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timextoxhajima · 3 years

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Love Me A Little Less: Chapter 6 - Misogynist

LOVE ME A LITTLE LESS CHAPTER MASTERLIST

Member: (3rd person pov) arranged marriage au with Lee Juyeon

Genre: angsty wangsty

Taglist: @hyunjaethereal @sunwoowuvbot

“Don’t offend me.”

“No, I think the best course of action for HERA & ARTEMIS is that we not only branch out to collaborate with other companies, but also to make um… say, connections with non-profit organisations. Orphanages, charities, you name it. The publicity HERA & ARTEMIS will get after being recognised as a community-caring brand, a brand that cares no less than it’s maximum ability to about children, the elderly and the disabled.”

“Charitable. I like it,” The Resources CEO of The Board nods with a wine of champagne in his glass. even at her own wedding, all the bride can think of is work. All she cares about is how to make sure HERA & ARTEMIS is heard in the crowd of attendees to her wedding. “Anyway, a gorgeous wedding, I must say. What made you have it at home? I’d expect that your father and brother would have wanted it somewhere more… ravish, y’know, more extravagant.”

It takes some effort to hide her disgust at the thought that her father had a say over where she wanted to have her wedding.

“Of course not,” The service smile almost feels surgically implanted into her face, even Jang Won herself is put off. “Juyeon and I have already planned this right off the bat, have it at Hera’s Manor.”

“Why not at the Lee House? I thought the Lee’s would’ve preferred it there, you know, husband and all.”

Jang Won could’ve slapped the glass of champagne out of his grasp if she wanted to, then probably break the bowl off the stem and send it into his eye.

Misogynist.

“We—”

“The Lee House doesn’t have the facility and resources to hold a wedding now,” Juyeon comes round with a cup of whiskey, cheeks slightly pink from the alcohol as he rounds his arm around Jang Won, pulling her into his torso and even bothering to press a kiss into her temple. “It isn’t as presentable as you’d expect it to be. Hera’s Manor is well-kept and it looks like it’s prepped for a party every other day.”

Juyeon smiles politely, eyes drifting from the Resources CEO to Jang Won, and for a split second, Jang Won might just feel somewhat impressed he stood up for her. “You know what they say, if you need something done, a lady will do it fast and efficient.”

The Resources CEO provides the newly wedded couple an awkward smile, not really able to spit out a proper response to Juyeon’s rebuttal.

“Anyway, love, your brother’s asking for you in your office. Some administrative issues that cropped up,” Juyeon pulls away and turns his body, feet already pointing away from the Resources CEO. “If you’ll excuse us, Mr Teuk.”

Juyeon lowers his head as a sign of respect, though he probably doesn’t mean it. He gently tugs on Jang Won and leads her out of the courtyard.

“Please tell me there aren’t any actual administrative manners Younghoon wants to talk to me about,” Jang Won seethes as she walks up the yard stairs and into the main hall.

“‘Course not,” Juyeon subtly shakes his head. “He’s having the time of his life actually, getting acquainted with the other members of The Board. Have you always been the one helping him with Artemis?”

“In his defence, I don’t let him handle anything. It’s a subsidiary of HERA & ARTEMIS so I might as well take things into my own hands and worry about it on my own.”

“Well, maybe you should let him figure his hand out at things. He doesn’t legally own Artemis for nothing.”

Jang Won turns to shoot a look of distaste at Juyeon.

“What?” He frowns, forehead creasing. “I’m literally telling you to split your workload.”

“I don’t need to split my workload. I’m doing fine on my own and frankly, I’d rather he sit back and let me do most of it so that at least I know what the Hell’s going on with my companies without worrying about any secrets.”

Juyeon rubs the back of his neck and shoves his hands into his pockets. “In other words, you don’t trust your brother.”

“Please,” She walks off first, heading for her office where she usually seeks refuge amongst her bottles of whiskey and bourbon and documents. “Just because I love him for being my brother doesn’t mean I should trust him with my finances.”

“You’re literally born into a family of fortune. Even if he does mess up, you’d be able to recover from it. The consequences would mean absolutely nothing to you.”

Jang Won pushes the heavy doors of her office open, admiring the late-morning sun that’s spilling all over her chair and her desk.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong, pretty boy. I choose not to rely on whatever I have at birth because I always felt like whatever my dad had was just handed to him,” She reaches for the ice bucket and picks up a ball of ice, dropping it into the whiskey glass, then coats most of its surface with bourbon. “But God forsake my hard work, huh? I guess if hard work really did pay off then I wouldn’t be standing here, in a wedding-lunch dress, talking to my husband.”

Juyeon raises both brows and throws himself into one of the sofa seats, the clinking of the whiskey decanter echoing ever so slightly throughout the office. “Ever heard of a holiday? You should go on one.”

She scoffs with exaggeration, the gentle swishing of the alcohol meeting the ice and the glass gleaming like liquid honey under the sunlight. “Yes, because I’m just like you, the one who would run away from the responsibilities he was born into whenever he doesn’t want them.”

“I’m sorry,” Juyeon grimaces, standing up and allowing the silvers of his suit glimmer as he walks into where the sunlight kisses the floor. “Which toe did I step on? I just pulled you out of a situation you would’ve otherwise not wanted to be in.”

“Unfortunately for you, I didn’t need pulling out. I could’ve handled myself right there and then. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember - I don’t need myself a nanny to save me,” Cocking one of her brows, she gives a wry laugh before downing the shot of whiskey.

Juyeon is in disbelief in her ability to perceive gratitude - or rather, a lack thereof.

“Maybe your father came back to save HERA & ARTEMIS from your terrible people’s skills, ever thought of that?”

“Wrong again, pretty boy!” She peels the glass off her lips and stares at the lipstick mark. “I’m perfect with the people I wanna be perfect with to get what I want, and when they are of no use to me, I’m well aware I treat them less than average.”

“There it is,” He sneers, stopping right before her as she finishes the last bit of her whiskey. “So, you’re a hypocrite.”

A smirk draws across her lips. Jang Won almost slams the glass back down in the tray of other glasses and the whiskey decanter. “And I’m proud of it. There’s nothing you can do about it, Lee Juyeon. You agreed to play this game my way and now that we’re wearing matching rings. I’m afraid you’ll have to deal with it.”

Jang Won squares up and jabs a finger into his shoulder. But Juyeon catches her wrist and holds it in place, causing her to grunt and attempt to writhe her way out, but to no avail.

“Kim Jang Won, you listen to me and you listen well. Just because I agreed to play this game by your rules, doesn’t mean I’m your puppet. We both know who will be the more powerful one in May, so my advice?” By now, Juyeon’s nose is almost in her eye. He’s not even bothering to look at her.

“Don’t offend me.”

Jang Won finally snatches her wrist out of his hold when she feels his grip loosen. Huffing, she stomps past him, shoulder bumping into his arm for good measure as she leaves the office.

Younghoon just about catches his sister rolling her eyes so hard, she was this close to hurling a string of vulgarities at the wooden of her office door. “Hey, what were you doing in your office? People are looking for you!”

Without a word, her eyes are locked with his in frustration.

“What?” He frowns.

She thinks for a moment.

She can ruin him and destroy him by asking him to take Artemis for himself before the deal is due in June. Ask him why he was so useless and had his little sister do everything for him, never once really fighting to take ownership of a company legally his.

“Nothing,” The brush-off is sharp and distinct as she waves him off, turning to walk into the main hall. “Go get yourself more sponsors before June, will you? I’m not sure the same people would want to keep in touch with HERA & ARTEMIS after the separation and collaboration is made official.”

Juyeon returns home later that evening, still wearing the fourth outfit of the day. It was a blue suit with a black collar and details and all he wants to do is soak himself in his bath. Maybe he could go to sleep safe and sound, and he’d wake up single and free to do whatever he actually wants to do.

He walks down the entrance corridor, sick of all the staged portraits of him and his family hung on the walls. The main hall comes into sight, past the stairs on his right, where the television was still broadcasting bits and pieces of his wedding earlier. In the million-dollar couch sat his father, eyes and ears attentive to the screen.

“Was it so entertaining that you have to watch it again? I know you were there this afternoon.”

His father turns his head subtly. Juyeon pulls off his blazer and removes his watch, laying the heavy clothing over his forearm as he scans the broadcast.

“The Lee-Kim wedding saw nothing short of nothing but a perfect list of investors, sponsors, fellow colleagues and leaders of several enterprises...”

He turns to look at his father, obviously still somewhat hurt that he hadn’t been officially invited by his son - Mr Ro had sent out mandatory invites to family members.

“It was a gorgeous wedding.”

“Yeah, well...” Juyeon shrugs lifelessly, already turning around to head for the stairs. “I had no say in it. It was her wedding and I don’t care, so.”

“The Board is expecting you to go on a Honeymoon, you have that in place, right?”

Juyeon gives a dry chuckle, already on the first step of the stairs. “Yeah, we’re going to Guatemala.”

“Guatemala?” His father shifts his attention from the television and looks at Juyeon, halfway up the stairs. “You’re just finding a chance to go diving in Belize, aren’t you?”

His son doesn’t falter, only continuing taking each step towards the second level, in hopes that he wouldn’t have to listen to his father criticise the only thing Jang Won let him do. At least it was some kind of freedom.

“Juyeon-”

“Mom better not be in my room.”

The second floor corridor greets him with even more portraits of his family, most of the pictures of him when he was younger. He halts right outside his door when he notices light seeping out from beneath.

Sighing with exasperation, he lays his hand on the door handle, readying himself to listen to his mother ramble. But his attention drifts from the cream-painted mahogany to the low cabinet next to him, the blue shade of the stingray shining under the hallway lights.

There was a ceramic statue of a standing coral frame with the stingray within the arc, and on it engraved ‘Hawaii 2018′. He smiles, remembering only fond memories of seeing a huge stingray while diving. Sunwoo had been dragged out by him - one of those times when he fought with his parents and couldn’t stand being in the same house as them. He covered travel cost and hospitality fees, ensuring Sunwoo’s parents (whose family was also on the smaller arm of The Board’s administration) that he’d take care of them.

Juyeon got an earful from his parents when he came back. Young Jin Seol had been the one to tell his parents his whereabouts, solely because he had arranged for her to make sure it seemed like he was still doing his job at the office. So, of course, when his parents walked into office and she was doing his work for him, they had threatened to fire her.

But Juyeon knew he was indebted, and told his parents, “No Jin Seol, then you can forget about me taking over Apple-Korea.”

Sucking a deep breath, Juyeon shakes himself out of his mental trance, and pushes the door open.

The back of his mother seems so fragile on first sight, and he’s well aware she’s getting on in her years. For a split second, he feels emotional, possibly feeling some tinge of remorse at how horrible of a son he’s been.

Then he remembers that she’s had an abundance of spa treatments, country-club lunches with her fellow rich moms after a game of gold or tennis, and a bunch of other things she definitely didn’t need. He wish he could tell himself otherwise, that she had been born into this life and thus living anything else dissimilar to this would be tiring on her.

But he can’t.

“I’m surprised you bothered to come home,” She says without looking at him. Juyeon rests his blazer on the back of the single sofa seat that’s angled to face the one she’s sitting in. “I was wondering if I should send some pajamas over to Hera’s Manor.”

Juyeon sits in the crystal encrusted sofa seat, crossing his legs and eyeing his mother fiddle with the wedding band on her finger. It reminds him of his own.

“You realise you’re the one who bound me to the Kim family, don’t you? You’re the one who said okay to marrying Kim Jang Won, not me.”

“It was for your own good.”

“For mine or for our family?” Juyeon leans back in his seat and interlocks his fingers, placing them in his lap. “What else do you really need from the Lee family that you simply cannot take your eyes off? Their money? HERA & ARTEMIS? What?”

Only now does Juyeon notice the cup of tea on the small coffee table infront of them.

“A child,” She says, like it was the most casual thought one could have, before taking a sip of tea. Her son shuts his eyes then opens them with his eyebrows as far up his forehead as he can.

Providing a dry, tortured chuckle, Juyeon blinks multiple times, wishing that it was a condition with his hearing and not just something his mother had just spat out.

“A what?” Juyeon pulls apart his hands and leans forward, fists now clenched and pressed into the cushion he was sitting in.

“You heard me,” She places the tea cup down and refuses to look at him. “A child would mean inheritance. The Lee family will inherit the wealth of the Kims and it could possibly start a new system. It could rewrite The Board. We could become The Board.”

“What the-” He finally stands, barely choking out some kind of laughter filled with confusion and utter disbelief. “You want a child just to bond our families together and take over The fucking Board? My God, why are you so obsessed with The Board?”

“Because The Board is everything! No board, no us, no wealth and comfort like the kind we raised you in-”

“Does it look like I wanted it?!” Juyeon runs his hands through his hair, pulling his hair back and stretching his hairline.

“You ingrate-”

“So I am an ingrate. But I had no choice, I have no life of my own because guess who’s making my decisions for me? You! If I don’t even have the ability to make my own choices then how do I even qualify as an ingrate?!”

She’s silent, and very much staring at the words spewing out of her son’s mouth now. She huffs through her flared nostrils, picking up the saucer and the tea cup and standing. “I don’t know what kind of ideas Kim Jang Won has planted in your head but you are still part of the Lee family and-”

“For Gods’ sake, Jang Won has nothing to do with any of this! In fact, she can’t care less about what I’m doing, so long as it doesn’t change the course of this entire situation. If anything, she’s playing it safe; she’s playing it against her father, and not us,” The veins on Juyeon’s hands are about to rip through his skin when he cannot close his fist any more. “Her father literally climbed out the grave... and you took this chance to capitalise on that in order to make our family richer the moment you heard of The Board’s announcement regarding HERA & ARTEMIS’s ownership complications...”

Juyeon shakes his head subtly, realising that he was panting from the sheer force of anger and disgust rushing through him.

“And she’s younger than me. Lost her mother, lost her father, who only comes back to take what she built? You know, for a woman under The Board, I’d think you’d understand what she’s gone through. I thought... I thought you would’ve known how hard it is to be the successful one in the family but cannot pass down the family name... but everytime I think the world of you, and I think you’d act a little more like the woman I thought you are... you prove me wrong.”

Juyeon glares down at her, hands holding the teacup in the saucer with some kind of disapproving, disappointed look of fury in her eyes. Then he sighs heavily, hands rushing to pick up his blazer and storms out the room before she can.

“Leave Kim Jang Won alone, or else I’ll refuse Apple-Korea. By then, you can forget about all your stupid green bills and diamond rings.”

And with that, he slams the door shut.

Juyeon appears along the second floor hallway, visible from the first floor’s living hall, where his father was still watching the news of his wedding earlier on in the day. Of course, the door slamming would’ve caught his attention, so when his son rushes down the stairs while putting his blazer back on, the elder man removes himself off the couch.

“Juyeon! Where are you going?!”

“Don’t call me, and don’t even think of calling Hera’s Manor,” He opens the heavy front door with such determination, then slams it harder than he intends to. By the foot of the stairs leading down to the pick up point by the entrance, his two bodyguards are taken aback and flustered when Juyeon appears again.

“Uh, can I get Mr Bong around-”

The instruction through the guard’s earpiece is cut short and interrupted abruptly as Juyeon unplugs the earpiece from the transmitter.

“Mr Lee-”

Juyeon doesn’t hesitate to do the same with the other guard. By now, his father has gotten the front door open and yelling at him with disapproving scolds.

Rushing around the hood of the Porsche, Juyeon steps into the drivers’ seat - an unlikely sight, since he’s been chauffeured around most of the time.

“What in the world are you two doing? Stop him from leaving!”

The vehicle revs to life, and Juyeon fumbles under the passenger seat’s compartment box and every crook and cranny in the front of the car.

“Juyeon!”

He winds up the window on the driver’s side and locks the entire vehicle just as his father reaches the window. He tugs on the handle angrily, almost able to shake the entire car with his aggression.

“Juyeon, don’t you dare!”

Then, he finds it. A tracking device attached to all the cars his family owns.

Ripping it off the surface it was stuck into, he rolls down the window on the passenger’s side and hurls it out, straight into the arms of one of the bodyguards.

“Juyeon!”

He starts up the car and pulls it into drive, forcing his father to back off as he moves off.

#multifandomnet #juyeon fanfic #juyeon imagines #juyeon scenario #juyeon #lee juyeon #the boyz juyeon #tbz juyeon #the boyz fanfic #the boyz imagines #the boyz scenarios #tbz #the boyz #love me a little less

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bulkhummus · 2 years

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Mx. Hummus, I need your opinion!

This is very random but I'm torn between the course (I think it's called "major" in the US) I want to do in university, since I started one, didn't like, dropped out and am going through my options again. One of them is visual arts, but I also like other things and don't really know how art school is like. What's you're opinion on that? I think you mentioned that your majored (is that the right word?) in something else.

I don't know if I'm just chickening out of the other ones because they may be "harder"...also, I'm just looking for more opinions on this, since I don't know where else to ask and really like to read your opinion on things ;; not trying to throw the responsibility of choosing on anyone

Hello! I would definitely ask for multiple opinions, and if you’re really unsure, take some time off and figure things out while working a job! (In the US its very expensive to go to college, so its smart to either take a gap year, or take courses part time at a community college and save money first if you’re unsure about a major/career path.) There is truly no rush!

My experiences under the cut:

Like any choice you make, there are going to be pros and cons. I went to art school and loved it! It was unlike any other school or community I’d been a part of and had amazing, unique experiences there both in the classroom and on campus (drag shows, theater, apartment concerts, murder mystery dinner parties, weird manifesto reading parties, filming performance art pieces, free artist talks etc.) I also met very interesting professors and people. I learned more culturally, socially and personally in a way that I don’t think I would have had I gone to a more academic school. Not to sound corny but I really developed there as an individual, and found people who looked and felt like me, which was wondrous and profound.

Should I have gone to school for art? Probably not. It’s hard to say that since I enjoyed my experience so much, but both things can be true. I don’t regret it one bit (and also can’t untangle the experiences I had there from my recommendations) I do think I would have benefited from keeping my art as a hobby/passion while pursing a career in a science (which was what my other plan was).

It comes down to what you’re looking to do as a career. Do you want to take art and make a career out of it? What does that look like for you (ie. Design, illustration, animation, contemporary art, art administration, etc). Are you prepared to ask yourself the question of how do I create art that feels authentic to me and my experience while also acknowledging that I’m trying to make a profit from it? How do I not tire creatively? How do I continue to find joy in the thing that is now making me money and is my job? Being an artist today means you also have to network, manage social media platforms (video, editing, sounds etc), cater to trends, and usually have some kind of brand (with exceptions ofc haha) due to algorithms and the nature of it. These questions, personally, are very hard for me as an artist (and part of the reason why I started making fan art, bc I was feeling burned out from personal work.)

