#and I hated that my youtube page got filled with these videos despite me never looking into it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

erodasfishtacos · 3 years

Note

could u please do like a harry x youtuber/influencer!reader and like lots of fluff🥺

Hi bubbie! Here you go :)))

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Language

Harry was panicking. His mum and sister were going to be here in less than two hours and he’s burnt the eggplant parmigiana he had worked tediously on.

He grabbed what he had left in his fridge - ground beef, shredded cheddar cheese, and a little bit of bacon.

It was the type of foods he usually strayed away from so sometimes when his shopper would bring this stuff home - he’d avoid it and admittedly sometimes it would go bad sitting in the fridge.

The singer pulls up YouTube onto his phone - hoping something would come up when he typed in the ingredients on the search bar.

He clicks on the first video by cookingwithnofucks. A chuckle at the name as an advertisement plays.

A cute, bubbly girl appears on screen in a beautiful modern kitchen. She has a shirt on that says ‘fuck the patriarchy and eat pizza’. A high ponytail and minimal makeup.

“Okay - today we’re making a cheeseburger casserole,” the girl chirps, “It’s a heart attack in a dish but it’s so fucking good.”

Harry finds himself smiling as he crinkles his nose - it sounds absolutely disgusting but he’s intrigued more by the girl on the screen.

“Shit, I forgot to introduce myself. Hiii, if you’re new - I’m Y/N and I do cooking shit. Subscribe to my channel and all that jazz,” she titters while cutting open her beef package.

Harry follows along step-by-step, shaking his head as she doesn’t describe the instructions nearly well enough and is generally all over the place.

It’s a fucking cooking channel and at one point the meat starts burning. She just laughs and says, “s’just a little crispy!”

The casserole turns out looking even better than Y/N’s to be honest. It’s done in just the right amount of time for him to shower before his family arrives.

He makes sure to subscribe to her channel - eyebrows raising when he sees that she has 16 million subscribers.

Harry wanted to spend longer, looking at her social media but there was a fixed time so he locked his phone and went to get ready.

Anne - always the sweetheart just tells Harry that the casserole is delicious even as a bit of grease runs down her fork from the fatty meats.

Gemma wasn’t as kind, grimacing at the casserole and remarking, “You truly are turning into an American, huh?”

Laying in bed that night, Harry swipes back onto YouTube. Going back to the page he just subscribed to - under a pseudonym. He clicks on another video.

“Uh, okay. So I’m cooking...fuck, it’s called unicorn bark. It looks like a magical animal puke but it looks delicious so we’re going to try it.”

Harry realizes he’s been watching this girl cook for nearly an hour. Different videos from desserts to dinners.

She curses like a sailor, fucks up almost every recipe, and makes a mess everywhere. But she’s smiling and talkative which makes him quite memorized by her.

“I hate editing,” Y/N groans, letting her head fall dramatically against the desktop. Her best friend and dog looked at her oddly.

“I keep saying you need to hire someone, you stubborn bitch,” Laney retorts, clicking through her Instagram feed.

“Fuck off,” she tells her friend with no real heat. The video was almost fully edited - how to make spicy as fuck jalapeño poppers.

There is a calm silence for a while until Laney gasps, “Holy shit.”

“What is it?” Y/N asks, not really caring as she clicks her mouse to trim a segment.

“Harry fucking Styles just followed you on Instagram and Twitter!” Laney shouts, her dog - Rufus popping his head up in confusion.

Y/N looks at her friend to see if she’s really serious and sees no signs of deception. “Oh my god,” Y/N replies. She loved Harry Styles in One Direction and as a solo artist - a fangirl if you will.

Y/N was a well-known influencer and has run in the circles of many celebrities. She’s even met Liam Payne but she’s never been able to bump into Harry.

Her alerts tell her it to be true, she swallows as she looks back up at Laney, “He dm’ed me.”

“Open it! What did he say?” She squeals, squeezing herself on the chair next to her, peering over her shoulder at the phone.

Y/N is a bit nervous, trying not to have a mini aneurysm as she opens the message thread.

HarryStyles: Hello. Just wanted to let you know that your cheeseburger casserole recipe saved my ass last night. Cheers x

“He’s totally coming onto you,” Her friend states instantly, bouncing excitedly - she also had a bit of a crush on the singer.

It takes the two of them a minute to cool their shit before Y/N manages a reply.

Y/N/LN: Well I guess it’s only fair. Your songs have made a few of my nights much better. I’m a bit of a slut for Fine Line.

Harry laughs behind his screen at the cheeky reply he gets back. He’s usually never this forward - especially on social media where he likes to fly under the radar.

HarryStyles: Well if you fancy my music that much, I totally love for you to come to a show. I’m performing in New York City in two weeks.

“This has to be a joke, right?” Y/N sputters to her friend, eyes wide at the invite to a concert she already had tickets to.

Y/N/LN: I’m not going to lie, I already have tickets to the show. However, I don’t have any backstage passes to meet the man of the hour. Do you know someone who can hook me up?

It does wonders for Harry’s narcissism to know that she already had tickets for his concert. Was he really going to do this? He hasn’t met up with some like this since his One Direction days.

He had to remind himself - she may just be friendly and take this as a totally casual interaction. Which would be normal, Harry really shouldn’t be so infatuated with someone he’s watched cook on social media.

HarryStyles: I think I can arrange that. Shoot me your number? I’ll have them sent digitally to you with instructions on how to get backstage.

Y/N is a bit dumbfounded at how fast they agreed to meet up. A harmless backstage tour - he could just be a fan of hers and totally not interested, right?

Over the next few weeks, they never really stop texting. Harry sends her pictures of the recipes he copies off her channel - that usually always look better than the original. He sends her clips of him goofing around during tour rehearsal. FaceTimes her when he’s finally home for the night.

She sends him videos of her watching Harry Styles Best Moment Part Five. A few photos she snaps throughout the city of him on billboards and buildings, in Times Square. YN facetimes him when she’s frustrated with filming or watched a sad movie.

It didn’t make sense to either of them how seamlessly they’d clicked - especially without meeting. They were a perfect balance for each other. Harry - laidback, organized, level-headed. Y/N - eccentric, all over the place, adventurous.

Jeff had told him that he’s been gaining media attention from his social media interactions with Y/N. They like each other’s photos, begin following each other’s friends, and comment goofy things on their posts.

“Listen, I have a great idea,” Y/N begins - which Harry learned is never good. “You should film a video with me sometime.”

Y/N knew she was going out on a limb and instantly regretted the questions she’d been building the courage to ask for days when it’s quiet on his end. There’s static for a moment and Y/N needs to fill the silence.

“It was - I was just, uh, I know you’re probably too busy. I was -“ She stutters, embarrassment flooding her.

Harry cuts her off, “I’d love to.”

“Yo-you would?” She asks timidly. Was she really going to have Harry Styles in her apartment? If so, should she take down her poster?

He laughs sweetly, “Why do you sound so surprised? I can’t wait to come to New York, love.”

Y/N giggles, “Not the fact that you’re performing in front of a sold out crowd at MSG? I don’t think seeing me will top that.”

“I’ve been looking forward to meetin’ you in person since I came across your channel. You so lovely,” Harry replies, his voice a little softer but more serious.

“I’m nervous,” Y/N admits, picking at a thread in her jeans.

“Me too,” Harry murmurs, despite not wanting to admit it - he wanted her to know this was new territory for both of them. He didn’t want her to think that this was something that he did often. But a little too prideful to admit it’s the first time he’s ever done something quite like this.

“What if you don’t like me?” Y/N whispers, she...well she didn’t compare to the models he’s been seen with before. She’s regretfully fell into the rabbit hole of looking up his past flings and relationships.

Harry barks out a disbelieving laugh, “You can’t be serious, darling. I’ve been gone for you since I saw you burn that ground beef.”

Harry was having a bad day - scratch that. An awful one. He tried to go get coffee at eight in the morning and got bombarded by fans, he left the shop without even ordering. They followed him back to his car and it took him fifteen minutes to pull out.

His favorite Mickey Mouse Gucci suitcase he was bringing along on tour had busted. The zipper unraveling and the trim falling off as a result. It was a one-of-a-kind.

Then he’d been stuck on a Skype meeting about tour merchandise with a group of business partners for the last three hours - all he wanted was a fucking nap.

When Y/N’s contact vibrated across his screen, he’s itching to answer but declines as he needs to give these people his attention.

When she calls again, Harry feels a prickle of annoyance. It’s not even at her - to be quite honest. It’s just the shitty day and everything’s piling up.

He always got like this before he kicked off a tour - stress level maxed out and his ability to handle minor incidents nearly shot.

I’m busy

Okay! Sorry, just have a super exciting surprise for you, bub!

I really do not feeling like talking. I’d rather be left alone.

Oh, alright. Hope everything’s okay! Do you still want to facetime later?

Harry leaves her on read because he doesn’t want to slip up and take out his frustration on her. He’d been known to do that and he didn’t want her to think he was anything but besotted with her.

Y/N feels a little hesitant as she begins the uploading process to her channel. The red loading bar told her it’d be twenty-minutes before it’s going to be posted to her 16 million subscribers - one of them being Harry himself.

Twenty-minutes for her to back out and cancel the upload. She starts having doubts about it when Harry never replies to her text which is unlike him.

She takes Rufus out to avoid staring at the loading screen with unnecessary anxiety and uneasiness.

Harry is just getting home from a business dinner with the touring company’s management team. The tension and anxiety from today piling up on his shoulders and he just wants to call Y/N and crash in bed.

He tosses his keys in the little bowl in the entry and kicks off his dingy white vans to the side. His phone dings with an alert from Gemma.

You two are the literal cutest ever. It’s quite gross.

Harry slides onto a stool in his kitchen, confused by the text message before she’s sending the link to him.

Fine Line Inspired Cupcakes!

Harry isn’t quite sure why his heart starts pounding furiously in his chest. A sinking feeling in his stomach when he realizes that this was probably the surprise she was excited about.

He clicks on the thumbnail.

“Hiiii, it’s Y/N. Okay, well today we are going to bake some Fine Line inspired cupcakes. And if you haven’t listened to the album - get your ass out from rock you’re living under and stream it on Spotify!”

She has her hair down in long, waves and a loose cropped shirt that says TPWK in rainbow embroidery.

