes

OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES. OPEN ONLY TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE 50 UNITED STATES AND D.C. WHO ARE 13 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER AT THE TIME OF ENTRY. U.S. LAW GOVERNS THIS SWEEPSTAKES. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

ELIGIBILITY: The Macmillan at NYCC 2019 Win from Home Sweepstakes (the “Sweepstakes”) is open only to persons who as of the date of entry (and, if a winner, as of the date of prize fulfillment) are a legal resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia and who are 13 years of age or older. We are sorry for the geographic restrictions, unfortunately it is required for various legal reasons. Persons who as of the date of entry (and, if a winner, as of the date of prize fulfillment) are an employee of Macmillan Publishers  (“Sponsor”) or any of Sponsor’s Affiliates (as defined in Section 7), and members of the immediate family or household (whether or not related) of any such employee, are not eligible. Eligibility determinations will be made by Sponsor in its discretion and will be final and binding. U.S. law governs this Sweepstakes. Void where prohibited by law.

HOW TO ENTER: The entry period for the Sweepstakes begins at 12:00 A.M.  Eastern Time (ET) on Sunday, October 6, 2019 and continues through 11:59 p.m. ET on Saturday, October 12, 2019 (the “Entry Period”). No purchase is necessary. Any entrant who is under 18 years of age or otherwise under the legal age of majority in the jurisdiction in which the entrant resides (a “Minor”) must obtain permission to enter from his or her parent or legal guardian, and the agreement of the parent or legal guardian to these Official Rules, prior to entry. Entrants may enter the Sweepstakes via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. The social media platform used by the entrant to enter will not affect his or her odds of winning. Twitter Entry: To enter the Sweepstakes via Twitter, during the Entry Period, entrants must retweet a tweet sent from Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Twitter account that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a tweet indicating that by retweeting the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes).  To be eligible, the entrant must “follow” Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Twitter account and the entrant’s retweet must include @MacmillanUSA and the following hashtags: #sweepstakes and #macmillanycc19. Each entry tweet must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Twitter, including without limitation the Twitter Terms of Service and the Twitter Rules. Instagram Entry: To enter the Sweepstakes via Instagram, during the Entry Period, entrants must make an Instagram comment on an Instagram post sent from Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Instagram account that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a Instagram post indicating that by making a comment on the post, the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes). To be eligible, the entrant must “follow” Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Instagram account. Each Instagram comment must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Instagram, including without limitation the Terms of Use and the Community Guidelines. Entrants are prohibited from inaccurately tagging content or encouraging other Instagram users to inaccurately tag content in any Instagram comment or post. Facebook Entry: To enter the Sweepstakes via Facebook, during the Entry Period, entrants must make a Facebook comment on a Facebook post sent from Sponsor’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MacmillanUSA/) that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a Facebook post indicating that by making a comment on the post, the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes).  To be eligible, the entrant must “like” Sponsor’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MacmillanUSA/). Each Facebook comment must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Facebook, including without limitation the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Community Standards. General Entry Terms and Conditions: A Facebook comment, tweet or Instagram comment that is submitted for purposes of Sweepstakes entry is referred to in these Official Rules as a “Submission.” Submitting a Submission during the Entry Period constitutes acknowledgement of and consent to these Official Rules. Each Submission must comply with all of the submission guidelines set forth in this Section 2 and in Section 3 below. Each Submission may be submitted only once. If a particular Submission is submitted more than once, Sponsor will have the right to disqualify all entrants who submitted the duplicative Submission. There is a limit of one entry per person, regardless of the method of entry used. All entries must be completed and received by Sponsor prior to the conclusion of the Entry Period. Entry times will be determined by the timestamp attributed to the entrant’s Submission by the social media platform used by the entrant to enter. The entrant must be the registered user of the social media account used to submit the Submission. Normal time rates, if any, charged by the entrant’s Internet or mobile service provider will apply. All entries are subject to verification at any time. Proof of submission does not constitute proof of entry. Sponsor will have the right, in its discretion, to require proof of identity and/or eligibility in a form acceptable to Sponsor (including, without limitation, government-issued photo identification). Failure to provide such proof to the satisfaction of Sponsor in a timely manner may result in disqualification. The entrant must be able to receive private messages from the social media account used by the entrant to enter the Sweepstakes (i.e., a Direct Message for Twitter entrants, an Instagram Direct message for Instagram entrants and a private message for Facebook entrants) from the time of submission through sixty days after the end of the Entry Period to enable Sponsor to communicate with potential winners.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Each Submission (except to the extent that the Submission consists of a retweet of Sponsor’s tweet] must comply with the following guidelines: (a) the Submission must be original and have been created solely by the entrant; (b) the entrant must own the copyright in the Submission; (c) the Submission must not previously have been submitted in connection with any sweepstakes or contest, published for commercial purposes or won any award; (d) the Submission must be truthful and accurate; (e) if the Submission identifies, depicts, contains or otherwise uses any Personality Rights (as defined below) of any person (except for the entrant and if entrant is a Minor, his or her parent or legal guardian, or any author or subject of a book promoted in this Sweepstakes, or any person identified in Sponsor’s social media communications relating to this Sweepstakes), the entrant must have prior to submitting the Submission obtained written consent from such person (or his or her parent or legal guardian, if the person is a Minor) to the use of such person’s Personality Rights, as applicable, in the Submission and the use by the Licensees (as defined in Section 6) of the Submission including such person’s Personality Rights, as applicable, as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules; (f) the Submission must not contain any email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, or, except as permitted in clause (e) directly above, other personally identifying information of any person; (g) the Submission must not include any brand name, trademark or logo of any entity (other than brand names, trademarks or logos associated with Sponsor or referenced in Sponsor’s social media communications relating to this Sweepstakes); (h) the Submission must not contain any material that violates or infringes upon the rights of any third party, including without limitation any copyright, trademark or right of privacy or publicity, or that is unlawful, in violation of or contrary to any applicable law or regulation, or the use of which by the Licensees as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules would require a license or permission from (other than pursuant to clause (e) above) or payment to any third party; (i) the Submission must not exhibit the entrant engaging in or otherwise promoting any illegal, sexually explicit, violent or dangerous behavior; (j) the Submission must not contain any material that is disparaging, defamatory, discriminatory, bigoted, threatening, indecent, violent, obscene or offensive; and (k) the Submission must not contain any material that Sponsor, in its sole discretion, deems inappropriate for public viewing, display and/or promoting Sponsor’s or its affiliates content, authors and imprints. “Personality Rights” means the name, likeness, image, voice and biographical information of or any statement attributed to any person. By submitting a Submission, the entrant and if entrant is a Minor, his or her parent or legal guardian, each represents and warrants that the entrant has complied with all of the foregoing requirements and has obtained all permissions, licenses and consents that are necessary for the submitting of the Submission and to the use by the Licensees of the Submission as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules and to verify compliance with the foregoing requirements. Each entrant agrees to provide to Sponsor at Sponsor’s request copies of all such permissions, licenses and consents and, if requested by Sponsor, to obtain additional permissions, licenses and consents from the applicable parties in a form specified by Sponsor. Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any Submission that Sponsor determines does not comply with these guidelines, to require the entrant to remove the Submission from the applicable social media platform, or to require the entrant to make such changes to any Submission as are necessary to make it compliant.  Sponsor will also have the right to take such actions relating to its social media accounts as are permitted pursuant to the applicable social media platform’s policies.

WINNER SELECTION AND NOTIFICATION: Following the conclusion of the Entry Period, one potential Grand Prize winner will be selected in a random drawing conducted by Sponsor or its agent from among all eligible entries received during the Entry Period from  Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The odds of winning will depend on the number of eligible entries received. Potential winners will be notified via [a private message sent to the social media account used by the potential winner to enter the Sweepstakes (i.e., a Direct Message for Twitter entrants, an Instagram Direct message for Instagram entrants and a private message for Facebook entrants), and if Sponsor’s notification requires a response, the potential winner must respond to Sponsor’s initial notification attempt within 72 hours with such personal and/or contact information as Sponsor may require (for example, the potential winner’s email address, name and/or mailing address). The potential winner is subject to verification of eligibility and may, in Sponsor’s discretion, be required to complete, sign and return to Sponsor an Affidavit of Eligibility/Release of Liability or an Affirmation of Eligibility/Release of Liability, as determined by Sponsor, and, if legally permissible, a Publicity Release, and any other documentation provided by Sponsor in connection with verification of the potential winner’s eligibility and confirmation of the releases and grant of rights set forth herein (as applicable, “Winner Verification Documents”), within seven days of attempted delivery of same. The potential winner may also in Sponsor’s discretion be required to complete and return to Sponsor an IRS Form W-9 within seven days of attempted delivery of same. If the potential winner is a Minor, Sponsor will have the right to request that the potential winner’s parent or legal guardian sign the Winner Verification Documents on behalf of the winner, or to award the prize directly in the name of the winner’s parent or legal guardian, who in such event will be required to sign the Winner Verification Documents and/or an IRS Form W-9. If the potential winner cannot be reached or does not respond within 72 hours of the initial notification attempt or fails to complete, sign, and return any required Winner Verification Documents or IRS Form W-9 within seven days of attempted delivery of same, or if the potential winner does not otherwise comply with these Official Rules and/or cannot accept the prize as awarded for any reason, then the potential winner may be disqualified and an alternate winner may, at Sponsor’s discretion, be selected from among the remaining eligible entries as specified in these Official Rules (in which case the foregoing provisions will apply to such newly-selected entrant).