For me, going to school for art meant I was looking to make a career out of it, and while I learned skills and had insightful conversations, I struggled more with what it meant to be a working artist than I ever have. But this is not true for everyone! Some people love the grind, the business aspect, the self representation, and are excellent at compartmentalizing/ don’t even look at it how I do. But these are still questions I think you should think about if you decide to choose an art school!

And art isn’t a cop put!! Art is really hard. I don’t care what anyone says. Its draining. And a lot of reading, writing, analyzing theories of perception and decades of art history, endless emotional nights agonizing over pieces in the studio, forming a work ethic, getting real comfortable with public speaking in critiques, AND getting your vulnerable thoughts and hard work shredded in those critiques is HARD. So don’t feel like its an easier route just because there is no math or science involved. Anything you choose is going to be hard work, but it makes it worth it!

I wish someone would have told me that my passion could remain a passion and it didn’t have to become my career. My big take away is think about whether or not you want art as your career, or if you just have the desire to become a more skilled artist. If you’re leaning toward the latter, there are options you can pursue. There are so many online videos and courses/ in-person classes you can take not to mention artist talks and museum tours. All while working your big adult job.

I hope that this helped somewhat! I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything, but I do wish I had given it all more thought, so kudos to you for reaching out and asking for opinions!

I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose! ♥️

#i rambled a little #sorry its long but i hope people give u the time you deserve!#also im in the bath and had time to type and reminisce abt my college days haha #advice #ask tag #anon

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cloveroctobers · 3 years

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•ALLEGRA BIANCHI•

IG info/bio: @/theeallegrabianchi | 303k followers| Entrepreneur | bad bitches go to therapy thxz 🦭👄

(24) 26 years old

From Swansea, Wales

Ofc she knows who Catherine Zeta-Jones is...her mother literally resembles her and remembers people coming up to her mom countless times asking for a pic growing up, and Allegra hated taking pics for these imbeciles...mainly because the attention wasn’t on her

has a dysfunctional family...

her mother is critical of almost everything she does but at least she paying attention?

and feels her father is neglectful and only seems to be heard when she’s in his face

all they know how to do is scream at each other instead of talking calmly to one another

her mother is of Venezuelan heritage

And Her father is of Italian heritage

her father’s side of the family resides in calabria italy

he named her after his high school gf that passed away due to his irresponsible drunk driving on their senior prom night

Her parents do not have the healthiest of relationships due to her father constantly cheating on her mother in the past...leading to verbal and physical fights

also has a kid or two outside of their marriage because of his unfaithfulness and allegra learned to hate them because of the hurt her mother showcased

In the beginning she was only around them because her father enforced it, that she needed to know her family “blood is all you got in the end.” He would always say but that was bs

Would take her, her half sibs, and her full sibs on day trips/weekend trips in his suburban

Has three full older brothers and one full younger sister

Because of this, Allegra did not have a clear view of what love was supposed to be and felt that anger in a relationship is supposed to be somewhat of the norm?

Many times she wished at night in her bed with a pillow over her head that her parents would just file for a divorce already when their fights would get bad to the point things would get broken and her mother would h*t her father (once with a metal bat) and throw him out of the house

Has had the cops called on their household before and cps definitely has/had a file on them

Has been in family therapy before and is currently in therapy mainly for herself because of the trauma & how it’s messed with her spirit as a person

Loves? Cares for her parents from afar but will never understand their relationship and why they’re still together to this day

Can go months without speaking to any of her family members and be completely fine with that

Had her younger sis, Nerina put her PRIVATE shit on blast via internet after love island aired and completely cut her off since she is “a clout chaser and money hungry bitch who can’t take care of own her child cause she opened her legs to a meth head who loves prison” OOP

she only has a decent relationship with one of her brothers who’s two years older than her, Vito. They seem to be the closest out of the sibs and he’s the only one she bothers to speak to from time to time

She’s a “cocktail entrepreneur” so I’m guessing she has her own business where she specializes in her own cocktail drinks? Working in some upscale rooftop/penthouse bar where she successfully makes profits from her signature drinks or has a brand that focuses mainly on cocktails

It took years for her business to take off and hasn’t been easy, not one bit. At times it felt like everyone wanted to see her fail and she has openly spoken about her struggles as not only a entrepreneur but as a woman in this business where no one wanted to take a chance on her

That just lit the fire that’s already inside of her

Aries sun + Leo moon + Scorpio rising? (Personality vs how you react to things emotionally vs you’re outside shell for those who don’t follow this too much. I’m not too in depth about it but I do find it interesting!)

Or should she be reversed as a Leo sun with a Aries moon? Aries are direct, fiery, one step ahead of others, impulsive, and know how to take charge. Leo’s are dramatic, loves attention, passionate, loyal, warm, and have a need to express their passions, and scorpios are intense, secretive, mysterious, and work strategically

anyways, I feel like she’s definitely improved as a person over the span of two years? Or at least I hope she has cause everyone goes thru changes

And she was frustrating in s1 so I just know she had some deeper issues going on so I really think therapy is helping her ass I wish it would help me lmao

Being cheated on honestly made her feel like her mother, weak in her mind she was with this dude for awhile—3 years and he just up and thought it was okay to cheat on her? With his personal trainer?! Yet he didn’t gain any muscle mass?! The ultimate disrespect!!! but one thing she knew? She wasn’t going to stick around like her mom did

But she was bitter about it foresure. She ultimately wanted to corner the girl for messing with HER man but part of her knew she wasn’t the only one to blame. However that didn’t stop her for cussing her out via voicemail a couple of times while intoxicated

Allegra always strived for love cause she’s never really seen it before or felt it

Sure she’s had many boyfriends before?And their names didn’t matter not only because she didn’t remember them? But she never felt the spark with them in the first place?

Maybe she wasn’t meant for love so she kinda put on this bitchy front and always been that way with some shitty friends she had around her until she recently cut them off a year ago

has gotten herself into trouble as a kid: trespassing, and destroying public property, smoking in the girls bathroom, physical altercations, cutting class, being assigned community service, etc... all with these friends she’s had for years!

Before she met her problematic friends in secondary, when she was in her pre-teen stage she was involved in the handbell team and in the Color guard but hates to admit it even tho her parents have pics all over the flat

went away to uni for a semester and wanted to join a sorority but the hazing was extreme to the point she was sent to the hospital then accepted? Which led to more trauma in her life so she dropped out

A few years later she decided on online courses and moved out of her parents flat as soon as she could with the $ she saved up and did not leave in the house since it was not safe to smh

Therapy was really helping sis, she felt a lot better and was working on her deep rooted issues mainly the anger and hurt and never really realized how it revolves around her life. She was super thankful for her therapist and reshaping herself

Many didn’t buy it but she knew she couldn’t give that much of a fuck? She couldn’t. In order to grow you got to learn that you have to involve for yourself and not others

She didn’t like the person she saw watching the show back but when she came back to the reunion a part of her hoped people saw some sort of change in her—even if it’s only been a few months since the show then

Sometimes she’ll slip back into old habits, wanting and doing so by snapping on people and blacking out by getting intoxicated and knowing that healing is a process and valuing yourself is the exact same

has a toy poodle that she loves deeply

doesn’t have many outside friends after cutting off the ones that were toxic

is pro-ab*rtion and had one herself which was aired out by her sister online

has a cozy flat that has a lot of brick exposure inside, a navy sofa which is her favorite piece in her house, and a view to die for!! which erases the fact that her apartment is “cozy” which she uses to replace the fact that it’s much smaller than what she originally wanted. She dreams big ya know!!!

currently has a crush on her art teacher who resembles Adam Rodriguez

but also feels like liking your teacher/instructor is a bit weird? Even tho they’re both grown

yes she is taking art classes now outside of work to find something that’ll bring her peace and these pass months they have until COVID hit where classes had to be cancelled yet she was contacted to continue online but she felt her art was truly shit but he says art is subjective

She feels like there’s a connection there? But at the same time isn’t looking for another relationship until she fully works on herself first! That took awhile for her to accept after she fell into some relations with a few ppl after the show

from there she realized that she might like girls too? And got a little annoyed that it took her this long to figure out especially with the way she felt around MC and cherry

doesn’t like to admit this but her fav holiday is Christmas? Even tho the theme is majorly corny to her but it actually makes her happy?

Feels like that was the only time her family showed love towards each other, and even tho they didn’t come from much, they always followed thru with their traditions

and she misses them a little bit around this time and might be the first one to call them even if the calls are short lived and kinda awkward at first

Loves making gingerbread houses and cookies

i feel like she now embraces her forearm hair but still gets everything else lasered

Miss Allegra has inches okay?! But I definitely feel like now in 2020 she’s chopping that shit off into a pixie cut and when she posts on the gram her hair is usually always damp when she shows it off

some comments — jake: lovely! Jen: babe, ur beautiful! Erikah: 😍 Tim: how hot! You’ve got the whole resident evil thing goin for yous

“Did he just call me a virus?”

And she might get a like from mason that’ll make her feel some type of way

We all have to go thru some growth you know so do you girl!

You can’t tell me she doesn’t play stabscotch!

Used to be obsessed with social media way before going on love island but lately doesn’t mind disappearing for months at a time? You have to cleanse yourself from that shit

idk i see her being mostly cool with jen or erikah and will hang out with them from time to time? Maybe they experienced some growth too, shit I sure hope so

still feels something for mason??? But at the same time maybe it was mainly superficial since mason wasn’t fucking with her like that, not 100% but at the same time gets frustrated that he still doesn’t see where she’s coming from and it’s been 2 years???

She loves hard if given the chance and then feels like shit when it doesn’t work out cause it feels like she wasted a fuck load of time

she no longer follows him because she feels like it’s better for her spirit or whatever and she doesn’t need to see him with someone else

the only guy that she really interacts with is Tim, yet tim is cool with everybody!

Otherwise there’s no real connection with her and anybody else? She wants to keep love island separate from herself now because she’s not exactly the same as she was two years ago? And hopes someday people will get that

Probably watches those auction shows on the telly late at night when she can’t sleep, hoping and can afford some of those things one days

I feel like she has chronic migraines too?

Once had a significant other buy her Allegra-D in all seriousness for her birthday because it reminded them of her & thought it would help her headaches 🤨

Loves the snow, but hates cleaning it off her car! S/O to those HOA fees, bless it cause leggy’s deff bussed her ass once before breaking her collarbone and sued like a mf!!!

Since her hours are hardly consistent since she’s mainly her own boss, she’ll have late nights/early mornings when she returns home and has to shift days where she cleans the flat but when she cleans??? It’s best everyone stays tf out of her way

And don’t try to help her cause you’re doing it wrong 10/10 of the time, she loves cleaning and has dropped mad money on those super expensive vacuums

Only knows how to make what’s relative to her culture: arepas, penne alla vodka, and cawl but otherwise than that? She’d rather clean then spend hours in a kitchen cooking unless she’s making cocktails ofc!

also loves shopping for clothes but shoes are her fav things to shop for

Deff has a steamer over a iron for her clothes

Keeps eucalyptus and lavender oil in her purse at all times

posts mainly on her stories and made a deal with her supporters that she’ll go live once a month since she feels like she owes them that? Since she’s not as active anymore but she really doesn’t owe anybody shit but out of the newfound kindness of her heart...she does

Believes she got Covid before they all decided to do a shut down/lockdown of restaurants, bars, etc.. and her suspicions were proven correct after she decided to get tested

her anthem? Kali Uchis — Dead to me (acoustic version)

#litg #litg allegra #litg headcanons #litg headcanon #litg moodboard #litg mason #litg Tim #litg jake #litg jen #litg erikah #litg mc #litg oc #had to make to drama filled since s1 did us right along with s2 #I do feel like Allegra bettered? herself after the show and stand by that #I still laugh when I see her character in my head and the fact that someone said she looks like the bride of chucky #anyways I like giving people the benefit of the doubt and I think ppl like her better than Lucy? lmao so this is for y’all allegra stans #decided to give s3 a break and play s1 again hope that’s cool lol #also no longer doing celeb crush/music choices anymore cause I’ve run out? lol alright bye!

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nickelkeep · 4 years

Photo

What Mattered Most

Pairing: Dean/Cas Rating: Teen, for some profanity. Word Count: 6.1K Warnings: Pining, Internalized Homophobia Written For: Nickel’s Storytime On Ao3

Dean stormed into Crowley’s office, despite the warnings from the overworked and underpaid assistant. He threw the copy of Rolling Stone he carried onto Crowley’s desk and waited for his demon of an agent to get off his phone call.

“Seems I forgot about a meeting. A client just showed up at my office.” Crowley shot a smile in warning at Dean. “We’ll catch up soon. I want you to tell me all about this new talent of yours, Kipling. Until next time.” Crowley hung up the phone and picked up the magazine. “Ah, yes. Thursday James. Apparently Country’s brightest new star.” He tossed it back on his desk. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?”

“I want to come out,” Dean replied simply and plainly. “I have hidden for the past 15 years because you said my music wouldn’t sell. I’m done not being me, I’m done hiding.” He pointed at the magazine. “He’s been on the scene for six months, and he booked a Stones cover? It took me seven years, Crowley. Seven! They never put country artists on the front.”

Crowley sighed and picked up the magazine and stared at it for a few silent moments before dropping it back on his desk. “No.”

“What the fucking hell!?” Dean’s arms shot out to the sides in exasperation before he pulled them back in, gripping his fingers on the chairback in front of him. “I have done everything you have ever asked of me, Crowley. I am just sick of living a damn lie.”

“So, you want to be ridiculed and laughed out of the country music scene?” Crowley pushed himself to his feet and leaned forward. While Dean had several inches on him, Crowley’s presence alone could cause most to back off. “You have succeeded in this world because you pushed that life away. You have sold out arenas because you are what women want and what men aspire to be. Until you retire, you are the straight, all-American boy. Do you understand?”

“No. I don’t.” Dean stormed back to the doors and swung them open, exposing Sam and Charlie, his lawyer and PR person. “So, I quit.”

“You really want to throw away your, as you acknowledged, 15-year career because you can’t hold hands with a man in public?” Crowley rolled his eyes as Sam and Charlie sat in the chairs across from him. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dean. I have not led you wrong. I have not given you any bad advice.”

“You did, 17 years ago, when you first found Dean,” Charlie spoke up.

“He wasn’t out then, and he’s not out now.” Crowley tilted his head and looked at Dean. “Are you?”

“Not yet.” Dean shook his head.

Sam sighed exasperatedly. “For what it’s worth, Fergus, I did advise him to ask you differently. That being said, I don’t disagree with my brother. He’s done everything you asked. It’s been 15 years, and clearly, the world has changed.” Sam pointed at the magazine on the desk. “The world is in love with Thursday James. He’s proven that being queer isn’t a crime. And we’re not changing who Dean is. We’re not asking for chaps and songs about rainbows. We’re just asking you to let him be the person he’s hidden for 15 years. For you.”

“He doesn’t need a big coming-out party.” Crowley gestured at Dean. “Is there a person you’re interested in dating, Dean? Is that what this is? Go on a date. You’re not restricted to going out solo or having beards anymore.”

“Not good enough.” Charlie tapped Sam on the shoulder and pointed down to his briefcase. “As Dean’s lawyer and PR, we’re submitting an amendment to his contract, advising of it’s instant and final termination in regards to Article 2, Section 13.”

“A conflict of interest?” Crowley shook his head. “This is not a conflict of interest. This is me trying to protect my client, which is my job as his manager.”

Sam pulled out the stack of paper and set it on top of the magazine. “It’s a clean cut. We pay you a lump sum that equals 13% of his projected income for the next five years, which is a current 5% more than you take right now. Dean comes off your roster instantly.”

Crowley picked up the papers and quickly flipped through. “I also give up my rights to royalty and merchandising profits. Why?”

“Didn’t think you wanted to be associated with a gay country singer, Crowley.” Dean stood between Charlie and Sam, hands shoved in his pockets as he rocked back and forth from heel to toe. “Figured that 5% would make up for it.”

“Dean. Listen to yourself. You really want to throw our partnership away?” Crowley was practically pleading with Dean. “Why do you want to do this to your career?”

“Crowley, if my fans truly love me, I won’t lose them. And if anything, I’m openly welcoming a whole group of potential fans who think they’re not wanted. This is what’s best for not only me but also for the future of Country.”

Crowley stood up straight and rubbed at his temples. “Fine.” He handed the contract amendment back to Sam. “Believe it or not, I do want you happy, Dean.” He turned to the petite redhead sitting with a giant smirk on her face. “I’m assuming you’ve already started a plan?”

“Yes, but there’s one more thing.” Charlie pointed at Sam. “It was your idea.”

“In order to stay on as Dean’s manager, you will sign a different amendment. I’m going to start the official paperwork. Once you and Charlie come to a full and equal agreement for Dean’s coming out, it will be added to the contract, and both you and Dean will sign it.” Sam opened his suitcase back up and slid the defunct amendment into it. “We have an understanding, Fergus?”

“Yes.” Crowley nodded as he sat in his chair. “I think this is the first time I’ve been outwitted by a client.” He leaned back, resting his hands on his stomach. “Shall we begin, then?”

…

Thursday James took a deep breath as he took a final bow for the crowd that had come out to see him. While he was excited that his career was taking off, he had never expected how exhausting it would be. He stepped off the stage and into the wings, where he was greeted by his manager and best friend, Balthazar.

“Cassie! That was fantastic, as always!” Balthazar clapped his hand on Thursday’s - Cas’ - shoulder and led him back towards the dressing room. “You simply wowed the hall.”

“If you say so.” Cas slid off his mask, mindlessly playing with the fringe as Balthazar opened the door for him. He crossed over to his seat in front of the mirror and ran his hand down his face. “So. To what do I owe this pleasure? I wasn’t expecting you until St. Louis.”

“I am so very glad that you asked.” Balthazar crossed over to the sofa as Cas started his aftershow routine, beginning with the removal of his eye make-up. “Word of a fascinating tour came through the grapevine, and only a select handful of artists were invited.”

Cas perked up an eyebrow. “So, either I was invited, or you’re trying to get them to bring me along.”

“You were personally invited. By a Charlene Bradbury.” Cas’ head whipped up, and he stared at Balth’s reflection in the mirror. “I see you remember that name.”

“Charlie?” Cas frowned and turned around and stared at Balthazar, mouth agape. “Does she know?”