Harrys mouth is dry and he can’t take his fucking eyes away from the screen.

“Soo, I was thinking the first batch would be cherry flavored? ‘Cause he has a song titled ‘Cherry’. Let’s start there. First - I need to find my measuring cups.”

In true Y/N fashion, she scours her kitchen - cussing and yanking stuff out of her neatly organized cabinets before huffing and storming off to the side.

She comes back into view, a little frazzled but smiling when she holds up the ring of plastic measuring spoons, visible bite marks notched into the material.

“My asshole of a dog had a little snack,” Y/N shows the camera before shrugging, “Let’s get this shit started. Okay, you’re going to need one cup of sugar - no wait, two? I can’t read my fucking handwriting.”

Harry’s absolutely enamored by this scatter-brained, giggly girl who manages to produce cute blue and pink cupcakes that very vaguely resembled his album cover. His heart felt a million times too big for his chest.

He was enraptured for the entirety of the thirty minute video without taking his eyes away once.

To be honest, he hadn’t felt this way since his last relationship which was over a year ago at this point.

It’s not even a thought as he’s requesting a FaceTime with Y/N.

She answers after a few rings. She has a green face mask painted on her nose, chin, and forehead with gold eye masks under each eye. She is so fucking ridiculous it’s not even funny.

What is even more ridiculous is how gone Harry is realizing he is for her. She was quirky, unfiltered, carefree. If he was honest - he hadn’t met a girl like that in a very long time - especially a well-known influencer.

“Hi! How was your day, grumpy?” Y/N asks brightly, making a goofy face as the mask begins to tighten and crack on her skin. Not holding the earlier conversation against him and deciding to just move forward. She understood how stressful it can be.

“M’sorry. I was a bit grumpy,” He admits, “I loved your new video, darling. Did you make those just f’me?”

He can tell she’d be blushing if her face wasn’t covered, a bit bashful as she mutters, “You already know I did it for you.”

“You’re too sweet to me, only six days until we meet,” Harry replies, voice taking on a slow, lazy drawl.

“Six days,” Y/N repeats, eyes crinkling as she smiles with excitement.

“Is this outfit too much?” Y/N panics. Even though there’s literally nothing she can do about it - they’re already walking towards the backstage entrance of the massive arena. It’s still about two hours until the show starts but Harry requested her to come earlier.

Laney sighs, “For the millionth time, you look fucking sexy and Harry’s going to want to rail you right when he sees you.”

Y/N shoves her lightly with a faux annoyance as they meet up with a burly man who’s blocking the entrance to the backstage hallway and rooms.

She gives him their names and pulls up the passes on her phone before he’s nodding with any expression and letting them pass.

They’re not quite sure where to go from here so they begin to wander down the long hallway toward what looks to be the main area that people are milling about.

Y/N is nearly on the ground when someone rounds the corner without looking and walks right into her. Both of them let out huffs of air as they collide and attempt to stabilize themselves.

But there are large hands grasping her arms and holding her steady. In typical Y/N fashion she’s already cursing, “fuckin like a brick wall, look out next time.”

Then she’s looking up to Harry staring back down at her with an amused expression. He doesn’t let go of her and instead tugs her against his bare chest. He’s warm and a bit sweaty - like he’d just worked out. He was only in a pair of thin, running shorts, nike tennis shoes, and a little clip holding his hair off of his face.

Y/N can’t help but wrap her arms around his waist, returning the embrace and amazed by how right it feels to be in his arms. Her face tucks right against his collarbone and it’s like they’d known each other for years.

Pictures and videos don’t do this man justice. He’s gorgeous - sharp edges and dark inked skin. Tall and muscular but dimples that are carved in his cheeks.

“Nice to meet you, m’Harry,” Harry rumbles, removing one hand from Y/N’s shoulder to reach out his hand to her friend.

Laney shakes his hand before asking, “Laney. I’ll leave you two lovebirds be. Where’s the food?”

Harry chuckles against Y/N’s wavy hair, “Down the hall to the left.”

Laney’s trailing off without another glance, she was very food motivated despite her skinny frame. Also not wanting to intrude of the very personal first moments of their meeting.

The popstar pulls back to look down at the girl he’s fallen for in mere weeks. She’s as beautiful as he thought she'd be - if not more. He can’t help himself, “Would it be too forward to kiss you?”

Y/N smiles widely, running a hand along his jawline, “I’ve wanted you to kiss me since you stayed up on FaceTime with me until two in the morning as I cried after watching The Notebook - despite me seeing it a million times.”

Harry ducks forward to press his lips softly to her, large hands come to cup the side of her face as they connect. He’s so gentle as he moves his mouth against hers. In true Y/N fashion, she’s bold and has no hesitation slipping her tongue into his mouth.

He’s so fucking in love with her. It doesn’t make much sense - it’s definitely not logical but he’s realizing that’s okay.

“Oii, get a room!” Someone shouts from down the hallway teasingly.

Harry flips them the middle finger and pulls back, pink lips swollen and puffy, dimples on full display, “Let me take you out to dinner after the show, darling.”

“You going to wine and dine me, Styles?” Y/N giggles, unable to contain the pleasant warmness he’s spreading through her body.

“Mmm, have t’make sure you’ll want to keep me,” Harry murmurs happily against her lips once again, pressing kiss after kiss to her to make sure she’s real, “Definitely want to keep you.”

Y/N bites teasingly at his bottom lip, hand planted on the soft but firm skin of his stomach, “You’re never getting rid of me, hope you know that.”

“Was hoping you’d say that, now let me introduce you to my band.”

-- ---- ---- -- 1 year later - -- --- --- --

“Hi bitches! Today is a super special day. We have the one, the only Harry Styles filming with us. I know that’s not really that special since he’s on here all the time with me. But we’re celebrating our one year anniversary!” Y/N smiles, bumping hips with Harry who stands dutifully next to her.

Anyone viewing can see the absolute heart-eyes and adoration he has for the girl standing next to him. He’s still as lovestruck and gone for her as he was the first time they met. Harry’s fans were thrilled - for the first time in years, he’d opened up again.

They weren’t very public on social media beside’s tagging each other in memes and posting the occasional picture. Y/N was constantly uploading cooking videos from wherever in the world she was with Harry on his tour, she’d also begin making vlogs about different foods she’s been experiencing.

---

“Okay, so here in Peru - they’re known to have this really fucking spicy beef with noddles. So obviously, I’m going to make Harry try it first,” Y/N laughs as she props the camera up on the side of the table on a napkin holder.

Harry - who has a concert in a few hours - frowns at the steaming dish in front of him, “Darling, I don’t want to try it first. It’s going to burn my mouth. Not gonna be able to sing.”

“You’re sucha baby sometimes,” Y/N rolls her eyes, slurping up the noodles with her fork while making a silly face at her boyfriend. She pulls back, straight-faced, “It’s not hot at all. Tastes amazing, though.”

Harry takes that as an initiative to shovel a spoonful into his mouth. It only takes half a moment until his taste buds erupt in fiery flames from the spices, “You bloody little brat, y’tricked me! It’s so fuckin’ hot!”

Y/N smiles widely, laughing much too loudly in the restaurant when Harry chugs the glass of water next to the plate while glaring at his love. “I’m sorry, s’just to easy with you, lovie,” She replies, leaning over the table to press a kiss to his lips.

He’s a sucker for her and kisses her right back despite his mouth being an inferno. His heart was on fire for her and that burned much more intensely.

---

“No, love. The instructions say baking soda, not baking powder. They’re not the same thing,” Harry sighs, attempting to read her scribbled, sloppy handwriting. She’d already spilled milk on half of the paper.

“S’interchangeable, right?” Y/N hums, cracking an egg into the bowl and Harry automatically knows to look to fish out the eggshells that’d she’d let slip in because she sucks at cracking eggs but always wants to do it.

Harry reaches over her, grabbing the vanilla extract and a teaspoon, “It’s not, baby. Lemme do this real quick.”

“Will you make me a grilled cheese after this?” She asks, nuzzling into his side and wrapping her arms around his waist as he finishes adding the wet ingredients to their bowl. Harry stopped questioning her thought process a long time ago.

Harry swipes his finger into the mixture of icing off to the side and rubs it right onto her nose, cackling at her pout and squeaking when she pinches at the fleshy skin of his hips. She in turn dips her finger into the sugary cream and pops it right into her mouth.

Harry eyes darken, watching her lips purse as she sucks off the icing. It was a dirty move on Y/N’s part and she knows it. It has her boyfriend dragging an icing-covered thumb along her collarbone before leaning down to slowly lick up the sugary trail with his tongue.

When Y/N slides her fingers into his hair and lets out a pretty moan, Harry’s standing back up, trailing over to the tripod and saying into the camera, “We’ll be back after a little commercial break,” and is then turning off the record button.

It takes little to no time for Harry to have Y/N’s bum on the countertop, mouth on her neck, and hand in-between her thighs.

And when they finally posted a very edited final cut of the video - well there may be a couple of fans who notice the how flushed Y/N is halfway through and a lovely purple mark on Harry’s neck that wasn’t there in the beginning of the video.

#harry styles #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harry styles writing request #harry styles fluff #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fic rec #harry styles prompt #harry styles x influencer y/n #harry styles smut #harry styles drabble

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burnedbyshoto · 4 years

Text

hawks_littledove.mp3

— You’re an avid listener to NSFW ASMR artist Hawks. It’s just your luck that he’s offered to have phone sex with you.

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pairing: takami keigo (hawks) x fem!reader

warnings: smut, 18+, slight abuse of power/influence, phone sex, masturbation, degradation, praise, nsfw asmr artist!hawks

word count: 5,018

a/n: my keyboard is broken and i could actually cry. but hey, hawks do be sexy even tho I would never trust him with my life. also LOL this might be a call out to a lot of us, do not be offended or I will cry.

kinktober day 14 main kink: phone sex | kinktober masterlist

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Fantasizing about being in relationships with fictional characters was entirely healthy and normal.

That was something you believed to the core. It was fictional; thus, no one but you were to be hurt at the end of the day. The character, being fake, could never have an opinion because you must be real in order to have an opinion. So when you were between boyfriends, you discovered a new anime, and before you could stop yourself, you fell hard for a character.

It started as a mild obsession.

You had looked up fanart via google images, your heart warming when you saw the plethora of different fanart. The anime itself had been in circulation for a few years now, the manga for much longer, so the content was endless. Then google images wasn’t enough, and you began crossing into Twitter and Tumblr.

