#George still made the PowerPoint presentation

[moonyzsun]

In another universe, George is Toto's son. There is no way you can make me believe otherwise.

[miloformula123fan]

PART 2 OF THE LOGAN SISTER FIC PLEASE

okay, I know this is short, and yes part 3 is coming and yes it is angsty but I need to get it done

lmk if you want to be added to the taglist, anyone tagged is just people who asked for a second part :)

Please keep requesting - y'all have awesome ideas we agree on a lot of stuff :) - my guidelines are here, and if you want some prompts, they are here.

also feel free to come in and start chatting to me in my asks, would love to get to know y'all better

part 1 is here

part 3 is here

george russell x sargeant!reader

---

“SO YOU’RE TELLING ME OUR ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP WAS A LIE GEORGE.”

“No, no, it wasn’t. Y/N, you have to understand…-”

“UNDERSTAND WHAT? THAT YOU TREATED MY BROTHER LIKE A HUMAN BEING JUST SO I WOULD FUCK YOU? OUR ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP WAS BASED ON YOUR KINDNESS WHICH WAS A LIE! WHY, WHY WOULD YOU FUCK MY BROTHER OVER LIKE THAT JUST TO WIN A GIRL?” she took a deep breath ‘I’m done.’

“What? What do you mean, you’re done.”

She looked won, took another deep breath and looked George in the eyes. ‘I meant, I’m done george. I’m done with this relationship. I’m finished. I can’t forgive you after learning that our relationship was based on you treating my brother like a decent human being, and you planning on winning me over ike that. Well congratulations it worked. And now you’re back to treating my brother like absolute shit, because you finally got the girl. Congratulations. If you want to ‘win me back’, then maybe start with treating my brother like a human being again. But you’ll have to do more than that, Russell.’

And she walked out. George put his head in his hands. He’d signed so many NDAs, you would’ve thought he wouldn’t have left his laptop open and unlocked, particularly with Logan coming over. He really should remember to close his old files. Particularly when your girlfriend, no ex-girlfriend, had looked through your old powerpoints and found an old presentation he’d made to alex about how he was planning on wooing y/n. With the first slide being ‘treat logan nicely.’ and yeah maybe after he’d started dating y/n, his priority to include everyone had fallen behind.

And yeah, Logan was nice. He had learnt that after many morning jogs and coffees and dinners and hanging out after races. He still remembers how scared he had been a year ago, when he had first officially met Y/N.

“Well, then why is he telling me that there have been 2 people, Oscar and Alex, who have actually welcomed him to F1. Everyone else has snubbed him and he doesn’t understand why you don’t like him. He’s lonely. So fucking sort your shit out.”

And he had. Or at least he had tried. And Logan had really warmed up to him and started participating in the driver evenings, but George always visited his house, partly for the runs, partly because his trainer was less strict and he could make a better breakfast at Logan’s, and maybe partially for the hope that Logan’s sister would rock up.

And then she had. And logan had still been asleep. And she obviously still was a professional athlete so she had been more than willing to do a run with him. And then have breakfast when Logan had finally stumbled out of his bedroom. And then get her phone number

And then yeah maybe he had deserted Logan, assuming he now had enough interaction with the rest of the grid to be okay.

Until Logan had called Y/N last night, asking her to come over because it turned out the grid had gone to dinner without him, and he was feeling a little hurt. And she had promised to once George got home, and then she had absolutely laid into him. And now she was gone, presumably to Logan’s and George didn’t know what to do.

---

taglist: @folklorsweet @the-untamed-soul @thatgirlmj @cstads-blog

[wisteriagoesvroom]

gax + corporate/law vibes + ‘The powerpoint was steadily taking over their relationship, something that Max was not willing to stand for.’

gax?? gax!!

power (you make some points): a gax ficlet

rated m, ~1.2k words now also readable on ao3

author babble:

bear in mind i wrote this before i knew more about the Gax Lore i.e. karting together, actually being nice to each other blablabla. you could also just retrofit the vibes and hopefully they still work. anyways!

will throw this up on ao3 when i’m not sitting bleary eyed in an airport

————

If there was one thing that Max Verstappen wouldn’t tolerate, it was George Russell having the monopoly on good PowerPoint presentations. Max had won all four years of debate in College, as well as the dubious title of “most radical deployment of Google Slides templates” at his MBA, and he was not about to be usurped by the other guy in his department who actually knew how to use an animate transition.

“You missed an indent there.” Max says, pointing at the monitor. Yellow and red lights wink at them from the outside, as if to say: you’re both in your mid-twenties, quit wasting it on a computer screen at 11pm on a Wednesday, maybe?

Max is not staring, very determined not to look at his teammate’s facial expression. But George is almost certainly rolling his eyes right now.

“Was coming back to that, alright?” George huffs back. Max is very professional most of the time. But something about how wound up George is, how insanely pedantic he is about everything from semicolons to coffee cup placement for the Directors to taking insanely detailed minutes that nobody except Max reads after the meetings – well. What is it that Nietschze once said? We hate in others what we most identify with about ourselves. Or was that from Twitter? Max does not really use Twitter except to look at Bloomberg News updates and cat videos, so he does not know. And anyway Nietzsche never made a six figure salary.

“It would just be easier if you would let me do it.” Max says.

“Fuck right off, mate.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you like me to.”

“Not now.”

“Just share the link to this. I’ll do it.”

“We agreed to take turns on this.”

“Yes, Russell. But sometimes, the rules are meant to be bent.”

George swivels his chair to Max, then. Fully attempts to pin him with his gaze, commencing an awkward stare-off that lasts way too many seconds and makes Max once again realise that George’s eyes remind him of the expensive fish tank he saw at the Partners’ sushi dinner once. Max doesn’t think those same fish were the ones they ended up eating. But he does remember that dinner because it was the one where the Partners had dangled the promise of a huge promotion if they could help carry the company merger across the line successfully. The problem is, there was only one spot.

George’s distracting aquatic orbitals aside, fortunately, Max (i) never backs down, and (ii) has been told that he has the dead-eyed emotional stare of a robot missing an empathy software upgrade sometimes.

And clearly, the powerpoint was steadily taking over their relationship, something that Max was not willing to stand for.

Max leans back in his chair, stance all mock-relaxed. “Do you want to be out of here before midnight, or not?”

“We’re expensing the Ubers either way, so it doesn’t make a difference to me, mate.”

Fine. If George is so hyperfocused on The Tasks that he’s forgotten the fun part of being Questionably Close Coworkers, so be it.

Max deploys the nuclear option.

He sticks his leg out, nudging the toe of his Pradas onto George’s slacks. And strokes his foot halfway up to a sensitive point on George’s thigh. Max may even flutter his lashes a little.

To his credit, George does not react. Merely swings his eyes like a lamp to Max’s face again. His hand does, however, goes still on the mouse.

“What exactly are you doing?”

“I don’t know.” Max feigns. He knows that George hates, more than anything, anyone getting dirt on his precious Ralph Laurens. But at least he has his attention now. “Was hoping we could move onto the more fun part of the typical evening activities. Maybe.”

“We shouldn’t be doing that again anyway.”

“George.”

“What?”

“That is not what you said the last, hm, fourteen times that we have done this, eh?”

“Who’s counting?”

“I thought you were the most careful of rule followers and data analysis, knapperd.”

George is a human being, but Max is almost certain the other man shakes himself like he’s preening right now.

“Well. It’s what the team likes me for, and it’s what I’ll keep doing.”

“Oh yes. Surely we must keep in mind the team. And the shareholders. They are very important.”

“Quite.”

“But should we tell them that you like it so much, George. When I do this.” Max says. Rising up, fully crowding George in, hands gripping the cool handles of the computer chair. Leaning in to nibble the side of George’s neck.

George swallows. Max watches his throat move.

Next, Max mouths the words onto the side of George’s jaw, stubble prickling his mouth. “And this.”

The click of the mouse continues steadily as Max moves his mouth to the shell of George’s ear. “And let’s not forget. This.”

Max tilts George’s face up fully, then. George’s face is flushed, eyes sparkling, all surprise at the sudden change of pace, but eager, too.

When Max seals his lips over George’s, George groans, and his hands shoot up to Max’s waist immediately. It doesn’t feel quite like winning a deal or a pitch does for Max, but the completion comes pretty damn close.

Max sweeps his tongue into George’s mouth. George opens willingly, like he always does. In the back of Max’s logical brain, a warning sign blares that the computer chair may not be able to support the weight of them both – because they spend a lot of time pretending they don’t work out together at the gym but Max knows exactly what George’s deadlift PB is and it’s pretty damn high for a scrawny looking dude.

And despite the keening protest of said chair, the two of them are both lost to it now. Max jams one knee between George’s legs, George nibbles hungrily at Max’s lower lip, Max thrusts his hips all needy, and maybe if Max is nice about it George might suck him off under the table, and–

Outlook chimes again.

“Blasted piece of shit.” George says, breaking away. His hands go still at Max’s waist. “Why we’re using G-Suite and Microsoft Office at the same time I will never know.”

George squeezes his eyes shut, as if making himself stop this is causing him physical pain. Maybe it’s that or the workflow incompatibility when George tries to move his custom Excel-Trello gantts into a third party API.

And Max won’t lie. He kind of likes it when George gets so irritated about these things. When he cares a bit too much. Because what is Max but exactly like that, too.

“Hazards of a merger, I guess. But without that, I would never have met you, no?”

George makes a noise like he knows what Max means. The other man straightens his shirt collar, and Max runs a hand through his hair. He’s been growing it out lately, because George had made a passing comment at the bathroom sink once about it looking good.

Sleeping with the person competing for the same Chief of Staff position is possibly the worst decision he could’ve made, and Max once dyed his hair platinum blonde. But, they’re stuck here together. Hell is a slightly more tolerable place when Satan’s right hand man looks this good. And knows his coffee order without asking.

Besides. Max is not bothered. He knows that the promotion is his. This is just a minor plot inconvenience.

Later, they will expense the uber back to George’s place, where Max will put his mouth on George’s arse, and give him a practical demonstration of the three different ways he’s learned to elicit pleasure from the male prostate.

George will whimper and whine the whole way through it, and after they’re both sated, they’ll both roll over to check their emails, barely concealing their smiles. They will pretend that what’s happening between them could be as clean as their zero-email inboxes. As if their connection is not violently seeping through containment.

All in the name of team bonding. For the firm. Yes.

(Or this is what they tell themselves, to maintain the illusion, anyway.)