“Doubtful. Sia could learn a few lessons from you in hiding identity.” Balthazar leaned forward and clasped his hands together. His face turned serious. “Look, I understand the surprise, and I know I’m going to be fighting to get a yes out of you...”

“Damn right, you are! I’m not going on tour with Dean Winchester!”

“Let me finish, Cassie.” Balthazar tugged at his sleeves and fixed them before continuing. “Dean’s been a leader in the industry for 15 years. He’d be exposing you to fellow musicians, new venues, and possibly new members for your staff. Maybe you could steal Charlie out from under him?”

Cas shook his head. “Not happening, Balth. I can’t do it. He headlines arenas, he’s a damn star. I’m...” Cas choked on his own words, unable to finish the sentence. “You knew I would say no, why did you bring it up?”

“Well, for starters, it was 15 years ago. So why dwell on it? If you want him to know it’s you, you can show him that you outshone him in a matter of months.” Balthazar appeared to preen himself at those words. “But there’s an even bigger rumor involving the tour. Dean’s announcing something big.”

“He’s going to be the first country artist in space?” Cas deadpanned.

Balthazar let himself laugh at that. “I honestly don’t know. Charlie wouldn’t spill any beans. But, the rumor is that he’s going to retire.”

“Dean’s 36. Not happening.” Cas shook his head. “He’s got a lifetime ahead of him.”

“Okay, well the people who tour with him, get to find out first, and I am a nosy bastard, okay?”

“You’re a bastard, alright.” Cas picked up the mask he had worn for the evening and started fidgeting with the fringe. “And you’re not winning me over for this tour.”

“Fine. Rumor aside, here are the facts, from the devil herself. It’s a short 10 stop tour. All of the venues are 4000 people or less, either on college campuses or at smaller theaters.”

“That’s a huge step back for Dean.” Cas ran a hand through his hair and squinted at Balthazar. “I can see why retirement is a rumor associated with the tour.”

“That’s not all. The first stop?” Balthazar paused and bit his bottom lip. “Lied Center at KU.”

“Home?”

…

Dean looked up from his notepad as Charlie entered the studio in the home he shared with her and Sam. “What’s up, Red?”

“I got the final tour line up.” She held up a notepad of her own before crossing over to sit next to Dean. “Still writing?”

“He is.” Sam looked up from his desk. “And driving me crazy. Please get him to stop.”

“I changed my mind, Sam. I’m not writing a brand new song. I’m fixing an old one.” Dean turned to Charlie. “Hit me.”

“We’re going to go with four acts in total. First, a 20-minute set for your opener, a band coming out of hiatus, Tina & Her Pony. Second, We got Thursday James, which there’s a big caveat, but I got him.” She stole a glance at Sam, who was glaring at her.

“Sam’s going to kill you now, I’m okay with this. Continue.” Dean half-joked before gesturing for her to continue.

“Thursday is on for a 30-minute set. And, and, and! Brandi Carlile is on board, also for a 30-minute set assuming that yours is only 45. She’s got a hell of a negotiator on her team. Wonder if she’s single.”

“Brandi, or her negotiator?” Sam leaned forward on his desk, chin resting on his knuckles.

“Her negotiator. That wit. That charm. Ugh. So unfair.” Charlie let out a little sigh before shaking it off and looking at Dean. “So, did I do good?”

“You did fantastic.” Dean set down his pen and paper before pulling Charlie into a hug. “So, what’s the caveat with Thursday James?”

Charlie winced. “Shit, I was hoping you’d forget about that.” She flipped through her pad and pulled out two sheets of paper, handing one to Dean before getting up and taking the other to Sam. “It’s well known that Mr. James is private. I took the time to look up his previous riders. NDAs, no pictures unless he’s in a mask, pretty simple stuff. His agent - who’s name sounds so familiar - sent over his ‘standard rider’ and an amendment specific to this tour.”

“No guest appearances during his set, no requesting him to come on during another person’s set, and no requesting to hang out after shows.” Sam started to rattle off what he was reading. “What the hell?”

“I asked Meg, Brandi’s negotiator, to let me know if she got the amendment as well. I know that Tina & Her Pony didn’t get it as of yet, but Mr. James’ manager may not have sent it to them yet.” Charlie shrugged. “It is strange, but it’s not unheard of.”

“Well,” Dean shrugged, “if it gets him on tour with us, then I’m happy to do it.”

Sam nodded. “I mean, it’s not a bad request. I’ve heard Sia’s rider is insane. Like, you can’t even talk to her between sets.”

“Agoraphobia’s a thing, Sam. Lighten up.” Dean swallowed hard, a brief memory from his past flashing through his mind. “Charles, they okay being on a tour that’s literally called ‘The Thanks for Coming Out Tour,’ or do we have to change that?”

“I may not have mentioned that.” Charlie rubbed the back of her neck.

“WHAT!?” Dean and Sam cried out in unison.

Charlie held up her hands in defense. “Look, we don’t want Dean’s announcement blown before he gets to make it himself, right?” She waited until Dean nodded. “I’m going to get Sam to write up an NDA for the name, then Dean’s going to announce it with the tour dates on his website in a video.”

“So they don’t get to know the name of the tour until they sign the NDA, and if they don’t sign the NDA?” Sam questioned.

“Then, they can be replaced.” Charlie brushed it off. “But after speaking with Meg and Mr. James’ representative - why the fuck can’t I remember his name? - It sounds like they’re okay with it. I think they like knowing that they’ll be in on a rumor before the rest of the world.”

Dean stole a glance at his younger brother, who let out an exhausted sigh before speaking. “I’ll leave you to your magic, Charlie. You’ve never led us astray before. Just tell me what I need to write up and get out for you.”

…

“Cassie!” Balthazar closed the door shut behind him and held up a folder. “They accepted the terms of your rider with the NDAs and sent them over, signed. Charlie’s getting the rest of their crew to fill them out, and we should have them within 48 hours.” He flipped the folder open. “They responded with a note: ‘We fully honor the requests of Mr. James’ privacy rider. However, if he finds himself in need of someone to speak to, Dean and his crew will be available.’ How charming.”

“Shut up, Balth.” Cas kicked his feet up. “I’m assuming they sent the dates over?”

“Yes, and the rest of the lineup. Tina & Her Pony, you, Brandi Carlile, and Dean.” Balthazar pulled out a paper and handed it to Cas. “There’s also an NDA for you and I to sign. They don’t want the tour’s name to go public until Dean announces it, but they want to make sure we’re okay touring under it.”

Cas looked up from the paper. “I’m assuming you already signed for me?”

“Of course, Cassie.” Balthazar sat down and rested his ankle on his knee. “It adds weight to the retiring theory. ‘The Thanks for Coming Out Tour.’”

Cas chuckled. “One can only hope. I realized that the longer we’re in the industry together, the harder it will be to hide my identity from him.”

“There is that, yes.”

“You still think I should just tell him.” Cas crossed his arms over his chest and slouched down in his chair. “I can’t do that, Balth. I didn’t work my ass off for my career to spite him.”

“You can tell that to the people who don’t know you better, Cassie.”

“If I wanted to spite him, I’d be going by Castiel Novak, not Thursday James. I would show my face and not hide behind a mask. This has always been for me, Balth. I did this. For me.” Cas hung his head. “He wouldn’t care how hard I worked anyway.”

Balthazar pushed himself out of his seat and crossed to Cas before crouching down in front of him. “I can’t pretend to know what happened, Cassie. But when you two went your separate ways? I still believe a little piece of him died.”

“You’re right. You don’t know what happened. And as much as I love you? As much as I’m thankful every day that you’re my manager, my cousin, and my best friend? You do not and will not ever know.” Cas wiped a tear away. “I’m starting to think this was a mistake.”

“It’s not too late for us to back out. I’ve been informed that there are acts dying to fill the spots for this tour.” Balthazar rested a hand on Cas’ knee and squeezed gently. “If you want me to go cancel, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.”

Cas shook his head. “We’ve already signed a million and two pieces of paper, and put in the request to have the riders printed. I got through most of the autographed merch pile...” Cas looked at Balthazar. “As long as he honors the NDAs and riders, I can get through this. It’s ten stops. And if we’re lucky, he’s retiring.”

“Are you taking off the mask the day of or the day after he announces his retirement?” Balthazar smiled, clearly trying to get Cas to laugh. “We can throw a huge party announcing your real identity.”

“Well, if he announces it at KU like you think he is, then I have to wait for an additional nine more tour stops.” Cas attempted to return his cousin’s mirth. “But, I will say that I’ve gotten attached to the name Thursday James.”

“Then, we do an interview with the highest bidder to get an inside look at your life.” Balthazar stood up, his knees cracking. “Oh, bloody hell. When did I get so old?”

“Shut up, you’re only three years older.”

“Don’t waste those three precious years, my darling Cassie.” Balthazar gently patted Cas’ cheek. “Looking forward to losing the mask?”

Cas paused, thinking before nodding. “Once this tour is over, and Dean’s retired? I’ll lose the mask.”

…

Dean stared out the window as his tour bus pulled up behind the Lied Center. Two other buses were there, as was a small caravan of vans, and Dean made a mental note to offer to charter a bus for the tour’s opening act.

“Nervous?” Sam walked up next to him and looked out the window.

“I mean, when’s the last time we were home, Sammy?” Dean looked to his brother and tried to fight the nervous frown on his face. “The closest before was Topeka, and those Will-Call tickets were never picked up.”

Sam let out a sigh. “I meant about coming out tonight, but I guess that works too. You want Cas here, don’t you?” Dean nodded, and Sam continued. “It’s been almost twenty years, Dean. I know you’re still in love with him, but you need–”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Sam. Don’t you fucking dare.”

“I’m going to, but only because you need to hear this. You need to move on. I found out about your... something, with Cas because of that god damned song. You think you could have hidden that you’re gay from Charlie and me?”

“It’s my decision if I move on or not. And I don’t want to. I never have. And, to be honest, Charlie knew.” Dean turned in his seat. “And I wanted to tell you sooner, but...”

“But I was a loud-mouthed kid, and Dad would have killed you. I get it.” Sam sat across from Dean. “You gotta know, Dean. I have only ever wanted to see you happy.”

“Thank you, Sammy.” Dean looked over to the bus door, Sam’s head turned to look as well, as it opened.

Charlie walked up the stairs, her fingers in a peace sign. “What’s up, bitches?” She hip-checked Sam and sat down next to him as he slid over. “Dean?”

“It’s just weird being home.” He swallowed. “You get everything set up?”

“Of course I did, and before you ask, yes, I checked to make sure that a pair of tickets were held for a Castiel Novak at Will-Call.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a notebook and started going over it. “Benny and the boys want to know if you have the setlist finished.”

“Yeah.” He flipped up a piece of paper and slid it over to Charlie as he prepared for their pre-venue checklist.

…

“I know you can see it, Cassie.” Balthazar took a sip from a water bottle before handing one to Cas. “How are you holding up?”

“We’re back in Lawrence. I’m on tour with Dean, but it’s as a solo act.” Cas set the bottle down and looked up at Balthazar. “Balth, did I make the right choice, or was I too lenient in letting you twist my arm?”

“Well, that’s not fair. I’ve never made you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Cas ran his fingers through his hair. “I know. Even when it could have made us - how did you say it? - filthy fucking rich, you never forced me to do it.” He picked up the mask in front of him, an emerald green one with gold embroidery and fringe, and gently traced his fingers over the ornate pattern. “I’m making a huge fucking mistake.”

“Cassie. You have been having this fight with yourself for the past month while the tour dates got finalized. We are here.” Balthazar picked the bottle up and cracked it open before handing it back to Cas. “If you need alcohol, I’ll give you a couple of shots after your set, per your rider.”

“Can we break my rider for once?” Cas pinched the bridge of his nose before picking up the bottle and taking a sip. “So, what do you need?”

“Since we’re borrowing Dean’s band for the tour, their leader - a handsome, hopefully single, drummer named Benny - is asking for a finalized setlist. He also wants to do a test run of a song or two with you for the sound crew.”

Cas pushed himself out of his seat and went back to his bedroom. He grabbed a notebook off of the bed. He stole a quick look at the picture on his nightstand - a reminder from his life 17 years ago - before rejoining Balthazar. He handed the paper over and sat back down. “Small change from the usual list.”

“Cassie...” Balthazar looked up from the setlist.

“I don’t need your criticism right now. I made sure that the song was on the possible choice list for the tour.” Cas put on his mask.

Balthazar shook his head. “Not criticizing. Just worried about you.”

…

Dean was on edge as the concert started. He had paced his dressing room until Tina & Her Pony started the first song of their set. Per his request, Charlie had gotten their music on his phone, so he could listen to it, but hearing them live was much better. He calmed down and finally sat on the sofa, drinking the water Sam forced on him.

“You look like you’re going to faint.” Sam took the seat in front of the mirror and checked himself before turning around to face Dean. “You do your grounding technique?”

“Yes, Samantha.” Dean rested his forehead in his palms and stared at the ground. “They’re probably not going to answer at the box office, are they?”

“You’re not going to find out, Dean.” Charlie looked up from her phone. “I will unplug that phone if necessary.”

Dean harrumphed and slunk down further into his seat.

“Seriously, Dean. What’s finding out if he’s here going to do? If he didn’t come, you’re going to be mopey. If he did come, you’re going to be so nervous you can’t perform.” Sam pointed at him. “Go through your grounding again.”

“I’m fine.” Dean closed his eyes and focused on the current set piping through the speakers. He gave himself a silent reminder to provide Charlie with a raise for picking the duo for the tour’s opening act.

A few songs later, one of the members thanked the audience and told them to enjoy the rest of the show. Dean opened his eyes and looked up to the monitor, and watched as they waved and stepped offstage. The stage crew stepped in quickly and prepped for the next set. Dean sat up in surprise as he watched them roll a baby grand onto the stage, not remembering which of Thursday James’ songs required it.

“Charlie?” Dean smacked her shoulder and pointed to the monitor. “I don’t remember that on his list.”

“I have no idea.” Charlie sat up in her seat and leaned forward, aptly paying attention alongside Dean.

…

Cas was incredibly impressed and surprised by how easily his set had gone so far. He was humbled and honored by the sheer number of people who were cheering for him, and he used their energy to wash away his dread and apprehension.

“Ladies, Men, and Gentlethem.” He pulled the mic out of the stand and spoke into it as he walked over to the piano. “There’s a little something special I wanted to do for you all tonight.”

The crowd cheered, and Cas took the opportunity to inhale deeply as he put the mic into the stand clipped on the piano.

“I’m sorry to disappoint, but it’s not a new song, but a song that you all are familiar with. When I first wrote it, I had intended it as a piano ballad.” Cas sat down and adjusted the mic. “A few of you may have already noted it missing from the lineup, but it’s one that I’ll always sing until I can’t anymore.”

Cas ran his fingers over the keys in a brief allegro, stirring the crowd up even more. He took in another deep breath and closed his eyes before hitting the first chord of the song.

Catch ’em by surprise and Chasin’ the horizon Nothing holds me down Askin’, “Where the time’s gone?” Dreamin’ with the lights on Tryna keep your eyes on Something along the rise

You and I Bide our time And I miss summertime

Cas found himself surprised by the number of cheers as he played. While he was there to perform for the concert-goers, this was for him. This was to get him through the remainder of the tour.

Catch him on the run, they Punish those who love young Never right on time Watch each other fallin’ Always catch the call and Whistle while we’re walkin’ Something inside me dies

You and I Why, oh, why? And I miss summertime

Cas swayed in his seat, letting the piano run through him. He fought back the tears that threatened to spill.

Keep on rockin’, baby Keep on risin’ on the tide Son of a gun and maybe We’ll be ridin’ all night Something inside me dies You and I, You and I Bide our time. And I, I miss summertime

You and I Why, oh, why? And I miss summertime

Cas hit the final chord of the song, and the venue exploded. He stared at the keys for a few moments, letting the tears fall softly before nodding. “Thank you, everyone. Enjoy the rest of the concert. Up in just a few minutes will be the amazing Brandi Carlile!”

He stood up and waved before quickly walking offstage. Balthazar led him to his dressing room. Once the door was shut, Balthazar pulled Cas into his arms and hugged him tightly. “I am so sorry, Cassie. I never realized it.”

“Realized what?” Cas sniffled.

“You two. You and Dean? You were together.”

Cas swallowed and looked up at Balthazar. At a loss for words, there was only one thing he could do. He broke down and sobbed into his cousin’s arms.

…

Dean was still shaking from Thursday’s set when he was given his five-minute warning. Brandi was terrific, and he looked forward to hanging out with her after the show, but the way that Thursday sang, the smooth whiskey sound, the profound heartbreak... Dean knew there was more there. Something was entirely familiar to him, and it was driving him crazy that he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Dean walked out to the stage, waiting in the wings for Benny to start their opening number with the rest of the band. He tried to shake himself loose, rolling his neck and stretching out when Charlie walked up to him.

“You’re working yourself up, Dean.”

“Yeah, and I’m about to come out to a sold-out auditorium, which is probably going to go viral. Forgive me if I’m nervous that I’m going to kill my career tonight.” Dean pulled his arm in front of his chest, stretching out his shoulder, before switching to the other.

“And you’re so full of shit.” Charlie looked out to the stage as Benny counted the band out. “Break a leg, Dean.” She stood up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek before stepping back further into the wing.

Dean shook himself out one more time, putting on a great big smile and ran out on stage, waving to the crowd. “Good Evening, Lawrence!”

The crowd roared, and Dean broke into his first song. Their energy was contagious, and it took all of Dean’s power to not come out right then and there. He wanted to ride the high and get it over with. But people came out on an excellent show, and he was going to give it to them. And it was all he could hope that they would still be fans when all was said and done.

After the eighth song in his set, yes, he’d been counting, Dean smiled at the crowd and winked. “I think it’s that time, huh?” He took his guitar that he had acquired during the second song off, and walked it to a stand. He picked up his acoustic guitar and grabbed a stool before setting back up in front of the mic.

“First and foremost, I want to thank y’all for coming out tonight.” Dean sat on the stool and pulled the guitar strap over his head. “I’m not sure if y’all know, but Lawrence is actually my hometown.” Cheers and whistles rifled through the crowd. “I was born and raised here, stayed until I was 19 years old. Ran off to Nashville, found a manager who thought I was decent, and here I am. Blessed by fans like y’all.

“And I mean it when I say I’m truly honored to have so many wonderful fans. But there’s something that’s been eating me up inside for a long time, and I need to be honest with y’all.” Dean strummed absentmindedly on his guitar, his fingers starting the beginning notes from memory. “Eleven years ago, my second album came out, and on it is a song that means so much to me.