The fanart became better, more engrossing, and definitely much more NSFW. And then, one night during your endless rabbit hole down Tumblr after your daily search on Twitter, you stilled when seeing a new type of content.

⇒ grey fullbuster x reader

The obsession grew worse.

So much so that you had followed nearly five hundred self insert writers and artists on Tumblr, and maybe seven hundred artists, meta writers, and thread makers on twitter. But three months into consuming all the content you could find, you came across a new name that made you tilt your head.

Hawks Fierce Wings

It was a name that was being repeated and heavily talked about on both sites. It was an ASMR artist, apparently, and you frowned at the thought. You didn’t have anything against ASMR videos, but you weren’t exactly sure how to handle an anime ASMR artist. Were they cosplaying while making all those weird ASMR sounds? You really didn’t have any idea, but due to the immense boredom of your lazy day in, you decided to hell with it and tried out his most popular video.

It was simply entitled: Hawks is Jealous.

Did you have any idea as to who Hawks was? God, no, you didn’t. But if it was just some random cosplay he was going to do, you didn’t think it was going to matter. So as the only slightly educated ASMR listener, you never truly became invested when it was a thing; you slipped on your earbuds and pressed play.

The introduction screen faded into an illustrated picture of a slightly handsome man, and some calming yet tense music played in the background. You shifted, eyebrows drew as you waited for the ASMR session to begin, and when it did, you were not ready.

“I saw you walking around with that asshole today,” a voice practically growled in your ear, and you froze.

Oh, no.

Oh, no!

For almost an entire hour, you sat glued to your sofa, your fingers digging into your lap as the jealous, spiteful words of this man named Hawks poured bitterly in your ear. His words were a near aggravated assault on you and definitely something you were beyond uncomfortable hearing from a stranger, but there was something about his voice that kept you there. Maybe it was the tenor of his tone or the way there was this sly, cunning scent to his words that he seemed to hide deep within his throat, but there was something that kept you there.

The second the passionate, heated kissing noises and heavy moans began to spill from his lips, you screeched, slamming your laptop closed as your cheeks pounded heavily.

Oh my god?!

It took a bit, but eventually, you were able to finish the audio and quickly figured out why he was an NSFW artist. You had never, ever heard a man eat a pussy fake or real as eagerly or vigorously as he did. Your hands were gripping the pants of your leggings, and your chest heaved.

Oh, motherfucking shit.

Finding out there were almost seventy other videos for you to still experience sent you scrambling for more, and eventually, you had to confess you were obsessed. Despite the anime fandoms you had discovered him for, Hawks seemed to be more famous for the content he created as himself. His real name was unknown by the looks of it, and he was only addressed as Hawks by his audience, something you caught on to quickly. So only after creating a new profile for his Youtube account, you made quick work of liking and commenting on every single of his already published seventy-eight nearly one hour and thirty-minute videos.

Each one was different.

Each one filled with various roadmaps on how Hawks' scenarios would play out for you — the listener. When he used his own persona, he called the listener his little dove or his chicken nugget, sometimes his KFC thigh, or his shish kabob.

You were glad at the very least he didn’t call you by any of those nicknames when pretending to fuck you at a speed only a “porn-is-my-only-education-on-porn” virgin teenage boy. You knew it wasn’t ideal, usually, but for some reason, it just worked. You commented on everything, read his summaries and thoughts on each video. Eventually, when you found yourself on his final, most recent video, you were ready to go a step further.

The Patreon app on your phone seemed jarringly out of place as you opened the app and subscribed yourself to Hawks' highest tiered option for the price of twenty USD.

And when you got your access to his page, you were immersed in more heavier, better content.

It was a goldmine in a sea of fools gold, and you absolutely went insane.

You weren’t sure if you were insane, needy, or just straight-up idiotic for scrolling to the very first Patreon post and indulging in the content Hawks created.

There was a stark difference between the warnings alone between the Youtube videos and the Patreon posts. While the porn was readily accessible on Youtube, the kinkiest thing that ever happened in a video was a slight implication that Hawks had left the listener on a vibrator and fuckmachine as he went to go talk to the visiting neighbors.

It was a slight, tiny zone out and miss a detail, but one you had clung onto like an obsessed psycho and even commented on in your comment on the post. Of course, Hawks hadn’t responded, not that you had ever expected him to because all things considered, a video that was eight months old and hadn’t done that well, to begin with, didn’t seem like anything he would remember: notifications and all.

But Patreon? Oh good, sweet, ravishing Patreon.

The very first video was of the following:

Stepbrother!Hawks fucks Stepsister!Listener in the stairwell during Christmas Dinner.

After praying and swearing to all the deities of the world that you were merely a person with a voice kink for this man and not, in fact, a perverted pseudo-incest worshiper, you clicked on it and began. It was downright sinful.

There were active voices whispered in the background as Hawks laughed about how fucking slutty you were for letting your brother fuck you like this. In the hallway, like a dog, where anyone in your joint family could walk out into. He laughed that you probably wanted it, how your wet ass pussy was greedily sucking him in, so how could you even begin to deny your lust for your brother.

You had to take a break five times during that audio.

Eventually, you do end up catching up.

Each video he had ever posted to your disposal, and most likely due to the different tier levels, you always commented on the videos. Even if it made you feel awkward for lusting over things months old, even if there were no other comments on the videos, which was much more common than you thought, you always commented and liked. It wasn’t anything ever crazy, you had seen the rarest comments bring a whole essay of analysis on why they loved it or the hating words, but you kept it simple.

Just something to keep Hawks spirits high without draining you even further of energy.

A simple: holy shit, that was hot as fucking hell!!!! you never disappoint me!!!

You never expected anything out of it; as a matter of fact, you had merely thought that you were doing the least by merely appreciating his creations when, one night, a few hours after you had gotten home. Your phone chimed with an alert.

Your mouth formed an ‘o’ in surprise; you hadn’t realized there was going to be a new release after he had just updated four days ago. Still, you popped in your earbuds and began the audio with a simple title.

i fuk ur stupid lil pus until u cri

He wasn’t precisely putting much effort into his titles these days, but his tags were definitely accurate and entirely explicit in what was to come. And in this newest video, the prominent tag was degradation.

You weren’t entirely into degradation, but still, you did what you had to do because you weren’t turned off by it. With the beginning sounds of the music playing in the background, you warped into the situation Hawks carefully carved.

But, oh?

Your face simmered with heat as Hawks dirty words dripped from the earbuds, the wet, squelching noise of your cunt and throat being fucked like some inanimate object made you soak through your panties as his disparaging words burned against your spine like a hot brand. After the thirty-minute audio was finished. Your body trembling with the aftershocks of an orgasm that had come despite the lack of actual stimulation of your clit, and you panted on your bed.

Opening your phone once again, you quickly liked the new audio and typed out your comment.

listen, i know i always comment about how fucking hot this shit is, but i have /never/ fucking soaked through my panties… you just did that and i expect a full refund for these panties 💦

You pressed send and, without so much of a second thought, continued your night. You had dinner, talked with friends, and ended the night curled back on the couch with a wine glass in your hand and a simple sit-com playing on the TV. The familiar sound of the Patreon alert rang in your ear, and you frowned, confused.

Grabbing your phone, you opened up the device and nearly shrieked at the sight of the information the notification that said:

Hawks F.W.: lets see those panties before i refund anything

A chill ran down your spine as you quickly put together the indications of this message, and you smirked, despite your quivering hands.

Me: I have a seven inch dick requirement before seeing any of the goods — yes, that includes my panties

And from that very moment, you began a strange arrangement between you and the NSFW ASMR artist Hawks.

Working was the worst part of your life, you would say.

At work, you would sit in your small 4x4 cubicle, your shelves stacked with plenty of papers and items you needed, not to mention the computer that took up the majority of your desk. You weren’t quite sure what your job here was, you sort of sat at your desk and did meaningless assignments when assigned, but you did nothing for the most part.

Before becoming an active Hawks stan, you would spend your time doing nothing playing video games. You had somehow managed to install a VPN onto your hard drive so that your employers wouldn’t be able to see what was on your screen outside of the home screen. They couldn’t trace what you did all day, but they could care less, given you got all your work completed on time and done in an over exceptional way.

But lately, since you had dropped into this… engrossed whore like relationship with Hawks, things changed.

To be honest, it still shocks you to no end when he tells you that he had always been aware of you. Well, with your consistent, ever appearing comments on his posts and overall enthusiasm for everything he posted, it was hard to not be aware. The mental image of your soaked through panties after a long day at his own work had sent him over the edge, and he finally messaged you.

Through the DM’s in Patreon, the two of you grew to become quite the friends with benefits. He would send you countless personalized audio files because you had quickly confessed to your voice kink and how his voice sent your stomach into hormonal knots. In return, you’d send the picture of an occasional soaked panty, and if he was lucky, an audio clip of your pathetic whines back to his audios.

You couldn’t complain about this arrangement.

But as the number of his patrons doubled, and he wanted to entice his subscribers with paying him even more money, Hawks began to offer a bimonthly personalized five minute audios for his $20 tier. The fans poured into that spot, and Hawks and proudly sent you the new number of adoring fans he was getting. On account of growing platforms such as Tiktok, the number of new listeners he got was nearly exponential, as he currently passed one million followers last week.

The cheeky bastard was also making enough money to stop working his regular work hours anymore. Choosing to transition slowly into his Patreon career while recording.

Hawks, however, seemed to have other ideas for your eventual personalized voice audio.

Hawks had simply asked if, by any chance, you were going to be working tomorrow the night before. Groaning loudly in recognition of your work schedule, you had texted him back that you were going to be working. Snidely including the fact that you weren’t rich like him, you needed the tedious old nine to five job.

Hawks: how utterly boring anyway u can b free around 2?

Me: Eh… probably not. Busy girl w busy schedule, ill be back from lunch so no break Why?

Hawks: well, u knw tht uve been amzing & th bst follower so i wanted 2 give u smthing better then the personalized audio

Me: Oh? Well, what is it?’

Hawks: pick up tmrw n find out

He had changed the subject immediately afterward by dodging all of your questions with ease. So you dropped it, and the two of you resumed a night of flirting. But now, sitting in your small cubicle, your eyes flashing to the clock that read 1:57 p.m., sweat began to build on your palm.