[teeto-peteto]

Okay, stranfe question, but SG verse, what kind of students do you think Ahri’s team would be?

dont know if i understood the question well so i apologize deeply if i misreaded it im freezing cold my brain is not functioning.

Ezreal -> basic blonde schoolboy. Wants to be cool and ends up answering wrong to the question the teacher made. Type of guy that would be with his feet on the table on the library when everyone else in the team is studying and he's like 'Nah, i got this'. He doesnt but yeah at least he can blame being a Star Guardian for his exam fails.

Ahri -> i mean she's literally based in Regina George... I dont think she's a spawn of satan (like Regina) but will be mean towards a lot of the students or just pure basic teen sass, saying stuff like 'Well our presentation is a lot better than yours.' she does the powerpoints, she's the design girl. Has a lot of sticky notes, the shaped ones, like hearts and butterflies, cute stationery stuff overall. Will probably cheat on the exam.

Miss Fortune -> probably has bad grades but always ends up passing by the end of the school year with a lot of work and anxiety. Type of person that munches on her pencils and pens, she's most likely not paying attention in class but she's also thinking that she's caving her own tomb for not paying attention, type of person that would play mobile games under the table. She's stressed as fuck in the library studying and rants about it when she's anxious.

Syndra -> Type of flawless student that brags about having a photographic memory and just passes the exams with great grades, either way you can see her studying in silence with a little smile cause she enjoys both studying and bragging about having good grades, she's sassy. Wont cheat on the exam but knows a lot of tricks so everyone begs for her to help them cheat. If you ask her a question during the exam to copy her, she will give you a wrong answer purposefully. Oddly enough all her stationery is simple but always purple, if its not purple she doesnt want it.

Soraka -> Probably pays attention on class but ends up daydreaming and looking at an empty spot for the rest of the class and then wakes up by the bell and says 'i cant believe this has happened again.' she still gets good grades, not perfect, but good nonetheless as she spends time on studying, probably in silence by Syndra and they only talk if Soraka has a question. Type of person that wakes up an hour earlier to make her luch for the highschool, always has spare money for a water bottle or a soda can if anyone needs it and its out of money.

Anyway i believe there is situations where they are all at the library and Miss Fortune is stressed cause she doesnt understand something after reading 10+ pages and Syndra starts getting angry and they both fight like 'Its literally written right there, you idiot.' while Soraka contemplates in confusion and goes to her book cause she doesnt know wich page they are on now. In the meantime Ezreal is just scrolling on instagram and Ahri is filming or taking pictures of the scene.

[f1]

From scrapping with Verstappen to sensational Sao Paulo win The best moments of George Russells 2022 season

George Russell made the step he had been dreaming of in 2022 when he joined Mercedes from Williams and, while it coincided with the Silver Arrows struggling to hit form under F1’s new regulations, there were still plenty of memorable moments for the British youngster... With Mercedes gradually working out their problems and bringing performance to the W13, it was Russell who took the squad’s standout results – storming to a maiden F1 pole position at the Hungaroring and beating team mate Lewis Hamilton to a first-ever Grand Prix win at Interlagos. READ MORE: ‘We've always set hard targets’ – Wolff on Russell’s rise from PowerPoint presentation to Grand Prix winner There were also some noteworthy on-track battles, such as wheel-to-wheel encounters with world champion Max Verstappen in Spain and en route to victory in Brazil, and a high-speed skirmish with Charles Leclerc in Belgium. Hit go in the video player above to relive all of these highlights – and more – from Russell’s first season with Mercedes. via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com

[bwoahtastic]

I’m so soft for Toto taking Max home for Christmas because he would’ve rather stayed in his dorm room than go back to his dad.

Max definitely just drops trauma into normal conversations because he doesn’t realize how bad it really is (like he does irl) and Toto’s parents are lowkey seething at the table at their new grand pup having to go through so much. Toto’s parents absolutely adore Max and organizes trips to museums over winter break bc they love seeing him light up when he talks about history and geography.

Max enrolling in all of the “beta” classes and no longer taking any omega classes bc it makes him really uncomfortable. George helps him study sometimes, asking him the questions on flash cards he made for Max and making PowerPoint presentations for Max’s presentations. Max definitely cries the first time George offers to help him.

Max still hisses at alpha students if they get too close but the instructors are very quick to intervene bc they don’t want to deal with Toto’s wrath if Max has another panic attack

Nngg pllss Max would be so shy going home with Toto, but then be so in awe when he realises Toto got a room ready for him, not judt a generic spare room, it actually has posters of exhibitions Max loved, some trinkets relating to it too and a big world map on the wall ofc! Max just being so overwhelmed and Toto softly murmuring he might have gone little overboard, but Max is already attached to him and hugging him so hard 🥺

Max casually dropping stuff in conversation about his dad, not realising those things werw abuse, and Toto just feels soxbad he went though all that!

And nngg Max finally taking all the beta classes he missed out on as a kid and being so wager to learn! George helping him study would be so so cute, and he even goes with George to a nesting class one day cos his therapist said nesting could be good for him🥺

He is still very much a snarly baby when he sees Alphas, but most people know to keep distance now (or get toto's wrath on them jejs). Maybe Toto asks Michael and then Dan to just sit in the office sometimes while Max is sprawled out there with Toto? Just to get him more used to other Alphas too!

[drivindrivin]

highlights from the f1 2019 rookie of the year video with alex, george and lando:

“as you know I love a powerpoint presentation”

“i thought i’d start with a photo of me overtaking lando” “pretty sure I’m lapping you”

“you’ve been outqualified by george twice”

“as we know in formula 1 consistency is key”

george’s manipulation of graphs in his favor

“you can’t lose positions when you start last”

“i’ve qualified p19 i’ve had someone behind me!”

george reminding lando and alex he won F2 in 2018

“they were real facts”

“consistently at the back” “consistency is key”

alex and lando not knowing how to use a laptop??

“i’m nervous FOR you”

“he’s chatting shit like always”

“this has got all the characteristics of embarrassment”

a rap... that is a poem by alex

lando correcting alex that he has 1.1M instagram fans lol

alex dragging george for being topless on instagram

“the only driver yet to score what are you even doing this for?”

“by the way lewis called he wants his yellow hoodie back”

“i’ve been going through front wings like no tomorrow, i’m the asian tom cruise so give me a follow”

“if only he could do such a good performance on track”

“i saved you both a copy that you can take home with you”

Lando’s explosion animations for overtakes and klaxon noise

lando apologizing to alex for showing him being overtaken

“i’m drivin drivin”

the good job slomo after alex and lando hit each other

the sparkle heart on the valentino rossi bucket hat

“very mature. well that’s a load of bullshit.”

“well I know i’m last” two seconds later “i’d still put me first”

“i’m actually surprised you’ve only made up two positions considering you start p19.″ “don’t give me that.” “in the whole year?!”

“if it’s based on the performance i think alex’s got it, if its based on track i think we got it” alex leans in to view “performance on track”

“I almost agree, I’m gracious in defeat, he’s gotta have one trophy this year”

“have you guys got a trophy as well?” “i did. remote control car champion”

lando handing alex the trophy, it coming apart and it nearly being dropped

alex drinking redbull out of the trophy even though it’s leaking because it’s made of lego

“it’s detachable as well so i can fit it in my suitcase”

“I can see why williams chose you after that presentation”

“lando can fit the whole post-it notes on his forehead, it’s that big”

“where’s my mouse” “it’s the pad”

“can we dim the lights?” “no because then you can’t see our face you mug.”

[scoldinghotsoup]

Alrighty then, my good person. Here is my breakdown of 200+ hours of content that I have consumed since the beginning of September

Season one:

So the SMP started off in about April 2020 and it was just Dream and a bunch of his friends having fun in Minecraft. He kept adding more and more people, and it gained in popularity. But everything changed when he added Tommyinnit.

Tommy’s appearance to the server brought along the first major conflict, known as the disc saga; it lasted six months, and just ended last week. Tommy had gotten a set of music discs that he grew attached to, and one day, after killing dream, the discs had disappeared from his chest; Dream had taken them.

There was a fortnight-esc build battle in the middle of the prime path, and eventually, Tommy had gotten both of his discs back from Dream. He hid them in a chest that was dug into the side of a mountain near his home. However, when he logged onto the server the next day, his entire house was dug up, and the discs were gone. There was a terse stand off, and, in the end, Tommy and Dream wound up scamming eachother, and Dream still had the discs. In the end with a lot of negotiations, Tommy regained possession of the discs. This was the end of the first disc war.

After fighting for the possession of his discs, Tommy was approached by his close friend, Wilbur Soot, who had aspirations to start a drug empire. After working in their drug van and having several run ins with the law, the boys decided they needed to create their own country in order to sell their drugs in peace, away from all the Americans. And this, L’manburg was born (can also be spelt L’manberg).

They built their borders up and established their Declaration of Independence, when the Dream team attacked their borders, upset that they were separating from the whole of the DSMP, and created a declaration of war. They asked for surrender, and after three days of peace, war broke out.

There were multiple battles that took place, all of which had a very similar vibe to Hamilton. Eventually, Eret led the soldiers to a room a called the final control room, claiming it was full of loot to help L’manburg win the war. Soon, however, Eret was revealed as a traitor, as she let the Dream Team into the room, killing the L’manburgians and leaving them weaponless in the war. Erets betrayal was one of the most significant moments of the war, as was something that greatly shaped the future of L’Manberg. Additionally, this betrayal allowed Eret to become the king of the greater DSMP later on.

In a terrible position, Wilbur meets with Dream to settle the war in a peaceful way. Dream, however, demands total surrender, threatening to blow up L’manberg with the tnt that Eret had placed. Calling his bluff, Wilbur stood his ground, resulting in the first destruction of L’manburg.

Desperate to win the war, Tommy arranges a duel with Dream (again, very Hamilton-esc) for L’manbergs independence. Tommy however, looses the duel, and makes one final negotiation; His discs for the freedom of L’Manburg.

The deal was made, and the country gained independence, with Wilbur as their leader.

In the peace time period, there was a series of fights known as the pet wars, which basically was Sapnap slaying every animal on the server lmao.

Soon, deciding they wanted a democratic government, Tommy and Wilbur held an election, intending on them being the only party. However, QuackityHQ and George decided to run against them. Eventually in a strange turn of events with a lot of political background and a bit of corruption, JSCHLATT wins, and makes quackity his Vice President. His first order as president is to revoke the citizenship of WilburSoot and tommyinnit, exiling them from the country they created.