But my manager, even though I’m not which one more, was concerned for my career and my safety. He refused to let me include it on the album unless I changed the pronouns.” Dean bristled at the hushed whispers going through the crowd. “While that song turned out to be one of my most significant hits, I’ve never forgiven myself for letting that change be forced onto it.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m gay. And Cas, if you’re out there. Anywhere. This has always been your song, sunshine.”

…

Cas fell off of the sofa.

The room spun around, and Balthazar joined him in a heartbeat as he stared up at the screen. His mind was racing a mile a minute as he thought through Dean’s discography.

I thought I knew the boy so well If he was sad, I couldn’t tell I missed the point I missed the signs So if he’s gone the fault is mine I know, I know a whole lot little things And even though I could list them one by one Oh, he would still be gone

Cas sucked in sharply. He knew this song. He knew it better than he would ever care to admit. He had often dreamt about it being for him.

His eyes are blue His hair was long In ’84 he was born In Baton Rouge His favorite song is “In My Life” I memorized his every move I knew his books, his car, his clothes But I paid no attention to what mattered most

Cas pushed himself up to his feet, relying on Balthazar’s shoulder for support. His eyes were locked on the screen, feet unable to move.

I never asked he never said And when he cried, I turned my head He dreamed his dreams behind closed doors That made them easy to ignore I know, I know I missed the forest for the trees All I have to show Oh, when he walked out the door The cold facts and nothing more

Cas started to the door, ignoring Balthazar calling after him. He ran out the door, making it to the stage as Dean began the final refrain.

His eyes are blue His hair was long In ’84 he was born In Baton Rouge His father’s tall His mother’s gone He moved out west when he was two The way he laughed The way he loved Oh my god, what did I do?

He dreamed his dreams behind closed doors I never asked he never said

Cas looked out to the crowd as Dean got a standing ovation. He wanted Dean to have this moment, to know that the audience would still love him, regardless of orientation. But Cas also wanted to know if Dean still loved him. He needed to know.

He started to walk out on stage when a hand wrapped around his arm and pulled him back. “Holy shit. Cas? You? You’re here?” Charlie looked him up and down. “Oh my god. Thursday James. Castiel James Novak.”

“Please, Charlie. Can I?”

“You have a lot of explaining to do, but you both do.” She turned him around and pushed him gently. “Go get him, and make him whole again. Please.”

…

Dean gave a final wave to the crowd before turning to walk off of the stage. He looked up from his boots, and his eyes met the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, and he’d never forget. Dean’s knees went weak and out from under him, and he grabbed the stool he’d just been sitting on. “Cas?”

An electric buzz shot through the crowd as the realization settled over the venue. Cas looked out to the audience, then took a few steps closer. Dean pushed himself to his knees, staring in awe.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean looked Cas up and down when everything clicked. “Thursday... Castiel. Fuck. How did I...?”

Cas finished closing the distance between them and held his hand down. Dean took it and allowed Cas to help pull him to his feet. Once standing, Dean hesitantly reached forward, his hand faintly touching Cas’ cheek. Cas took Dean’s hand and pressed it against his cheek, and Dean felt the first sob wreck through his body.

“That song has always been for me?” Cas whispered, and Dean nodded, unable to find his words out of shock. “You never stopped?”

“Loving you?” Dean shook his head. “Never. It has always been you, Cas. I knew what I lost, and I couldn’t move on. I won’t ever move on from you.”

Cas leaned in and pressed his lips softly against Dean’s, and Dean felt Cas’ mouth break into a smile as cheers erupted from the crowd. “Am I dreaming, Dean?”

“God, I hope not, Cas.” Dean brought his other hand up, holding Cas’ face as he rested their foreheads together. “I have missed you, so much, Cas.”

“You don’t have to anymore, Dean.” Cas kissed Dean again, reclaiming his lost love for himself and no longer dreaming behind closed doors.

#profoundnet #spncreatorsdaily #spn fanfic #deancas fanfic #destiel #au - modern #au - music #singer!dean #singer!castiel #hidden identity #lost love #reunions #rating: teen #nickel writes

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ohnobjyx · 4 years

Text

A snow storm out of nowhere

Part Two: March

In this post we continue to go through XZ’s situation, to better understand why he is where he is now. The ask that originated everything is here, with an index.

Disclaimer: I try to keep the content objective, but I am biased, by the kind of content I’m usually exposed to and by my own perception of their situation. I may be wrong, and language barriers and cultural differences have to be taken into account. If anyone wants to discuss this, please make sure you have enough information to do so.

I think that even with all the “darkness” this post has, it express also quite nicely why I think XZ won’t be defeated by this. We will see him again, let’s be patient.

So, taking from Part One, the next day public thought that XZ’s Studio and his team were trying to hush all the commotion. People were very very furious, looking for a way to vent their anger. Some said that the only way they’d let this go was that XZ retired from the entertainment industry.

Attacking his endorsements

That night, Olay was to air a live video with a product that XZ was going to endorse, and antis realized that they had a new way to express their anger. The comments and their interventions during the event made it impossible to progress adequately, and the announcement of XZ endorsing the product had to be put off.

Antis and haters realized the power they had, and started to announce that didn’t just reject the products endorsed by XZ, they also rejected the brands that worked with him. In the face of such controversy and boycott, many brands chose another spoke person temporarily for their commercials and banners, removing XZ’s from their websites.

From March, the antis centered themselves around the topic “Not buying products XZ endorses”, making his value go downwards. The brands he worked with decided to stay low for the time being and removed his image from their websites. Some even decided to terminate their contracts with him, in fear of being boycotted.

Douban

By the 3rd day ao3 was down, reality sank in and people turned to douban, were C/QL, The Joy of Life, Jade Dynasty were in the top 3, all of them series were XZ is lead actor or secondary actor. The antis placed bad reviews, to the point of bringing down the score of C/QL from 8’5 to 7’9 in a single day (we’re talking here of 1′5 million reviews as of today) and affecting every project he has worked on since the beginning of his career as an actor.

Public scorn

XZ as well as XZ fans became the objective of public scorn. From the 1st of March, some of the accusers apologized for “the problems caused”, and the one that had led the report posted a public apology and deleted every post related to the reporting. However, to the rest of the users it looked like they were apologizing against their will, and that they still thought they weren’t wrong, but were doing so in an effort to preserve XZ’s public image, as well as their own image as XZ’s fans.

The conflict ceased between XZ’s fans and the cp fans, now uniting in an effort to lesser the damage. They agreed to bring down the tone of the discussion, and once things cooled down a bit, XZ Studio posted a public apology, asking people to support their idol rationally, to speak and act carefully, as well as saying that XZ was currently quarantined at home.

Antis brought up more complaints about XZ’s fans. Unfortunately, it’s a fact that some of his fans had taken sometimes unreasonable measures to give him the spotlight, such as:

Making him the center of attention in a tv drama in which another actor was the male lead. They took over the community in w/ibo and started to delete all of the other actor’s fans from the group.

Some fans attacked WYB, so XZ wouldn’t have to “divide” his success from C/QL with him. They reported WYB for not having a “host degree” (whatever that is). This was shot down by a statement from Hunan TV, by the way.

Attacking whoever says that they don’t have any interest in XZ’s works (a professor was asked to have a look at his works, and he refused, so XZ’s stans started to attack him).

(Again, bear in mind that antis and hater and these kind of very obssesive fans are a minority, and they are greatly outnumbered by the rest of the people that like and support XZ in a much more rational way... but they make more noise, so to say).

Antis and people resenting XZ for the 2/27 incident wanted a scapegoat. So I think the resentful party wants the fans to know “so you take away this, I want your idol to pay for it” and antis… they have their own agenda, and that’s for another post.

XZ Studio’s apology didn’t do much and the drama continued to unfold. Maybe XZ’s Studio wanted to wait for the storm to pass, and since acknowledging the issue would give it importance, they waited until they couldn’t put it off anymore. I don’t know if this was actually right or wrong, but people weren’t satisfied with this apology. XZ’s fans would try to argue with the antis, and thus keeping the image of obsessive fans, even if many of them were actually right.

People were disappointed by the actions taken by his team and waiting for him to say something, but, to their disappointment, XZ didn’t express his opinion.

Other authors

Fanfiction writers, mostly from the BJYX fandom, would receive insults and attacks from antis and XZ’s stans still pursuing their original stance, so a lot of content has disappeared.

(To this point: I don’t like RPS. I don’t read RPS fanfics. I didn’t like seeing them and adjusted the filters in ao3 so I could only see fanfics from CQL. But attacking the authors this way is also terribly wrong).

Responsibility and consequences

XZ had previously signed up with many companies, with WJJW being the main stockholder. Since he was under so many companies, none of them wanted to take responsibility of the matter and try to solve it, so it was left to XZ’s Studio to try and fix it.

Investors, directors, brands’ representatives... they all thought that it’d take at least half a year for XZ to recover from this blow, and it also depends greatly on how his next work is received by the general public. He still has the support from his fans, but that alone wasn’t enough in the face of such boycott.

While later people who supported him appeared, there were voices at first too that asked him to take responsibility.

(These are influential people, and, while I’m not surprised that their stance was to support public opinion, as a public figure, you may find yourself in the future in the same position as XZ. To add oil to flames doesn’t seem very kind to me, but again, this is a competitive industry.)

Support

At the same time people criticized him and his studio for his management of the issue, prominent people stepped forward and talked in his behalf, like critics, directors, and even lawyers, talking about the legal aspect of the fanfiction, saying that, by Chinese laws, it was indeed violating the law.

(However, there was another article I agreed more with: not liking a content doesn’t give you the right to manage it. That’s the duty and right of the platform, in this case ao3. You may report the author and the work if you find it unsuitable for the platform, but to call the authorities on them is quite excessive).

It was also positive that in spite of everything, the sales of the products he endorsed remained high and in the lead in March, and the trend continued all the way to July. He’s still considered one of the most influential celebrities, taking usually the top 1. This is why his companies, agencies and his team hasn’t given up on him. As sad as it may sound, if he’s a profitable asset, they won’t give up on him, because he can still earn money for them.

Since the antis were spreading hate, rumours and false news, trying to damage XZ’s image, the fans also tried for the contrary. They posted about XZ’s kindness and polite gestures, to try to counter the antis’ attacks.

However, no matter how much his fans support him, the greatest help came from fellow acquaintances, coworkers and friends from the entertainment industry. It’s a reality that no matter how much a fan likes their idol, the average fan doesn’t know him personally. But that can’t be said of people who have worked with him.

People he had worked with (fellow actresses, critics, directors, screenwriters) supported him by posting comments defending and praising him, expressing their dismay about the antis or by praising him in livestream. For well-known people to step up and speak for him, when they could have stayed silent in fear of retaliation, it’s a true give away of XZ’s character and what these people think of his future, especially if we consider that they are facing a group of unreasonable antis.

(In fact, many of the people who supported him received hateful comments and were attacked for supporting him, but none of them took away their support, that I know of).

Happy Camp’s support

It was also a good sign that while brands still avoided his image, tv programs didn’t shy away from his image. Happy Camp emitted a video in which XZ appeared, so fans interpreted this as a sign of silent support from the program and the tv channel.

This was also very important. There have been cases before, when an actor was being seriously boycotted because he had been having an affair, that the tv stations refused to work with him. It got to the point that, when a episode had already been filmed, they used photoshop to erase his image and simply cut out all of his interventions and interactions with other participants .

See that space there, between the girl in blue and the guy with a suit? Such are the miracles of photoshop.

So if an actor has really committed a mistake, the entertainment industry will not hesitate to take away their support. It’s also a way to say that they disapprove of what that person did.

(To those who are curious, this man had been a very successful actor for many years. He was “happily” married and had a 20 years old son. But when people discovered that he had been keeping a mistress for almost two decades... he fell out of favor. Quick.)

XZ’s very brief appearance in Happy Camp was an auspicious sign for his future, meaning that tv stations are still willing to work with him and that his dramas will likely be aired in spite of everything.

(I’ve never been happier to wrong, since I thought this would take longer to pass at first. But when I thought about this carefully, I realized that anyone could see that XZ in himself isn’t at fault for what happened, so why would they reject him once the storm passes?).

The start of the public welfare project

So, in the midst of this situation, which was very serious at the time, XZ’s fans Public Welfare Group was founded, with the support of XZ’s Studio.

(This is actually quite common in China. A group of fans create a welfare group, and they do volunteering projects and others in the name of their idol. Many celebrities’ fans create a group like this when the fandom is big enough.)

I think it served to remind that idols can use their influence and unite a large group of people to serve purposes that are beneficial to the society (at least in Asia). It came in a “good” moment, because if nothing else, XZ can’t afford that the first that comes to mind to the general public when they see him or his fans is this small group of people, who are the representation of the worst part of his fans.

(Since this project has the support of his studio, he must know of it and must have given his approval. But he is not the one to actually initiate the project, that was a collective effort from his fans: to do welfare projects in his name. He collaborates with welfare projects, he had done it before, and did it again in June. This a reflection of a more positive part of fan quan culture, which will be explained in the next post).

However, because he was in the middle of great controversy and criticism, this move was also considered “hypocritical” and “insincere” by the antis. Nonetheless, the influence such a large group of people have is undeniable (in promoting local commerce in this case), and the local representatives thanked them for their support. They kept on with their projects these months, usually promoting agricultural products from impoverished provinces. They were also praised by the media for the results they achieved.

For those who are inclined to doubt whether this was a move to improve his image, here it’s a compilation of charity and public welfare projects that XZ’s fans pushed forward in 2019, collecting for numerous projects an amount of almost 450.000¥ and 620.000¥ as epidemic relief effort during the coronavirus period, that started in December 2019.

The welfare project was also a source of controversy later... but again, people always seem to find fault with everything you do.

#gg's situation #part 2 of 7 #my post

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wlntrsldler · 4 years

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18 (Ransom Drysdale Series)

PROMPT: You’ve always been sweet, innocent, young, Y/N. You played by your parents’ rules for way too long. Feeling like you’ve finally had enough, you decide to break some rules and “date” the arrogant son of a bitch, Ransom Drysdale.

SERIES WARNING: SMUT!!!! 18+ content, strong language, parental defiance lol and asshole Ransom

Song Inspiration: 18 by Anarbor

CHAPTER 1

“What do you mean I can’t go?” You yelled, pacing across your father’s study. “I pushed back my education for four years to help you run the company. I want to go to college. Now.”

“Y/N, darling, I don’t understand why you’re pushing so hard to go to school.” He shrugged, not looking up from his computer screen. “We’re giving you the company when the time comes. It’s millions of dollars on a silver platter.”

You rolled your eyes, slamming your palms on his wooden table. He flinched, startled at your actions. “I don’t want this stupid company. I want to study and get my degree. I don’t wanna rely on mommy and daddy’s money.”

“If you go to college, you’ll still be relying on our money.” He challenged, shutting his laptop and slowly getting up from his seat. “Watch your attitude, young lady.”

You back away from him, grabbing your coat on the way out of his office. “I’m 22.”

The door slammed behind you as you stormed out of your parents’ house. Fucking self-entitled pricks, you thought, jamming the keys into your jeep. Your parents inherited all their wealth from their own parents and expected you to do the same.

It’s not like you didn’t want the money. You just wanted to do something more than run a company. You wanted to do something for yourself, something you were passionate about. Not some real-estate company that’s had its share of scandals and drama. It was a company born from blood and broken trust. It wasn’t something you were necessarily eager to inherit.

Your mother always told you that it didn’t matter where it came from, all that matters is that you have it now. You looked at her like she had three heads sprouting from her neck. Of course they never saw the errors of their ways, only caring if it hurt their profits, not if it violated their morals. You still loved them, they were family after all, so you bit your tongue. For four extra years.

They begged and guilt-tripped you into staying and helping them run the company instead of going off to college. So you caved and stayed. You knew that if you pursued a different major, like law or medicine, they would be overjoyed. Hell, they’d write you the check for your tuition and not ask any questions if you asked for more money. But because you chose “Creative Writing” as your major, they didn’t support it.

To them a career in writing was laughable. “What are you gonna do with a Creative Writing degree?” You father asked one, his voice laced with disappointment. You never brought it up again. Well until today.

You glanced at your phone to check the clock. 12:27 PM. Is it too early to get wasted?

“Fuck it,” You mumbled. “It’s 6PM somewhere.”

You maneuvered your way through the town, pulling up to a very familiar bar. You became a patron of the bar at the young age of 17, back when you needed a fake I.D to get in. Your parents never found out about your teenage escapades, you were always good at hiding your bad side. The bar owner, Joel, found out that you were a minor when you turned 21 and suddenly started going by a new name on your I.D. Thankfully, you became one of his favorite customers so he let it slide.

You walked in, relishing the familiar scent of alcohol and peanuts.

“Y/N!” Joel called from behind the bar, wiping down a beer glass. “The usual?”

“Make it a double.” Joel quirked an eyebrow, as if asking “What the hell happened?” You shook you head, taking your seat at the bar. You waved him off, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Someone had a bad day.”

You turned to the side, trying to figure out who the voice belonged to. The stranger smirked behind his whiskey glass, his eyes darting to look at you. Baby blue. Blue as a motherfucker. Damn. He put his glass down the polished wood, his lips coming to full view. Pink. Looks so soft. Damn. You cleared your throat, trying to regain your sanity in front of the handsome stranger. “Didn’t you hear me? Don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Watch your attitude, sweetheart.”

“You sound like my dad.” You scoffed, taking a sip of the liquid that Joel placed in front of you. You drowned the liquor in one go, not even flinching at the bitter taste.

“Another,” The handsome stranger called out to Joel. He moved a seat over so he was sitting right beside you. Dear God, he looked even prettier up close. You studied his features. Cable knit, designer scarf, clean shaven face. You furrowed your eyebrows, trying to place where you know him from. He pulled out the wad of 100′s from his pocket, earning a laugh from you. Rich kid. “What?”

“I can pay for my own, thank you very much.”

“You’re sippin’ on something expensive.”

You drowned the second glass again, staring at him dead in the eye. You went in your back pocket and pulled out your black card. “I know it is. That’s why I order it.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise, his lips curling up to another smirk. “What? I can’t pay for a pretty little thing like you?”

“Eat it.”

He mouthed a sarcastic, “Wow,” his laughter filling the empty space between you two.

“I came here to drink, not to get hit on.”

“I’m here so you’ll be getting both.” He stated, motioning to fill both your glasses again. “Ransom Drysdale.”