You peered down to your phone as you waited for something, anything from Hawks to show up. The fucker was too cheeky, evasive, and quick for his own good. You felt like pouting as you glared at the phone, waiting for the screen to light up.

And you stilled when finally, at precisely 1:59 p.m., your phone gleamed with light. You couldn’t abandon your computer mouse quicker than you did as you grabbed your phone, unlocking it, and reading the message from Hawks.

Hawks: do u have earbuds?

Me: Yes?

Hawks: good put them on n pick up

The moment you had read the first message, you were already pulling out your earbuds, synching them up to your phone, and placing them into your ear. But your jaw dropped when, for the first time, the call feature highlighted onto the screen, the time immediately changing to that of 2:00 p.m. The decline or accept button had never looked as daunting as it did right now.

Despite the call trying to go through, you still saw his follow up.

Hawks: if u dont pick up u wont get shit

[Accept]

You felt your heart hammering in your chest as both fear, apprehension, and excitement boiled through your veins, the hammering blood pounding in your ears as you waited for some sort of noise on the opposite side of the line.

“Little dove?” Hawks' voices filled your ears, and despite yourself, you smiled softly. The naturalness of his voice sends warm thumps down your spine.

“Hi, Hawks,” you whisper breathlessly, your head already checking to make sure your neighboring cubicle mates didn’t try to look over the divisions to stare at you. For the most part, the office building was quiet except for the phone calls, the clanking of computer keys, and the monotonous music playing softly on the speaker's head.

“Whatcha doing?” he drawled, and you felt your skin heat up when you heard the all too familiar sound of his shoes hitting the top of his desk, the soft whine of his chair as he leaned back onto it. “Are you really at work?”

“What do you mean, am I really at work?” you squeaked, half horrified at the way the lazy, warm heat of lust was infiltrating your body at the sound of his voice, and the annoyance that he thought you had been lying? “Of course I am; it’s two p.m. on a Wednesday!”

“Ah, so little dove-chan is a raging pervert who engages in phone sex to bypass her long hours at work?” Hawks sighed his tone that of understanding and dismissal. You splutter. “You never fail to surprise me.”

“I do not do… that!” you stammer, your face feeling like hot cinders, your fingers and eyes double-checking to make sure that the audio was going to your earbuds and your earbuds only. You also couldn’t help the way your eyes swept around you, trying to make sure you hadn’t accidentally invited unwanted attention. “I said I was busy!”

“But, you picked up my call?”

“You said, or else!”

“Mmm, okay, I think I see,” Hawks tutted, and although you had never seen what you supposed to be his handsome face, you could imagine a lazy, toothy smirk on his face. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind using your little cubicle to talk you into fucking yourself good for me.”

Your jaw drops.

It hits the desk, and the muffled shriek of utter humiliation is only silenced because you bit onto your tongue like a rabid animal.

“Aw, you sound so excited for me already, little dove. I bet you want to know what I’m going to do to you, don’t you? I just know that I’m going to make you feel so... good…”

“Hawks!” you plea in a hushed whisper, your heart hammering where you sat frozen like a deer in headlights. Sure, you had definitely played his audios before to pass the time, but never before in your existence had you had actual phone sex. This was riskier than just listening to his audios; his audios always had a pattern, a way to escape from the madness of his voice when people were closer than you’d like. But this? No, there was no escape. “I’m at work! I c-can’t!”

“But, fuck, I want you so bad,” Hawks' voice dipped into a gravely tone, his voice just perfectly scratchy enough that your shoulders trembled in unspoken, untouched want. “I want to feel your cunt around my cock, baby, your pussy is so hot and I want to be the fucking lucky bastard that gets to fuck you through your bed.”

“O-Oh my god…”

“I’ve been thinking of what your tits look like,” Hawks continues on, his voice continuing in the style you liked the most. It was raw, heavy, and deep. No character impersonations, just him, pure Hawks. “I hope they bounce the way they do when I imagine you riding me. I want to see you moan when I kiss the underside of your tit, I want to see your face when you realize that you’re my girl, nobody's else's, but mine.”

Heat floods your panties at his words, your shallow breaths making him chuckle on the other end.

“You’d be so lucky to be just mine, wouldn’t you, little dove?” Hawks snaps, his voice demanding a response, and you heave.

You look around, no one is near, and you croak out: “I’d be so lucky.”

“Louder.”

“I’d be so lucky.”

“Mm, there we go,” Hawks laughs, and your ears prickle for any noise that may indicate that someone was listening in. “What? Are you getting nervous that your needy ass will be heard by your coworkers right now? Answer me.”

“Mhmm,” you hum loudly, your cunt pulsing with more incredible heat and your hands shaking with a slight fear of being caught.

“Aww, don’t worry, little dove. I’m sure your boss will understand that you’re my newest fucktoy and will let me continue. Maybe they’ll want to join in?”

You whimper softly, shifting in your seat at that thought. You didn’t really want your boss coming anywhere near you, he was old and gross for one, and nothing could take the place of this beautiful man's voice in your ear right now.

“Oh, was that a no? You don’t want other people fucking you, do you, y/n? I bet you only want to have my cock in your tight little pussy, bet you want to watch the way that greedy little thing sucks me in, begging for my seed. Would you want me to cum deep inside you? You would like that little dove; you’d like to be full of my cum.”

“H-Hawks,” you keen as quietly as you can, your hips shifting uncomfortably in your seat, your heart hammering in your throat. The pressing heat in your cunt is growing, your panties growing with wet slick as Hawks' voice whispers down your ear, filling every empty and void space in your brain until you were having trouble focusing on the very much public spot you were in.

Hawks let out a soft, guttural moan, and you froze, face entirely combusting into an inferno as the familiar slick slapping of his fapping cock filled your ear. Immediately, you forgot everything.

“A-Are you—?!” you splutter, unable to find the words or the energy to come up with a way to ask if he was masturbating right now. Your eyes spun, your mind in a complete haze as soft, raunchy moans spilled from his lips, striking against your nerves and soul with each successive sound.

“I’m only trying to help you out here, dove,” Hawks growled, undoubtedly in effect to a rather loud smack of his fist colliding with his thrusting hip. “You’re the little office slut who picked up a phone call to entice in phone sex. I bet you knew exactly what I was going to do, and your pathetic, needy whore self caved to my instructions.”

Your fingers curled into the armrest of your chair.

“I bet this makes your boring ass job tolerable, the perfect distraction to a shit job, then imagining a few minutes of fucking yourself against my hard cock.”

“That’s not true!”

“No?” Hawks laughed, not believing you any more than you did. “So you wouldn’t hate it if I showed up and fucked you into the wall of your cubicle? You wouldn’t mind if I claimed your sweet-smelling pussy against your desk for everyone to hear? I know you can scream like a bitch in heat. I know that pretty little cunt of yours would milk my cock dry. Oh, I just know you would look so fucking sexy with your back arched, eyes closed, and you begging for hours just to cum. You wouldn’t cum without my permission, right?”

You gasped, heart fluttering, hammering in your chest as you shook your head, not trusting yourself to speak.

“I need a verbal answer, little dove.”

The heat in your core was blistering, your thighs shaking with your unadulterated lust and need as you ground into the cushion of your chair. All logic and moral long gone as he snarled and moaned your name in your ear, the slick of his fapping cock echoing like a great bell in your ear. You wanted to hear him cum, wanted to listen to the pithering sound of his echoing moans as he spilled the contents of his balls onto his hand — and how you wished it was your womb.

“I won’t cum w-without your permission!” you whispered, your skin shivering with your fear of being caught.

“God, you sound like such a dirty fucking bitch. I bet your pussy is fucking soaked already. Bet you really want to run that slutty embarrassed finger against your clit but don’t want to be caught by your perverted coworkers,” Hawks hissed, his breaths turning into steady, heavy hot pants. You mewl softly, confirming his spoken thoughts, and he huffs out a laugh. “How many fingers do you normally shove up that pretty cunt of yours, little dove?”

“T-Three!” you gasp, your forehead pressing to the cool of your desk, your eyes glazed over and looking at the entrance of your cubicle, fervently wishing that no one tries to check on you as you grind against your stable chair. “O-Only three fit.”

“Fuck, you really do have a tight cunt, don’t you,” Hawks snaps, the wet sounds of his fisting hand around his cock a beautiful melody in your ear that makes you whine at the back of your throat. “Bet you can’t even fit cocks up your cunt without lube, huh. You gotta stay on top, or else you’ll get hurt with how thick and long my cock will be up that baby pussy of yours.”

“H-Hawks!” you grit out, the friction of grinding on the seat no longer working.

“Go to the bathroom, now,” Hawks commands, the small gasps on his voice from his approaching orgasm more than enough ammo for you to do as told.

You sprint to the bathroom, the slick of your cunt hot, and evident to you as you sped to the bathroom. Your phone clenched in your hand as you locked the door behind you, glad the room was empty. Barely managing to get yourself into the stall, the toilet paper placed on the seat as you raised your legs up, already prepared. The skirt you wore was bunched above your ass, and the panties you wore, stretching out around your knees.

“Sounds like you’re ready to start fucking that pussy for me,” Hawks laughs, but there's no humor, just bite. “Put in three fingers, now.”

Without even arguing or caring, three fingers slip into your cunt, and you cry at the feeling of your fingers completely stretching you out. The smell of sex and slick filling your nose as your fingers slick up, fucking your tight cunt as you moan louder and louder for Hawks.

“God, your fucking pussy is so fucking wet, I can hear it from here!” Hawks moans, the frantic sound of his drilling hips gaining speed and momentum.

“I want it to be you!” you moan, your face burning in your humiliation. “I want it to be you fucking my pussy, claiming me in this bathroom. I need you, Hawks, I want your cock so badly!”

“Fuck,” Hawks gasps, something tumbling in the background. “Such sweet words for a fucking dirty ass cumslut,” he growls, and your legs shake, your clit and cunt thrumming with your increasing arousal and pit of tightness in your core.

“HAWKS, FUCK!” you sob as your hips try to start a merciless speed against your fingers, your body trying to match the speed in which Hawks was fucking his own hand.