Tommy and Wilbur create a new land called Pogtopia. Wilbur, full of guilt, betrayal, and stress, begins to break and becomes increasingly unstable and manipulative. He enlists the help of famed minecrafter Technoblade and asks Tommy’s friend Tubbo to act as a spy for them. This goes wrong, however, when Schlatt, a proven tyrant, reveals tubbo as a traitor, and had technoblade execute him.

Wilbur on his descent from grace asks Dream for enough tnt to decimate L’manburg, because if he can’t have it no one can. Tommy convinced him to wait for one final fight. With everyone against them, the dream team surrenders, revealing a very drunk JSchlatt. In the most anticlimactic death ever, Schlatt has a stroke, and the boys take their country back.

Eventually, Wilbur makes tubbo the president, and leave the area. In his absence, technoblade reveals his plans to destroy the government as a whole and sets off two withers in the country.

Off in the mountain side, Wilbur has a full on break down, trying to decide weather or not to blow it all up. His father, phill, logs on and attempts to reason with him, but Will is too far gone. He blows up L’manburg, and begs Phil to kill him, which he does.

The country in shambles with everyone mourning the losses and betrayals they suffered, everyone closes the chapter for another day. Tommy and tubbo, the dynamic, clingy duo themselves, retreat to their bench to listen to their music. You have to remember; these boys are 16 and many others are young adults. Everyone in this story is gonna walk out with major trauma.

And that, my good friend, is the end of season one! I’ll do season two soon! Also, attached is a PowerPoint I worked on for fun that dives into the characters and the whole thing! It’s based off of one from a tiktok jet but I don’t remember who. 🥺Have fun!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18sBT9kOxOMtySTfpx4Ddvjn65C4bI82jkIdfj0JO7cM/edit

oh worm-

[musicnoots]

Fire Drill

Band of Brothers - The Office AU

A/N: This is what it’s like in my head everyday. Again, all rights of this amazing scene go to the writers of the show.

Synopsis: Webster tries to teach Easy Company the basics of fire safety with a fire drill, and things do not go as planned.

Tags: @gottapenny @dustyjjumpwings @higgles123 @david-weepster @wexhappyxfew @medievalfangirl @bandofmarvels @junojelli @majwinters @curraheev @those-dusty-jump-wings

Normally, David Webster doesn’t do a lot of things for his job. He comes to work for Easy Company, a paper sales company, where he gets paid way too little. All he does is sit at his desk and sell paper. Most of the time, he tries to avoid the strange look Liebgott gives him from across the office, but usually, Webster works at his desk like a normal employee.

But today, he was going to educate his fellow co-workers on the basics of fire safety. Why, you ask? Well, he created a presentation on the topic a couple of days ago, but no one paid attention. Probably because he used a powerpoint. So, to get his point across, he thought it would be best to teach his co-workers through a real simulation. A fire drill.

He waited until Lipton left the reception desk, the perfect opportunity to set up his simulation. Minutes later, he was in the hallway hammering a nail into the lock of every door and blowtorching the handles so it would replicate a scenario where the fire is outside and they can’t escape. On the second door handle he blowtorched, Webster stopped and thought, Am I doing too much? before dismissing the thought and continuing with his business. People learn through various different ways. Experience is the best teacher.

Next, he poured gasoline into a small trash can outside one of the doors and lit up a cigarette, dropping it into the trash where a fire soon ignited. Today, smoking was going to save lives.

He went back to desk afterwards as if he didn’t disappear in the first place, and nobody suspected a thing. He tried not to smile when he sat down, knowing that he was going to finally get his point across was a good feeling, even better than when he graduated from Harvard. This time, his co-workers would be thanking him for teaching them what to do in the event of a fire. All thanks to a man named David Webster.

When the smoke finally came seeping underneath the door, Webster tried his best not to overreact. He wanted his co-workers to have a real life experience to prepare for the real thing. “Does anyone smell anything...smokey?”

“Did you bring your jerky in again?” Malarkey asked.

Dissatisfied with the response he got, Webster cleared his voice and looked at Lipton.

Lipton looked up and immediately stood up in concern. “O-Oh my God!”

Everyone stood up in panic when they followed the direction of Lipton’s gaze.

“Fire!”

“Fire?” Webster tried to look surprised, standing up with his co-workers as the panic quickly set in. “Oh my goodness! What’s the procedure? What do we do people?”

“The phones are dead!” Lipton exclaimed, holding the phone after trying to make an attempt to call for help.

“Oh, how did that happen?”

“It’s out in the hall!” Dike said in the swarm of people surrounding the door.

“We don’t know that! The smoke could be coming from an air duct!”

This was exactly how Web envisioned this in his mind. First five minutes, everyone would be panicking and not know what to do. It’s what every human does. They would panic until they realize they have to talk it out with each other to find out how to escape and deal with the fire safely.

Meanwhile, Lewis barged from his office. “Oh my God! Okay, it’s happening. Everybody stay calm! Everybody stay calm!” he said, clearly not being calm himself. “Stay fucking calm! Everybody fucking calm down!”

“No, no, Lewis! No!” Web yelled through the swarm of employees crowding the door. “Touch the handle, if it’s hot there could be a fire in the hallway!”

Lew then proceeded with caution, he let his hand hover over the handle. “What does warm mean?”

Concern soon ensued as everyone tried to find an exit from the fire, but Webster saw this as success. His co-workers were trapped so at this point, they have to figure a way out of here. “What next?”

George ran over to the door across the room and started to repeatedly touch the handle. “I-It’s warm.”

“Okay, go to the back door,” said Dick, who had no idea what was going on, but probably had the best survival rate out of everyone in the office.

As Web continued to give advice and hints to his fellow co-workers, panic started to form as everyone was eager to get away from the fire. They ran to the other side of the office to find a door that they could safely exit from with Ron taking charge in the front of retrieve a belonging.

“I have to get my purse!” Speirs yelled, but he instead grabbed Perconte’s bag because he remembered that his had a nifty little lighter there and couldn’t be bothered to find it, so he just took the entire bag.

“Things can be replaced, Ron,” Web said as calmly as he could in the heat of the moment. “People, human lives, however can—” Then he bolted to the other side of the room with the others.

“Ah, my hand!” Buck hissed as he grabbed the nearest door handle. “That’s hot!”

“Eugh! This one’s hot, too!” Bull said.

“Okay, we’re trapped! Everyone for himself!” Lewis screamed, and then it was pure chaos.

Everyone started to go their own way to find an exit, many weren’t even looking for a way to escape, but rather to find their belongings, panic, and do nothing. Bill, Joe, and Babe went in one direction and Dick, Eugene, and Lipton went in the other.

Babe went looking for his tupperware of spaghetti that he made two days ago, nearly ripping his entire desk apart just to find it sitting neatly on his desk. Realizing the container was too much for him to be holding in this situation, he opened it and shoved the spaghetti into his pockets. Bill and Joe were busy unsuccessfully breaking the windows by throwing things at it. So far, they’ve thrown the computer, Babe’s empty tupperware container, and Web’s framed diploma from Harvard. Harry was at the vending machine where he broke the glass to take all the snacks he wasn’t able to get because he didn’t want to spend money. Speirs was scouring the office for some loot and Perconte was yelling for his purse.

Floyd went back to his desk and opened the the last drawer of the filing cabinet to his dog, Bandit. “Hey, it’s okay,” he cooed to help it calm down, watching as Malarkey jumped on top of the desk, opened a hole in the ceiling and climbed in. “Don. Don!”

Malarkey looked back down at Floyd carrying his dog. “Stay alive, I’m getting help!”

“Pull me up!”

“You’re too heavy!”

“I only weigh 135 pounds,” he sighed, but it looked as if Don had already left. “Save Bandit!” Floyd yelled before throwing Bandit into the ceiling.

Meantime, Web was overseeing the chaos around him and giving subtle hints in a time of disorder and pandemonium. “Have you ever seen a burn victim? Exit options—where do we go folks? Exits points, people. Remember those procedures!”

It was the armageddon. The office was in total disarray and no one knew what to do, yet Webster still went with the plan and actually thought it was going quite well. In his opinion.

“What do we do?” Lipton asked. The smoke was getting really heavy and it was difficult to breathe.

“Use the surge of fear and adrenaline to sharpen your decision making!”

“Okay, I am not dying here,” Dick muttered before taking off.

Web then nonchalantly lit up some fireworks and tossed it onto the ground, creating more panic and upheaval from everyone. Screams were heard and Lew started to throw his chair at the window repeatedly in a state of crisis.

“What is that? What is that?” Chuck yelled.

“The fire’s shooting at us!” Liebgott screamed, and panic increased by a whole eighty percent.

To make matters even worse, Web thought it was a good idea to pull the fire to add on to the concerning noises in the office. Malarkey’s legs appeared from the ceiling and that was the actual breaking point—it was total chaos and everyone thought they were going to die.

The only people who had a sense of what to do where Dick, Eugene, Lip who were unplugging and moving the office printer from the wall to push it aggressively against the door. It’s not the best idea, but it was good enough for the mental and emotional state of everyone and their one brain cell.

Meanwhile, Lew actually broke the window, but instead of escaping, he screamed out for help.

Everything was in shambles. Dick, Eugene, Lipton were pushing the printer against the door to break it open, everyone else was screaming and panicking, Johnny and Ron were arguing because Ron was taking everyone's shit, and Lew was screaming out of the window. Even worse—Joe was starting to cough from all of the smoke and it was starting to concern some of the employees.

All of a sudden, Web silenced everyone using an air horn. “Attention everyone! Employees of Easy Company! This had been a test of our emergency preparedness. There was no fire. It was only a simulation.”

“What?” Had it not been for the laws of this land, Dick would have beat Web’s ass for this. All of this for a simple test? He doesn’t get paid enough to go through all of this.

“Fire not real. This was merely a training exercise,” Web announced. “So, what have we learned?” Joe fainted, and Web rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. It’s not real, Joe.”

“No, no, no!” George came running from across the office. “You will not die. Joe. Joe, you will not die! Joe! Joe! I’m gonna give him mouth-to-mouth.

“No, don’t give him mouth-to-mouth for this,” Dick said as he urged Eugene to help Joe.

But George was determined to revive Joe for the second time this month. He took out his wallet and shoved it into Joe’s mouth as everyone grabbed his arm and tried to pry him off. “Don’t swallow it!” He yelled as Joe started to regain breathing and everyone was screaming in the back for him to stop. “I-I’m fine, leave me alone!”