Drysdale? Oh shit. Your family’s biggest competition in real-estate.”Y/N Y/L/N.”

“Oh, you’re a Y/L/N.” Ransom chuckled, swirling the ice in his glass. “Wait, are you the golden child?”

You rolled your eyes at the nickname that the media branded you with. The nickname was your parents’ doing, wanting the public to accept you with open arms. Your parents made sure that you stayed out of the tabloids, not for your own safety of course. They wanted to rebrand the company once it was your turn to run it, understanding that the drama that existed prior to your existence was enough for a lifetime. “Don’t call me that.”

“What’s wrong with being the golden child, sweetheart?”

“Don’t call me that either.”

“What can I call you?”

“I have a name.”

“Well, what if I don’t like it?”

“Well, too bad.”

Ransom played with the ice in his glass again, mesmerized by the sound of the clinking. He stayed quiet for a moment before he spoke up again. “What are you doing here?”

“I came here to drink, like I said.”

“I don’t think your parents would like the idea of their golden child drinking her ass off mid-day with the spawn of their biggest competition.”

“I don’t care about what they like.” You mumbled, sipping on the liquor. You toyed with the peanuts on the plastic tray.

He gasped sarcastically, following your lead with playing with the peanuts. “Are you rebelling?”

“Shut up.”

“Why the fuck are you so rude?” He snapped, his demeanor suddenly changing.

“Why the fuck are you being civil? Isn’t that the opposite of your brand?”

“You want me to be disrespectful?” He whispered, that smirk coming back to his face. “I can be real disrespectful, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Ransom shot you a knowing look, “Well, if you ask me, I think it’s time for you to rebel.”

“I never confirmed that I was rebelling.”

“I know what it looks like when someone rebels because their parents piss them all the way off,” Ransom started, getting up from his seat. He pulled out the wad of 100′s again and dropped a hefty tip for Joel. “I’ve mastered that. Let me know how if you need help with it.”

You twisted your neck to watch him walk out of the bar. He took the brown coat from the coat rack and slipped it over his body. He pushed the door open, signaling the bell. Before he fully left, he turned back around to leave you with a final remark. “But when you do ask me for help, and you will,” He licked his lips. “Keep running your mouth because I’ve been thinking about all the ways I can shut you up.”

Your face flushed upon hearing his words, crossing your legs. Joel looked at you, amused at the interaction that unfolded before him. He picked up the bills that Ransom left and wiped down the counter. “You gonna call him?”

“Hell, no.”

Maybe.

#ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x yn #ransom drysdale x reader #knives out #ransom drysdale series #knives out series #ransom drysdale imagine #ransom drysdale one shot #chris evans #18 fic #ransom drysdale smut #frances writes #frances song fics

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crispydefendorcupcake · 3 years

Text

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Best Testosterone Boosters of 2021

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Investigate our best 5 prescribed testosterone boosters to start your excursion taking your body back to its more youthful testosterone levels.

Prime Male is ideal for those in their 40s who have seen an abatement in their testosterone levels with age and can be utilized for those beyond 50 years old. It is 100% all-regular and is accumulated of clinically demonstrated items to expand your testosterone levels.

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Fixings:

Prime Male is made of 100% normal and clinically demonstrated items to expand your energy and charisma, which you ordinarily see falling with age and the absence of testosterone creation.

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Energy Increase

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How to Use?

To utilize Prime Man, you just need to take one pill each day, regardless of how you are utilizing it. Never surpass the suggested measurement, as it is figured to give you the suggested measure of every fixing in each portion.

Testogen is a 100% protected and regular item that advances the measure of testosterone that is delivered in the body.

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All items are made with an accomplished group of wellbeing specialists and nutritionists, so you can believe that the item is exceptionally investigated and can be trusted for your utilization.

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Testogen is appropriate for the individuals who are 18 and more seasoned and is trusted among jocks to shun the utilization of steroids to expand their bulk.

Fixings:

Testogen is aggregated of 100% regular and safe fixings to advance the expansion of testosterone in the body without the unsafe impacts of placing testosterone in your body.

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#health

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la-jolie-mln-posts · 3 years

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What is a brand? For most of us it’s a line of apparel, a type of smart phone or your favorite cereal. But a brand goes way beyond just products and extends to people. Some of you will remember the Apple ad that showcased a Bill Gates type (guy in a jacket and tie, looking dull and corporate) against a Steve Jobs type (hip, casual, smart). You get the point. And, so did the audience — Microsoft blah, Apple, cool. It worked!

Who are some of the most visible people with personal brands? Kim Kardashian comes to mind. But if you are interviewing for an executive position at one of the top 5 consulting firms, hers is not the brand image you want to bring to your first Zoom call or in-person interview.

Oprah Winfrey owns her personal brand. She welcomed discussion about body image, embraced her own and never lost her credibility. She dressed for her position, for the occasion and for her image. She never looks sloppy. She’s crossed the Rubicon from entertainment icon to business mogul, but never lost the Oprah brand.

Princess Kate Middleton is a princess, mom and leading figure in the world of outreach to children in need. As her style has evolved, she’s been able to communicate her brand through personal acts and personal style that remains young and hip.

Today women head some of the biggest U.S. corporations. Here’s just a few….

Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube Lynsi Snyder, CEO, of In-N-Out Burger Marillyn Hewson, CEO of Lockheed Martin Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors Whitney Wolfe Herd of CEO of Bumble

They may not have the same instantaneous brand recognition as the Kardashians, Oprah or Princess Kate, but to achieve the positions they have on the highly competitive playing fields in which they operate, they all had to create something unique — a personal brand.

Branding with the 4 “P’s’

It’s a familiar strategy for experienced marketers. Let’s say you’re launching a new brand of lipstick or changing a trusted brand with new packaging or a new message. You start by thinking through your brand strategy using the 4 P’s:

Product: A product can be either a tangible good or a service that fulfills a particular need for consumers. Whether your product is a brand of potato chips, a household item like dishwasher soap, a hotel chain or a university, it’s essential that you have a clear grasp of what makes it unique before you can successfully market it.

Price: Once the product offering is established, you can make pricing decisions. Price determinations will impact profit margins, supply, demand and marketing strategy. Products and brands may need to be positioned differently based on varying price points.

Promotion: Once product and price are established, it’s time to promote it. Promotion looks at the many ways advertisers market to consumers and includes includes: advertising, public relations, social media, emails, search engine marketing, videos and more.

Place: Successful brands are all about putting the right product, at the right price, at the right place, at the right time. The mission is to convert interested consumers into actual customers. Today, the initial place potential clients engage is online.

Now, create your own brand using the 4 P’s

You are the PRODUCT, so begin by evaluating what makes you special. Ask yourself: Q. Are you dressing for your body? A. If you’re curvy and you love yoga pants, make sure you purchase high-quality yoga pants that aren’t see-through when you stretch or bend over. And consider the occasion before wearing them. If you’re going for a sophisticated look, slim fitting trouser pants may be a better fit. - If you have big chest, go for a v-neckline time. - No matter what the occasion: job interview, business trip, night out with friends or going to your kid’s soccer game, the items you pull together should communicate the same message. “There goes Susan; she always looks fabulous.”

Q. What colors work best for you? A. Navy or black works on just about everyone; here’s a few ways to make it yours: - If you’re going for a job interview, neutral is best. But a pop of color is a great way to express your personal brand. Whether a lush pink shirt under a dark blazer, a red velvet shirt with a black sweater, a dress accessorized with a fun pair of sneakers (only if you can pull off the look), or fun pair of pumps, your signature brand will emerge as you try things out and focus in on what works for you. - Hair can be a fantastic branding tool. If you’ve been blessed with a gorgeous mop, go with it. Hair is one of our best weapons. If you want to call out your inner artiste or you play in a rock band, pink or blue hair is okay. But it’s definitely not for everyone. Some work places, like design agencies, hair salons and big tech firms are amenable to this look. But if you work in a bank or a law firm, probably not. If you simply have to try it, there are always extensions. Remember, the look has to work on you. If you can pull off something like this, go for it…

Let’s talk about PRICE

What PRICE are you willing to accept for your talent, your contribution, your value, and your time? When I worked in marketing at a big corporation in my late 20′s, I met a woman who was hired to be a copywriter. She was actually a former agency owner and had a lot more to offer. The guy who hired her put her in a huge, open office setting where she wrote copy for retail projects such as in-store banners and such. She left after 2 weeks, but she also left an impression.

So, he called her back to see what it would take to hire her. She was polite, but firm. She said, “I’ll need my own office. I want to be paid twice the hourly fee you paid me, and I want to bring in my own creative talent (writers and designers) to work with.”

Done. She got what she asked for. Why? Because she knew what she was her value and had the confidence to ask for it.

Promoting yourself is a tricky business

PROMOTION today is about establishing your online presence. As we’ve seen lately, the cancel culture is a force to be reckoned with. And by that, I mean be careful with the topics you choose to address. It’s easy to be mocked, doxed and dropped from social media — all it takes is one wrong comment.

According to Forbes, “Your personal brand should be an easy daily filter that you create content and reach out to your audience with.” The article quotes Jason Wu, founder of CoinState. “Be the master of your craft, skillset or industry before starting a personal brand. Then your content will amplify who you are.”

In other words, avoid mistakes like the one made by Olivia Jade. She’s the daughter of actress Lori Loughlin who did prison time for getting her kids into college through false claims and a financial bribe. Olivia was a successful online fashion and culture blogger until her mother’s deceit landed on her. Then she made the mistake of using her social media platform to say that she really wasn’t at USC to attend classes. In the end, she lost followers, endorsements and a lot more.

The point? Have some experience under your belt before promoting your personal brand.

Have you found your PLACE?

It’s pointless to tell digital natives to avoid social media until they achieve some maturity. But, as the story above illustrates, social platforms are eternal, and establishing a trashy personal brand while young can come back to haunt you. So, parents need to keep a watchful eye on how kids are promoting themselves, knowing that colleges look carefully at this content.

When it comes to establishing a personal brand, there are tons of articles out there on how to do this. You can spend a day on Google and find lists like this:

What motivates me? What am I good at? What is unique about my personality, talents and style? What do I excel at? What bores me to tears? What do others say drew me to them?

All good and well. But here are a few constants we all encounter on the road to the true self:

Failure happens. You will lose jobs, face financial insecurity and have to reinvent your career. Some of the most successful women I’ve met in my life have transformed themselves as a result of loss. It’s only failure if you don’t get back up and re-start your engine.

La Jolie MLN launching in April 2021

Follow our journey on Instagram or Facebook La.Jolie.MLN

Website coming soon

: www.lajolie-mln.com

We would love to hear from you. Let us know your thoughts and any topics you would want to hear about. [email protected]

Next blog Jan 31: Doing Business By Doing Good

About Daisy Malek-Shadid

As a little girl, I would be asked what I want to be when I grow up. I would confidently reply, I want to be a clothing designer and a respected leader. Fast forward 30 years, after working in the corporate world, traveling, getting married and having children, the aspirations of my youth inspire me today. I want to create clothes that make women feel both feminine and powerful, beautiful and strong, sophisticated and elevated. It takes a moment to make a first impression. Dressing well sets the tone, so one can own that moment.

It is important to La Jolie MLN to give back to the community, to women who don’t have the same opportunity as others. And, for that reason, 10% of every purchase will go toward our goal to donate 100 dresses to Dress for Success, a non-for-profit organization that supports underprivileged women to achieve economic independence by providing various services - one of them professional attire for interviews and new employment. For more information about “Dress for Success” please visit their website at dressforsuccess.org.

#feminine power #brand #your value #4Ps #La Jolie MLN #MLN

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT WEB

You only take one shower in the morning, and if you're thinking about investors during it, then you're not thinking about the product. Clothing is only the most visible battleground in the war against formality. But I don't think it's worth putting a lot of popular sites were loaded with obtrusive branding that made them slow to load and sent the user the message: this is our site, not yours. The main significance of this type. Merely measuring something has an uncanny tendency to improve it. I could only tell startups 10 things, this would be one of them. They're sailing with the wind, instead of drying up, curiosity becomes narrow and deep. What next? Cofounders are for a startup. Few parents would pay so much for their kids to go to a school that didn't improve their admissions prospects. And even that's going to be hearing in the press about what Jessica has achieved.

But in her case it goes beyond that. Most startups don't manage to. If you're ramen profitable, everything changes. I was interested in AI a hot topic then, he told me I should major in math it will be better for your own morale, which is usually unanimous. So I've thought a lot about specific, cool problems. Subject FREE Subject Free Subject free FREE! In the best case, though. Not those guys are working on a great idea. Ramen profitable means no more than the definition implies.

What happened to him? By similar comparisons you can make without using sales talk. When I said I was speaking at a high school student. Since there didn't seem any way to answer that is to ask yourself whether you'll care about it in the future should not depend much on how you deal with html. In Ohio, which Kerry ultimately lost 49-51, exit polls gave him a 52-48 victory. A round. That's a filtering rate of 92% with 1. Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. But I'm letting you in on the secret early. Sometimes they even agree with one another, but are so caught up in their squabble they don't realize how much room there is for a startup to be cheap. I do this by the small size of their corpus, but if your company was making software for building web sites, you could degrade fairly gracefully into consulting by building sites for clients with it. Taking a company public at an early stage is simply retail VC: instead of going to venture capital firms are biased against female founders.

There's a fundamental problem in computer science generally tried to conceal it. Google set off the tagging movement. Unfortunately, t is still very far from infinity. But that means you're designing your life to satisfy a process so mindless that there's a concentration of smart people too, but again, diluted; there are two great universities, but they're far apart. So I'm going to tell you what sort of people you're among. And the advantage of a PhD besides being the union card of academia, of course may be that a significant number of those who voted for Kerry felt virtuous for doing so, and were eager to tell pollsters they had. Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of the Bradley Effect. Another reason attention worries her is that she hates attention, but because you shouldn't have a fixed amount you need to find out. So when something seemed amiss to them, they don't realize how much room there is for a startup to a standstill while raising money. Those require experience. Prep schools openly say this is one of the most striking things I've read was not in a book, but the truth turns out to be. Unless you're Mozart, your first task is to figure that out.

And that is just what tends to happen. What I came up with was: someone who doesn't expend any effort on marketing himself. What will happen when they do, apparently, is note down the age and race and sex of the person, and guess from that who they voted for. Control the channel and you could feed them what you wanted, on your terms. It costs not just the message, but the effect on your morale and your bargaining position is anything but. A company that made programmers wear suits would have something deeply wrong with it. Now what I wish I had was a mail reader that somehow prevented my inbox from filling up. When I heard about after the Slashdot article was Bill Yerazunis' CRM114.

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tejkohlifoundation · 4 years

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Tej Kohli: Profile Of A Technologist

Tej Kohli is a philanthropist who is well known for his worldwide mission to eliminate corneal blindness from poor and underserved communities by 2035. In 2006 he sold a company that he had founded just seven years earlier as part of a high value sale. The company specialised in online payment gateways for high risk sectors and also in the acquisition, turnaround and trade sale of online gaming properties. Since this 2006 liquidity event Tej Kohli has been actively engaged in building the not-for-profit Tej Kohli Foundation.

Tej Kohli is also an impact investor focused on artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology ventures that have the potential to drive positive human impact. His impact investments include proprietary technologies that have the potential to have a transformation impact in a variety of applications. Ventures backed by Tej Kohli are engaged in activities ranging from resolving the treatment gap that leads to poverty-driven blindness through to solving the logistical challenges of organ donation and even using machine learning to dramatically increase the efficiency of plastics recycling.

Tej is a father to two teenagers and has been married to his wife Wendy for over twenty years. He is a keen esports fan and an unashamed supercar enthusiast. He is also an avid ballroom dancer who has competed in international events. Tej Kohli regularly shares his thoughts and wisdom in a series of #TejTalks blogs and is an active user of social media.

Here we find out more about the colourful technologist…

What is #TejTalks?

Tej Kohli - #TejTalks is where I share my thoughts and also important information about the things that matter to me or which have captured my attention. I blog using Medium and I also post a lot on Twitter and Facebook. I am not that well known and I am not a public figure, so I do not have much of a platform elsewhere. The beauty of place like Medium and to a lesser extent Twitter, is the ability to make unmediated connections with experts.

The Tej Kohli Foundation for example, is entirely depending on forming new partnerships and coalitions all around the world to solve big challenges. So #TejTalks is a great place to zone in onto some of the constitute parts of those challenges or the underlying factors that are causing them, and to connect and share ideas with relevant experts. A huge proportion of corneal blindness for example is a poverty-driven ailment, and so you cannot solve it without also looking at the underlying causes of poverty. Female inequality also plays a big role in poverty blindness, and so recently I have been learning and blogging about that too.

You recently published ‘Rebuilding You: The Philanthropy Handbook’. Why?

Tej Kohli - My own approach to philanthropy has been heaving focused on rebuilding people and communities around the world. And one of the things that I have learned on that journey is that in becoming a philanthropist you cannot simply become a kinder and more benevolent version of yourself. You also need to behave differently, think differently and change your outlook. I wrote ‘Rebuilding You’ as a guide for others who want to use their wealth for good, so that they can avoid some of the common pitfalls and have a greater impact more quickly.

I have organised the ‘Rebuilding You’ handbook into key decision areas. Each area will enable would-be philanthropists to combine some of my experiences with their own to synthesise new ideas about how to define a brand of philanthropy that will best achieve their goals.

What is the biggest lesson that you have learned during your career?

Tej Kohli - I am about to turn 63 and I have led a rollercoaster life. People often tell me that my life story would make a great movie, but I tell them that if it was a it would do badly it because the story would not seem believable! I made a single youthful mistake in 1988 that I have regretted ever since and which I still feel great remorse for. I think what that taught me is that sometimes the important thing is to know what not to do.

At the same time if you want to achieve something you need to aim higher and go further than almost every other person is prepared to go, and if you start young like I did, it is inevitable that you will make some mistakes. I feel bad for young people these days as so much of their lives are recorded and documented online. I counsel my kids and their friends to aim high but also to be very careful as any indiscretion could follow them forever.

But the biggest lesson I think I have learned is that you will always have your critics and not to let them detract from what you are doing. It’s best not to give them the satisfaction of allowing them to diminish who you are and what you are doing. The best thing to do is to simply keep going, keep doing good, keep giving back and keep helping others.

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What for you have been the key moments in your life?

You know my mother is 86 now and if I am anything in life then I owe it to her. She has always been there for me and that consistent love and support has been more important to me than any particular moments, except of course for the birth of my son and daughter. I had my children quite late in life, but my kids are by far the thing that I am most proud of.