“Keep screaming my name, whore.” Hawks gasps, his noises of pleasure beginning to grow louder and louder, your eyes crossing in satisfaction. “Screaming my name like the fucking slutty mess you are. All this shit just to get me to fuck you? God, you’re so fucking pathetic y/n. Begging for me, begging for more? I think you’re my favorite little dove ever, gonna make you mine whenever I get to fuck that pussy.”

“Hawks!” you wail his name again, your arms and pussy throbbing with the energy it takes to keep up with his inhumane speeds. Your vision seeing stars as you tremble more and more, your legs slipping from the toilet seat, yet. “I am your whore, your little dove. Please let me come, please! You fuck me so well, fucking hell, please, I needa cum, I needa cum!”

“Cum with me,” he snaps, his voice so deep, so dangerously smooth. It was precisely what you needed, the voice kink you had for his tenor exactly fulfilled entirely with that simple, last command. And just like that, your jaw slackens, head slamming backward, and pleasurable waves crash through you.

Your fingers still rock at your clit, and your vice gripped walls, your toes curling within your shoes as you soundlessly scream. Hawks, on the other end, is practically snarling, voice deep and altogether dangerous as grunt after grunt leaves him, and you can imagine the milk-white cum splattered all over his chest and hand. A beautiful, perfect sight that you wish you could see for yourself.

Exhaustion settles in your bones as you sit on the toilet, still entirely exhausted as you heave for air.

“I think that was the best fucking orgasm I ever had,” you mumble, your eyes closed, not ready to stand up and move. “Thank you.”

“I’m good at what I… at what I do,” Hawks stumbles, husky exhaustion ringing in his own voice. “Now, little dove, finish up work, and I promise there’ll be a surprise waiting for you when you’re done.”

Not entirely agreeing, but not disagreeing with his command to go finish you last… two and a half hours at work, you begrudgingly said goodbye to Hawks before washing your hands and exiting the bathroom.

When five o’clock came, you watched as your phone screen lit up, and your face flushed as you read the DM from Hawks.

Hawks: this is my fav audio now ↳ hawks_littledove.mp3 but you surprised me today, so in case u ever want to have more fun sometime call me 03-9183-2495 ;)

#hawks smut #hawks x reader #bnha #bnha x reader #mha #bbs kinktober 2020

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antivirus-mh-au · 4 years

Text

Antivirus - Chapter 2

TW: None Chapter 1 here Ao3 link If you like this, please leave a like, reblog, or send me an ask! It encourages me so much.

He blew the smoke from his mouth around the cigarette, the morning sun catching all the particles as they floated into the air. Tim drew the J on top of the fresh carton and dropped the pen onto the dashboard. Pulling the cigarette from his mouth, he drew in a deep breath of fresh air, fresh as you could get at a gas station by a highway. Looking around the parking lot, at the people filing in and out, he shook his head and gave a wry smile. Hard not to be in a good mood when you got some decent sleep for once.

Becca and Lukas were okay. Lukas's leg had been taken care of, and the two had set back off for Idaho, back to the families that loved them. Another success case for Timothy Kane. Another group of people adding to the myth of his existence. Seemed like every month there were more of them. The Operator never tired. The sickness never eased. In fact, it only grew worse.

But like hell was he going to start off a good morning with that depressing shit. He'd gotten paid, gotten rest, and he'd found out where the nearest library was with free internet. He was not going to let a rare moment of peace escape him. He'd lost too much for that.

The library wasn't far away from the gas station he'd refilled at. By the time he pulled into the parking lot, it was open, as were the windows on the front of the building. He spoke briefly to the clerk at the front desk, making sure he understood their internet rules and that it was okay for him to bring in his thermos of coffee, before finding a convenient spot by a power outlet.

His laptop was getting old, it took a while for it to boot up. As Tim waited, he thumbed through a newspaper. Experts predicting a war with China for the third time in as many years, conflict in the Middle East, the royal family in Britain getting roped into some scandal or another. That was why he didn't read the news much, it was always the same. By the time he got to the comics (never his favorite part of the newspaper), his laptop had finished, and Tim traded the two without a second thought.

He could and did check his email on his phone but he was old-fashioned and preferred to use his laptop when he had the chance. Earlier Becca's mother replied to his report about her daughter returning home, a message he'd saved in a special folder he looked at when he felt particularly shitty.

Another email was waiting for him now, from a 'Meridith Frederickson'. Another client, looking for her son and his missing best friend. He replied to that one, offering to schedule a Zoom meeting later that same day. By now he knew all too well what happened if he wasn't on top of his cases.

And of course, he had new messages in the spam folder. Tim glanced over the subjects of the emails without opening any of them. Some didn't have any, but most were vaguely threatening, the kind he usually got from trolls and kids. 'Always watching', 'there's no escape', 'how could you', and on and on and on. People thought they could get a rise out of him by acting like totheark, but none of them even came close to what Brian had been all those years ago.

Tim glanced at the tab next to his email, frowning. There was no sense in trying to put it off, even if he hated doing it. Everything on that site made him feel worse, and today had been a pretty good day. But if he didn't look, he'd regret it later, falling into a rabbit hole of updates that was guaranteed to fuck him over. So he opened YouTube.

The videos were taken down years ago, the channels involved with Marble Hornets wiped from the website. But that didn't mean they were gone, just hidden away on Google Drives and shock sites. What was on YouTube was... the fandom.

It made his skin crawl thinking about it. People from all over the world were obsessed with what he and Jay had been through. He'd seen hundreds of articles about the videos, from five minute listicles to long analysises about the events and the people involved. He'd seen other things, too, things he'd rather not remember. Like the fanart...

Out of everything, though, it was the YouTube community that unsettled him the most. The passionate, wide eyed college kids. The naive high schoolers. The older people, with their backgrounds in criminal science and forensics and cryptids and God knew what else. They picked over the videos and tweets and codes like vultures at a pile of bones. Like it was just a fictional web series, like people he knew and once liked weren't dead. And they spread the disease. It didn't take all of them, leaving the YouTubers alone, but claiming their followers. It made him sick thinking about all the people he couldn't save, the people who had no one left to try and find them, the people who vanished into Rosswood Park and were never seen again. It made him sick, watching these ignorant people talk about his pain as if they were all insects under microscopes.

But if he didn't pay attention, who knew what might happen. The Operator was watching all of them. One slip up was all it took.

He scrolled through both the front page and his subscriptions. The videos were, in the end, all the same. Speculation, discussion, analyzation. Some of them he could watch later. Others needed his attention now.

Tim’s eyes landed on a video, and his heart clenched. The Neophyte was streaming again.

The still image didn’t show much. Neophyte_Calling didn’t put much work into his channel. It was just a shot of what the streams normally showed, pale, unkempt hands poking free from black robes, resting on an old plastic table. That was what he expected to find once he opened the stream.

And he’d be correct, that was what awaited him once he got the courage to click. The hands twitched and clenched and dug at the table. It wasn’t the hands that were special though, it was what the owner of those hands were saying.

“Autumn after firestorm, the nights don’t listen and the butter is on the corn. Ten days or twenty paces of living guts wrapped around an old man’s neck. The water comes up to your waist but you don’t feel the attitude of denial inside the bastard daughter’s heart. Oh, god, eureka, industry was never so smooth…”

Complete nonsense. The ramblings of a man on some kind of drug, or lost to some unknown mental illness. Despite this, the chat flooded with messages. Donations popped up occasionally, attempts to get the Neophyte’s attention. He didn’t notice. He never noticed. He just kept talking. And he would keep talking until the stream ended on its own, or he passed out on the table.

People called him a prophet. Claimed every word he spoke had a double, or even a triple, meaning. They recorded every word he said and discussed them among themselves, coming up with ‘translations’ for his maddening dialogue. And to be fair, they could have a point. Sometimes, what the Neophyte said did seem to foretell events that happened not long after he spoke them. But the god the Neophyte channeled was not one Tim would ever ask someone to worship.

Silence. The man stopped talking, his fidgeting hands resting flat on the table. Dread filled Tim’s body. Speak of the devil, he was doing this again?

The Neophyte spoke again, his voice deeper now. The words came clumsy from his mouth, uncomfortable, heavy, as if he had never spoken before. The emphasis, the tone, it was all wrong. Tim had no trouble understanding them, however.

“You always fight,” It said through the Neophyte’s mouth. “You always resist. You tire, and exhaust, and fall. You continue to fight despite.”

The robes shifted, the head hidden from the camera’s view tilting.

“Tim,” It said. “You are a grain of sand. I am eternal. I am here. I will always be here. You understand. You continue despite.”

On the side of the screen, the chat surged with messages. It raced so quickly, Tim couldn’t have read any of them even if he tried. He didn’t look away from the livestream.

“Tim,” It said again. “Enough. You have fought hard. You are getting old. That’s enough. It’s time to come home. To us. To all of us.”

The hair stood up on his arms, on the back of Tim’s neck. He shuddered.

“Like hell,” he whispered, and closed the tab.

But even though he closed the livestream, he could swear he heard the Neophyte, the thing puppeting him, whisper in his mind.

“Coward.”

When 2pm rolled around, Tim was back in his van in the library parking lot. Obviously he couldn’t do a Zoom call inside the quiet space, but their internet reached well past the parking lot. He sat on his bed, now folded up like a couch inside the converted van he lived in. His laptop open before him, the program open and ready. Now he just had to wait for her.

Hard to say what this Meredith Fredrickson would expect a private investigator like him to look like, but Tim did his best to look presentable anyway. Hair combed, beard trimmed, leather jacket kept to the side out of her line of sight - leather jackets weren’t worn by authority figures, and that was what he was trying to be right now. Not anyone could do this job, but who’s to say she knew that? If she didn’t like the way he looked, she could try to find someone else to find her son and his friend. And if she did that, by the time she realized only Tim could help her, it would be too late.

Thinking about it that way made him shudder.

Of course, while he was prepared to deal with what she thought he would look like, he wasn’t as ready for what she herself would look like. As the call began, and Meredith’s face came on screen, Tim hesitated. He looked at her closely again. Had he seen this woman before?

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Fredrickson,” He greeted.

The woman shook her head, her curly brown hair tossing around her slim shoulders.

“Meredith is fine,” she said. “I haven’t been called ‘Mrs’ since my husband died. I changed back to my maiden name - my son’s last name will be his, not mine.”

“Of course,” Tim said. Odd information to include, but people tended to ramble when they were nervous.