PRIZE: One Grand Prize will be offered. The Grand Prize consists of a hardcover copy of NINTH HOUSE by Leigh Bardugo, a bookmark inspired by NINTH HOUSE by Leigh Bardugo, a hardcover copy of WAYWARD SON by Rainbow Rowell, a poster inspired by WAYWARD SON by Rainbow Rowell, a paperback copy of PUMPKINHEADS by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks, a hardcover copy of REBEL by Marie Lu, a t-shirt inspired by REBEL by Marie Lu, a hardcover copy of THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE by Annalee Newitz, an enamel pin inspired by THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE by Annalee Newitz, an ARC of THE UNSPOKEN NAME by A. K. Larkwood, a bookmark inspired by WARRIOR OF THE ALTAII by Robert Jordan, and a tote inspired by THE GOOD LUCK GIRLS by Charlotte Nicole Davis. The approximate retail value (“ARV”) of the Grand Prize is $167.94 USD. The aggregate ARV of all prizes is $167.94 USD. [The exact value will depend on where the winner resides and market conditions at the time of prize fulfillment.] All prize details that are not expressly specified in these Official Rules will be determined by Sponsor in its discretion. The prize will be awarded if properly claimed. No substitution, cash redemption or transfer of the right to receive the prize is permitted, except in the discretion of Sponsor, which has the right to substitute the prize or any component of the prize with a prize or prize component of equal or greater value selected by Sponsor in its discretion. The prize consists only of the item(s) expressly specified in these Official Rules. All expenses or costs associated with the acceptance or use of the prize or any component of the prize are the responsibility of the winner. If a prize component consists of digital content, entrant may need a compatible reading application to read the content. The prize is awarded “as is” and without any warranty, except as required by law. In no event will more than the number of prizes stated in these Official Rules be awarded. All federal, state and local taxes on the value of the prize are the responsibility of the winner. An IRS form 1099 will be issued if required by law.

GRANT OF RIGHTS :  By submitting a Submission, each entrant irrevocably grants to the Sponsor, each of Sponsor’s Affiliates, and the agents and licensees of each of the foregoing (collectively, the “Licensees”):  (i) a non-exclusive license to publish, display, reproduce, modify, edit, create derivative works based on and otherwise use the Submission, in whole or in part, and (ii) the right to use in connection with the Submission or any part of the Submission the entrant’s social media user name or handle and likeness, and for winners the name, in perpetuity, throughout the world, in all media and formats whether now or later known or developed (including without limitation on Sponsor’s websites and Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media channels), including without limitation for commercial use and in advertising and promotions, without further notice or compensation.

RELEASE AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: By entering the Sweepstakes, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and anyone who succeeds to entrant’s rights and responsibilities including without limitation entrant’s heirs, executors, administrators, personal representatives, successors, assigns, agents, and attorneys, and with respect to minors entrant’s parents and legal guardians (collectively the “Entrant Parties”) releases Sponsor, each of Sponsor’s Affiliates, the licensees and licensors other than Entrant Parties including authors of each of the foregoing, all other companies involved in the development or operation of the Sweepstakes, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, the successors and assigns of each of the foregoing and the directors, officers, employees and agents of each of the foregoing (collectively, the “Released Parties”) from and against any and all claims and causes of action of any kind that entrant and/or the Entrant Parties ever had, now have or might in the future have arising out of or relating to the Sweepstakes, participation in the Sweepstakes, the use of Twitter, Instagram Facebook, the provision, acceptance or use of any prize or any component thereof, or any exercise by the Licensees of any of the rights granted in Section 6 above, including without limitation any and all claims and causes of action: (a) relating to any personal injury, death or property damage or loss sustained by any entrant or any other person, (b) based upon any allegation of violation of the right of privacy or publicity, misappropriation, defamation, or violation of any other personal or proprietary right, (c) based upon any allegation of infringement of copyright, trademark, trade dress, patent, trade secrets, moral rights or any intellectual property right, or (d) or based upon any allegation of a violation of the laws, rules or regulations relating to personal information and data security. Each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties agrees not to assert any such claim or cause of action against any of the Released Parties. Each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties assumes the risk of, and all liability for, any injury, loss or damage caused, or claimed to be caused, by participation in this Sweepstakes, the use of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or the provision, acceptance or use of any prize or any component of any prize. The Released Parties are not responsible for, and will not have any liability in connection with, any typographical or other error in the printing of the offer, administration of the Sweepstakes or in the announcement of the prize. The Released Parties are not responsible for, and will not have any liability in connection with, late, lost, delayed, illegible, damaged, corrupted or incomplete entries, incorrect or inaccurate capture of, damage to, or loss of entries or entry information, or any other human, mechanical or technical error of any kind relating to the operation of Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, communications or attempted communications with any entrant or Entrant Parties, the submission, collection, storage and/or processing of entries or the administration of the Sweepstakes. The term “Affiliate” of Sponsor means any entity that directly or indirectly, through one or more intermediaries, controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with Sponsor. The term “control” means the possession, directly or indirectly, of the power to direct or cause the direction of management and policies of an entity, or the ownership, directly or indirectly, of more than fifty percent (50%) of the equity interests of the entity.

GENERAL RULES: Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to modify these Official Rules (including without limitation by adjusting any of the dates and/or timeframes stipulated in these Official Rules) and to cancel, modify or suspend this Sweepstakes at any time in its discretion, including without limitation if a virus, bug, technical problem, entrant fraud or misconduct, failure or refusal of any person or entity involved in the development or operation of the Sweepstakes (including without limitation any author) to comply with such party’s obligations in connection with the Sweepstakes, failure or unavailability of any website or social media channel, account or platform on which the Sweepstakes is to be offered or other cause beyond the control of the Sponsor corrupts the administration, integrity, security or proper operation of the Sweepstakes or if for any other reason Sponsor is not able to conduct the Sweepstakes as planned (including without limitation in the event the Sweepstakes is interfered with by any fire, flood, epidemic, earthquake, explosion, labor dispute or strike, act of God or of public enemy, communications failure, riot or civil disturbance, war (declared or undeclared), terrorist threat or activity, federal, state or local law, order or regulation or court order) or in the event of any change to the terms governing the use of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or the application or interpretation of such terms. In the event of termination of the Sweepstakes, a notice will be posted on Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Twitter account, Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Instagram account and Sponsor’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MacmillanUSA/) and a random drawing will be conducted to award the prize from among all eligible entries received prior to the time of termination. Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify or prohibit from participating in the Sweepstakes any individual who, in Sponsor’s discretion, Sponsor determines or believes (i) has tampered with the entry process or has undermined the legitimate operation of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or the Sweepstakes by cheating, hacking, deception or other unfair practices, (ii) has engaged in conduct that annoys, abuses, threatens or harasses any other entrant or any representative of Sponsor or (iii) has attempted or intends to attempt any of the foregoing. CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SWEEPSTAKES OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THIS SWEEPSTAKES IS A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAW. SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, SPONSOR HAS THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES (INCLUDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES) FROM ANY PERSON INVOLVED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. The use of agents or automated devices, programs or methods to submit entries is prohibited and Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any entry that it believes may have been submitted using such an agent or automated device, program or method. In the event of a dispute regarding who submitted an entry, the entry will be deemed to have been submitted by the registered user of the social media account used to submit the Submission on the applicable platform. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. All entries become the property of Sponsor and will not be verified or returned. By participating in this Sweepstakes, entrants on behalf of themselves, and to the extent permitted by law on behalf of the Entrant Parties agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding in all respects. These Official Rules may not be reprinted or republished in any way without the prior written consent of Sponsor.