[scifigeneration]

Science needs myths to thrive

by Andrew George

Atlantios + saylow/Pixabay, Author provided

I can still remember the horror of discovering that everything I had worked on was wrong. I was a PhD candidate just starting my second year, and my supervisor and I had developed a test for rheumatoid arthritis which seemed a revelation. We wrote a paper for a prestigious journal but just before we sent it off, we decided to do one more experiment to check we were correct.

We weren’t. Everything that I had done in the last year was ruined and I had to start an entirely new research topic. It was a tough but valuable lesson for a young scientist – you should always go further to test your ideas.

That was 35 years ago, and I wonder if someone starting out as a researcher today would be encouraged as I was to go the extra mile. Does the incessant drive to publish and measure outcomes mean that researchers are under pressure to cut corners, and have less time and freedom to pursue their ideas?

The Wellcome Trust – one of the world’s largest funders of health research – recently launched a review of research culture, to find out if research has become so hyper-competitive that it “cares exclusively about what is achieved and not about how it is achieved”.

What helped me develop as a researcher was reading stories about those who came before me. For scientific research to be successful in the long term, I think researchers need a strong set of values, including an unwavering commitment to the truth, and a drive to test any idea to destruction.

Though they may seem opposed to the ideals of the rigorous scientific method, the best way of instilling these values is, as ever, through the stories and myths that we tell ourselves.

The power of stories

In ancient times, people would sit around their fires at night and tell stories. Stories about their creation, stories of great deeds and feats, and stories that rehearsed how people interacted with each other and the world they lived in. One of the oldest of these still to be read is the ancient Greek Illiad of Homer.

The story explores what it means to be a warrior and leader, how people should accept fate, achieve fame and the consequences of pride and anger. Young people listening to those stories learned what was expected of them, reinforcing the collective values and beliefs of society.

In the modern world, myths and stories still have an important role to play – even in scientific research. Scientists have stories about important people and great events in science, such as the discovery of penicillin, uncovering the structure of DNA, the development of vaccines and the battles that Galileo and early proponents of a sun-centred model of the solar system fought with the reactionary forces of the Church. Together, these stories help young scientists understand the collective benefits of research that go beyond personal advancement and success.

A positive research culture should prize curiosity and a view to the greater good. Vlad Tchompalov/Unsplash, CC BY

These scientific myths are based on reality, though sometimes strict historical accuracy has been sacrificed to better make a particular point. In a similar manner, the stories of Homer would have been based on real events – such as the Trojan wars – but they evolved in the storytelling. It’s unlikely the Trojan Horse really was a large-scale model of a horse that soldiers hid in.

The future of science

It’s important to recognise that how we do research has changed. This was brought home to me recently when I reread The Pursuit of Nature, the story of some of the great Cambridge physiologists of the mid-20th century. I was lucky to be taught by one of the authors, Alan Hodgkin, who won the Nobel prize for working out how nerve cells transmitted electrical impulses. He started his work on nerves in the second year of his undergraduate studies, and built his own equipment out of biscuit tins.

Nowadays to succeed you must win big grants and build up a research team. Often more than 20 authors will contribute to a research paper. Hodgkin only ever had a few people working in his team and was more likely to publish with one or two close colleagues.

This “industrialisation” of science is right and necessary. It has accelerated the impact of research in society and allowed scientists to discover and develop new technologies. There is probably nothing left that can be discovered using equipment made from biscuit tins. But amid all this change, we haven’t adapted the way in which we instil the ethics and values of science and research into young researchers.

A stamp printed in Niger circa 1977 celebrates Alan Hodgkin’s Nobel Prize in Physiology. Neftali/Shutterstock

When I was an undergraduate and PhD candidate, my supervisor worked on the lab bench. We had coffee and tea together every day. I learned from her, and colleagues, what it meant to be a scientist. Today, the interaction between supervisors and junior researchers tends to be more transactional, about the experiments and data. There is less time for the apprenticeship of research.

Of course, there is training in how to do research. Graduate schools and doctoral training centres have raised standards in the education of PhD candidates. But I doubt that many people develop their values and moral compass from PowerPoint presentations.

In my own life, the popular myths of great scientists fed a culture that cherished curiosity as a good all on its own. We need to develop these stories, curating them by selecting those that are appropriate and developing new ones that make useful points. As scientists, with a commitment to the truth, we should also ensure that they are accurate representations of reality that also reflect the collective endeavour, rather than the supposed genius of a few white men.

All cultures need their myths, and each lab needs its lore.

About The Author:

Andrew George is Emeritus Professor at Brunel University London

This article is republished from our content partners over at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

[wftc141]

Blackwatch Chapter 3: DedPersons

9:11 AM, Local Time

Rome, Italy

June, 2018

"Grazie." Amélie said as she took the hot cup of coffee from the young cashier.

She simply returned a warm smile before turning back to the long queue. Amélie turned away and headed for the door where Gabriel was waiting for her, leaning against the door frame with a cup of coffee as well. The cafe was quite bustling and full, especially during the morning. A lot of customers were either doing errands or getting themselves the newest arrival on the board. Once Amélie walked past Gabriel, he turned away and followed her out onto the crowded plaza.

"As I was saying," Gabriel started, continuing his earlier conversation. "I think we might be going back to Zambia."

"What makes you think that?" Amélie asked.

"The fact that the NSA scooped up some footage of a new leader taking over the Macaba militia camp. They don't know who it is but they believe it's someone from the Macaba family."

"How many relatives do you think he has?"

"Probably enough to run an army."

No words were spoken between them afterwards. Gabriel stared out at the glint of the scorching sun from a distance with his sunglasses reflecting the blinding light off. His frown, surrounded by the goatee, remained plastered on his face and he tugged the collar of his shirt sticking to his skin.

"What's with the long face?" Amélie asked, grabbing Gabriel's attention.

"What'd you mean?" He replied as he sipped his coffee.

"You look like somebody slapped you really hard."

"Isn't this how I normally look?"

"Gabe, you and I have been together since the first day Blackwatch was activated. I already know what you look like by now."

Gabriel sighed while tapping the cup with his fingers. He stared at what's in front of him without glancing at Amélie. His other hand slid into his pocket.

"I just found out my kids are about to graduate yesterday and when I asked Jackie if I could come, she wouldn't let me. Doesn't want me involved in their lives anymore. Guess that's what happens when I'm a dedicated soldier with no time for family."

"You two still haven't worked things out?" She asked.

"Sadly, no."

"C'est une honte. What about your kids?"

"We're still on good terms but my daughter still doesn't approve of the war and she probably hates my guts for it."

"Would you really blame them? Not everybody is into killing." Amélie said, adjusting her sunglasses.

Gabriel scoffed. "Says the woman who once murdered rich people and performed ballet as if nothing ever happened."

Amélie ignored him and took a sip of the coffee as they walked out of the plaza and into the street. As they stopped by a crossing light, Gabriel took out his phone from his pockets which buzzed in his hand. He answered it and lifted it to his ear.

"Hello?"

There was a brief pause, attracting Amélie's curiosity despite voices around them drowning each other out. Gabriel nodded shortly with his eyes flicking downwards.

"Alright. We'll be there."

The call finished and Gabriel lowered his phone. Amélie stared at him, waiting for an answer.

"Well, this is a surprise." He said, slipping the phone back into his pockets.

"Mission?" Amélie asked.

"Maybe. Sombra's in Virginia with the CIA and she needs us there tomorrow afternoon sharp."

Next Day

3:21 PM, Local Time

McLean, USA

George Bush Center for Intelligence

The team arrived at the headquarters after a long flight to McLean. As they entered inside, they were immediately greeted by the sight of Sombra reclining on one of the couches nearby. Several other people at the very back filed in back and forth across the reception area where the large CIA seal was plastered on. Once her eyes locked onto the team, she got off the couch and approached them.

"About time, amigos. You guys are really slow, ya know?" She said.

"Get straight to the point, Sombra. What's going on?" Gabriel replied.

"Blackwatch." A voice called out, attracting the team's attention.

They turned towards the source of the voice and noticed Salvatore approaching them. He wasn't alone however as there was a woman walking beside him. Blonde Hispanic with hair tied into a bun and a grey suit. Possibly in her forties.

"Glad you were able to make it, Reyes," he said before gesturing towards the woman. "Allow me to introduce you all to Mrs Alexis Morales, Director of the National Clandestine Service. Mrs Morales, this is the Blackwatch unit I was telling you about."

"I see," the director hummed as she glanced across the team. "Pleasure to meet you all. If you would just follow me to the debriefing."

She turned away and walked off towards the corridor on the right. Salvatore nodded towards them, prompting the team to follow her. Once they arrived at the conference room, they sat down facing the projector in front of them. Morales and Sombra stood beside it while Salvatore watched from the side.

"I would like all of you to open up the folders placed in front of you and read all of the contents thoroughly." Morales ordered.

The team picked up the folders and read through the documents in silence. Morales then started up the projector, presenting a PowerPoint on their mission.

"Last week, the CIA was hit by a DDoS attack for two hours and by the time the servers were back online, the data inside vanished. Thanks to the efforts of Sombra, we have discovered that the attack came from a group of hackers via a digital trail they left behind."

"You know, I actually found it funny that you guys were able to miss that one tiny detail. I mean, come on! Was that so hard to find? I thought your analysts were meant to be the brains of the agency." Sombra said.

"As Mrs. Morales was saying," Salvatore continued, ignoring the red-haired hacker. "Based on the emails Sombra intercepted, the hackers were hired by a communist mafia who call themselves the People's Republic of Romania."

"So, a communist mafia. That's new." Marvel commented.

"These men are loyal to the ideas of communism. Formed during the Cold War, they were known for many crimes of the states, mainly in countries that don't support their views. Money laundering, arms trafficking, murder, counterfeiting, anything that falls under the category of organized crime."

"What'd they steal?" Ray asked.

"Oh, you know. Just a buncha names and secret stuff that could be used against the government, the same old." Sombra answered.

"And it's best that we retrieve the data back and if possible, eliminate the mafia by all means. We cannot risk retaliation or worse, a conflict. The digital trail Sombra found led us to a ranch in Bennington, Vermont where satellite footage has reported sightings of what appeared to be the mafia taking over the ranch along with the hackers. We are safe to assume this is where the data would be at."

"Me, McCree and Sombra can take this one." Gabriel said.

"What do we do about the hackers?" Sombra glanced at the leader.

"Unless they try to shoot back, they aren't our main priority."