He looked at her again, at the frown lines developing around her lips, and the worry and pain in her wide-set eyes. Behind her was a normal looking home, a few windows with pale curtains, a kitchen kept clean from what little he saw. Something was nagging at him. What was it?

“Did you fill out the information packet I requested?” He asked.

Meredith nodded.

“Yes.”

The file appeared, Tim half-listening to her as he opened it.

“I know this is a very strange thing to ask from you,” Meredith said. “But circumstances have changed in a way I really didn’t expect. I know it’s hard to believe that after ten years my son could be alive, but I don’t have any other explanation for…”

She trailed off. Tim didn’t look away from the document she’d sent. The names written on the very first line.

Missing People: Jay Merrick and Alex Kralie

Motherfucker, had he been tricked?

Tim shot the woman a sharp glance, examining her expression in seconds. She was not the first person to ask him to track down Jay and Alex, but she was the first he hadn’t screened out before it got this far. Most people were upfront about their intentions, or were obviously trolling, or he otherwise got weird vibes from them. This Meredith had slipped him by, and wasted his time in the process.

“He is my son,” Meredith said. “I’ve included his birth certificate, since I thought you might not believe me.”

“I don’t need it.” A birth certificate? Those weren’t easy to fake, but Tim was no expert on Photoshop either.

“I would’ve included Alex’s, too,” Meredith continued. “After all the years he and Jay knew each other, you would’ve thought I’d have it too.” She laughed, and there was pain within it. “But his parents died in a car accident about six years back, and…”

“Wait.” Tim refocused. “Alex and Jay knew each other?”

“Since the first year of middle school,” Meredith said with a nod. “I have a lot of photos of them. You know, Jay went through a phase, where he wore all black, and listened to rock music with singers I couldn’t understand. He got a tattoo of one of the bands on his ankle behind my back. I was so angry...”

She laughed again, and her eyes went distant. Tim stared at her, his mind flashing back to all the conversations he’d had with Jay, things that didn’t go into the videos. Being Alex’s childhood friend, since middle school - the phases he went through as a teen - that damn tattoo he was so embarrassed of. None of these were known by the fandom.

Oh god, this woman was the real deal. Even her face, now that he looked at her, was just like Jay’s. The distant look in her eyes as she thought… Jay got that same expression.

“Meredith,” he said, his voice softer, kinder. “Do you know about Marble Hornets?”

“I can’t bring myself to watch them,” she said. Meredith folded her hands together. “But I know what… what was shown on the videos. I know that they are…” She swallowed. “Considered dead by most people. I was one of them.”

His gut twisted. By most people, including her. “But something… changed.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, and moved to wipe her eyes. “I got a package in the mail about a week ago. Inside was a flashdrive and a few printed photos. It had been placed in my mailbox - I don’t know who sent it.”

Oh no, Tim thought. Not this again. Please, don’t play this game with people again.

“What were the photos?” He asked, aware of the sound of his own voice more than anything else.

“I’ve included most of them in the document,” Meredith said. “I… I still can’t believe what I’ve seen, but… But they don’t look like they could’ve been faked.”

Dread pressed down on his shoulders. Dread and something else, some kind of energy buzzing through his nerves. Tim looked at the document, scrolled down, and opened the photos.

Some were blurry, taken from a distance and zoomed in before being printed. Some were clear as glass. It took him several seconds to process what he was seeing, what the subjects of the photos were. Tim blinked, looked again, and his pulse quickened.

Alex, standing on a street corner, gray in his hair, exhaustion on his face. Jay in a dark cloth jacket with a hood, looking over his shoulders. Alex, and Jay, Alex, and Jay, in all the photos, in every single one. The clothes were different, the faces aged, but there was no denying what he was seeing, and like Meredith said, no way to fake what he was looking at.

“Oh my god,” Tim mumbled.

Jay and Alex were alive.

#marble hornets #marble hornets fanfiction #marble hornets tim #Tim Wright #mh tim wright #mh tim #marble hornets alex #alex kralie #mh jay merrick #jay merrick #MH Jay #mh antivirus au #mh alex

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consequencesofargentdawn · 5 years

Text

My experience as a Grim Gest member from 2017-2018

I don't necessarily want you to post this as the screenshots I have would not only eliminate my anonymity but also don't carry enough weight on their own to be really effective in showing their deplorability. However, I'm fine with you guys posting the one screenshot I linked if you want because it showcases the ridiculing of a previous member. That being said the image is from November 2017 so I don't know if you do. I moreso want to share my experience being in the Grim Gest from roughly November 2017- March 2018.

I joined their ranks because I'm incredibly fond of the undead in WoW, and for the most part had a lot of fun roleplaying with them. For all their OOC faults I do truly think that they're decent roleplayers IC. The first few months were fine. I got to know the active members and had a lot of fun, but after a while of being in the guild we got a new member who was rping a dark ranger. A lot of us really disliked him as he constantly used the "I'm a dark ranger" card to silence other guilds and members, acting like his character was more important. He constantly used anti-living godmotes in his rp, famously doing a Sylvanas banshee scream in a campaign that he said would "deafen any living who could hear it" and as a result pissed off a lot of other horde members ic and ooc. A lot of us wanted him to tone it down, but Morsteth repeatedly defended the rp saying it was good and that he really liked the character. One day however (I forget what he did) the guy was removed from the guild as the officers persuaded Morsteth to kick him. Morsteth then decided to do a complete 180 on his opinions of him, and kept saying "I don't know what I was thinking that guy was awful" going as far as to eventually compile every cringey thing the guy had said ooc (shown below):

and posting it presumably in the vile PCU discord. I thought it was funny at the time but ultimately it was pretty much a character assassination of this guy.

Later on I noticed in their discord a lot of onesided political discussions taking place, one of which was on the topic of white privilege and black lives matter. I argued with Morsteth and co. about it for about a day and was essentially ganked over my opinion. Morsteth became pretty upset with the argument and stripped me of my roles, restricting me to typing in a "Toxic Lair" channel, telling me that he would talk to other officers and decide my fate once he was home despite having heard the "ooc is ooc and ic is ic" meme. That night I received an apology from Morsteth telling me "Alright, basically it comes down to our personal argument and I think we both should have left it earlier, so it's not a one-sided thing so I don't really have a reason to "hate" you or ban you from the guild as you didn't do anything wrong. Just typed some mong stuff in my personal opinion." he even admitted to "blowing [the argument] out of proportions" and apologised for putting me into the lair channel. I was a bit sceptical of this and had been having a hard time irl, but eventually I said I would stick with the guild instead of leaving.

Afterwards a lot of the members were a bit quieter with me, I was ignored frequently and was feeling strange about the whole thing. During this period I became pretty depressed and started to talk to one of the high ranking but not officer members who had been in the guild for ages. He was pretty chill and offered me a lot of advice in dealing with things, and I refrained from talking about my sadness in guild chat, only speaking to this one guy on days I felt awful. Time passed as normal in the guild, but as it did I got a little more bored with WoW. Content had slowed down and my schoolwork was catching up with me so I had informed the guild that I would be more inactive as I had school stuff to deal with. I had also made the apparent mistake to gush about my excitement at the introduction of dark iron dwarves and void elves to the alliance, saying that I was going to make one. Over the next three months my sub died, and to fill gaps of boredom I played other games that I happened to own instead of wasting money on a sub I wouldn't fully use. After 3 months inactivity I was kicked which honestly is fair enough. I asked why I was removed and I was told that it was the inactivity and also because I was apparently becoming alliance in bfa despite never explicitly deciding to do that or saying I would. I explained that I wasn't intending to play alliance and that I had been busy as my exams were coming up, but Morsteth told me that I had been playing games that weren't WoW in my freetime, but in reality I'm prone to leaving the launchers open for games sometimes. I convinced him that I'd sub back in a week once my exams finished and I attended a few rp events and spoke in discord frequently.

Exactly a week after I was invited back I saw that Morsteth was insulting some guy by calling him a soyboy. I asked why he used that insult when there was little evidence linking soy with femininity or emasculation, cited a few credible sources and was met with "my brother works in chemistry and he says its uncertain if it does impact men or not". I naturally thought this defence was ridiculous and argued with him that he didn't have any credible sources, resulting in his enragement at the fact that I believed his brother wasn't knowledgeable about the chemistry of soy. I saw how the argument was going to go and decided to halt it, apologising for arguing with him and stopping the conversation, he hesitantly agreed and saw that we didn't need to argue about it. A few minutes later I spied a Morsteth is typing in the chat, and quickly typed something along the lines of "dude if this is a 3 page rebuttal to the argument that we stopped telling me about how I'm wrong I swear to god dude" and seconds after sending this he posted two paragraphs of soy information trying to disprove me. Likely consumed by rage at this point he quickly typed "ok that's it" and booted me from the guild. I pmed him saying "are you this pissed over a fucking argument? You wanted me gone a while ago, come on be honest dude" to which he replied "you dont see it yourself but ur basically an edgy teenage jerk that rly annoys people to no end while contributing nothing to the guild, so just please stay with elder scrolls online" followed up with "you are annoying dude not just to me". Then he blocked me, and I was incredibly upset. I was so annoyed that I had spent a year in this guild for it to be over because he couldn't man up and shake hands over a soy argument. In my anger, I made a video of the image with Why can't we be friends playing in the background and uploaded it to my channel, titling the video "The Grim Gest in a Nutshell".

I was pmed later on by his lackey Seth (who I've seen on here being victimised by the guild, how ironic) who told me multiple times that I was the one in the wrong, that I was an idiot, that I was actively making the guild worse being in it and that I would never find a good guild again as I had messed up with the GG. This did nothing but piss me off further but I got over it after a long time. I left the horde as a whole and faction changed my undead to alliance, no longer wanting to play on a side populated by arguably deplorable people. I stayed in contact with one of their Officers who thought it was extreme for me to be kicked over the argument, he tried to convince Morsteth that it was a rash decision but told me that I'd probably never be invited back which I was fine with. I began rping on the alliance and managed to avoid a lot of drama in the next month before seth messaged me again.