DISPUTES: By entering the Sweepstakes, each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties agrees that, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, (a) any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of or connected with the Sweepstakes, or the provision, acceptance and/or use of any prize or prize component, will be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action (Note: Some jurisdictions do not allow restricting access to class actions. This provision will not apply to entrant if entrant lives in such a jurisdiction); (b) any and all claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with entering the Sweepstakes, but in no event attorneys’ fees; and (c) under no circumstances will any entrant or Entrant Party be permitted to obtain any award for, and each entrant and Entrant Party hereby waives all rights to claim, punitive, special, incidental or consequential damages and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased and any other damages, other than for actual out-of-pocket expenses. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules or the rights and obligations of the entrants, Entrant Parties and Sponsor in connection with the Sweepstakes shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of New York in the United States of America without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules or provisions that would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than the State of New York. Any legal proceedings arising out of this Sweepstakes or relating to these Official Rules shall be instituted only in the federal or state courts located in New York County in the State of New York, waiving any right to trial by jury, and each entrant and Entrant Party consents to jurisdiction therein with respect to any legal proceedings or disputes of whatever nature arising under or relating to these rules or the Sweepstakes. In the event of any conflict between these Official Rules and any Sweepstakes information provided elsewhere (including but not limited in advertising or marketing materials), these Official Rules shall prevail.

USE OF INFORMATION: Personal information supplied is subject to applicable data protection laws and Sponsor's Privacy Notice at https://us.macmillan.com/privacy-notice. By entering the sweepstakes, entrants acknowledge that they have read Sponsor's Privacy Notice and hereby agree to Sponsor’s collection and use of their personal information in accordance with such laws and Privacy Notice.

WINNER NAME AND RULES REQUESTS: For the name(s) of the winner(s) (or, if Sponsor does not collect the name(s) of the winner(s), the user name(s) or handles of the winner(s)), which will be available two weeks after the conclusion of the Entry Period, or a copy of these Official Rules, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Macmillan at NYCC 2019 Win from Home Sweepstakes, Communications, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. Winner name requests must be received by Sponsor within six months after the conclusion of the Entry Period.

SPONSOR: Macmillan Publishers, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.  The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

©2019 Macmillan Publishers. All rights reserved.

[macmillanusa]

Romance Awareness Month 2019 Sweepstakes!

In honor of Romance Awareness Month, we'll be sending this swoon-worthy book stack to one lucky winner ❤ Make sure to FOLLOW us @MacmillanUSA on Instagram and COMMENT on the sweepstakes post to enter for a chance to win! See official rules below for more details.

Macmillan’s Romance Awareness Month Sweepstakes 

OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES. OPEN ONLY TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE 50 UNITED STATES AND D.C WHO ARE 13 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER AT THE TIME OF ENTRY. U.S. LAW GOVERNS THIS SWEEPSTAKES. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

 1. ELIGIBILITY: The Romance Awareness Month Sweepstakes (the “Sweepstakes”) is open only to persons who as of the date of entry (and, if a winner, as of the date of prize fulfillment) are a legal resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia and who are 13 years of age or older. We are sorry for the geographic restrictions, unfortunately it is required for various legal reasons. Persons who as of the date of entry (and, if a winner, as of the date of prize fulfillment) are an employee of Macmillan Publishers (“Sponsor”) or any of Sponsor’s Affiliates (as defined in Section 7), and members of the immediate family or household (whether or not related) of any such employee, are not eligible. Eligibility determinations will be made by Sponsor in its discretion and will be final and binding. U.S. law governs this Sweepstakes. Void where prohibited by law.

2. HOW TO ENTER: The entry period for the Sweepstakes begins at 12:00 p.m Eastern Time (ET) on Wednesday, August 14, 2019, and continues through 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, August 21, 2019 (the “Entry Period”). No purchase is necessary. Any entrant who is under 18 years of age or otherwise under the legal age of majority in the jurisdiction in which the entrant resides (a “Minor”) must obtain permission to enter from his or her parent or legal guardian, and the agreement of the parent or legal guardian to these Official Rules, prior to entry. Entrants may enter the Sweepstakes via Instagram. To enter the Sweepstakes via Instagram, during the Entry Period, entrants must make an Instagram comment on an Instagram post sent from Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Instagram account that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a Instagram post indicating that by making a comment on the post, the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes). To be eligible, the entrant must “follow” Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Instagram account. Each Instagram comment must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Instagram, including without limitation the Terms of Use and the Community Guidelines. Entrants are prohibited from inaccurately tagging content or encouraging other Instagram users to inaccurately tag content in any Instagram comment or post. General Entry Terms and Conditions: A Instagram comment that is submitted for purposes of Sweepstakes entry is referred to in these Official Rules as a “Submission.” Submitting a Submission during the Entry Period constitutes acknowledgement of and consent to these Official Rules. Each Submission must comply with all of the submission guidelines set forth in this Section 2 and in Section 3 below. Each Submission may be submitted only once. If a particular Submission is submitted more than once, Sponsor will have the right to disqualify all entrants who submitted the duplicative Submission. There is a limit of one entry per person, regardless of the method of entry used. All entries must be completed and received by Sponsor prior to the conclusion of the Entry Period. Entry times will be determined by the timestamp attributed to the entrant’s Submission by the social media platform used by the entrant to enter. The entrant must be the registered user of the social media account used to submit the Submission. Normal time rates, if any, charged by the entrant’s Internet or mobile service provider will apply. All entries are subject to verification at any time. Proof of submission does not constitute proof of entry. Sponsor will have the right, in its discretion, to require proof of identity and/or eligibility in a form acceptable to Sponsor (including, without limitation, government-issued photo identification). Failure to provide such proof to the satisfaction of Sponsor in a timely manner may result in disqualification. The entrant must be able to receive private messages from the social media account used by the entrant to enter the Sweepstakes (i.e., an Instagram Direct message) from the time of submission through sixty days after the end of the Entry Period to enable Sponsor to communicate with potential winners.

3. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Each Submission  must comply with the following guidelines: (a) the Submission must be original and have been created solely by the entrant; (b) the entrant must own the copyright in the Submission; (c) the Submission must not previously have been submitted in connection with any sweepstakes or contest, published for commercial purposes or won any award; (d) the Submission must be truthful and accurate; (e) if the Submission identifies, depicts, contains or otherwise uses any Personality Rights (as defined below) of any person (except for the entrant and if entrant is a Minor, his or her parent or legal guardian, or any author or subject of a book promoted in this Sweepstakes, or any person identified in Sponsor’s social media communications relating to this Sweepstakes), the entrant must have prior to submitting the Submission obtained written consent from such person (or his or her parent or legal guardian, if the person is a Minor) to the use of such person’s Personality Rights, as applicable, in the Submission and the use by the Licensees (as defined in Section 6) of the Submission including such person’s Personality Rights, as applicable, as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules; (f) the Submission must not contain any email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, or, except as permitted in clause (e) directly above, other personally identifying information of any person; (g) the Submission must not include any brand name, trademark or logo of any entity (other than brand names, trademarks or logos associated with Sponsor or referenced in Sponsor’s social media communications relating to this Sweepstakes); (h) the Submission must not contain any material that violates or infringes upon the rights of any third party, including without limitation any copyright, trademark or right of privacy or publicity, or that is unlawful, in violation of or contrary to any applicable law or regulation, or the use of which by the Licensees as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules would require a license or permission from (other than pursuant to clause (e) above) or payment to any third party; (i) the Submission must not exhibit the entrant engaging in or otherwise promoting any illegal, sexually explicit, violent or dangerous behavior; (j) the Submission must not contain any material that is disparaging, defamatory, discriminatory, bigoted, threatening, indecent, violent, obscene or offensive; and (k) the Submission must not contain any material that Sponsor, in its sole discretion, deems inappropriate for public viewing, display and/or promoting Sponsor’s or its affiliates content, authors and imprints. “Personality Rights” means the name, likeness, image, voice and biographical information of or any statement attributed to any person. By submitting a Submission, the entrant and if entrant is a Minor, his or her parent or legal guardian, each represents and warrants that the entrant has complied with all of the foregoing requirements and has obtained all permissions, licenses and consents that are necessary for the submitting of the Submission and to the use by the Licensees of the Submission as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules and to verify compliance with the foregoing requirements. Each entrant agrees to provide to Sponsor at Sponsor’s request copies of all such permissions, licenses and consents and, if requested by Sponsor, to obtain additional permissions, licenses and consents from the applicable parties in a form specified by Sponsor. Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any Submission that Sponsor determines does not comply with these guidelines, to require the entrant to remove the Submission from the applicable social media platform, or to require the entrant to make such changes to any Submission as are necessary to make it compliant.  Sponsor will also have the right to take such actions relating to its social media accounts as are permitted pursuant to the applicable social media platform’s policies.