In terms of my career, my first job after graduating in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology was installing tachometers. I was installing at a facility owned by Rabocomtel and realised that I could design a process controlled which would significantly increase the efficiency of their facilities. It’s a long story, but ultimately, I was able to pitch the idea to the CEO who placed a big order with the company that I worked for. That gave me my first real affirmation of my desire to become an entrepreneur.

When the company that I launched in 1999 reached $100m of turnover was also a key moment for me too. It affirmed my belief in what was possible, and we quickly expanded to employ hundreds of software developers and began buying and turning around companies too. And obviously when that company was sold in 2006 it was a life changing moment.

You graduated in from the Indian Institute of Technology with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Do you still consider yourself an engineer?

Tej Kohli - Today I would call myself a technologist, but I think that to be an engineer you now need to be a technologist and vice versa. It was 1980 when I graduated in Electrical Engineering and ‘technology’ as we know it today did not really exist. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) remains today one of the top educational institutions in the world and it has become famous for the problem-solving abilities of its engineers.

When the COVID-19 crisis hit in 2020, India found itself with a catastrophic shortage of ventilators, but within weeks engineers at IIT had created a low-cost ventilator that could be manufactured using off-the-shelf parts. They made their design open source so that local manufacturing companies could turn their resources to manufacturing ventilators, which they did. That is an elegant example of engineering and technology coming together.

In 2018 my alma mater conferred their Distinguished Alumnus Award upon me for serving society at large through my work at the Tej Kohli Foundation. That made me proud because part of what we do at the Foundation is to deploy technology to solve human problems.

Who has inspired you most in life?

Tej Kohli - The late Kofi Annan was by far the wisest and most inspirational man that I have ever met. But from a more practical perspective, as obvious as it may sound, I greatly admire Bill Gates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation approach to philanthropy has set a high standard to which all other philanthropists can aspire. The way that Bill Gates defined very specific objectives and then intensively targeted vast resources into both grassroots activities and also major scientific innovations, has been a big source of learning for me that has continually motivated and inspired me to do even more. Bill Gates achieved so much in business and then used that success to achieve so much for others that like me he has almost had ‘two lives’. His example is a wake-up call for any human who has accumulated wealth to consider how they might use that wealth for the betterment of their fellow human beings.

I am also greatly indebted to Michael Milken. His story resonates strongly with me because Milken got ‘tripped up’ by his prodigious early success, but then made a colossal comeback and focused on using his success to help others. Today Milken is one of the biggest funders of research into prostate cancer, and the results are incredible. In 2004 Fortune Magazine called Milken ‘The Man Who Changed Medicine’. Milken shows that it is possible to move on from past youthful mistakes and rebuild yourself for the betterment of other people.

You have been at the helm of the Tej Kohli Foundation for well over a decade. When did your philanthropic ambitions start?

Tej Kohli - It was my wife Wendy who started off our journey into philanthropy when in 2005 we sponsored a group of disabled children in Costa Rica. By 2005 we knew that a sale of my company was imminent, and we wanted to have something new to put all of our energies into. The group of disabled children that we committed to help had varying levels of disability, and our job was to make interventions that would improve their lives. Some had such severe disability that they would need permanent care for the rest of their lives. At the opposite end of the spectrum, with our support one young girl eventually attended college in the USA.

That same year my wife Wendy launched the ‘Funda Kohli’ project by establishing a series of free canteens in Costa Rica, which is where she is from. The canteens are still operational today more than fifteen years later. They feed hundreds of school age children for free every single day to make sure that they have the nutrition and sustenance that they need to thrive.

But today you are best known for your mission to end corneal blindness by 2035, where did that mission come from?

Tej Kohli - In 2010 I was invited to fund donor corneal transplants at Niramaya Hospital in India. There is no history of blindness in my family and corneal blindness is not something that I had known a huge amount about before then. Nowadays I consider myself something of an expert. I was present in 2010 as the recipient of a corneal transplant that I had funded - a 50-year-old man who had been blind for decades - had his bandages removed. The man was able to see his wife and grown up children for the first time in decades.

That was a life changing moment for him and also for me and was my affirmation that having enjoyed so much rapid success in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, I now wanted to use that success to eliminate corneal blindness. I felt it was my calling.

Another one of the reasons that corneal blindness resonated so strongly with me is because it is at its heart it is a poverty driven ailment. 75% of corneal blindness is either preventable or treatable. But when it is left untreated, it impedes the ability of entire families to become economically successful in communities that are already impoverished. NGOs do not reach a majority of the remote and rural communities in India. In communities that are underserved for healthcare provision due to their remoteness or poverty, there is a huge treatment gap.

The other challenge with corneal blindness, is that because it’s not life threatening, it attracts less attention than some other global health issues. But the social and economic impact of restoring someone’s vision is immense. It changes families forever. That’s why I became determined to make a difference. And by 2015 I was funding so many corneal transplant operations at Niramaya that a bigger facility was needed.

Is that when the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute project was started?

Tej Kohli - The Tej Kohli Cornea Institute in Hyderabad was the biggest project that the Tej Kohli Foundation had ever embarked upon. It opened in late 2015 and by November 2019 it had welcomed more than 223,404 outpatients and completed more than 43,255 surgeries.

People living with corneal blindness or visual impairment in India were often living in total poverty and in some instances could not even afford the train fare to travel to see a doctor, let alone to pay for a complex corneal transplant operation. We treated anyone referred to the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute for free regardless of who they were. It meant that we were able to help people who had been economically ‘shut out’ from the life changing treatment.

There was one girl who was the same age as my daughter whose vision was so poor that she was nearly blind. I was visiting Hyderbad and met her just after she had received her corneal transplant. She gave me a big hug and I couldn’t help thinking how I would feel if this was my daughter. After that I couldn’t stop thinking about how many others like her were still out there. Knowing that I could help them felt like a big responsibility that I wanted to rise to.

The focus of the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute is in India, but you haven’t lived in India for many decades. What is it that keeps your focus on India?

Tej Kohli - ‘First world’ problems are invariably the ones which it would be relatively expensive to solve. By contrast, high rates of poverty mean that many developing countries are plagued by diseases that it would cost the ‘first world’ comparatively tiny sums to control. In 2018 India commenced the world’s largest experiment in Universal healthcare when the Government granted 500 million people the entitlement to free health insurance overnight.

This will mean that those living below the poverty line in India will no longer have to pay for hospital treatments that would until now have pushed them into crippling debts. But whilst on the surface this is a hugely positive step forward, too much optimism entirely ignores the fact that it will still take many decades and billions of dollars to bring all of India’s healthcare systems up to the equivalent standard of that in the West. Until then, highly pervasive treatment gaps will continue to permeate the poorest communities.

My own focus on India as a philanthropist actually has nothing to do with my own heritage. Unfortunately, India is an epicentre of poverty-driven corneal blindness, and so it is the obvious place for us to be in our mission to combat this form of blindness, the vast proportion of which is either avoidable or treatable. But closing the treatment gaps is about more than money – it is also about logistics, resources, education, knowledge, cultural understanding and having a deep reach into communities. Does my heritage help with this? Yes, a little.

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But in 2020 you announced that you were going to shift your focus away from these direct interventions in favour of finding cures. Why?

Tej Kohli – What has always been abundantly clear from the beginning is the sheer magnitude of the task of closing the corneal blindness treatment gap. I have always felt that official data is incomplete and so in reality there could be ten million people in the world living needlessly with corneal blindness. Most of them are in remote and rural communities across many different countries speaking different languages and with different systems in place.

You simply cannot eliminate corneal blindness by relying on transplantation surgery. Transplantation is too expensive, too complex and too inaccessible for most of the people who need it. The only way to eliminate corneal blindness by 2035 is to bring to market a novel solution that is affordable, scalable and accessible in all circumstances. What you need is a solution that can be applied by ophthalmologists or nurses without surgical intervention.

Finding that ‘universal’ solution is not something that we have just embarked upon: we have been working on it for years and today we have our own intellectual property which we have developed ‘in house’ as well as sponsoring the projects of third parties at major institutions. To begin with we tried to synthesise new corneas from yeast and then later from peptides. We were able to create them, but the rejection rate was too high, and neither solution would have removed the need for invasive sutures and expensive surgery.

It took until 2019 before we achieved a breakthrough when we created a proprietary regenerative solution, which in theory, could be applied using a syringe and cause the cornea to ‘regenerate’ and repair itself. Subject to regulatory approvals, this ‘universal solution’ is now years rather than decades away and could be relevant to more than one third of people with corneal blindness.

The “major institution” where you are sponsoring projects, is that Harvard Medical School?

Tej Kohli – Actually the Tej Kohli Cornea Program resides at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston, which is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It is Harvard professors from the Department of Ophthalmology who lead the research that we sponsor at Mass. Eye and Ear, but our donations do directly to the hospital and it is they who administer the spending.

I donated $2m in 2019 to support the development of innovative technologies to improve medical diagnoses and treatments of corneal blindness. That money is going toward two major projects, one being similar to our own in-house project, and the other utilising nano string technologies to aid early diagnostics and preventative treatment. The funds are also used to provide seed funding to projects that address unmet medical needs in ophthalmology. In my mind the first $2m is just the start and we will do more together in the future too.

In 2019 we also inaugurated the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute UK Centre of Innovation in the United Kingdom. The Institute is building a research network to bring scientific expertise together and is also harnessing the best of British innovation to bridge the corneal blindness treatment gap in poor communities by awarding grants to UK-based technological and scientific projects. Decisions are made by an advisory board of UK experts in Ophthalmology.

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Recently you returned to your earliest days of feeding children by launching food support programs in the UK. Why?

Tej Kohli - in the Spring of 2020 the world was plunged into a global crisis due to the Coronavirus. The pandemic required an emergency response of immediate interventions to alleviate individual human suffering. We had for a long time been formulating plans for how we could get involved in the mission to combat holiday hunger in the UK. When the crisis hit we had to bring those plans forward and play our part in supporting the local community.

The Tej Kohli Foundation partnered with community groups to create capacity to deliver 100,000 cooked meals each week to any charities or volunteer groups who need more free food to distribute into their local community. We also created the ‘YouCube’ box, a youth-focused food initiative that aims to ‘repackage’ food provision as an off-the-shelf initiative that existing charity and volunteer groups can adopt to combat hunger in their community.

Now the Tej Kohli Foundation aspires to use the organisational memory that has been developed during this period and the deep community connectivity of the scheme to combat ‘holiday hunger’ amongst children.

You also donated $100,000 toward the development of a vaccine for COVID-19, what motivated that?

Tej Kohli - I donated $100,000 of emergency funding to Harvard Medical School researchers based at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital in Boston. They had developed a novel and experimental gene-based vaccine which utilises a harmless ‘Trojan horse’ virus as a carrier to bring a tiny piece of the DNA of SARS-CoVid-2 into a patient’s cells, building a protein that stimulates their immune system to fight future infections. I think it is a promising solution to a major global problem, and I am hopeful that it will prove successful.

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Your ‘Future Bionics’ program is funding 3D-printed bionic arms for young people in the UK. How did you arrive at this project?

Tej Kohli – I am immensely proud of our Future Bionics project. It captures so elegantly what the Tej Kohli Foundation is all about: making direct interventions to improve people’s lives using technology, with a particular focus on younger people with their entire life ahead of them. The project came about when I had lunch with the CEO of the company that make the bionic arms and he told me that a lot of families turn to crowdfunding because they cannot afford to purchase one of the arms for their child, and that most of this crowdfunding fails.

The first arm was delivered to a 10-year-old from Blackburn called Jacob as an early Christmas present. He has set a shining example and is a fine young man who is a great role model to other young people. And since then we are working our way through to provide arms to ten young people to begin with. I hope we can continue the program after that, but we will have to take a view on the cost versus the impact once that the current tranche is completed.

Why do you place so much faith and emphasis into technology?

Tej Kohli – you should never underestimate the role of technology in making the world a better place. We are living through an unprecedented time in human history where a chain reaction of rapid technological development across science and technology is unlocking unprecedented new opportunities to solve major human problems. Technologists can look out across the vista of a hugely rich and fertile landscape of new opportunities to improve human life. Many new and novel solutions are within grasp and simply need to be incubated and ‘proven’ to stimulate their widespread adoption.

Many technologists and entrepreneurs have built successful commercial enterprises or pioneered new technology solutions before. It’s my belief that this expertise is absolutely critical for unlocking the potential of these new and frontier technologies in a way that can have an exponential global impact in terms of solving human problems and improving human life.

I have long been fascinated by deep tech and new frontier technologies. When I started my payment gateways company in Costa Rica in 1999 we were figuring out frontier technologies and combining them to build brand solutions and applications. By the time that I left in 2006 my company employed armies of software developers. And this experience as a technologist is now also part of the DNA of my objectives and ambitions as a philanthropist.

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It was Peter Thiel who noted that “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters”. Is there a risk that technology will not deliver in the ways that you expect?

Tej Kohli - My real point is that we are now at a watershed moment where the opportunity is to innovate solutions that could eliminate specific areas of human suffering entirely, rather than merely alleviating them. I strongly believe that AI and ‘humanitarian robotics’ have the potential to drive innovations which will alleviate human suffering and hardship, both directly and indirectly. I also believe that humanitarian efforts the world over will be greatly advanced by these emerging technologies as they continue their exponential growth.

That’s why earlier this year I established a new incubator to back scientific projects and commercial ventures that were targeting solutions to corneal blindness, with the caveat that those solutions must be affordable, scalable and accessible in the world’s poorest countries.

You have predicted that artificial intelligence could become a $150 trillion economy within five years, which is ten times more than the current combined output of India and China?

Tej Kohli - Artificial intelligence, and also biotechnology for that matter, are both frontier technologies that are locked into an exponential growth trajectory. The cost of deciphering the human genome has dropped from $3 billion in 2001, to about $1,000 today and what took many months ten years ago can now be done in less than one hour.

I believe that AI will be so manifest within all aspects of life, and that the applications are so broad, that the AI economy will worth four times that of the global Internet economy, which is today worth approximately $50 trillion. AI is also already transforming developing countries. In Nepal, machine learning has been utilised to map and prioritize reconstruction needs after earthquakes. In Africa AI tutors are helping young students to catch up on coursework. NGOs and humanitarian aid agencies are using big data analytics to optimise the delivery of supplies for refugees fleeing conflict and other hardships. And in India rural farmers are being encouraged to use AI to improve crop yields and boost profits.

Technological innovations like these bring us much closer to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on issues like eradicating poverty, ending health-care inequality, increasing access to schooling, and combating global warming. And yet the world is only just scratching the surface of what these new technologies could do for human progress.

Your Kohli Ventures investment vehicle focuses on impact investment. Where does philanthropy end and impact investment begin?

Tej Kohli – That’s a good question. Impact investment looks at the double bottom line of profit and social impact. Philanthropy is a good way to spend wealth, but somewhere along the line you need to first generate that wealth. So why not, when the circumstances are right, try to do both at the same time? Take for example Detraxi, a Florida-based biotech company that I wholly own. It’s a commercial venture but could have a significant humanitarian impact.

More than 100,800 solid organ transplants are performed each year worldwide according to the World Health Organisation. Eight lives can potentially be saved by just one organ donor. Demand far outstrips supply, yet thousands of organs get discarded every single year though wastage due to the practical difficulties of preserving and transporting organs. Imagine if you could solve that problem, it would be a good business that would also save thousands of lives? Well that is what we are trying to do by bringing the Detraxi solution to the market.

But which is more important, philanthropy or impact investment?

Tej Kohli - It was Sir Ronald Cohen who said that “the world must change but we cannot change it by throwing money at old ideas that no longer work. To change the world, we must change how we do business, starting with where and when we invest our money”. Can you imagine a world where every investment decision made by every institution also weighed up the human or social impact of that investment? The consequences would be immense.

Worldwide impact investment is currently was worth around $715 billion in 2018, but the International Finance Corporation estimates that based on current demand from investors’ total demand is nearer to $26 trillion, which is fifty times larger. Impact investing already has the power to solve issues that are often beyond governments. And I am convinced that impact investing is one of the best ways of funding the technology-led changes that the world urgently needs in order to solve some of our biggest challenges.

What have been your favourite impact investments so far?

Tej Kohli – my impact investment portfolio is doing very well indeed, but I deliberately do not disclose my investments since having my name associated can eb a hinderance. And anyway, the focus should be the founders and entrepreneurs at those venture, not on me. One of the largest investments I have made was in 2019 when I committed $100m into the Rewired robotics-focused venture studio ‘with a humanitarian bent’.

Rewired is a Switzerland based organisation, so I do not have any direct influence over what they invest in and their portfolio is also a tightly guarded secret. But based on the Rewired investments that are already in the public domain, one of my favourites is Aromyx based in Silicon Valley. Aromyx was originally initiated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The company is creating new modalities of data that have the potential to be disruptive across many sectors and applications. In 2019 Aromyx completed a large-scale study with one of the world’s largest chemical companies with a view to deploying Aromyx into the recycling process to improve plastics recycling rates by over 90%.

Other investments publicised by Rewired include Seldon, which is at the heart of accelerating the adoption of machine learning to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. There is also Raptor Maps, which was founded by MIT Engineers and makes it simple and affordable for solar companies to adopt drone technology as a tool to increase performance. Open Bionics is enhancing the lives of all humans everywhere with its next generation of 3D-printed ‘bionic’ prosthetics. And Elementary Robotics is re-engineering automation intelligence through its deep learning artificial intelligence software.

You have said before that you believe your children, who are teenagers, could live to be at least 125 years old. What will the world be like by 2125?

Tej Kohli - If I look at how the world has changed since I graduated in 1980, and given the acceleration of technological and human progress, I think it’s impossible to imagine the world in 2125. Thanks to economic growth the world is already on track to end extreme poverty by 2030, so perhaps the next 100 years of human history will see humanity unlocking the latent potential that has always been restrained by global inequality.

Of course, there are still major human challenges such as over population, sustainability and climate change that need dealing with. But even during the next decade AI will change every aspect of our lives. So by 2125 I am optimistic that technology will have unlocked even more solutions to these major global challenges.

Time will tell. What I am certain is that the opportunity is right in front of us, and it is for all of us to master it for the betterment of all of humanity.