I got a message telling me that I needed to take down my video immediately. Apparently when Morsteth tried to show another guild footage from a past pvp event he told them to search up the Grim Gest on youtube, and my video was the first to appear. I was told by Seth that if I didn't remove the video the Grim Gest alongside the other PCU guilds would mass flag every video on my channel (which I don't really care about). I told Seth that I didn't care at all, and if he wanted to flag me then he could go ahead. I messaged my officer friend who told me that Paingriever and Morsteth were attempting to compile all the dirt they had on me and make an equally defaming video despite me only posting a selfie into the discord and perhaps once or twice saying that I was depressed in discord, there was really zero dirt to find on me. I told Seth that if Morsteth wanted to talk to me he should do it himself, and got no response and remained blocked on discord by the baron. Eventually I was convinced by my officer friend that it was probably the right thing to do to move on and delete the video, but with all the utter bullshit I've seen on forums from Morsteth, alongside the COAD posts that showcase his idiotic shenanigans I felt like I had to get this off my chest.

A final meme comes from a campaign I took part in, where some dwarves were swearing excessively IC. I almost fell off my chair when I saw several Grim Gest members saying that it was making them feel uncomfortable despite a long running meme in their discord being an emote that read "unsafe" being posted whenever someone swore, it was explained to me that they had a member who always complained that swearing made her feel unsafe, and after she left they used it sarcastically at any complaints made about swearing.

In short; I utterly detest Morsteth and the rest of the PCU, these guilds are the reason that I don't rp undead anymore, which greatly upsets me as they remain my favorite race in the Horde. Perhaps once they mess up hard enough and are punished I might finally be able to play the race that I love, but that seems like an impossible future.

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katewillaert · 5 years

Photo

My Secret Origin (Part 1): How To Fail At Comics

[Above: Art from 20 years ago, when I was in High School.]

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When I was four I said “mad scientist.” It was 1987 and I was a big fan of The Real Ghostbusters and Doc Brown. My mom insisted “mad scientist” wasn’t a profession. And weren’t those characters are inventors? What did I want to invent?

Clearly I hadn’t thought this through.

My mom also informed me that all those cartoons I watch were made by people. Those were drawings, and there are people whose job it was to draw those.

This blew my mind. From that point on I decided I was going to be an animator.

Discovering Art

I don’t remember when I first started drawing. It seems like something I always did growing up. As far as my memory is concerned, I came out of the womb holding a pencil and began drawing before I said my first words.

In reality, I probably started in preschool when I was four, just before I discovered what an animator was. I remember my favorite subject to draw was the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters. I must’ve drawn it something like 10 or 20 times.

My mom kept almost all of my childhood art, so in theory I could figure out when I started drawing from that...except the earliest drawings were ruined when the basement flooded.

After the flooding, my mom was condensing what was left, and I saw something surprising: a box filled with Ecto-1 drawings. I hadn’t drawn it 10 or 20 times, I’d drawn it 100 or 200 times. Repetitively, over and over, without consciously thinking about what I was doing.

It was practice without realizing I was practicing. I guess that’s how my art “leveled up” so quickly?

Later I discovered other details about my early development. There was a time around age 2 where I stopped talking. There were times when I liked to line up toys. My obsession before art was Legos, building complex shapes and stairs.

Today these might be recognized as possible indicators of autism, but this was the ‘80s.

Because I was shy and lacking in social skills, a teacher suggested to my parents that I might benefit from being held back a grade. I had a summer birthday, so holding me back would make me one of the oldest rather than the youngest.

Thankfully my parents didn’t take that advice. I would’ve been miserable. Despite being the youngest in my class, I surpassed everyone in terms of scores. A CAT test says I scored “higher than 99% of all 3rd grade student in the nation in total language.” 91% in reading. 90% in math. My reading comprehension was 98% in the nation, but was brought down by my reading vocabulary which was only 72%.

Yet this new information called into question a things about myself I’d never considered. Maybe certain things suddenly made more sense? In particular, the way I don’t have interests so much as obsessions. Any time I take an interest in a topic, it leads to an obsessive amount of research.

Discovering Comics

I think the first comic I ever saw was a Chick Tract some kid showed me in Sunday School. He was surprised I’d never seen one. It must’ve hadan impact on me, because I attempted to draw a tract-style comic starring C.O.P.S. (“Fighting Crime In A Future Time”).

I didn’t discover REAL comic books until a few years later. In 1991, Terminator 2: Judgement Day marketing was in full force and I thought it looked so cool. But it was Rated R, and I was only seven. My mom spotted a couple issues of a Marvel comic adaptation (drawn by Klaus Janson), and I guess that was the compromise until it was out on video.

I attempted to illustrate a comic imitating Janson’s cram-packed panel-per-page ratio. It was an epic crossover where Michael Keaton Batman encounters a Delorean driven by a T-1000, then the Ninja Turtles show up, and maybe the Ghostbusters? I knew how to introduce characters but not how to finish a story.

At this point I was still imagining becoming an animator, even though I barely knew anything about what it involved beyond some flip books I’d done. But all that changed when I discovered the X-Men.

X-Men and Batman: The Animated Series both debuted on FOX during the fall of 1992. I was a huge fan of the Tim Burton Batman movies and I’d seen every episode of the ‘60s show when it was revived in reruns, but I didn’t know the comics existed? I didn’t even know where to find comics.

My brother and I were both really into this new X-Men thing, and my brother was given a set of X-Men comics for his birthday. I borrowed them of course, and wanted to see how the story continued. My mom showed us a book store in the mall that had comics, and then we discovered the local comic store. That started my monthly addiction.

Now age 10, I decided I no longer wanted to be an animator. Comics were my true calling. And my dream was to break in at age 16.

Learning Comics

Age 11: I went from reading just Uncanny X-Men to buying the entire X-line, thanks to and event called Age Of Apocalypse.

Age 12: I started buying Wizard magazine. The first two issues I bought included life-changing information, like that you get hired by building a portfolio and showing it to editors. There was industry news, and art tutorials by Greg Capullo. I added the magazine to my monthly buy list. An X-Men 30th anniversary special gave me the entire history of the characters, and a run-down of the key artists and writers with examples of their work. It was like a Rosetta Stone before Wikipedia.

Age 13: I started buying most of Marvel’s output thanks to an event called Heroes Reborn. I never got into the Batbooks, I guess because the art didn’t look as cool? Comics contained ads for the Joe Kubert School, which became my backup plan if I didn’t break into comics on my own. I also discovered the internet around this time.

Age 14: My first year of high school. I spent every lunch hour in the library browsing the internet, since we didn’t have a computer at home yet. I discovered several comic art forums where pros and amateurs traded tips. During the summer I attended a week long art session taught at a local college by a professor who grew up on ‘60s Marvel. There I learned I’d been using paper that was much too thin to ink on, and I learned about the importance of Jack Kirby.

Age 15: I started buying Comic Book Artist magazine. I thought it’d be about drawing tips, but instead it was filled with fascinating comics history, which became an obsession of its own.

Age 16: A year of disappointment. I knew I wasn’t at the level I needed to be to get pro work, but wasn’t sure how to get to the next level. Nowadays there are all sorts of resources I could’ve used, but back then there was no Youtube, no social media, and few books about the craft of comics.

I was now certain the Joe Kubert School was the way to go.

Changing Plans

My family took a trip to Dover, NJ to visit the Joe Kubert School campus, and it was pretty disappointing. The town didn’t feel super friendly, and the school wasn’t accredited, which raised issues in regards to getting student aid. Plus the idea of spending so much money on a non-degree.

The guy showing me around tried to sell me by pointing out that comic companies don’t care about whether you went to college, they just want to see the portfolio.

I took this to heart and decided not to go to college. I was pretty crushed at first, because I’d had this dream plan for so long, and now I was plan-less. But eventually a new plan began to form.

It was time to start doing conventions.

A startup called CrossGen had a sample script and were taking submissions at SDCC 2000, so I went there. I still felt like my work wasn’t quite ready for prime time, but i was worth a shot.

And nothing came of it, other than a cool Crossgen rejection letter in a box somewhere. None of the other publishers could be bothered to even send that.

In hindsight, I was trying to enter at maybe the worst possible time in comics history. When I first started reading comics, they were at their peak during a boom period. When the bubble burst, the industry experienced year-over-year plummeting sales with no bottom in sight. No one was hiring.

But I kept at it, hoping for a lucky break. Top Cow was impressed that I did backgrounds (lol), and suggested I send in “background samples,” but I didn’t want to go down that route. But maybe that’s what a lucky break looks like? (On the other hand, many aspiring pencillers who start as inkers or colorists get stuck there.)

The next summer I went to Chicago with a Marvel sample script. I’d just graduated from high school, so I was really hoping. This time I got a critique from an editor who had actual advice to offer, and I learned a few things. But still no one was hiring.

I thought if I just stayed home and worked on art for a year, I’d eventually come up with pages so impressive that they’d HAVE to hire me. And if it didn’t work out after a year, I’d start looking for a college.

But now I was struggling with a new problem. I suddenly hated my art. I’d heard about a few professional artists who didn’t like looking at their own art, but I was certain this was different. After all, they’re actually good.

The year passed and I accomplished nothing. Based on things I’d heard, I was nervous that college might actually price me out of comics entirely. But I didn’t know that for sure, and I was super inexperienced when it came to money, since I’d never lived on my own before.

But I kept hearing how so many people have gone to college and they all turned out okay (this was before social media and before student debt became a crisis). I was clearly having trouble moving forward on my own, and Youtube still didn’t exist, so what choice did I have?

Choosing Schools

There were only a few colleges with comic art programs back then (maybe three total?), but one of them just happened to be over here in Minnesota. Art school appealed to me because all the classes were art-focused, so I wouldn’t have to waste my time with math and other BS.

And as I humble-bragged earlier, I’m good at math. But I hated it. At one point some kids from Math League asked if I’d join the team. “‘MATH LEAGUE?’ You mean you do math for FUN??”

I hated math so much, I took harder, accelerated math courses via a local college, just so I could finish math early and spend my last years of high school wonderfully mathless. If there’d been a similar way to graduate from high school earlier, I would’ve taken it. When I realized we were all graduating regardless of how much work we put in, I stopped caring so much about grades and let an occasional B+ slip in.

When I would see classmates busy studying for their SATs or ACTs, I was so glad I didn’t have to bother with that.

But the joke was on me. Because this art school didn’t just require a portfolio review (which I was more than ready for). It also wanted ACT test results.

I remember wondering if I should study before I take it, since everyone took it so seriously in high school. But I didn’t even know how to study. It’s not a skill I’d learned, because I never needed to. So I decided to wing it.