5:47 PM, Local Time

Bennington, USA

After touching down at the William H. Morse Airport, Gabriel and his group got off the plane where several agents were posted nearby. They made their way to a black Tahoe parked near the entrance gate where a pair of agents were. McCree took the driver's seat while the rest took the passenger seats. Starting the engine, McCree drove themselves past the gate and out to the narrow road.

As the drive progressed to the highway, Gabriel looked at the rear mirror and caught sight of Sombra at the back with purple headphones on and a phone on her right hand resting on her lap. God knows what she's listening to but it wasn't much of his concern and interest. He looked away and stared out of the window. The drab autumn trees tossed lightly, obscuring the sky while dark, ragged clouds close in. There was a report of wet weather on its way so the group brought in some jackets to keep them dry.

Few minutes later and they arrived at the road leading to the ranch. The entrance's gate was completely loose with its support wedged out of the terrain. Parking the Tahoe by the gate, the group hopped out with their weapons and backpacks and delved into the bushy forest next to the gate. Gabriel put on his ski mask partially like a beanie.

As they navigated through the forest, the leaves began to rustle and the shadows closed in completely. The sky by now was completely concealed by the clouds. The team stopped once they got close to the end of the forest where a fence was placed, leaving out the forest.

"Sombra, get your drone up."

Without a word, she went with it and took out her recon drone with an installed camera. After getting it airborne, she used her tablet to control the drone. Gabriel pulled out his binoculars from his backpack and scouted the ranch. There were fewer gangsters around the ranch than he had anticipated. The main entrance of the ranch was guarded by two armed men under a portable gazebo along with a white car parked near them.

"How many inside the house?" Gabriel asked.

"That's strange," Sombra muttered. "There's only like five guys and that's not including the hackers. Thought there was gonna be more."

"Maybe we're just overestimating 'em." McCree said.

"My guess as well." Gabriel replied.

Sombra glanced at the team leader while controlling the drone. "So how do you wanna pull this off?"

"If it follows the term 'stealth', then that's how we'll do it," Gabriel tossed his binoculars into his bag and pulled his mask on. "Lets go."

Once Sombra retrieved her drone, she held the custom MP7 slung around her shoulder and followed Gabriel and McCree out of the forest and over the fence. The lawn outside the ranch was overgrown with its grass rustling and waving to the breeze; It was long enough for the team to hide behind the foliage undetected. As Gabriel led the team towards the ranch, McCree and Sombra were at his rear checking back at the two men at the entrance.

The team reached the curved walkway, closing in on the house that stood in front of them. The dark brown paint and some of the wooden aspects of the two-floor house definitely stood out with the autumn forest around it. They can see the calm river behind the house as well.

As Gabriel approached the side of the house while crouching, he noticed a drip of water bounce off the rail of the rifle before continuous drips of water skimmed upon his body in a stable rhythm. Gabriel did his best to ignore it and pulled the hood over his head. By the time they reached the side, the rain was pouring on like wildfire. McCree and Sombra both pulled on their hoods from the oncoming rain.

Gabriel advanced towards the porch, walking up the stairs while aiming his rifle with the others following him and covering their rear. There, the team were shielded from the downpour with water dripping off the edges of the roof. They can hear the fierceness of the rain from the noisy impact from the roof.

"So, five hostiles inside, Sombra?" Gabriel whispered as he approached the door.

"Yep," She nodded. "Three upstairs and two downstairs."

Gabriel clasped his free hand over the doorknob. Turning it over, the lock clicked and the door slowly moved. Gabriel slowly pushed the door open with his right shoulder without bumping it hard and peeked through the narrow gap. Through the gap, he could see a defect washing machine stacked against the wall. There was no sign of anybody from what he could see. Gabriel pushed the door further and made his first step onto the wooden floor.

Once the door swung open, Gabriel made his move first while scanning the area with his rifle. Sombra was the last to enter and closed the door softly, shutting out the hailing rain outside. Gabriel glanced around as he headed out of the room and into the corridor, leading to what appeared to be a dining room.

He stopped once he reached the end and peered to his right where he noticed a stout man sporting a work shirt in the kitchen, grabbing something from the fridge. Gabriel stepped back and held out his right hand curled into a fist while holding the foregrip tightly. Sombra and McCree stopped but still held their weapons. The man called out to someone in Romanian with whoever it was responding back.

Gabriel checked up on the man who closed the fridge door and walked back towards the living room with a beer can. Gabriel moved forward in a fast pace and aimed his rifle for the head, flicking the safety pin off. He had no reason to doubt whether that guy was one of the mobsters or not. Pulling the trigger, the suppressor flashed and the man fell in an instant with two bloody holes on the back of his head, tumbling over a chair. A loud hiss coming from the fallen can rang across the room.

"One down." Gabriel muttered, flicking the safety back on.

As he went around the table to check on the body, he heard the voice from the other room call out in concern. Gabriel jumped over to the right side of the arch and aimed his rifle at the corridor next to the living room, safety off again. Shortly, a slightly skinnier man in a worn sweater emerged from the corridor with a pistol in hand. Just as he noticed the body, Gabriel fired several rounds to the gangster's chest before he fell back.

"That's the second one down."

Sombra and McCree walked past him as he checked the fat mobster he meant to look at. After making sure both of them were dead, Gabriel caught up with Sombra and McCree where they were by the stairs. Patting McCree's shoulder, he advanced up the stairwell with McCree taking the lead. Once they reached the upper floor, they found themselves facing a door with a narrow corridor to their left, leading elsewhere. The lights were off, leaving nothing but shuttered shadows with drips sliding down.

Gabriel approached the door, closed and silent. A room with a closed door is more likely to be occupied by hostiles, which was something Jack Morrison taught back in the day. He still remembered how much he tried to one-up the Sergeant during their early years when he was still a Private searching for the thrills.

Gabriel stood next to the door and waved at Sombra and McCree, prompting them to stack up next to it. Once they were ready, Gabriel stepped in front of the door and kicked it open, boot making contact near the doorknob. As the door flung open, Gabriel stormed into the room. He noticed several people facing the computer monitors spin around, startled. His left eye caught sight of a gangster reaching for his gun on the table. Gabriel aimed and fired several rounds to his body. He fell onto the table forcibly before sliding off. Several suppressed shots were fired and more bodies landed on the floor.

"Room clear!" McCree barked.

Gabriel aimed his rifle at the hackers, still stuck to their seats. All of them had their hands up, keeping their backs towards them. They looked young and dressed in clothes young people would wear.

"Stay right where you are." Gabriel ordered.

The hackers remained frozen, probably already got the message. As his breathing kept a steady pace, Gabriel began to step away from them while keeping his aim at them.

"Sombra, get the data and everything they stole into this drive." Gabriel took out a hard drive from his pocket for Sombra.

"Got it, jefe." She replied, taking the hard drive and approaching one of the server racks nearby with a laptop on it.

"McCree, go outside and keep watch."

"Yessir."

McCree quickly left the room but left the door open. Sombra plugged in the hard drive into the laptop and began to make that computer magic. As she tapped into the network, one of the hackers began to turn around while still keeping his hands up. His hair was light blonde and a necklace hung in front of his maroon hoodie. Gabriel didn't bother to order him to turn back, unless he was armed.

"Wait a minute," he muttered with a Polish accent. "Y-you're Sombra? The actual Sombra?"

She turned around and pulled the hood off, letting her hair loose. "Who's asking?"

The hacker and the others exchanged glances of surprise, gasping and chatting amongst each other. Gabriel still kept his aim at them.

"Niesamowite! I can't believe it! You're a legend in the hacking industry!" The Polish hacker exclaimed.

"Aww, it's nice to know I have some fans," Sombra replied, turning away. "I heard about you guys too and how you managed to break into the servers with a DDoS attack. Took some bolas for you boys to rob the CIA."

"Wait, wait? The CIA?" The Polish hacker repeated.

Sombra wasn't too surprised since one of the emails she retrieved indicated that none of them knew who they were actually robbing.

"Oh? They didn't tell you?"

"N-No," he replied. "We were just told to steal some stuff from a rival mob and that was it."

"They were gonna pay us half the money we stole from the mob once we finished." Another hacker with a Finnish accent added.

Sombra hummed in a doubtful manner. "Take it from me, guys. Gangbangers nowadays don't play ball when it comes to money."

Gabriel wasn't into the conversation of any way. This was a mission, not a get-along group.

"How's the progress, Sombra?" He growled, glancing at her.

She tapped a key, displaying a loading bar on the screen and turned to Gabriel. "Gonna take a while, jefe."

"Reaper, you might wanna see this." McCree called out from outside.

Gabriel went out of the room and noticed McCree watching the window at the corridor. He was staring outside with his free hand holding the curtains aside.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Some of our Romanian buddies are back." McCree said, moving away for the leader.

Gabriel pushed the curtains away and glanced out the window overlooking the front yard. Two SUVs and the white car from the entrance were closing in on the house. Gabriel had a gut feeling that these guys now knew they weren't expecting visitors.

"Shit, they must've discovered our car." He muttered as the vehicles stopped and the doors opened.

"What do we do, boss?" McCree asked.

The front door opened and voices filled the floor from below. They heard footsteps advancing up the stairs. Gabriel got his rifle ready and aimed at the stairs while approaching it. McCree followed suit. Just as he reached the start of the stairs, Gabriel immediately caught contact of a large, bald man with a pistol in his right hand heading towards their direction. Gabriel opened fire first with three rounds to his chest. The pistol went off, hitting the ceiling as the gangster tumbled back down and slammed against a rail.

As voices began to escalate over the sounds of the hailing rain, Gabriel and McCree went down the stairs and got a glimpse of another gangster appearing from a room near the front door. Gabriel quickly put him down before he could raise his own gun. He approached the living room to his right, only for two gangsters to come into his way.

They both opened fire while backing up. Gabriel ducked below oncoming bullets while still aiming his rifle. The skinny gangster he was aiming for was really bad at aiming or even holding it properly, therefore allowing several rounds hit his body while the rest penetrated the slider doors. The other one was out of sight. Gabriel heard several suppressed shots from the other side as he entered the living room.

He turned to the kitchen where he found the rest of the gangsters holed up together. Gabriel counted three gangsters before taking cover from suppressive fire. He switched the rifle to his left hand and fired back without peeking over. The gunfire slightly ceased, prompting Gabriel to grab a stun grenade under his jacket. With a hard toss, he listened to the grenade bounce and slide on the wood before a deafening bang erupted.