4. WINNER SELECTION AND NOTIFICATION: Following the conclusion of the Entry Period, one (1) potential Grand Prize winner(s) will be selected in a random drawing conducted by Sponsor or its agent from among all eligible entries received during the Entry Period from  Instagram. The odds of winning will depend on the number of eligible entries received. Potential winners will be notified via a private message sent to the social media account used by the potential winner to enter the Sweepstakes (i.e., an Instagram Direct message), and if Sponsor’s notification requires a response, the potential winner must respond to Sponsor’s initial notification attempt within 72 hours with such personal and/or contact information as Sponsor may require (for example, the potential winner’s email address, name and/or mailing address). The potential winner is subject to verification of eligibility and may, in Sponsor’s discretion, be required to complete, sign and return to Sponsor an Affidavit of Eligibility/Release of Liability or an Affirmation of Eligibility/Release of Liability, as determined by Sponsor, and, if legally permissible, a Publicity Release, and any other documentation provided by Sponsor in connection with verification of the potential winner’s eligibility and confirmation of the releases and grant of rights set forth herein (as applicable, “Winner Verification Documents”), within seven days of attempted delivery of same. The potential winner may also in Sponsor’s discretion be required to complete and return to Sponsor an IRS Form W-9 within seven days of attempted delivery of same. If the potential winner is a Minor, Sponsor will have the right to request that the potential winner’s parent or legal guardian sign the Winner Verification Documents on behalf of the winner, or to award the prize directly in the name of the winner’s parent or legal guardian, who in such event will be required to sign the Winner Verification Documents and/or an IRS Form W-9. If the potential winner cannot be reached or does not respond within 72 hours of the initial notification attempt or fails to complete, sign, and return any required Winner Verification Documents or IRS Form W-9 within seven days of attempted delivery of same, or if the potential winner does not otherwise comply with these Official Rules and/or cannot accept the prize as awarded for any reason, then the potential winner may be disqualified and an alternate winner may, at Sponsor’s discretion, be selected from among the remaining eligible entries as specified in these Official Rules (in which case the foregoing provisions will apply to such newly-selected entrant).

5. PRIZE: One Grand Prize(s) will be offered. The Grand Prize consists of a hardcover copy of THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE by Sandy Hall, a hardcover copy of ONLY A BREATH APART by Katie McGarry, a hardcover copy of TELL ME HOW YOU REALLY FEEL by Aminah Mae Safi, a hardcover copy of SYMPTOMS OF A HEART BREAK by Sona Charaipotra, a hardcover copy of WHEN SUMMER ENDS by Jessica Pennington, a paperback copy of LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVE by Claire Kann, a mass market paperback copy of HANDLE WITH CARE by Helena Hunting, a mass market paperback copy of THE DUKE IS BUT A DREAM by Anna Bennett, a mass market paperback copy of COLD HEART, WARM COWBOY by Caitlin Crews, and a compact disc audiobook version of THE LOVELY RECKLESS by Kami Garcia. The approximate retail value (“ARV”) of the Grand Prize is $164.90 USD.  The aggregate ARV of all prizes is $164.90  USD. The exact value will depend on where the winner resides and market conditions at the time of prize fulfillment.

All prize details that are not expressly specified in these Official Rules will be determined by Sponsor in its discretion. The prize will be awarded if properly claimed. No substitution, cash redemption or transfer of the right to receive the prize is permitted, except in the discretion of Sponsor, which has the right to substitute the prize or any component of the prize with a prize or prize component of equal or greater value selected by Sponsor in its discretion. The prize consists only of the item(s) expressly specified in these Official Rules. All expenses or costs associated with the acceptance or use of the prize or any component of the prize are the responsibility of the winner. If a prize component consists of digital content, entrant may need a compatible reading application to read the content. The prize is awarded “as is” and without any warranty, except as required by law. In no event will more than the number of prizes stated in these Official Rules be awarded. All federal, state and local taxes on the value of the prize are the responsibility of the winner. An IRS form 1099 will be issued if required by law.

 6.     GRANT OF RIGHTS:  By submitting a Submission, each entrant irrevocably grants to the Sponsor, each of Sponsor’s Affiliates, and the agents and licensees of each of the foregoing (collectively, the “Licensees”):  (i) a non-exclusive license to publish, display, reproduce, modify, edit, create derivative works based on and otherwise use the Submission, in whole or in part, and (ii) the right to use in connection with the Submission or any part of the Submission the entrant’s social media user name or handle and likeness, and for winners the name, in perpetuity, throughout the world, in all media and formats whether now or later known or developed (including without limitation on Sponsor’s websites and Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media channels), including without limitation for commercial use and in advertising and promotions, without further notice or compensation.

 7. RELEASE AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: By entering the Sweepstakes, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and anyone who succeeds to entrant’s rights and responsibilities including without limitation entrant’s heirs, executors, administrators, personal representatives, successors, assigns, agents, and attorneys, and with respect to minors entrant’s parents and legal guardians (collectively the “Entrant Parties”) releases Sponsor, each of Sponsor’s Affiliates, the licensees and licensors other than Entrant Parties including authors of each of the foregoing, all other companies involved in the development or operation of the Sweepstakes, Instagram, the successors and assigns of each of the foregoing and the directors, officers, employees and agents of each of the foregoing (collectively, the “Released Parties”) from and against any and all claims and causes of action of any kind that entrant and/or the Entrant Parties ever had, now have or might in the future have arising out of or relating to the Sweepstakes, participation in the Sweepstakes, the use of Instagram, the provision, acceptance or use of any prize or any component thereof, or any exercise by the Licensees of any of the rights granted in Section 6 above, including without limitation any and all claims and causes of action: (a) relating to any personal injury, death or property damage or loss sustained by any entrant or any other person, (b) based upon any allegation of violation of the right of privacy or publicity, misappropriation, defamation, or violation of any other personal or proprietary right, (c) based upon any allegation of infringement of copyright, trademark, trade dress, patent, trade secrets, moral rights or any intellectual property right, or (d) or based upon any allegation of a violation of the laws, rules or regulations relating to personal information and data security. Each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties agrees not to assert any such claim or cause of action against any of the Released Parties. Each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties assumes the risk of, and all liability for, any injury, loss or damage caused, or claimed to be caused, by participation in this Sweepstakes, the use of Instagram, or the provision, acceptance or use of any prize or any component of any prize. The Released Parties are not responsible for, and will not have any liability in connection with, any typographical or other error in the printing of the offer, administration of the Sweepstakes or in the announcement of the prize. The Released Parties are not responsible for, and will not have any liability in connection with, late, lost, delayed, illegible, damaged, corrupted or incomplete entries, incorrect or inaccurate capture of, damage to, or loss of entries or entry information, or any other human, mechanical or technical error of any kind relating to the operation of Instagram communications or attempted communications with any entrant or Entrant Parties, the submission, collection, storage and/or processing of entries or the administration of the Sweepstakes. The term “Affiliate” of Sponsor means any entity that directly or indirectly, through one or more intermediaries, controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with Sponsor. The term “control” means the possession, directly or indirectly, of the power to direct or cause the direction of management and policies of an entity, or the ownership, directly or indirectly, of more than fifty percent (50%) of the equity interests of the entity.