For more information about Tej Kohli visit:

Tej Kohli official website: http://www.TejKohli.com

Tej Kohli Foundation official website: http://www.TejKohliFoundation.com

Kohli Ventures official website: http://www.KohliVentures.com

Tej Kohli personal blog: https://medium.com/tej-kohli

Tej Kohli Foundation YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tejkohlifoundation

@MrTejKohl on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrtejkohli

@MrTejKohli on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrtejkohli

Tej Kohli Amazon Author Profile: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tej-Kohli/e/B08CY13FNR

Tej Kohli Telegraph profile: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/10/04/tej-kohli-indian-tech-billionaire-plans-turbocharge-britains/

#TejKohli TejKohliFoundation NotForProfit Foundation Blindness Poverty 3DPrinting bionic robotics humanitarian healthcare

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makistar2018 · 6 years

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How to succeed in business by being a Taylor Swift fan

Fandom can be an expensive hobby, but there are also ways to get paid for your time and affection.

By Kaitlyn Tiffany Nov 7, 2018

Taylor Swift’s very popular snake jewelry. Big Machine Records

Twenty-two-year-old financial analyst Zainub Amir moved to New York City from Albany last June, around the time that her Taylor Swift news account @SimplySFans celebrated its seventh birthday on Twitter.

The account has 124,000 followers as of this writing, but when Amir started it at the end of eighth grade, there was almost no demand for it. She was alone on Twitter as a Swiftie, she says, with “maybe 30 other fans.” It’s that early adoption of the platform that she credits with her success, and with her permanent place at the top of the Swift fan account hierarchy — it’s too late for anyone else to get this big.

Now Amir has a full-time job and responsibilities to her employer. Also: responsibilities to the 124,000 people who depend on her for news, as well as the management and tour sponsors and brand partners for the biggest pop star in the world, which regularly ask her for help promoting awards shows, limited-edition Keds, and Swift’s every move.

“It’s hard,” Amir tells me, sitting on a corner sofa in her Midtown office building, after most of the lights have gone down but the granola bar wrappers and Lipton tea bags have yet to be scooped from the floor. “The thing is it’s, like, the same thing as texting someone while you’re at work; you just have to be really fast. The whole point of an update account is getting the news first.”

“EVERYTHING COMES DOWN TO SOMETIMES THE SECOND OR MINUTE YOU POST”

To help, Amir has push notifications set up from fan accounts on Tumblr and Twitter, for Swift’s friends and management and publicity team, and, obviously, for Swift herself, who has made a tentative return to social media in recent months after conspicuously vanishingand deleting thousands of posts last August.

“As soon as she posts, I make sure I put it on Twitter. You just have to be quick about it. After a while, it becomes second nature,” Amir says. She does not use Google Alerts, which are too slow. “Everything comes down to sometimes the second or minute you post.”’

That’s because Amir isn’t alone on Twitter talking about Taylor Swift anymore. There are dozens of update accounts, plenty of fans who are willing to take on the job of fandom as a second full-time position. And Swift is far from the only celebrity who draws this kind of cottage media industry around her.

Last summer, I spoke to 19-year-old Yucatán resident Armin Lizama, who runs one of the biggest Lorde fan accounts on Twitter and regularly helps professional music journalism outlets fact-check fan rumors and news items.

Last spring, Harry Styles fans organized to teach each other how to download VPNs and fake US streams of his first solo single “Sign of the Times,” hoping to game the Billboard charts. One account, @StylesPromoTeam, put out a public application to join them, which was longer than a traditional job application and required applicants to state whether they’d be able to dedicate up to 20 hours per week to the cause. This is just how modern fandom operates.

Most of these fans are not doing it to be compensated, but there is compensation to be found nonetheless — like any account with substantial followings, they can charge for sponsored posts and retweets; like any influencer a brand wants to woo, they can expect gifts and trips and special treatment; like any ambitious young person situated in an economy that celebrates optimizing every moment of your life, they can try to use hundreds of hours of self-managed, largely unpaid “fun” labor as a line item on a résumé.

“I don’t really care about how much money I make with it,” Amir says.

Nevertheless, she’ll readily call her account a business.

And as with any business, there are challenges. One is copyright: “Any time a video goes over 30 seconds and it has music or media, anything from Taylor or any of her sponsors, it usually gets picked up by copyright,” Amir explains. “Same thing with photos that photographers are taking, even if it’s Taylor’s own photographers with Getty Images.” They’ll get flagged and removed, and it only takes six or seven violations to get an account suspended, which is a challenge for accounts updating three or four times a day while an artist is on tour, or dozens of times a night when they’re performing and talking and raking in trophies at an awards show.

“Screen record has become my friend. Mainly when it’s YouTube or DirecTV Now, but I have to be careful, which is why I’ve resorted more to retweeting from the source,” she says. She tries not to push it, usually taking clips of around 10 seconds and asking permission whenever she can.

“You want to grow your reach as much as you can, but is it worth getting that copyright notice at the same time?”

All this is why Amir, like many of the other proprietors of major news accounts, has a separate account just for media, which she’ll retweet into her main account’s feed, giving up maximum engagement on her main page in favor of preserving it.

She’s had to learn how to streamline the process, trying to provide a good product without running herself off the road. “There are all these paparazzi pages you can go on and get the image itself, and then you have to delete the watermark,” she explains. “But it’s not worth [the effort] really, because someone’s just going to post it two seconds faster than you.” She’ll ask permission to repost GIFs and videos from fans at tour shows, but only if she’s sure they’re sharing something Swift hasn’t done before. She’ll engage in trending topics only if she has something to add, an image and a great quote, or a video clip short enough to not get pulled. “Otherwise, I’m better off retweeting from the actual source, even though I’m going to lose engagement.”

She had to figure all this out on her own, since other pages are competitors, jockeying for the same audience and the same engagement.

Swift is counting on her, for real. In 2012, before there were very many other major fan accounts, and before Swift’s team really used or understood Twitter, they asked Amir to be the official promotional account of the Red tour.

When Swift joined her favorite social media platform, Tumblr, in 2014, the account was run by her management and only followed five accounts — all update accounts, and one of them Amir’s. “I posted something about the fall, apple picking or something, and I had no idea anybody was reading it,” Amir recalls. “Taylor reblogged it and it was her first reblog of Tumblr, and she ended up adding this whole paragraph about how she loves the fall. So every fall, late August, September, I get so many notifications because people start reblogging that again and again and again. It’s a ritual.”

Being early to two platforms guaranteed that both Swift and her team would be aware of Amir, which means they regularly come back to her — to include her in special fan activities and to do promotion work. (She’s spent time with Swift in person three times in the past six years.)

“FOR ME, IT’S COMMUNITY FIRST; I DON’T REALLY THINK ABOUT THE MONEY.”

Amir says Swift’s management has a list of popular and reliable update accounts that it gives out to her sponsors and brands regularly dole out exclusive content or giveaway items to her and her update account competitors. Dick Clark Productions, for one, will fly fan account operators to awards shows to post updates live, as well as provide them with a stipend to support a vacation day in Los Angeles afterward.

“Either I get compensated through money or through free items,” Amir says. “Or it’s things like free tickets or perks or just being on the inside or being able to go to a release party. Sometimes it’s not directly money-related, but when it is, it’s per post or how many engagements it gets. That’s why stats or using Twitter analytics is so important — so you can say what your worth is. I’ve had it be $300 for retweeting someone before, because it’s a lot of followers and it’s huge engagement. I think the lowest I’ve done is $50.”

“It’s like another job, basically,” she says. But “it isn’t as stable as people think it is with a fan account like this. For me, it’s community first; I don’t really think about the money.”

Madame Tussauds’ Taylor Swift figure, revealed in 2014. Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images

It’s not all profit. “I bought the [last] album five times without really meaning to,” Amir says when I ask about how much fans typically spend to put their affection into practice.

Swift combated the ongoing industry-wide decline of album sales by selling two versions of a limited-edition magazine to go with Reputation last fall, each going for $20 exclusively at Target and each coming with another copy of the album. Buying extra copies of her album also helped fans improve their place in line in Ticketmaster’s controversial Verified Fan program, which sorted fans into a queue to buy presale tickets to her stadium tour.

“EVERY TIME SHE LETS YOU INTO HER LIFE, IT’S A NEW MARKETING SCHEME, BECAUSE IT’S A NEW PART OF HER LIFE THAT YOU DON’T KNOW”

“You want the magazine because you want to see into Taylor’s life; she had to have two different volumes for some reason,” Amir says. “You want the album for the code to put in your Verified Fan thing; that’s your first incentive. And your second is that you want to read these poems that Taylor never released to the world, or pictures that have never before been seen during her two-year [social media] blackout.” The Reputation merch was “trendier” and more expensive than previous Taylor merch, but “as a fan, you tell yourself that you’re just going to compromise and buy it, and you do it without thinking.”

She says she doesn’t want to criticize anyone, but she noticed that Verified Fan tickets were more expensive than regular sale tickets, and says she paid $160 (plus TicketMaster fees) for a decent seat, electing not to spend the nearly $800 it would cost to be in what Swift called “the Snake Pit” at the front of the stage.

“Every time she lets you into her life, it’s a new marketing scheme, because it’s a new part of her life that you don’t know,” Amir says. But again, none of this is criticism. Why shouldn’t a pop star also be a savvy business manager? Why wouldn’t intimacy with her be commodified? These are not contradictions, Amir argues. It’s also not a contradiction that she loves Taylor Swift and benefits financially from loving Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift with Australian fans in 2012. Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Because it involves people, business is almost always personal, but when it involves heroes, it’s even more so.

Amir is Muslim, and she says that made it difficult for her to watch Swift’s quiet refusal to engage with a swirling national debate about basic human rights in the wake of the 2016 election. “I really wanted her to say something, because she does say stuff at her concerts, or to you personally, and she’ll like things on Tumblr.” It’s not as if she didn’t know Swift was on her side. Still, “she never said stuff out there, outside the community, where it makes a difference.”

Swift’s longtime silence on political issues — which ended with an October Instagram postendorsing Democratic candidates for several key midterm election races in her home state of Tennessee, seemingly spurring a massive increase in voter registration in the state — was always in tension with her near-constant willingness to speak up on her own behalf. She has been more publicly involved in her business interests than any artist at her level, championing the 2016 battle against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which she argued gave YouTube a free pass on copyright infringement, and sitting at the center of the debate about Spotify (and music streaming payment practices in general) for years.

That’s a chapter she closed (somewhat awkwardly) during the lead-up to the release of Reputation last year, but she is still known for her litigious spirit, which she demonstrates by trademarking the names of her cats, attempting to copyright phrases like “look what you made me do,” and sending cease-and-desist letters to Etsy sellers who put her lyrics on homemade apparel.

In each of these cases, Swift isn’t really doing anything other artists wouldn’t (or don’t) do — but because she’s built a reputation as a ruthless capitalist, further news items that fit that narrative are easy to package. Each time she adds a brand to her portfolio — be it American Express or New York City — it looks cynical.

Amir doesn’t see it that way. Swift “reinvents herself just like companies innovate products, and that’s what keeps things exciting,” she says, swirling Swift’s musical evolution and personal brand metamorphosis and business strategy into one blanket compliment. She would understand, as an aspiring businesswoman who worked at a bank all through college, graduated early, moved to New York after interning at PR firms, was briefly the social media manager for a folk-pop duo, and is now looking for a way to blend financial analysis with the marketing skills she’s been honing since middle school.

“Taylor’s been a huge part of my life and the [fandom] community’s been a huge part of my life,” Amir says. “But you mature after a while; you get older. You can’t take days off work to be at an awards show.”

Vox

#taylor swift #fan account #vox #2018.11.07

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thatboomerkid · 6 years

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A User’s Guide to the Abhorrent Heavens

A User’s Guide to the Abhorrent Heavens -- An Essay for Bloodlines & Black Magic

“The key difference between any one of the Abhorrent Heavens and the very foulest churning pit of the deep Infernal is subtle but distinct: within an Abhorrent Heaven, one person is having a wonderful time. These grotesque realms, home to souls perfectly selected by their mistress for obsession and malice, are obscene in the extreme. On the surface, some of these blood-splattered abattoirs may appear as 1950s suburbs or modern-era cities, but all merely hide the hunger of a psychotic spree-killer finally unleashed from all consideration of consequences.”

-- Bloodlines & Black Magic, pg. 204

Your players don’t stand a chance against the Grand Archons.

Not directly, anyway.

After all, the Invisible Masters of Heaven & Earth have been putting down titans, would-be messiahs, world-shaking Goetic monstrosities, rebellious Bloodlines, sorcerous god-kings, charismatic serpent-cults & upstart wizards since before time had a name ... or so they say.

In most cases, of course, the Grand Archons don’t even have to respond to a threat directly: the exact moment when someone dumb starts making enough noise that rumors of the Invisible World begin reaching mundane ears, Yasazziel the Grand Archon of Glittering Things & Earthly Delights simply opens a gateway from our reality into one of her many Abhorrent Heavens & lets-loose one of her grateful, loyal servants to play dirty for a little while.

What happens next is, simply put, utterly unspeakable.

Brought to you absolutely free to play, to test & to share, as always, by the fine folks of my Patreon.

Additional content contributed by Blaine Bass of ScrapFinder and by Sam Berry; hugest of thanks to the Broken Token for editing assistance

photography by Boomer; digital editing by Tim Jenkins of Battle! Studio

SO ...

Maybe you’re starting a brand new Bloodlines & Black Magic campaign from scratch, and you’re looking for a unique way to kick things off with a real bang.

Maybe you’ve just ended a long, complex story-arc a little bit early, without all of the mysteries completely solved; maybe you can’t quite jump into the next chapter of your narrative until the PCs achieve a certain slightly higher level or meet a specific NPC or learn a particular secret; maybe only half of your players showed up to this session and you need a quick “filler” episode.

Maybe your PCs befriended & adopted the Godzilla, shunted the Terminator to the Deepest Astral, had the Voldemort removed from public office in perp-walked, handcuffed & humiliating disgrace or otherwise drove your campaign’s entire plot-arc so far off the frigging rails that you suddenly find yourself needing a few extra weeks to re-orient your entire game from first principles.

Whatever the reason, you require a brand new plot hook on the fly, and – simply due to the setting-assumptions of the Bloodlines & Black Magic universe! – a classic sword-&-sorcery fantasy plotline like “goblins attack the village” or “the princess is secretly a werewolf” or “foolish local knights go questing for the Vast Horror” simply won’t cut it.

No sweat, friend. We’ve got you covered.

In such an instance, the creaking & blood-spattered gates of the Abhorrent Heavens swinging wide into our own realm should provide more than ample fuel for your dark, strange fire.

original image from here

Plot Hooks (Pick from the list below, or Roll 1d10):

The PCs show up to a meeting with an important contact (or group of contacts) only to discover that everyone is dead or missing. Should any word of this discovery be made public, of course, the PCs are the most obvious suspects for mundane law-enforcement agencies to pursue. As their quick & panicked investigation unfolds, it becomes clear to the PCs that this was an extermination ordered by the Seven of Secret Names ... and that whatever was unleashed from an Abhorrent Heaven is now on their trail, looking to complete its mysterious mission and to have itself some slick red fun while doing so.

An old mentor of a PC is requesting help & offering sky-high payment: something is after him, and it’s rapidly chewing through every emergency defense he’s built-up over the last few decades. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear to the PCs that what’s after this particular occultist isn’t just a pissed-off Goetic spirit or some random undead manifestation: it’s a creature of the Abhorrent Heavens, released directly by the Archons to mete out justice in their name. Do the PCs continue to intervene, and risk angering the Grand Sisters directly?

The PCs are contacted obliquely by Jackie Ipanema (see below) or by another favored servant of the Archons who spends a lot of time outside of his Abhorrent Heaven on “real world clean-up”; this contact is polite & non-threatening in the extreme. This potent soldier of the Grand Archons needs a small favor: he maintains multiple false identities in the real world, and several of these identities have been invited (for mysterious reasons) to attend the same fancy dinner party at a secluded woodland mansion at the same time; of course, this is probably a trap. Can the PCs take on these roles & solve the mystery?

A bit of casual, routine investigation into an old “haunted house” in a remote farming community with a vaguely sinister reputation reveals the existence of a poorly-locked and seemingly unguarded portal sitting in the attic, marked only with some eerie chalk-lines. This hole in space-time leads directly into a previously unknown Abhorrent Heaven, full of thousands of fearful damned who are preyed-upon by a mysterious figure of terrifying power ... one who has (apparently) been used very quietly by the Seven of Secret Names on rare occasions to take out major targets. Do the PCs dare to explore this realm? Seal it & guard it? Profit from it?

The estate-sale of a wealthy & enigmatic amateur-dabbler in the dark arts turns up a “Dantean Codex”: a log-book detailing various entrances into an assortment of Abhorrent Heavens scattered across the US & Europe. 90% of the book is useless gibberish, of course ... but the parts that are real are literally invaluable: the sort of things that powerful Lineages kill & die for, or that make legends out of dilettantes. Problem is, the text ALSO represents the most deeply forbidden kind of occult knowledge; mere knowledge of its existence is punishable by death at the hands of the Archons & their servants. Where do you even hide such information?

An enterprising & clever young crew of magicians are playing with hell-fire itself: aping the legendary power inherent to the Invisible City of the Tianlong Dynasty -- Bloodlines & Black Magic, pg. 53 -- they’ve cracked their way into an Abhorrent Heaven with multiple exits back into the real world, and are using this otherworldly realm as a “secret level” to allow for quick, untraceable transportation between cities & across the globe. Every trip risks attracting the attention of the realm’s dark master ... and when these boys get caught, things are going to get very ugly very fast. Can the PCs shut down this mad plan?

The death of a famous & well-loved occultist reveals, hidden amongst the notes in his possession, that he was a MAJOR contact for the Archons: selling out other magicians for personal gain, setting up his friends & his enemies alike to be taken out by their purges, and often profiting directly from executions performed in the name of the Archons, all in the hopes that he would -- in death -- finally be granted the playground of his own Abhorrent Heaven in recompense. Worse, he names a close & trusted ally of the PCs as his longtime accomplice (or even mentor) in these double-deals. Who can the PCs trust?

The PCs are contacted by a powerful, underground circle of mages who think they have a real shot at taking-out one particularly nasty servant of the Archons, potentially crippling it -- like the famed Revered was pulled-down a peg -- or even killing it outright. If the PCs can bait the thing into a particular emotionally-significant, magically-potent location at a particular numerologically-consequential time -- and with all of the attendant esoteric magical formulae properly in-place to secure a full-on Occult Connection with the ritual casters -- then the PCs will have a front-row seat to watch something nearly unknown to modern arcanists, along with an exclusive invite to join the crème de la crème of international occult society. Of course, they’ll have to survive the fight ... and it might all be a trap laid by Nannareal, the Grand Archon of Secrets and Whispers.