When the groans and shrieks followed up, Gabriel moved out of cover and raised his rifle, taking out the two gangsters who moved away from the kitchen before approaching the last one. As he moved towards the counter, Gabriel noticed a gangster hiding behind the table too late before he made his attack.

They both shuffled and struggled as the gangster's hands gripped over Gabriel's rifle with the discharge hitting elsewhere being unhelpful. Gabriel kicked his leg with little effect. The gangster pushed Gabriel against the wall, knocking off something hanging on the wall. Just as Gabriel felt a fist slam across his face, his rifle was yanked off his grip. His left hand balled into a fist and it felt as if he had no control of the hand.

As soon as let his hand loose, it flung at the gangster's side and Gabriel let it continue until his muscles gave up. He lifted his fist and sent it flying to the gangster's face, hitting his jaw. With the gangster dazed, Gabriel punched the arms holding him, breaking himself free. He noticed the gangster's pistol tucked in front of his pants and pulled it out before he could. Without hesitation, Gabriel fired two shots to the chest and a final blow to the head.

As the gangster fell onto the chair, tumbling down with it, Gabriel scanned the rest of the room with the pistol. After making one last sweep and confirming the house was empty, Gabriel lowered the gun to take a look. A Mauser C96. Very old fashioned. Dropping the gun, Gabriel reached for his rifle and patched in.

"Main house is clear. Shadow 3, what's your status?" He said, holding his fingers on the earpiece.

"Clear on my position!" McCree huffed, sounding like he had a massive firefight outside.

Gabriel then ordered him to head back inside and went upstairs. He walked up to the door which was shut. Sombra would be at her defensive position at this point.

"This is Shadow 1, hold your fire." He called out.

The door suddenly opened and Sombra appeared in his view, holding her MP7. Gabriel walked inside where the hackers were still there. Shaken but fine overall.

"Is it done?" Gabriel asked.

"Yep," Sombra replied, holding up the hard drive. "Everything they stole is in here."

Gabriel nodded, ignoring the hackers. "Alright, lets go."

"What about them?"

He stopped and turned around where Sombra was facing. The hackers were still there. They may be tricked into stealing from the world's well known agency but their crimes can't go unpunished. Unless they were willing to accept. The CIA or Salvatore could give zero shits if he puts them down or not but they were lucky he wasn't given that order. Gabriel approached them and aimed his rifle at them, startling the hackers and prompting them to raise their hands.

"Jefe, what the hell are you doing?" Sombra called out.

He ignored her and remained fixated at those young men, aiming across them with a sight focused on each of them. For the next few seconds, it was silent except with the frantic breathing.

"You do know the rifle's safety is on?" Gabriel said, still aiming his rifle. "That means I can't shoot anything out of it unless I flick it off. And you know what happens when it's off?"

No response.

"R-Reaper, we got what we came for. You don't have to-" Sombra tried to say.

"I can kill all of you right here, right now. In fact, I wouldn't be here to waste my time talking to you kids. I can just pull the trigger and get this over with...but you're lucky I don't have the order."

Gabriel moved slowly towards the Polish hacker and held his glare at him.

"What you've done and how you did it can't be left ignored. And I don't give two shits if you were hired by the mafia or whoever that was. You pay for the price, no matter the circumstance. But I'm not in the mood of taking a life of another man so I can tell you this and you better listen closely cause I won't repeat myself."

The Polish hacker was on the verge of breaking down, trembling non-stop. Gabriel glanced at the rest of the hackers. He already had their names way back at Virginia from the leaked trail.

"Daniel. Antero. Miles. Noah. Roman. You leave this house and you don't speak of this ever again. I don't care how, just as long as you're outta here. And don't try anything stupid on the way out cause we will be watching you. But if I hear another mention of any of your names, we will hunt you down and once I find you...this safety won't be on. Do I make myself clear?"

The whole room was dead silent with fear. Roman was already petrified with the barrel of the rifle pressed against his chest as well as the others. Everybody nodded frantically.

"SAY IT." Gabriel barked.

The hackers all said 'yes' hastily and between squeaks and mumbling. Gabriel sighed and lifted his rifle away from Roman.

"Good," he began to dig into his pockets and took out the keys to their car. "The car's at the front entrance down the forest. Black Chevrolet. Take this and get outta here. No smart moves, got it?"

All of them nodded beyond normal and Gabriel handed the keys to Roman. As soon as the keys were off his hand, the hackers began to gather their things with the backpacks and they dashed out of the room. He turned around where Sombra was standing outside, bewildered and surprised. Gabriel got out the SAT phone and dialed the number.

"Jesus, Reaper," She muttered. "Was this part of your Scaring Kids to Death initiative or something?"

"It's done," Gabriel said, ignoring Sombra. "The data is in the drive."

There was a pause before Gabriel nodded and finished up the call. He slipped the phone into his pockets and went down the stairs.

"We're leaving. The cops are already on their way," he tapped the earpiece. "McCree, find a car that is still running because we'll be using it."

"Got it."

As Gabriel and Sombra left the house, they walked off the porch to the sight of bodies scattered and sprawled around the field with bullet-ridden cars left behind, smoke rising from the front. A white SUV backed up to where Gabriel and Sombra was and turned to the side with McCree driving. The two stored their equipment and backpacks in the boot and got in, staining the seats with soaked clothed. Just as they did so, the car sped off and drove around the dumped cars before reaching the front gate, hearing nothing but the raging downpour.

[astro-onechampionship]

Three key moments in The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition Episode 2

The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition picked up where it left off as a strong first episode was followed up by an equally intense second episode.

And there certainly were moments which left a lot of viewers on the edge of their seats.

Here are three key moments in Episode 2:

GSP & Renzo Gracie from up above

Episode 2 started off hot with mixed martial arts legends Georges "Rush" St-Pierre and Renzo Gracie climbing up a rope ladder from 11-feet high.

The sight of the two legends climbing from up above left the candidates in awe, and it certainly made a big impression on Alvin Ang.

Starstruck as the contestants were, St-Pierre and Gracie were left huffing and puffing as they finished the task.

Heck, even St-Pierre, a former UFC Welterweight Champion, even noted that it was possibly the toughest thing he has ever done before admitting his fear of heights.

Still, it showed the resolve of these retired fighters as they gave encouraging words to those who are set to do the same drill.

"My biggest fear is heights, but I did it. So that means you can, as well," said GSP. "Remember, there's no courage, without fear."

Gracie, the legendary six-degree black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu, chimed in and said, "Sky's the limit if you believe. Impossible is nothing."

Sho scaled the heights

Like St-Pierre, Sho Takei also had fear of heights.

The biggest difference is St-Pierre had faced monsters in his long career as a mixed martial arts fighter while Takei is an unassuming 28-year-old human resource manager from Japan.

"Height is my biggest fear and I just had the feeling that I could just die," he said. "When I stepped off the ledge, that's when I started to panic."

Even his Team Valor peer Clinton Tudor noticed the nerves on Takei as he took his turn to reel down from 11-feet and climb back up from a rope ladder. "The color is leaving his face," he observed. "He's petrified and all I'm thinking of is how is he going to be able to complete this task."

Takei did draw motivation from Team Valor cheering him on, puckered up, and climbed back up much to the delight of his squad.

"My heart started pounding. I'm just trying to keep a steady pace. And I really don't want to let my team down," he said.

It also helped that Takei witnessed St-Pierre conquer the same heights, which really served him inspiration. "I know GSP is really scared of heights as well and he was able to do it, and I knew I had to do it as well. I'm going to try to face my fears."

"ONE Championship is all about courage. There's no courage without fear, and I just had to prove to myself that I can do it. If not for my teammates, I don't think I can finish this."

Chatri steps in

It's a rarity, but ONE chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong stepped in the decision making duties for Team Conquest and put project manager Eugene Chung, Alvin Ang, and Roman Wilson in the chopping block.

With Team Valor winning its fourth straight challenge, the ball was on Chung's court on who he felt were the "weakest links" and initially pointed out at Joy Koh and Alvin Ang, yet defended Ang for his work on the e-brochures, a part of the Andaz Singapore pitch that was lost in the shuffle due to a "mishap in printing."

Paulina Purnomowati defended Koh for her help in the deck, before Chung changed his mind and pointed at Lara Pearl Alvarez, the one who defended Team Conquest during the presentation.

Chung tried to plead his case, noting, "The thing is when I stepped up as the project manager, I was very honest with them. Everyone's telling me that my weakness is organization when I clearly, clearly stated in the first place that I delegated out."

Of course, nothing comes through to Sityodtong, who chided Chung. "It's really a ridiculous excuse. That's like saying let me cook you the meal but I don't know how to cook, so please excuse me that the food is crap."

Chung, however, still wanted to take Alvarez and Ang with him, a decision that irritated Sityodtong more.

"You really must not be listening. You're just completely competent," Chatri told Eugene. "You guys would have lost before this boardroom even began if it weren't for Lara. You're not worthy to be sitting there if you could not even listen."

Sityodtong then brought in Roman Wilson, for his weak PowerPoint presentation, to the final boardroom.

Ang and Wilson were soon sent home, while an emotional Chung was spared as the show came to a close.

The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition is showing across Asia on AXN, the show’s official Asian broadcast partner, with markets to include Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition is also be available on other platforms and TV networks across Asia, including MediaCorp (Singapore), Abema (Japan), KompasTV (Indonesia), Amarin TV (Thailand), LINE TV (Thailand), TV5 Network (Philippines), and HTV (Vietnam).