8. GENERAL RULES: Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to modify these Official Rules (including without limitation by adjusting any of the dates and/or timeframes stipulated in these Official Rules) and to cancel, modify or suspend this Sweepstakes at any time in its discretion, including without limitation if a virus, bug, technical problem, entrant fraud or misconduct, failure or refusal of any person or entity involved in the development or operation of the Sweepstakes (including without limitation any author) to comply with such party’s obligations in connection with the Sweepstakes, failure or unavailability of any website or social media channel, account or platform on which the Sweepstakes is to be offered or other cause beyond the control of the Sponsor corrupts the administration, integrity, security or proper operation of the Sweepstakes or if for any other reason Sponsor is not able to conduct the Sweepstakes as planned (including without limitation in the event the Sweepstakes is interfered with by any fire, flood, epidemic, earthquake, explosion, labor dispute or strike, act of God or of public enemy, communications failure, riot or civil disturbance, war (declared or undeclared), terrorist threat or activity, federal, state or local law, order or regulation or court order) or in the event of any change to the terms governing the use of Instagram, or the application or interpretation of such terms. In the event of termination of the Sweepstakes, a notice will be posted on Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Instagram account and a random drawing will be conducted to award the prize from among all eligible entries received prior to the time of termination. Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify or prohibit from participating in the Sweepstakes any individual who, in Sponsor’s discretion, Sponsor determines or believes (i) has tampered with the entry process or has undermined the legitimate operation of Instagram, or the Sweepstakes by cheating, hacking, deception or other unfair practices, (ii) has engaged in conduct that annoys, abuses, threatens or harasses any other entrant or any representative of Sponsor or (iii) has attempted or intends to attempt any of the foregoing. CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SWEEPSTAKES OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THIS SWEEPSTAKES IS A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAW. SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, SPONSOR HAS THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES (INCLUDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES) FROM ANY PERSON INVOLVED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. The use of agents or automated devices, programs or methods to submit entries is prohibited and Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any entry that it believes may have been submitted using such an agent or automated device, program or method. In the event of a dispute regarding who submitted an entry, the entry will be deemed to have been submitted by the registered user of the social media account used to submit the Submission on the applicable platform. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. All entries become the property of Sponsor and will not be verified or returned. By participating in this Sweepstakes, entrants on behalf of themselves, and to the extent permitted by law on behalf of the Entrant Parties agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding in all respects. These Official Rules may not be reprinted or republished in any way without the prior written consent of Sponsor.

9. DISPUTES: By entering the Sweepstakes, each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties agrees that, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, (a) any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of or connected with the Sweepstakes, or the provision, acceptance and/or use of any prize or prize component, will be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action (Note: Some jurisdictions do not allow restricting access to class actions. This provision will not apply to entrant if entrant lives in such a jurisdiction); (b) any and all claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with entering the Sweepstakes, but in no event attorneys’ fees; and (c) under no circumstances will any entrant or Entrant Party be permitted to obtain any award for, and each entrant and Entrant Party hereby waives all rights to claim, punitive, special, incidental or consequential damages and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased and any other damages, other than for actual out-of-pocket expenses. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules or the rights and obligations of the entrants, Entrant Parties and Sponsor in connection with the Sweepstakes shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of New York in the United States of America without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules or provisions that would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than the State of New York. Any legal proceedings arising out of this Sweepstakes or relating to these Official Rules shall be instituted only in the federal or state courts located in New York County in the State of New York, waiving any right to trial by jury, and each entrant and Entrant Party consents to jurisdiction therein with respect to any legal proceedings or disputes of whatever nature arising under or relating to these rules or the Sweepstakes. In the event of any conflict between these Official Rules and any Sweepstakes information provided elsewhere (including but not limited in advertising or marketing materials), these Official Rules shall prevail.

10. USE OF INFORMATION: Personal information supplied is subject to applicable data protection laws and Sponsor's Privacy Notice at https://us.macmillan.com/privacy-notice. By entering the sweepstakes, entrants acknowledge that they have read Sponsor's Privacy Notice and hereby agree to Sponsor’s collection and use of their personal information in accordance with such laws and Privacy Notice.

10. WINNER NAME AND RULES REQUESTS: For the name(s) of the winner(s) (or, if Sponsor does not collect the name(s) of the winner(s), the user name(s) or handles of the winner(s)), which will be available two weeks after the conclusion of the Entry Period, or a copy of these Official Rules, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Romance Awareness Month Sweepstakes, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.   Winner name requests must be received by Sponsor within six months after the conclusion of the Entry Period.

11. SPONSOR: Macmillan Publishers, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram.

©2019  Macmillan Publishers. All rights reserved.

[macmillanusa]

Macmillan’s Best Gifts of 2018 Sweepstakes

We're giving the gift of easy gift-giving: a chance to WIN 8 "Best of 2018" books for 8 readers in your life!* *Zero judgment if they all happen to be you. 

 Enter for a chance to win on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! 

OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES. OPEN ONLY TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE 50 UNITED STATES AND D.C. WHO ARE 13 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER AT THE TIME OF ENTRY. U.S. LAW GOVERNS THIS SWEEPSTAKES. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

ELIGIBILITY: The Macmillan’s Best Gifts of 2018 Sweepstakes (the “Sweepstakes”) is open only to persons who as of the date of entry (and, if a winner, as of the date of prize fulfillment) are a legal resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia and who are 13 years of age or older. We are sorry for the geographic restrictions, unfortunately it is required for various legal reasons. Persons who as of the date of entry (and, if a winner, as of the date of prize fulfillment) are an employee of Macmillan Publishers  (“Sponsor”) or any of Sponsor’s Affiliates (as defined in Section 7), and members of the immediate family or household (whether or not related) of any such employee, are not eligible. Eligibility determinations will be made by Sponsor in its discretion and will be final and binding. U.S. law governs this Sweepstakes. Void where prohibited by law.

HOW TO ENTER: The entry period for the Sweepstakes begins at 9:00 A.M.  Eastern Time (ET) on Tuesday, December 18, 2018 and continues through 11:59 p.m. ET on Saturday, December 22, 2018 (the “Entry Period”). No purchase is necessary. Any entrant who is under 18 years of age or otherwise under the legal age of majority in the jurisdiction in which the entrant resides (a “Minor”) must obtain permission to enter from his or her parent or legal guardian, and the agreement of the parent or legal guardian to these Official Rules, prior to entry. Entrants may enter the Sweepstakes via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. The social media platform used by the entrant to enter will not affect his or her odds of winning. Twitter Entry: To enter the Sweepstakes via Twitter, during the Entry Period, entrants must retweet a tweet sent from Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Twitter account that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a tweet indicating that by retweeting the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes).  To be eligible, the entrant must “follow” Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Twitter account and the entrant’s retweet must include @MacmillanUSA and the following hashtags: #sweepstakes and #macmillangifts18. Each entry tweet must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Twitter, including without limitation the Twitter Terms of Service and the Twitter Rules. Instagram Entry: To enter the Sweepstakes via Instagram, during the Entry Period, entrants must make an Instagram comment on an Instagram post sent from Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Instagram account that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a Instagram post indicating that by making a comment on the post, the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes). To be eligible, the entrant must “follow” Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Instagram account. Each Instagram comment must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Instagram, including without limitation the Terms of Use and the Community Guidelines. Entrants are prohibited from inaccurately tagging content or encouraging other Instagram users to inaccurately tag content in any Instagram comment or post. Facebook Entry: To enter the Sweepstakes via Facebook, during the Entry Period, entrants must make a Facebook comment on a Facebook post sent from Sponsor’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MacmillanUSA/) that is identified as being part of the Sweepstakes entry process (i.e., a Facebook post indicating that by making a comment on the post, the entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Sweepstakes).  To be eligible, the entrant must “like” Sponsor’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MacmillanUSA/). Each Facebook comment must comply with all terms and conditions and technical requirements of Facebook, including without limitation the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Community Standards. General Entry Terms and Conditions: A Facebook comment, tweet or Instagram comment that is submitted for purposes of Sweepstakes entry is referred to in these Official Rules as a “Submission.” Submitting a Submission during the Entry Period constitutes acknowledgement of and consent to these Official Rules. Each Submission must comply with all of the submission guidelines set forth in this Section 2 and in Section 3 below. Each Submission may be submitted only once. If a particular Submission is submitted more than once, Sponsor will have the right to disqualify all entrants who submitted the duplicative Submission. There is a limit of one entry per person, regardless of the method of entry used. All entries must be completed and received by Sponsor prior to the conclusion of the Entry Period. Entry times will be determined by the timestamp attributed to the entrant’s Submission by the social media platform used by the entrant to enter. The entrant must be the registered user of the social media account used to submit the Submission. Normal time rates, if any, charged by the entrant’s Internet or mobile service provider will apply. All entries are subject to verification at any time. Proof of submission does not constitute proof of entry. Sponsor will have the right, in its discretion, to require proof of identity and/or eligibility in a form acceptable to Sponsor (including, without limitation, government-issued photo identification). Failure to provide such proof to the satisfaction of Sponsor in a timely manner may result in disqualification. The entrant must be able to receive private messages from the social media account used by the entrant to enter the Sweepstakes (i.e., a Direct Message for Twitter entrants, an Instagram Direct message for Instagram entrants and a private message for Facebook entrants) from the time of submission through sixty days after the end of the Entry Period to enable Sponsor to communicate with potential winners.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Each Submission [(except to the extent that the Submission consists of a retweet of Sponsor’s tweet]] must comply with the following guidelines: (a) the Submission must be original and have been created solely by the entrant; (b) the entrant must own the copyright in the Submission; (c) the Submission must not previously have been submitted in connection with any sweepstakes or contest, published for commercial purposes or won any award; (d) the Submission must be truthful and accurate; (e) if the Submission identifies, depicts, contains or otherwise uses any Personality Rights (as defined below) of any person (except for the entrant and if entrant is a Minor, his or her parent or legal guardian, or any author or subject of a book promoted in this Sweepstakes, or any person identified in Sponsor’s social media communications relating to this Sweepstakes), the entrant must have prior to submitting the Submission obtained written consent from such person (or his or her parent or legal guardian, if the person is a Minor) to the use of such person’s Personality Rights, as applicable, in the Submission and the use by the Licensees (as defined in Section 6) of the Submission including such person’s Personality Rights, as applicable, as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules; (f) the Submission must not contain any email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, or, except as permitted in clause (e) directly above, other personally identifying information of any person; (g) the Submission must not include any brand name, trademark or logo of any entity (other than brand names, trademarks or logos associated with Sponsor or referenced in Sponsor’s social media communications relating to this Sweepstakes); (h) the Submission must not contain any material that violates or infringes upon the rights of any third party, including without limitation any copyright, trademark or right of privacy or publicity, or that is unlawful, in violation of or contrary to any applicable law or regulation, or the use of which by the Licensees as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules would require a license or permission from (other than pursuant to clause (e) above) or payment to any third party; (i) the Submission must not exhibit the entrant engaging in or otherwise promoting any illegal, sexually explicit, violent or dangerous behavior; (j) the Submission must not contain any material that is disparaging, defamatory, discriminatory, bigoted, threatening, indecent, violent, obscene or offensive; and (k) the Submission must not contain any material that Sponsor, in its sole discretion, deems inappropriate for public viewing, display and/or promoting Sponsor’s or its affiliates content, authors and imprints. “Personality Rights” means the name, likeness, image, voice and biographical information of or any statement attributed to any person. By submitting a Submission, the entrant and if entrant is a Minor, his or her parent or legal guardian, each represents and warrants that the entrant has complied with all of the foregoing requirements and has obtained all permissions, licenses and consents that are necessary for the submitting of the Submission and to the use by the Licensees of the Submission as permitted pursuant to these Official Rules and to verify compliance with the foregoing requirements. Each entrant agrees to provide to Sponsor at Sponsor’s request copies of all such permissions, licenses and consents and, if requested by Sponsor, to obtain additional permissions, licenses and consents from the applicable parties in a form specified by Sponsor. Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any Submission that Sponsor determines does not comply with these guidelines, to require the entrant to remove the Submission from the applicable social media platform, or to require the entrant to make such changes to any Submission as are necessary to make it compliant.  Sponsor will also have the right to take such actions relating to its social media accounts as are permitted pursuant to the applicable social media platform’s policies.