An urgent call from an old friend of one of the PCs sends them down a dark alley with their associate in a strangely familiar location. Their sense of eerie déjà vu grows as they round a corner ... only to watch as a horrid creature lashes-out of the darkness and butchers their friend before their eyes, then vanishes into the night. Familiarity shattered, the PCs find themselves in an ever-shifting Abhorrent Heaven drawn from their own memories, locked into a game of cat-and-mouse that has gone on for centuries. When the PCs finally track down the monster and avenge their buddy, their sense of foreboding grows: this creature was not the master of any Abhorrent Heaven, merely a trapped plaything like themselves; soon after, another supernaturally-gifted foe is lured into the concrete jungle to start the hunt again. There’s a way out, of course ... but the voyeuristic occupant of this Abhorrent Heaven, a stalker obsessed with the vicarious thrill of predators & prey making war, isn’t talking.

Rumors start popping up -- with increasing & frightening regularity, and an uncanny level of detail -- about an ancient artifact resurfacing: a lost blade of Goetic Titan-craft that serves as a bane weapon against any creature tied to an Abhorrent Heaven. While the Archons & their servants scramble to kill-off anyone with anything resembling proof of this blade’s existence, the PCs are contacted by an old associate who claims to have located the thing ... as he requests extraction from a war-zone.

Uncountable Abhorrent Heavens ... and their Occupants

No one knows exactly how many Abhorrent Heavens there really are.

Or, more accurately, Yasazziel the Grand Archon of Glittering Things & Earthly Delights knows ... but she’s not talking.

Or, more accurately still, Yasazziel is talking all the damn time. It’s just that nobody can quite tell what she actually means by whatever she says.

In any instance, there are innumerable Abhorrent Heavens -- glittering like dark jewels, smoking with thin coils of screams & ghost-iron -- tucked away into obscure corners of the Celestial Realm, forever waiting to be opened-up whenever it amuses Yasazziel to unwrap & caress them.

Each one is sort of halfway between a prized Pokemon & a reverse Darklord of Ravenloft: each occupant is an utterly unique dick-in-a-box, sure ... but they love every minute of it, "bound" to their realm only so much as is required to keep them equal-parts amused & dangerous, all so that they can be taken out to straight-up murder people whenever their mistress desires.

Below are two of them.

Jackie: a Signature Soul of an Abhorrent Heaven

So ... you need a unique & scary monster, the sort of creature that Yasazziel the Grand Archon of Glittering Things & Earthly Delights would happily uncage & send after a troublemaker? Jackie Ipanema can, with only slight alteration, be used to fill exactly that role ... in much the same way that Canio de Pogo, Happy Muurvaerid and Khakissandra Ayla, the Foul Wish Granted can -- in a pinch! -- serve as interesting quick-&-dirty Goetic monsters.

image from here

Within the Bloodlines & Black Magic setting, Jackie’s ties to Zon-Kuthon are placed with service to Yasazziel the Grand Archon of Glittering Things & Earthly Delights.

ODDITIES:

If a character’s Threshold increases to an odd number from direct exposure to the presence (or the power) of Jackie Ipanema, she may gain one of the following Oddities (roll 1d10):

You can never again “spark” an object: you can’t turn on a stove or start a microwave, lighters that you try to use fail to ignite, cars you try to start won’t turn over, flicking a light-switch produces no effect, you can’t get a cellphone to turn on by pressing the button, and bullets or cartridges don’t go off when you squeeze the trigger on a firearm. You add quench as a 1st-level spell known to any one spell-list you possess; use of this special spell also extinguishes light bulbs, flashlights, chemical light-sticks and other simple, cheap devices that heat up, produce illumination and that can “burn out”. Use of this spell does not affect cars, cellphones, computers or other more complex electrical objects (such as firearms) used by opponents.

Your appearance becomes subtly creepy, and you remind everyone you meet of a dead person (either a specific dead person they have seen or a generic corpse, as appropriate). This affects your look, your voice, your scent and even the non-verbal sounds and movements you make; you suffer a penalty equal to twice your hit dice on all Charisma-based skill checks & ability checks except Intimidate. Once per day, you may choose, as a free action, to activate the Unnerving Gaze ability of an evangelist kyton, Will save negates (DC 10 + 1/2 your hit dice + your Charisma modifier); this ability last for 10 minutes or until you voluntarily end the effect as another free action.

You add bullet shield as a 1st-level spell known to any one spell-list you possess. This special spell may only be cast while you are in an area of dim or lower lighting, and a spell effect created by you in this way is suppressed -- as if in the area of an antimagic field -- while you or the target of the spell are in any area of normal or brighter light.

While in an area of dim or lower lighting, you are always considered to have a running start when jumping; you also add your character level (max +7) as a bonus on all Acrobatics checks to jump. You are fatigued while in an area of bright light and exhausted while in direct sunlight.

You gain light blindness. In addition, once per day as a free action you may choose to see through mist and fog (including fog cloud and similar magic) as if they did not exist. In areas of moderate or stronger wind, while this ability is in effect, you can also see as if you were standing at both your own position and a position a number of feet in the wind’s direction equal to the wind’s speed in miles per hour, potentially allowing you to see around corners and other obstacles. This ability lasts for 10 minutes or until you voluntarily end the effect as another free action.

As long as you are humming the song Girl From Ipanema to yourself (which applies a -10 penalty to all Stealth checks based on sound), you are immune to fear and to non-lethal damage.

You can never again “spark” an object, as per the first result above. While in an area of dim or lower lighting, you gain full use of Exotic Weapon Proficiency: spiked chain and Weapon Finesse. If you normally possess either of these abilities, you instead gain one of the following for each feat that you already possess: Improved Initiative, Lunge, Power Attack. You gain these abilities even if you do not otherwise meet the prerequisites.

While in an area of dim or lower lighting, you gain damage reduction 5/silver or good and immunity to cold. You gain vulnerability to fire while in an area of bright light and are nauseated while in direct sunlight.

You gain an overwhelming scent of rust and old metal; all opponents within 30 feet may freely detect you purely by sense of smell. If you are upwind, the range increases to 60 feet; if downwind, it drops to 15 feet. Your exact location is not revealed, only your presence within range and the general direction toward you. When you are within 5 feet of any creature with a sense of smell, that creature automatically pinpoints your location even if otherwise blinded to you. You may also be tracked by your smell: any creature may attempt to follow from where you have been by making a Wisdom (or Survival) check to trace your movements and current whereabouts, even if you possess the trackless step ability. The typical DC for smelling you out is 10; this DC increases by 2 for each hour since you departed the area. This otherwise follows the rules for the Survival skill. At will as a standard action, while you are in an area of dim or lower lighting and are not wearing any other armor, you may cause wickedly-hooked, barbed & razor-edged chains to sprout from your body, providing a +4 armor bonus. These otherworldly chains are not treated as armor for the purpose of spell failure, armor check penalties, maximum Dexterity, weight, or proficiency. These chains persist for ten minutes or until you voluntarily end the effect as a free action. If you already possess a strong scent, such as because you possess the third Oddity result from the Reverend of Razored Witch-Pyres, re-roll.

Roll 1d8+1 twice, keeping both results. If you gain the same result for both rolls, re-roll one of the dice.

Mr. Liu, the Cryptic Policeman, Secret Saint of Hong Kong (CR 13)

Those who speak with Mr. Liu on the telephone -- or correspond with the “man” via text or email -- universally find him charming, disarming and erudite in the extreme, with a remarkable wit; he has a refined British accent, exceptional knowledge of Chinese history, and he is obviously a highly-educated & well-traveled man: most likely from a fantastically-wealthy family of lawyers, college professors, international investors and physicians.

He often goes by Peter, Peyton or Penley; he comes off as a librarian, scholar or antiquarian ... although those who correspond with him quite frequently often begin to suspect that Mr. Liu might actually work for some type of clandestine, highly-discreet governmental organization.

That suspicion is partially correct.

Amongst those in-the-know, the Cryptic Policeman is a terrifying urban legend: the sort of ghostly creature who makes high-ranking members of the Tianlong Dynasty whisper a quick prayer & glance nervously over their shoulder.

Mr. Liu, the Cryptic Policeman, Secret Saint of Hong Kong, The No-Shadow Dragon, has never been seen. He is, in fact, invisible … save for a wide, toothy grin and the occasional flash of a bladed finger slipping through shrieking flesh. Despite this, Mr. Liu desires notoriety more than anything: he lusts for the perfection of his brutal art, wanting to be sought and never found, craving -- above all else! -- a eternal, profane and inverted game of cat and mouse: his Abhorrent Heaven is a bloody & endless game of hide-and-seek in the deep city, where he slays his pursuers and taunts the yet-unslain with riddles, poetry, bizarre word-puzzles and coded messages.

His identity is well known: he is considered one of the earliest recorded serial killers. In the 2nd century BC, there was a dragon-blooded Han prince, Liu Pengli, who ruled a small region in what would eventually become China. He was bloodthirsty and cruel, and led hunting parties made up of slaves and fugitives. At first they would kill indiscriminately, robbing and slaughtering the innocent and defenseless. After a time, though, Liu used these expeditions as opportunities to isolate and murder the strongest and most clever among his own men: he used misdirection & trickery to blame the deaths on the innocent and further the bloodshed. Eventually, he gained a taste for those with occult power in their blood, and targeted them specifically ... no longer killing the innocent, but instead hunting criminals, cultists, demon-summoners and rival murders, bringing a dark order to his province with his own hands.

While he wanted to get away with his crimes, Liu Pengli also wanted someone -- anyone, everyone -- to know how clever he was: how perfect a predator he had become. He had over 100 known victims, and far more unknown; soon, Liu Pengli began to announce the deaths of criminals & witches with messengers in every town, making known their deaths and his art ... even if he couldn't receive full credit for his lethal ingenuity. Eventually, this hunter of humans & magicians alike was brought before the Emperor, and he voluntarily stood for justice.

The Emperor, being his uncle, could not bring himself to execute the prince; thus, he reduced Liu Pengli in status, making him equal with those whom he had hunted & slain: Liu Pengli was stripped of his rank & title, made into a commoner, a no-one. The emperor exiled his nephew after making him anonymous, and sent him out of the kingdom to become a stranger in strange lands.

Liu Pengli couldn't help but smile.

It isn't known precisely when Liu Pengli actually died, nor how many he killed after being banished, but what is known is that before the 3rd century, he had been granted an Abhorrent Heaven of his own. Ever since, the occasional brutal murder of some poor bloke with a Bloodline is attributed to him, especially if a coded message is left behind.

Only two instances of prolonged activity are confirmed:

In London in the late 1800s, a powerful coven which owed fealty to the Goetic spirit of lust, Asmodeus, was all-but-openly active: conducting the dark rites of their cult under the thin guise of prostitution. The exact goals of their rituals are uncertain, but most likely these practitioners sought to magnify the influence of their patron-spirit in the material world, or to somehow otherwise threaten the power of the Archons ... because in 1888, the Cryptic Policeman was released from his Abhorrent Heaven to stalk & slay the Infernal-blooded priestesses. For three years the Policeman shadowed the five priestesses of Asmodeus's inner pentacle, with brief skirmishes slowed only by wards and fetishes which made it clear that the priestesses knew what hunted them. They attempted to replace lost members and complete the ritual, but failed ... as, one by one, they were hunted down, killed and mutilated in brutal fashion: sending a clear message from the Archons to those in the Secret World; lust is not to be flaunted. Mundane law enforcement never discovered evidence of the true killer, though the Cryptic taunted them through letters, using coded phrases and metaphor designed to communicate with the Invisible through the press, hinting that he was 'from hell'. The police never decoded the cipher, though those steeped in the occult could see it plain as day. He wanted to be unseen in his art, but credited for his achievement. Once his task was accomplished, the Archons spirited him back to his boundless cage.

Later, the Cryptic Policeman would be deployed again, loosed for nearly ten years at the very edge of the New World. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, on the American West Coast, for unknown reasons the Fey bloodline began passing through love: granting power both to those born with the blood, and to those beloved by the blood. This allowed the power & influence of several new-born Lineages to grow rapidly, and threatened to destabilize the balance of power within the region. While most of these Fey-Blooded had no knowledge of their own power, or the significance of their acts, the Archons do not judge slights by intent. The Cryptic Policeman was released, and again stalked his prey methodically -- often for months -- waiting until he was certain that they had the potential to pass their power, and then brutally murdering both once the power was passed. Ever the artist, the Cryptic again taunted law enforcement with letters, this time encoded in a clear cypher. Once the code was cracked, he had the captive audience he sought: most watching the papers in horror, some in awe as he practiced his visceral art. Once the Fey outbreak was contained, his performance was cut short: with an unseen & shadow-less bow, Liu Pengli was again dragged back into his brutal paradise.

image from here

The Cryptic Policeman is a lawful evil invisible stalker (CR 7) with the Half Dragon template (+2 CR), the Gunsmoke-Blessed Creature template (+1 CR) [see Bloodline & Black Magic, pg. 161], the War Machine template (+3 CR) and the Lifespark Construct template (+1 CR).

Because the Cryptic Policeman possesses the Lifespark Construct template, his Intelligence is not reduced by the application of the War Machine template.

Whenever the Cryptic Policeman deals damage to a living creature with any of his natural melee attacks, his wide & toothy smile very briefly becomes visible. This does not negate his bonuses to Stealth from invisibility, as his eerie smile is disconnected from his body: often appearing two to three feet away from the Cryptic Policeman’s actual face, as per a combination of blink & displacement.

The Cryptic Policeman may choose to suppress his natural invisibility & is in possession of a greater hat of disguise; he may choose to appear as a normal human whenever he desires.

Using the Cryptic Policeman:

If a character's threshold increases to an odd number from direct exposure to the presence (or power) of the Cryptic Policeman, she may gain one of the following oddities (roll 1d8)

You begin compulsively smiling whenever you deal damage that sheds blood. You may choose to a cause a living opponent to bleed whenever you deal melee slashing damage; your attack may cause an opponent to suffer 1 additional point of damage each round for each level you possess (for example, if you are a 5th level character, you may cause you opponent to suffer up to 5 points of bleed each round). This bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or the application of any effect that heals hit point damage. Bleeding damage from this ability does not stack with itself; bleeding damage bypasses any damage reduction the target might possess. Each time this bleeding damage is inflicted, you suffer one half that amount of damage (non-lethal damage, rounded up) as your uncontrollable grin begins to ache, twitch & burn.

You can see through your own eyelids, and have a difficult time sleeping. You may make sight-based Perception checks with your eyes closed, but are always fatigued for the first four hours after waking or until you have had at least two cups of coffee.

Whenever you write anything, you involuntarily pepper the page with strange runes and sigils which you don't recall writing ... or know the meaning of.

You gain full knowledge either Draconic or ancient Chinese (your choice).

Whenever you speak face-to-face with an unfamiliar, non-related individual for more than a few minutes, small scratch-marks and cuts as if from from fingernails form on your arms and face. This is actually a great way to tell if you’re actually talking to someone you already know (who might be in disguise).

Whenever you hold anything that could be used as a slashing weapon, your hand grips it until your knuckles whiten. You are incapable of holding such an object loosely, though you may put it down without difficulty. You gain a +2 bonus on all Disarm attempts made against you.

You may make Linguistics checks untrained. Whenever you encounter a language or writing which you do not understand, you feel distracted and are considered shaken while within 10 ft. of such script.

Roll 1d6+1 twice, keeping both results. If you gain the same result for both rolls, re-roll one of the dice.

PLOT HOOKS (pick from the list or roll 1d8)

A new string of killings has begun in a local metropolis, and they seem to be imitating the ciphered letters of the Zodiac Killer. Although the new cipher has yet to be decoded, it uses the characters of a hidden & secret language. The Cryptic Policeman has, perhaps, inspired a copycat ... or an acolyte. Or a rival, calling him out to face vengeance.

A potent young Dragon-Blooded sorcerer with a warm, charming smile has discovered that amongst his ancestors sits Liu Pengli; the brash magician is now attempting to become a host for the Cryptic Policeman’s ancient power for the express purpose of taking revenge on a rival ... but he risks unknowingly allowing the Cryptic Policemen to walk the earth again, unfettered by the Archon's cage.

Multiple high-profile businessmen in the finance industry have been found eviscerated in their offices, the walls splayed with bloody & undecipherable sigils. Mundane authorities are confounded not by what is on the security tapes, but what isn't: the murderer is invisible. Already, secret organizations have begun covering-up the crimes. Has the Cryptic Policeman been sent on a clandestine errand ... or is another player at work here, hiding behind the Cryptic’s reputation?

An invaluable 13th-century German grimoire detailing rituals used for summoning & binding the Cryptic Policeman has gone to auction. While the seller -- and most of the buyers! -- have no idea what’s on the block, at least one buyer is willing kill to obtain the prize.

An ancient and priceless knife which supposedly belonged to Liu Pengli has been stolen from a local museum by a Dragon-Blooded cult who believe it may hold a portion of his power ... or the ability to command & control the great ‘Machine Colorless Wyrm’.

An eccentric hobbyist, fascinated with 'ripper-ology' and researching for a book, has deciphered an unnoticed code in the letters from the Whitechapel murders. He is drifting dangerously close to an open secret of the Hidden World: the identity of the Cryptic Policeman.

The newly-awakened descendant of a victim from the Cryptic's 1970s-era West Coast murders has manifested the power of Fey blood ... and, moreover, she has demonstrated the ability to pass that power on to others through love while retaining the full Bloodline potency herself. This young woman must be carefully introduced to the Secret World, and gently told the truth about her heritage, all without arousing the interest of the Archons or their murderous pet.

A panicked coven is seeking any & all of the help they can acquire -- begging, borrowing & blackmailing, as they are able -- from anyone powerful and in-the-know enough to assist: they attempted to summon the Cryptic Policeman from his Abhorrent Heaven & to bind him ... and while their summoning certainly worked, and seemingly escaped the notice of the Archons, they were unable to chain him. Now, the Cryptic Policeman is gleefully stalking the members of their coven, picking them off one by one in a slow-moving orgy of violence.

So ... what color of dragon is the Cryptic Policeman, precisely?

Within the context of your own Bloodlines & Black Magic game, this is left entirely to your own discretion. Whatever energy-type of breath weapon you want him to unleash in combat (or need him to be immune to!), that’s the one ... although there are certainly dozens of theories, dating back centuries across any number of cultures, claiming to authoritatively state that the invisible scales of his armor & unseen cogs of his bones are one precise shade or another.

#pathfinder #bloodlines and black magic #urban fantasy #modern #horror #campaign #essay #cr 9

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