[writingchecklist854]

college paper

About me

College Term Papers

College Term Papers By the tip of the Clarks' tenure in 1886, five permanent buildings had been constructed and enrollment approached 300 college students. Papers written from 1996 to 2013 can be found on-line by looking out via the database of the Defense Technical Information Center . Catalog records and DTIC hyperlinks for a lot of of these papers are additionally found in our catalog. In common, papers written before 1996 aren't out there on-line. If the sight of a scholar typing a paper on his phone upsets you, get him a laptop. If you can’t handle that, at least cease bashing him for doing what he can in a setting that’s a lot more durable than it used to be. I’ve seen college students use smartphones to take pictures of PowerPoint slides in class, an option that might have helped me tremendously. George Sturge, an English Friend, contributed $25,000 in 1881 which eventually offered an endowment of $40,000. The Sturge Fund, renamed the Geoffrey Sawyer Fund in 1976, is still administered by the Indiana Yearly Meeting for the schooling of black students. The Clarks were also involved with the Southland neighborhood's spiritual growth. In December 1876 the Indiana Yearly Meeting formally acknowledged the Southland Monthly Meeting, with seventy-eight friends, with the authority to ascertain Preparative Meetings. In 1880 the Executive Board of the Indiana Yearly Meeting also made Daniel Drew, member of the Southland Monthly Meeting, a duly accorded minister. Chandler Paschal, a member of the primary graduating class, was designated minister in March 1898. Although Southland provided much wanted academic opportunities and Christian ethics, the financial situation of the varsity was all the time tenuous. Please submit a brand new query to debate how and when to set up a research visit to the USAHEC to view these papers in individual. This is basically the identical material as in A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, organized in the identical way and utilizing lots of the identical examples. It is aimed at freshmen quite than Ph.D. students, but the variations are slight. A nice information, nonetheless, and I'm certain useful for its audience. Press the button “Hire Writer” and fill out the applying form – type of paper, subject, title, number of pages, deadline, the format of quotation and type of service. The order form is simple to grasp and fast to fill out. Our website makes use of cookies to offer you high-notch providers. Please agree with theCookie Policy before continuing. Despite the Sturge Fund, financial support remained meager. With the demise of the Freedmen's Bureau in 1869, the only upkeep of the college devolved on the Missionary Board of the Indiana Yearly Meeting which had succeeded the Friend's Freedmen Committee. Some professors truly use them as high-tech clickers to take polls in school -- if I were educating poli sci once more, I’d be throughout that. In truth, some professors -- and I hope to see more -- have gone entirely to Open Educational Resources; the money saved from one or two free on-line textbooks would greater than offset a low-price cellphone. The expectations they’re held to are far more demanding than the ones I was. At a fundamental stage, the entire lack of dorms implies that college students need both to stay very near one of the few bus routes, or to have access to a car. My capacity to go without a automobile wasn’t premised on my hardiness; it was premised on a dorm. A low-cost used automobile prices so much less than even a single yr in a dorm room. And even if they reside close to a bus line, the part-time job they hold successfully require vehicles. That’s before contemplating other family obligations a lot of them have, that I didn’t. Both methods.” It’s a “youngsters at present…” argument deployed to slough off any sense of duty for the challenges that today’s college students face. Calvin and Alida Clark remained at Southland as the superintendent and matron. During the Clarks' tenure, a standard course was added to the curriculum in 1869 and the primary goal of the college was to train black lecturers for the uplift of the race. As a consequence, the Missionary Board of the Indiana Yearly Meeting renamed the varsity Southland College and diplomas had been granted to the primary graduating class of 1876. In 1880 the first black lecturers, Southland graduates, have been added to the school thereby constituting one of the few integrated faculties within the South.

[almostarchaeology]

Before Conan the Barbarian, There Was Bran

By Adrián Maldonado

I write about medieval barbarians in my legit academic work, and use this blog to explore how they occasionally escape from our powerpoint slides into the public consciousness.

I recently realized that for all my degrees, I didn’t know a thing about one of history’s most famous barbarians. It was high time I looked up Conan.

Stock image of Dark Age Europe

In my 80s childhood, Conan the Barbarian was a kind of folk character – a stock image of a beefy white guy in a furry loincloth with a giant sword. (I would probably be picturing Conan the Librarian, to be honest.) But I already had He-Man in my life, a knock-off Conan cartoon made to sell toys, though I could not have known that because the cartoon was so unspeakably awesome it would brook no questioning. Indeed, I only discovered the Schwarzenegger Conan films later on, when I was old enough to realize he had made other weird, non-science fiction films back in the Reagan era. I knew vaguely that the character was based on a book, or was it a comic book? This was before the internet, and before I could ever give a shit about a character with no good action figures.

Flash forward twenty years or so, when I am a grizzled Xennial hunched over his computer, writing about depictions of the Picts in pop culture. Immersed in terrible filmic depictions of ancient Scottish warriors (always warriors), it struck me that I had never thought about Conan the Barbarian. What kind of barbarian was he meant to be? Did his story take place in some kind of historical epoch? Were there Picts in it that I could add to my list?

Imagine my shock when I did find a Pict down this rabbit hole (or souterrain?), and he looked like this:

Whatever else I was working on, stopped.

***

Robert E. Howard is best known today as the creator of Conan the Barbarian. But little did I know that he was one of the first pop culture appropriators of the Picts. Indeed, he was writing about the Picts long before he even conceived of Conan. The Picts were his muse. I feel like this is important, and I may need more than one blog post to say why. But first, an introduction.

I had seen some hilarious renderings of Picts over the years, but they always fell into the usual stereotype of tattooed maniacs hurling themselves onto Roman spears.

Tattooed maniacs hurling themselves onto Roman spears (source)

This 1960s paperback collection of stories by Howard entitled Bran Mak Morn, apparently the last king of the Picts, depicted this king Pict as a Neanderthal surrounded by howling ape-men. To me, this seemed like the purest distillation of the idea of the barbarians beyond the wall as sub-human, a trope developed in Roman imperial propaganda and continually reproduced today by the Hadrian’s Wall heritage ecosystem.

The paperback was one of a series of reprints of Howard’s genre-defining pulp fantasy of the 1920s and 1930s, brought back to life in the wake of the Tolkien wave of the 60s. Closer inspection revealed that Frank Frazetta’s 1969 cover image bore little resemblance to the description of Bran himself in Howard’s tales, even if his Pictish ‘race’ was certainly of a simian variety. More on this presently. What I wanted to know first was how a Texas kid learned about the Picts in the early 20th century, and came out with this.

***

Robert E Howard had a tough childhood in his native Texas. Coming from a broken home, he moved around a lot and read books to keep himself company. In 1919, at the age of 13, his father dragged him to New Orleans while he took classes, so he squirrelled himself away in a library on Canal Street. It was there that he first read about the Picts in a book about British history. The image of a little, dark race from the north that hassled the Romans but could never be conquered fascinated him. Perhaps due to the ray of light this book gave him at a sensitive point in his childhood, the Picts remained ingrained in his mind for the rest of his short life, which he would later take in 1936, at the age of 30.

Like many other nerdy kids, he wrote stories to pass the time. In his archive were found several early writings which reveal the impact the Picts had on him. There is a school paper from 1920-23 about the Picts. The first story he ever submitted for publication was about the Picts, ‘The Lost Race’, but it was rejected by the editor of Weird Tales in 1924. He sold his first story later that year, beginning his professional writing career. A revised version of ‘The Lost Race’ was finally published in Weird Tales in 1927, introducing the world to Bran Mak Morn, a Pictish king who fought the Romans. He would go on to make several more appearances in Howard’s swords-and-sorcery tales, and the Picts eventually became one of the myriad ‘races’ in Howard’s Hyborian Age, a proto-prehistoric shared universe inhabited by Conan the Barbarian.

Bran Mak Morn by Gary Gianni (source)

Howard’s Picts are a peculiar bunch. From his first essay on them, he describes them as the remnants of the stone age inhabitants of Britain, comparing their appearance to Native Americans. In this view, they were the ‘Mediterraneans’ (as opposed to Celts or Nordics) who first brought the knowledge of farming to Britain in the Neolithic. They were eventually swept aside by the fair-skinned ‘Celtic’ race of metalworkers, at which point they were forced to mingle and interbreed with the indigenous cavemen, a barely human simian-like race. This meant that by the arrival of the Romans, the Picts had become stunted, swarthy, long-armed ape-men. All except Bran Mak Morn, their king, who had kept his bloodline pure. All pretty disgusting racial logic now, but hey, so the argument goes, it was the 20s.

Except that here it was, unfiltered and raw, in a book released during the height of the civil rights struggle in the United States. I bought this ancient artefact off of Amazon for pennies, and holding it in 2017, it felt like I’d acquired an illicit antiquity. Plenty of writers have tripped over themselves to call out and defend Tolkien and Howard regarding the racial (if not always racist) component to their mythical prehistories, so I won’t go down that route just now. But that cover image haunted me.

***

In 2005, Bran Mak Morn received a brand-new edition, the Weird Tales stories now bundled with unpublished manuscripts, fragments of Howard’s correspondence, and critical essays by Rusty Burke and Patrice Louinet. Armed with an annotated timeline of Howard’s Pictish writings, which spanned his career, and supplemented with google-fu, I was able to clarify the genesis of Bran Mak Morn.

Former Canal Street public library, New Orleans, 1911 (source)

It is possible to trace the public library Howard visited when he was 13, when he first encountered a British history book and his vision of the dark, prehistoric Picts. The Canal Street public library in question must be the one that formerly stood at 2940 Canal Street at the corner of South Gayoso, opened in 1911. A photograph survives on the New Orleans library website, and Google Maps reveals it is now a Yoga studio.

Origin myths of the Picts (source)

Rusty Burke has also plausibly identified the very book that Howard seems to have read: The Romance of Early British Life (1909) by George Francis Scott Elliot. This is apparently one of the flashy, pulpy ‘Library of Romance’ published by London-based Seeley and Co, described as ‘profusely illustrated’ ‘gift books’, which included among their number volumes such as The Romance of Modern Mining and The Romance of the World’s Fisheries. The author Scott Elliot was a botanist and antiquarian, president of Dumfries and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society during an apparent low point in its history.

The fairly ridiculous book in question seems to have been written for Edwardian teenage boys, and does indeed bear the DNA of Howard’s later writing on the Picts: “In very ancient times Britain had been twice conquered, first by the small, dark Picts of the Mediterranean, and later (about 2000 or 1000 B.C.) by the tall, brown-haired, Gaelic-speaking Celts (237).” The chapter on the introduction of farming to Britain is called ‘The coming of the Picts’, in which Scott Elliot explains that they have been called by several names before – Homo Mediterraneus, Basques, Iberians, Silurians, the Firbolg, the Dolmen-builders – but he calls them Picts to save on ink (80-1). He claims they are still readily identifiable in the present day, as the short, brunette people who are mostly found in towns and cities, unlike the fairer Teutons or Kelts who prefer the countryside (92-3).

Howard’s vision of the Picts was thus formulated by the equivalent of our contemporary public archaeology, an accessible potted prehistory of Britain by one of Scotland’s leading antiquaries. Why this particular image, of a dark, forgotten people without a history, resonated so deeply with him, is a subject to ponder. But he was clearly not alone in his fascination. While racial views of the past soon died out in archaeological writing, they would go on to have a tenacious grip on the fantasy world. And which of these two genres do you think has a greater influence on people’s image of the medieval past?