WINNER SELECTION AND NOTIFICATION: Following the conclusion of the Entry Period, one potential Grand Prize winner will be selected in a random drawing conducted by Sponsor or its agent from among all eligible entries received during the Entry Period from  Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The odds of winning will depend on the number of eligible entries received. Potential winners will be notified via [a private message sent to the social media account used by the potential winner to enter the Sweepstakes (i.e., a Direct Message for Twitter entrants, an Instagram Direct message for Instagram entrants and a private message for Facebook entrants), and if Sponsor’s notification requires a response, the potential winner must respond to Sponsor’s initial notification attempt within 72 hours with such personal and/or contact information as Sponsor may require (for example, the potential winner’s email address, name and/or mailing address). The potential winner is subject to verification of eligibility and may, in Sponsor’s discretion, be required to complete, sign and return to Sponsor an Affidavit of Eligibility/Release of Liability or an Affirmation of Eligibility/Release of Liability, as determined by Sponsor, and, if legally permissible, a Publicity Release, and any other documentation provided by Sponsor in connection with verification of the potential winner’s eligibility and confirmation of the releases and grant of rights set forth herein (as applicable, “Winner Verification Documents”), within seven days of attempted delivery of same. The potential winner may also in Sponsor’s discretion be required to complete and return to Sponsor an IRS Form W-9 within seven days of attempted delivery of same. If the potential winner is a Minor, Sponsor will have the right to request that the potential winner’s parent or legal guardian sign the Winner Verification Documents on behalf of the winner, or to award the prize directly in the name of the winner’s parent or legal guardian, who in such event will be required to sign the Winner Verification Documents and/or an IRS Form W-9. If the potential winner cannot be reached or does not respond within 72 hours of the initial notification attempt or fails to complete, sign, and return any required Winner Verification Documents or IRS Form W-9 within seven days of attempted delivery of same, or if the potential winner does not otherwise comply with these Official Rules and/or cannot accept the prize as awarded for any reason, then the potential winner may be disqualified and an alternate winner may, at Sponsor’s discretion, be selected from among the remaining eligible entries as specified in these Official Rules (in which case the foregoing provisions will apply to such newly-selected entrant).

PRIZE: One Grand Prize will be offered. The Grand Prize consists of a hardcover copy of GIRLS BURN BRIGHTER by Shobha Rao, a hardcover copy of VENGEFUL by V.E. Schwab, a hardcover copy of MOTHERHOOD by Sheila Heti, a hardcover copy of SEVERANCE by Ling Ma, a hardcover copy of THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL by Maurene Goo, a hardcover copy of MIXED by Arree Chung, a hardcover copy of THE GREAT ALONE by Kristin Hannah, and an audiobook CD set of THE HAPPINESS CURVE by Jonathan Rauch . The approximate retail value (“ARV”) of the Grand Prize is $204.94 USD. The aggregate ARV of all prizes is $204.94 USD. [The exact value will depend on where the winner resides and market conditions at the time of prize fulfillment.] All prize details that are not expressly specified in these Official Rules will be determined by Sponsor in its discretion. The prize will be awarded if properly claimed. No substitution, cash redemption or transfer of the right to receive the prize is permitted, except in the discretion of Sponsor, which has the right to substitute the prize or any component of the prize with a prize or prize component of equal or greater value selected by Sponsor in its discretion. The prize consists only of the item(s) expressly specified in these Official Rules. All expenses or costs associated with the acceptance or use of the prize or any component of the prize are the responsibility of the winner. If a prize component consists of digital content, entrant may need a compatible reading application to read the content. The prize is awarded “as is” and without any warranty, except as required by law. In no event will more than the number of prizes stated in these Official Rules be awarded. All federal, state and local taxes on the value of the prize are the responsibility of the winner. An IRS form 1099 will be issued if required by law.

GRANT OF RIGHTS :  By submitting a Submission, each entrant irrevocably grants to the Sponsor, each of Sponsor’s Affiliates, and the agents and licensees of each of the foregoing (collectively, the “Licensees”):  (i) a non-exclusive license to publish, display, reproduce, modify, edit, create derivative works based on and otherwise use the Submission, in whole or in part, and (ii) the right to use in connection with the Submission or any part of the Submission the entrant’s social media user name or handle and likeness, and for winners the name, in perpetuity, throughout the world, in all media and formats whether now or later known or developed (including without limitation on Sponsor’s websites and Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media channels), including without limitation for commercial use and in advertising and promotions, without further notice or compensation.