***

Why does any of this matter? It is a demonstration of the role of ‘the Picts’, in various guises, as the untermenschen of what you might call western folk history. The fact that a young boy in inter-war Louisiana could head to the nearest library, read about them in a cheap history book, and then build a world-beating fictional universe that is still beloved today based on this is remarkable. As I’ve spent some time documenting on these pages, that image of the Picts is still in a way with us. A recent article in the Glasgow Herald has the reporter coming to the shocking insight that the Picts were not ‘hairy savages’ after speaking briefly to a couple of scholars. I wonder if that means we are doing our job well, or terribly.

It also opens up questions about the central role of race at the origins of both archaeology and the fantasy genre, a sticky subject that will have to be the subject of future blog posts [Editor's note: now read the follow-up to this post]. In the meantime, go check out similar topics being covered over on The Public Medievalist. 

And hey, why not donate to your local public library while you’re at it?

***

Follow us on ​@AlmostArch

Header image via Jeff Black

[irenephd]

Presentations

I’ve been researching a little about how to make good presentations. And I’ve found a couple of interesting presentations and tips.

Particularly I’ve been playing with the idea of making presentations in Figma. 

One point that I’m still dwelling on is how to make it into an interactive experience. 

During my last presentation asked of students to give answers to pools, formatted as their exam. They gave the answers and then I showed the correct answer but I wonder if I could branch out all the possibilities and end with a topic on the questions they got wrong. I think that would be amazing. I’ll try to give it a go on next weeks presentation.

Things I need to figure out

improve my #Figma knowledge : link & link

make a design system for my presentations : done

figuring out the flow for every wrong answer : done

include a way for students to find solutions first, and then give the answer

Resources : 

Improving your powerpoint presentations by Dan Quintana made in 2019

Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Make Your Presentations a Little Bit Better by Scott St. George (University of Minnesota) made in 2013

liked this presentation by Iryna Nezhynska

[whatdimissmotherfuckers]

Procrastination

Word count: 1786 Summary: You’re bored and procrastinate and decide to chat with Philip Hamilton. Stuff happens. (I’m really getting better at Summary, right?)

Pairing: Philip x Reader

Au: High School

Warnings: Lot of cussing. I guess. Thats it

Note: It’s verry fluffy. Also, yes, i still haven’t posted Maybe that’S the problem, but I didn’t want to shit something out. So yeah. tomorrow. It will be worth it, I swear. Also i really like this one and i hope you enjoy it too? (Why do i always write Philip?)

A sigh escaped your lips.

You didn't even bother to look at your alarm clock, because you knew it was almost midnight and yet you were still awake. Running your hand through your dishevelled hair, you attempted to think of another sentence you could add to the powerpoint you were working on, but your mind had other ideas. There was just no way in hell you could form grammatically correct texts that also made sense after downing the fourth coffee on that day. Or Night. Of course, you could've noticed that sooner, but well, no need to worry.  You were way too motivated on the topic of procrastination that you could care about your project. Besides, it was only missing a few finishing touches, or at least you thought so. So without further thinking, you slammed your laptop shut and grabbed your phone. Who could you write and who would possibly be online?

Of course, the first thing that came in mind was one of your classmates, Philip. You often sat next to each other in class, but you never actually talked to him outside of school. Which was a shame, because you couldn't deny that he was a pretty...cool guy. Well, it was also hard to talk to him outside of classes because he was always surrounded by his clique, and you really didn't want to get into trouble with them. The group consisted of five people, Theodosia, Frances, Georges, Richard and Philip. You would rarely see one of them alone, and rumour has it that they were all secretly dating each other. But then again, those rumours seemed pretty absurd.

Should you write him a message? It was worth a shot, wasn't it? While you searched for his number, you contemplated over how you should write him. "Hey, it's (Y/N)." No, that was too basic. "Howdy, what's up? (Y/N) here." Yeah, right. This was exactly how you would lose his interest in the first message. You should just say what you're thinking right now.

You: Hi Philip, I'm procrastinating on my pp for tomorrow. I'm bored,entertain me pls.

Sometimes your brutal honesty was too much.

P. Ham: Yo. Me too.

You: You're not finished?

P. Ham: Yeah, what's your topic?

You: Anthony Ramos.

P. Ham: Ugh. Boring.

P. Ham: Don't say he looks like me!

You: He does.

Soon you were engaged in a light-hearted conversation, and you could feel your excitement grow with every message he wrote back. Philip was a person that always caught your attention the most, but then again, he caught the attention of everyone. He was a very popular person, because of his intelligence,the fact that he was very outgoing and his good looks. Then again, he didn't have too many friends. It didn't surprise you, since his charming nature hid behind a blunt personality. But if you looked past the snide remarks he often made, Philip was actually a very kind person. A lot of people would say that he was the split image of his father, Alexander Hamilton. You didn't know what to think about that, you haven't heard much of the man.  After a while, the conversation took an interesting turn.

P. Ham: Hey, do you planning on sleeping in the next hour?

You: Not really, why.

P. Ham: I'm bored and I wanna come over.

You: What?

P. Ham: God, you're a slowpoke.

You: Excuse me? It's just that it's 00:05 and you want to come all the way over here?

P. Ham: You know I live three streets away, right? I'm coming over.

You: Wait!!

You: I haven't said you could come over, you dick!

Even after waiting a few minutes, there wasn't coming an answer anymore. You sighed, while taking a closer look around your room. A little bit of panic came up inside you, as you noticed all of your belongings, which were laying around. You contemplated if you still had the time to tidy it, but didn't manage more than picking up the clothes that were scattered across the floor before you heard the doorbell ring. Throwing the clothing into your laundry basket, you made your way to the door. As you opened it, you couldn't help but gasp. Not only was the one and only Philip Hamilton before you, but he was also wearing a pretty fancy attire and balanced a tray of brownies in his left hand.

"Happy Birthday", he jeered, seeming a bit unimpressed with your dishevelled hair and your favourite sweater that was two sizes too big.

As your eyes met, he noticed the confusion on your face. " I don't have birthday?", you pointed out, but your statement had a questioning tone to it. "I know." He shrugged and squeezed past you, closing the door behind him. "I have." Philip still hasn't shown any form of positive emotions, but now you could see a slightly suppressed smirk on his face.

The instant these words left his mouth, you felt your cheeks turn red. "Oh no, I forgot your birthday! I'm sorry!", you exclaimed,  and wrapped your arms around his waist to hug him.

"You're not sorry, you're a horrible person", he muttered, chuckling. After a few more apologies and more hugging both of you went into your room, and threw on your laptop to watch some netflix. Of course, the first thing that popped up as you opened the computer, was your Powerpoint.  "Motherfucker, I completely forgot about this", you thought to yourself, before logging into your netflix account. While you were busy, Philip was eyeing your room, of course not without adding a few comments here and there. It was Philip, of course he had something to say about it. "How nice of you to tidy before inviting me over", he said, and you gasped audibly. "First of! I didn't! Second! I also didn't!", you answered, which made you receive a simple nod. You couldn't see that of course, because Philip was behind you, but he didn't seem to care.

"You stingy ass could've at least buy me a little present!", he complained after he had commented on seemingly every item that was in your possession. You felt the guilt rise in you, even though you probably wouldn't have bought something if you knew, that he had birthday today. What possible could a rich, douchey high school student possibly want? You were sure he already had most things you could only dream of.  Not that he actually meant, what he said. You were sure he wasn't expecting anything. "Sorry... I'll think of something", you professed, even though you weren't sure if you could.

After you set everything up, you sat yourself beneath him on your bed, and placed the laptop in front of you. "You want?", Philip suddenly asked, shoving the tray of brownies towards you. Sceptical, you inspected the brownies a bit further, when he suddenly started to laugh. "Shut your mouth, I didn't poison them. And they're pot-free", he defended himself. "I haven't said anything", you protested, poking him in the ribs. "No, but you were about to."

Touché. You couldn't argue with that. Taking a bit out of the cake, you struggled to speak, but did it anyway. "Sowhatchawannawatch?" You could barely understand yourself, but Philip seemed to have a problem with it.  Yawning, he chose a film called django unchained, and you chose not to interject, even though you've seen it a couple of times already.  

"Is it even okay to have you here? Shouldn't you finish your presentation", you pondered, while you were absently staring at the screen. Somehow it had reminded you, that Philip was also procrastinating. "Nah, I'm finished. I just said that to make you feel a bit better." "Asshat."

As the film went on, your concentration slowly started to fade away from the movie and you focused more on the boy beneath you. At first, you only glanced over to him once or twice, but the more you looked, the more he seemed to concentrate on the film, giving you the impression that he didn't notice your obvious staring. So soon you found yourself looking at him longingly. You loved his bouncy curls, and wondered if they would feel soft when you would ran your hand through them. But the most fascinating were his freckles. They seemed like like dashes of paint on a blank canvas, and made him so much more unique. You may or may not have started to count them, as he suddenly turned his head, forcing you to hold his piercing glance.  

"How long are you planning to stare at me?", he deadpanned, making you blush again. "Well I-I don't know", you stuttered, struggling with an explanation. But he didn't seem to care. "You said you would think of something as my birthday present. I'm gonna wish something", he digressed. Letting out a small giggle, you suggested something.

"What, that I shut up and watch the movie" Philip gave a quick nod, before he added: "And another thing." Pulling you over to him, you didn't have enough time to react before his lips were on yours, kissing you passionately.

After what seemed like ages, he let go of you, with the words: " And now you shut up and watch the movie." You were happy to oblige, but even though you were staring at the screen, your mind was elsewhere. Thinking of the boy next to you, who was grinning just as stupidly as you. Happily leaning against Philip, you felt the tiredness overcoming you, which you at first suppressed, but before you knew, you had fallen asleep.

Waking up to your favourite song, you felt your heart racing almost in an instant, as you remembered the previous night.  In panic, you jolted up, just to notice that somebody had tucked you in, and placed your computer on the desk. Checking the clothes you were in,you made yourself sure that the events of this night weren't just a silly dreams. Slowly, you calmed down. Everything was going alright so far, you weren't late for school... But then, something occurred to you.

"The presentation!" you exclaimed, almost falling out of your bed as you tumbled towards the laptop. Hoping, that it was at least somewhat finished, you started to scan the document, as you noticed, that it was... completed. Somebody had added pictures, and small paragraphs of information. Furrowing your brows, you contemplated whether you had finished the presentation in your sleep.

"What?!", you gasped, as you had arrived at the last page of the powerpoint, which consisted of a huge title with the following words: "If I was Anthony Ramos, would you be my Jasmine Cephas Jones?"