RELEASE AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: By entering the Sweepstakes, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and anyone who succeeds to entrant’s rights and responsibilities including without limitation entrant’s heirs, executors, administrators, personal representatives, successors, assigns, agents, and attorneys, and with respect to minors entrant’s parents and legal guardians (collectively the “Entrant Parties”) releases Sponsor, each of Sponsor’s Affiliates, the licensees and licensors other than Entrant Parties including authors of each of the foregoing, all other companies involved in the development or operation of the Sweepstakes, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, the successors and assigns of each of the foregoing and the directors, officers, employees and agents of each of the foregoing (collectively, the “Released Parties”) from and against any and all claims and causes of action of any kind that entrant and/or the Entrant Parties ever had, now have or might in the future have arising out of or relating to the Sweepstakes, participation in the Sweepstakes, the use of Twitter, Instagram Facebook, the provision, acceptance or use of any prize or any component thereof, or any exercise by the Licensees of any of the rights granted in Section 6 above, including without limitation any and all claims and causes of action: (a) relating to any personal injury, death or property damage or loss sustained by any entrant or any other person, (b) based upon any allegation of violation of the right of privacy or publicity, misappropriation, defamation, or violation of any other personal or proprietary right, (c) based upon any allegation of infringement of copyright, trademark, trade dress, patent, trade secrets, moral rights or any intellectual property right, or (d) or based upon any allegation of a violation of the laws, rules or regulations relating to personal information and data security. Each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties agrees not to assert any such claim or cause of action against any of the Released Parties. Each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties assumes the risk of, and all liability for, any injury, loss or damage caused, or claimed to be caused, by participation in this Sweepstakes, the use of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or the provision, acceptance or use of any prize or any component of any prize. The Released Parties are not responsible for, and will not have any liability in connection with, any typographical or other error in the printing of the offer, administration of the Sweepstakes or in the announcement of the prize. The Released Parties are not responsible for, and will not have any liability in connection with, late, lost, delayed, illegible, damaged, corrupted or incomplete entries, incorrect or inaccurate capture of, damage to, or loss of entries or entry information, or any other human, mechanical or technical error of any kind relating to the operation of Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, communications or attempted communications with any entrant or Entrant Parties, the submission, collection, storage and/or processing of entries or the administration of the Sweepstakes. The term “Affiliate” of Sponsor means any entity that directly or indirectly, through one or more intermediaries, controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with Sponsor. The term “control” means the possession, directly or indirectly, of the power to direct or cause the direction of management and policies of an entity, or the ownership, directly or indirectly, of more than fifty percent (50%) of the equity interests of the entity.

GENERAL RULES: Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to modify these Official Rules (including without limitation by adjusting any of the dates and/or timeframes stipulated in these Official Rules) and to cancel, modify or suspend this Sweepstakes at any time in its discretion, including without limitation if a virus, bug, technical problem, entrant fraud or misconduct, failure or refusal of any person or entity involved in the development or operation of the Sweepstakes (including without limitation any author) to comply with such party’s obligations in connection with the Sweepstakes, failure or unavailability of any website or social media channel, account or platform on which the Sweepstakes is to be offered or other cause beyond the control of the Sponsor corrupts the administration, integrity, security or proper operation of the Sweepstakes or if for any other reason Sponsor is not able to conduct the Sweepstakes as planned (including without limitation in the event the Sweepstakes is interfered with by any fire, flood, epidemic, earthquake, explosion, labor dispute or strike, act of God or of public enemy, communications failure, riot or civil disturbance, war (declared or undeclared), terrorist threat or activity, federal, state or local law, order or regulation or court order) or in the event of any change to the terms governing the use of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or the application or interpretation of such terms. In the event of termination of the Sweepstakes, a notice will be posted on Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA Twitter account, Sponsor’s @MacmillanUSA  Instagram account and Sponsor’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MacmillanUSA/) and a random drawing will be conducted to award the prize from among all eligible entries received prior to the time of termination. Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify or prohibit from participating in the Sweepstakes any individual who, in Sponsor’s discretion, Sponsor determines or believes (i) has tampered with the entry process or has undermined the legitimate operation of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or the Sweepstakes by cheating, hacking, deception or other unfair practices, (ii) has engaged in conduct that annoys, abuses, threatens or harasses any other entrant or any representative of Sponsor or (iii) has attempted or intends to attempt any of the foregoing. CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SWEEPSTAKES OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THIS SWEEPSTAKES IS A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAW. SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, SPONSOR HAS THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES (INCLUDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES) FROM ANY PERSON INVOLVED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. The use of agents or automated devices, programs or methods to submit entries is prohibited and Sponsor has the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any entry that it believes may have been submitted using such an agent or automated device, program or method. In the event of a dispute regarding who submitted an entry, the entry will be deemed to have been submitted by the registered user of the social media account used to submit the Submission on the applicable platform. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. All entries become the property of Sponsor and will not be verified or returned. By participating in this Sweepstakes, entrants on behalf of themselves, and to the extent permitted by law on behalf of the Entrant Parties agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding in all respects. These Official Rules may not be reprinted or republished in any way without the prior written consent of Sponsor.

DISPUTES: By entering the Sweepstakes, each entrant on behalf of himself or herself and the Entrant Parties agrees that, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, (a) any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of or connected with the Sweepstakes, or the provision, acceptance and/or use of any prize or prize component, will be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action (Note: Some jurisdictions do not allow restricting access to class actions. This provision will not apply to entrant if entrant lives in such a jurisdiction); (b) any and all claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with entering the Sweepstakes, but in no event attorneys’ fees; and (c) under no circumstances will any entrant or Entrant Party be permitted to obtain any award for, and each entrant and Entrant Party hereby waives all rights to claim, punitive, special, incidental or consequential damages and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased and any other damages, other than for actual out-of-pocket expenses. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules or the rights and obligations of the entrants, Entrant Parties and Sponsor in connection with the Sweepstakes shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of New York in the United States of America without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules or provisions that would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than the State of New York. Any legal proceedings arising out of this Sweepstakes or relating to these Official Rules shall be instituted only in the federal or state courts located in New York County in the State of New York, waiving any right to trial by jury, and each entrant and Entrant Party consents to jurisdiction therein with respect to any legal proceedings or disputes of whatever nature arising under or relating to these rules or the Sweepstakes. In the event of any conflict between these Official Rules and any Sweepstakes information provided elsewhere (including but not limited in advertising or marketing materials), these Official Rules shall prevail.

USE OF INFORMATION: Personal information supplied is subject to applicable data protection laws and Sponsor's Privacy Notice at https://us.macmillan.com/privacy-notice. By entering the sweepstakes, entrants acknowledge that they have read Sponsor's Privacy Notice and hereby agree to Sponsor’s collection and use of their personal information in accordance with such laws and Privacy Notice.

WINNER NAME AND RULES REQUESTS: For the name(s) of the winner(s) (or, if Sponsor does not collect the name(s) of the winner(s), the user name(s) or handles of the winner(s)), which will be available two weeks after the conclusion of the Entry Period, or a copy of these Official Rules, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Macmillan’s Best Gifts of 2018 Sweepstakes, Internal Communications, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Winner name requests must be received by Sponsor within six months after the conclusion of the Entry Period.

SPONSOR: Macmillan Publishers, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.  The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

©2018 Macmillan Publishers. All rights reserved.

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BBC: Nuttall aide offers to quit over Hillsborough mistakes

Media captionPaul Nuttall was shown the comments on his website, which he said were not accurate and not published by him

Paul Nuttall’s press officer has offered to resign after saying she was to blame for “mistakes” in statements about the UKIP leader and the Hillsborough disaster.

Mr Nuttall earlier admitted claims on his website that he had lost close friends in the 1989 tragedy were false.

Lynda Roughley said she was “entirely responsible” for two press releases that were posted in 2011 and 2012.

Hillsborough campaigners have accused Mr Nuttall of “insensitivity”.

Ms Roughley’s comments follow a day of confusion in which Mr Nuttall, who is contesting the Stoke Central by-election, was forced to issue a statement clarifying his position and emphasise once again that he had witnessed the tragedy in person with his family.

While he said he knew people who had died in the disaster, the MEP for the North West of England said he was “appalled” the impression had been given by the statements that he was personally close to any of the 96 victims who died in a crush at Hillsborough football stadium.

He said he did not check press releases posted by an aide on the subject suggesting as much and was “very sorry” for the oversight.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Hillsborough is the worst sporting disaster in British history

In her statement, Ms Roughley said she was “mortified” at the distress caused.

“I am entirely responsible for the website post regarding Paul’s comments about having ‘close friends’ who died at Hillsborough,” she said.

“Paul is a man of great integrity and would not say something he knew to be untrue. It’s me who has made this mistake, and one I feel absolutely terrible about.”

The Sun reported that Ms Roughley’s resignation had been turned down.

Mr Nuttall was pressed about the posts on his website during an interview with Liverpool’s Radio City station on Tuesday.

In the first from August 2011, the Bootle-born politician urged the government to release files on the Hillsborough tragedy.

‘Lost close friends’

He was quoted as saying: “Without them being made public we will never get to the bottom of that appalling tragedy when 96 Liverpool fans including close personal friends of mine lost their lives.”

In a second release published six months later, he was quoted as saying: “I lost close friends at the match and understand as well as anyone how deep the scars of that tragedy go.”

But during his radio interview, Mr Nuttall conceded the comments were inaccurate.

“I haven’t lost anyone who was a close personal friend,” he said. “It was people I knew through football and things like that.”

The comments were “wrong” and had not “come from him”, he added.

In the statement issued a few hours later, he said that while he took responsibility for everything published in his name, he was “genuinely taken aback when this claim was brought to my attention and am both appalled and very sorry that an impression was given that was not accurate”.

Image caption The Hillsborough disaster occurred during an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest

The politician has long said he attended the match with his father and two uncles.

But a recent article in the Guardian quoted a number of people – including an unnamed former classmate and two Labour politicians – questioning why he had not spoken about his experience.

He later responded to questions about whether he was at the match by speaking in more detail of the effect the occasion had on him.

“As a 12-year-old boy, I travelled to Sheffield that day, as did so many others, to enjoy watching the team that I loved,” he said.

“From the upper tier of the Leppings Lane End, I watched the events of that day unfold with horror… Like everybody connected to the Hillsborough disaster, memories of 15 April 1989 bring me nothing but pain and upset.”

But Hillsborough Family Support Group chairwoman Margaret Aspinall told LBC the website errors were “an insult” to people who did lose somebody on that day.

And Barry Downside – whose son Christopher died in the tragedy – said the UKIP leader should have “known better”.

“It’s insensitive. We are still awaiting the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service as to whether charges will be brought and we don’t need this kind of thing.”

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New Post has been published on News Twitter

New Post has been published on http://www.news-twitter.com/2017/02/15/bbc-nuttall-aide-offers-to-quit-over-hillsborough-mistakes-10/

BBC: Nuttall aide offers to quit over Hillsborough mistakes

Media captionPaul Nuttall was shown the comments on his website, which he said were not accurate and not published by him

Paul Nuttall’s press officer has offered to resign after saying she was to blame for “mistakes” in statements about the UKIP leader and the Hillsborough disaster.

Mr Nuttall earlier admitted claims on his website that he had lost close friends in the 1989 tragedy were false.

Lynda Roughley said she was “entirely responsible” for two press releases that were posted in 2011 and 2012.

Hillsborough campaigners have accused Mr Nuttall of “insensitivity”.

Ms Roughley’s comments follow a day of confusion in which Mr Nuttall, who is contesting the Stoke Central by-election, was forced to issue a statement clarifying his position and emphasise once again that he had witnessed the tragedy in person with his family.

While he said he knew people who had died in the disaster, the MEP for the North West of England said he was “appalled” the impression had been given by the statements that he was personally close to any of the 96 victims who died in a crush at Hillsborough football stadium.

He said he did not check press releases posted by an aide on the subject suggesting as much and was “very sorry” for the oversight.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Hillsborough is the worst sporting disaster in British history

In her statement, Ms Roughley said she was “mortified” at the distress caused.

“I am entirely responsible for the website post regarding Paul’s comments about having ‘close friends’ who died at Hillsborough,” she said.

“Paul is a man of great integrity and would not say something he knew to be untrue. It’s me who has made this mistake, and one I feel absolutely terrible about.”

The Sun reported that Ms Roughley’s resignation had been turned down.

Mr Nuttall was pressed about the posts on his website during an interview with Liverpool’s Radio City station on Tuesday.

In the first from August 2011, the Bootle-born politician urged the government to release files on the Hillsborough tragedy.

‘Lost close friends’

He was quoted as saying: “Without them being made public we will never get to the bottom of that appalling tragedy when 96 Liverpool fans including close personal friends of mine lost their lives.”

In a second release published six months later, he was quoted as saying: “I lost close friends at the match and understand as well as anyone how deep the scars of that tragedy go.”

But during his radio interview, Mr Nuttall conceded the comments were inaccurate.

“I haven’t lost anyone who was a close personal friend,” he said. “It was people I knew through football and things like that.”

The comments were “wrong” and had not “come from him”, he added.

In the statement issued a few hours later, he said that while he took responsibility for everything published in his name, he was “genuinely taken aback when this claim was brought to my attention and am both appalled and very sorry that an impression was given that was not accurate”.

Image caption The Hillsborough disaster occurred during an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest

The politician has long said he attended the match with his father and two uncles.

But a recent article in the Guardian quoted a number of people – including an unnamed former classmate and two Labour politicians – questioning why he had not spoken about his experience.

He later responded to questions about whether he was at the match by speaking in more detail of the effect the occasion had on him.

“As a 12-year-old boy, I travelled to Sheffield that day, as did so many others, to enjoy watching the team that I loved,” he said.

“From the upper tier of the Leppings Lane End, I watched the events of that day unfold with horror… Like everybody connected to the Hillsborough disaster, memories of 15 April 1989 bring me nothing but pain and upset.”

But Hillsborough Family Support Group chairwoman Margaret Aspinall told LBC the website errors were “an insult” to people who did lose somebody on that day.

And Barry Downside – whose son Christopher died in the tragedy – said the UKIP leader should have “known better”.

“It’s insensitive. We are still awaiting the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service as to whether charges will be brought and we don’t need this kind of thing.”

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[newstwitter-blog]

New Post has been published on News Twitter

New Post has been published on http://www.news-twitter.com/2017/02/15/bbc-nuttall-aide-offers-to-quit-over-hillsborough-mistakes-9/

BBC: Nuttall aide offers to quit over Hillsborough mistakes

Media captionPaul Nuttall was shown the comments on his website, which he said were not accurate and not published by him

Paul Nuttall’s press officer has offered to resign after saying she was to blame for “mistakes” in statements about the UKIP leader and the Hillsborough disaster.

Mr Nuttall earlier admitted claims on his website that he had lost close friends in the 1989 tragedy were false.

Lynda Roughley said she was “entirely responsible” for two press releases that were posted in 2011 and 2012.

Hillsborough campaigners have accused Mr Nuttall of “insensitivity”.

Ms Roughley’s comments follow a day of confusion in which Mr Nuttall, who is contesting the Stoke Central by-election, was forced to issue a statement clarifying his position and emphasise once again that he had witnessed the tragedy in person with his family.

While he said he knew people who had died in the disaster, the MEP for the North West of England said he was “appalled” the impression had been given by the statements that he was personally close to any of the 96 victims who died in a crush at Hillsborough football stadium.

He said he did not check press releases posted by an aide on the subject suggesting as much and was “very sorry” for the oversight.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Hillsborough is the worst sporting disaster in British history

In her statement, Ms Roughley said she was “mortified” at the distress caused.

“I am entirely responsible for the website post regarding Paul’s comments about having ‘close friends’ who died at Hillsborough,” she said.

“Paul is a man of great integrity and would not say something he knew to be untrue. It’s me who has made this mistake, and one I feel absolutely terrible about.”

The Sun reported that Ms Roughley’s resignation had been turned down.

Mr Nuttall was pressed about the posts on his website during an interview with Liverpool’s Radio City station on Tuesday.

In the first from August 2011, the Bootle-born politician urged the government to release files on the Hillsborough tragedy.

‘Lost close friends’

He was quoted as saying: “Without them being made public we will never get to the bottom of that appalling tragedy when 96 Liverpool fans including close personal friends of mine lost their lives.”

In a second release published six months later, he was quoted as saying: “I lost close friends at the match and understand as well as anyone how deep the scars of that tragedy go.”

But during his radio interview, Mr Nuttall conceded the comments were inaccurate.

“I haven’t lost anyone who was a close personal friend,” he said. “It was people I knew through football and things like that.”

The comments were “wrong” and had not “come from him”, he added.

In the statement issued a few hours later, he said that while he took responsibility for everything published in his name, he was “genuinely taken aback when this claim was brought to my attention and am both appalled and very sorry that an impression was given that was not accurate”.

Image caption The Hillsborough disaster occurred during an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest

The politician has long said he attended the match with his father and two uncles.

But a recent article in the Guardian quoted a number of people – including an unnamed former classmate and two Labour politicians – questioning why he had not spoken about his experience.

He later responded to questions about whether he was at the match by speaking in more detail of the effect the occasion had on him.

“As a 12-year-old boy, I travelled to Sheffield that day, as did so many others, to enjoy watching the team that I loved,” he said.

“From the upper tier of the Leppings Lane End, I watched the events of that day unfold with horror… Like everybody connected to the Hillsborough disaster, memories of 15 April 1989 bring me nothing but pain and upset.”

But Hillsborough Family Support Group chairwoman Margaret Aspinall told LBC the website errors were “an insult” to people who did lose somebody on that day.

And Barry Downside – whose son Christopher died in the tragedy – said the UKIP leader should have “known better”.

“It’s insensitive. We are still awaiting the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service as to whether charges will be brought and we don’t need this kind of thing.”

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