You’ll hate me, but without studying I scored in the top 96% for English, the top 94% for Reading, the top 96% for Science...but only top 87% for Math, because I hadn’t taken a math class in three years. That brought my total down 90%..

(Later, I had to learn to study in order to pass some horrifically-taught art history classes. That teacher made me hate art history, which is ironic given how much of my own writing is focused on history.)

So I got into the school, only to discover that even structured teaching wasn’t going to solve my new art problem. During my first year I told my mom that I don’t enjoy art anymore, and she thought it might be depression. I mean, that’s plausible, losing interest in your passions?

In hindsight, I now have enough experience with real depression that I can definitively say it wasn’t that. I mean, I was occasionally depressed back then, but hating my art was unrelated. It took me years to figure out the actual problem.

Dunning Kruger

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is named after a study which found that:

1) People who aren’t knowledgeable about a skill tend to think they’re better at it than they are, because they don’t know enough to know what they don’t know.

2) Conversely, people who ARE knowledgeable about a skill tend to think they’re worse at it than they are.

My problem went one level deeper. I’d learned a shit ton about every skill related to comic art, but I hadn’t put in as much time actually practicing. And now practicing was tough, because I was hyper-aware of how bad every line was as I laid it down.

In other words, the exact reverse of when I was four and drew repetitively on auto-pilot. Back then I was oblivious that I was practicing anything at all. Now I had the benefit and detriment of a critical mind.

But this realization came later. At the time I was just miserable and didn’t know what was wrong with me.

Halfway through art school, I realized I’d likely already priced myself out of comics, and I needed a real degree that would function back-up plan. So I switched majors. Instead of a Comics major filling my electives with design classes, I became a Design major filling my electives with comics classes.

In order to change my major, I had to explain it to the head of the school. This was awkward because it partly involved explaining how the comics industry worked, and he didn’t want to believe it. He told me I was being cynical.

I tried doing comic samples one last time after college, for a convention in 2006, but couldn’t even finish a page. Then sometime around 2008, I gave up drawing entirely.

How I got started again is another story.

You can also find me on:

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/katewillaert/?hl=en

Twitter - https://twitter.com/katewillaert

Art Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/katewillaert

History Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/acriticalhit

#comics #comic art #x-men #marvel comics

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ac-ars · 6 years

Text

high for this

i dont even have anything to say for my defense

also i wanna thank chica de cielos for handling my complaining when i was writing t h i s

have fun

Luna Valente doesn’t expect much fun when she gets accepted to the University of Oxford, but it’s the only way to stay away from her controlling aunt. She doesn’t expect also Matteo Balsano, who is the most helpful out of everyone there. Is he really as perfect as it seems though?

previous chapters here

🌙

4/ trust me girl, you wanna be high for this

Her alarm snooze sounds for maybe a fourth time this morning. Luna had decided Saturday will be studying day; she has some test next week and it would be nice to know anything this time. She keeps wondering why she decided to study something that forces her to take chemistry and physics as majors, but hopefully they will take her head away from all cloudy thoughts and buzzes in her stomach.

She made out with Matteo less than twelve hours ago and she feels like she needs more than the small amount of sleep she got herself, but also her sleep sucked anyway. Luna didn’t manage falling asleep properly; she kept waking up and rolling around her warm bed, constantly thinking about this one very special boy. Her body was shaking softly with excitement, every nerve has been curling and uncurling nervously, and in general Luna hasn’t decided yet whether this feeling is great or if it sucks.

Eventually, she reaches for her phone, to turn off the damn alarm sound. It used to be one of her favorite songs, but since the day it was set as the waking up music, Luna couldn’t do anything except genuinely despising it.

She sits up, pulling the blanket all over her shoulders to keep at least a little warm, and yawns loudly, blinking because her eyes aren’t really used to darkness of early morning yet. The screen of the phone is definitely too bright, so Luna lets out small growl turning the brightness as much off as possible. Only then she can see anything, and her notification bar is full, putting another wave of buzz all over her body. There is some insta notification, few texts on group chat with the girls, mail from near bookstore and new youtube video from buzzfeed. No messages from Matteo has her disappointed; they shared few messages after she got back to her dorm so it’s not like he was supposed to leave something for her to smile after waking up, but it would still be better than nothing.

Still, she sends him quick ‘morning’ and locks her phone, throwing it on the pillow again. Apparently she gets up too quickly, because her eyes go black and she needs to support herself on the head of the bed. Her feet aren’t really happy to touch the cold floor, but that’s just karma for being so giddy last night and forgetting to put on the socks. Weather forecast isn’t really nice and Luna still hasn’t bought all wintery stuff. She noted in her head that she should tell Ambar or the girls to go with her, even if she knows she will surely forget.

🌙

The brunette leaves shower in actually better mood, wearing fluffy robe and just as fluffy slippers. The heating is put on max and that’s decent time for Luna to have herself breakfast. She sets on the water for the tea, and opens the fridge to wonder what to eat when someone knocks to the door.

Luna huffs, wondering who can be here without saying anything before and at this cold, early hour of eight in the morning. She goes slowly to open the door and stares at her guest with one eye closed.

“What are you doing here?” That’s all she can let out, despite it sounding undeniably rude.

He smiles. “Well, it’s very nice to see you too, Luna.”

She rolls her eyes, trying to hide the blush but her wet hair is in loose, messy bun so no way for that. Matteo sighs and kisses her cheek quickly as he passes her the warm cup.

“Coffee?” The brunette asks, already planning how she could put all said coffee to the sink and replace it with some tea.

Yet, he only sends her a smile. “Nah, this time hot chocolate. I already had my coffee and guessed you would be more up for something sweet.”

Luna raises her eyebrows surprised but takes one of the cups from his hand and closes the door as he is already inside her dorm.

“Thank you very much, but really what's the reason you are here so early?”

His eyes slide lazily down her body, making her feel like she is wearing nothing and that's not really the safest feeling to have around Matteo Balsano. Small smile forms on his mouth and he eventually is back with his eyes to her face. “I was going to class nearby and just wanted to see you,” he says almost matter of factly with a shrug.

Luna isn't sure if it was a good idea; now she definitely is gonna be a mess, now remembering his kiss from last night and the fact that she will probably keep it only for herself.

“So, are you gonna dress up or this robe is that comfy?” Matteo asks and Luna rolls her eyes, blushing slightly. “Leave me and my robe alone, if you don't like something you can not look.”

He hums, pushing one of untidy strands of her hair behind her ear. “I don't want to not look at you, I wouldn't deny myself this kind of pleasure.”

Luna kinda dies inside, but tries to keep it cool and just nod and drink her chocolate. Her red cheeks surely betray how she feels inside, at least a little. There is something very warm in that wrong way, the one that she didn’t really want to feel around him until last night and yet here she is, wanting to crawl out of her skin to get as close to him as possible. Matteo smiles smug at that as if he could read her mind. “Anyway, how was your sleep?”

She shrugs tiny, licking her lips after she takes the cup away. “It was nice, I talked to my mom before sleep. How was yours?”

Small something appears in his eyes, but just for a second and then he is all himself again. “It was quite decent,” he just says and starts putting tea boxes in some order so it looks definitely neater than after Luna left it last night. He is humming some song, probably fully aware of her watching him carefully. He is wearing those black jeans and Luna has her weak moment, again remembering why she has issues whenever she sees a boy with long legs. She is sure it's cold and yet he doesn't have any hat on his head, and that's the image thing she would never be able to pull; she always picks being comfy and warm over making sure her hairstyle stays in place.

“So,” she starts very not casual. “When do you have the class?”

He looks up at her with small smile. “In like thirty minutes.”

“Well, so I think it's time for you to go, Matteo.” Luna hums and he walks up to her. “If you are kicking me out, then I will go.” His voice is light, very much hinting the tease hidden behind these words and the brunette shakes her head.

“It's not me having double major studies if I remember correctly,” she says slowly and starts playing with the collar of his shirt, not sure why the fuck is she doing that; he hasn't done anything indicating that something changed in their relation since last night's kiss and that's probably her seeking for some kind of proof that maybe it did. Or him stating that it didn't, it would be still better than not knowing.

Boys are confusing.

He just smiles, again, he keeps smiling, but each of his smiles means a different thing. “You are very right here, caring about my attendance. I will get going. I hope you have nice morning, sweet thing. Let me know if you have any fun plans.”

He winks, kisses her forehead twice without pulling away his lips from her skin, and with that he is gone.

She better goes and gets dressed.

🌙

The thing about studying with your friends in some coffee shop, is that you all pick some coffee shop of your liking, then just get to the table and order something to drink as you take out the notes or laptop with the presentation.

In Luna’s case it’s almost the same, with one tiny exception. She can’t focus at all. She is reading the same page for the fifth time and still gets nothing. Like, absolutely nothing and it’s all because she has no idea whether she should tell her friends about Matteo or not.

She used to tell them everything before; they know each other few long weeks already and they literally talk about every single thing, which sometimes grosses Luna a little. Still, she isn’t sure if she should mention this very important piece of information, but this piece of information seems so weird in her head, not to even try to say it out loud.

The girls won’t suspect anything anyway, because they are busy with their own stuff, yet Luna is just trying to imagine what their reactions would be. Jim would most likely just huff and growl; she still needs some time to accept that Luna is willing to hang out with a boy who steal her drink and made them all go home. Yam wouldn’t do much except throwing shook gasps at her, at them all and wiggle her eyebrows annoyingly whenever Matteo would appear around them, while Nina would just silently judge her or something. Or maybe she would be chill and nice, and happy for her friend to be happy.

Is she happy though? She isn’t sure, and she doesn’t plan on trying to dig that hole deeper than it already is.

The book finally manages to be interesting, and Luna actually is focused, she is reading one paragraph, then the second and third, and she turns the page, proud of herself.

“Luna! You haven’t updated us recently!” one of the girls says, a little too loud for the coffee shop filled with people, and few people send them confused stares.

“What?” Valente answers, slightly confused and Jim rolls her eyes. “What’s up with you and Balsano?”

Blush that creeps way up to her cheeks surely betrays something, but no one really asks and she just sends a shrug. “I don’t know. I guess the same as yesterday, though the last time me and you talked, you hated his guts, Jimena.”

“Oh, it was in the past. I grew up.” Literally every person by the table rolls their eyes and the ginger friend of theirs pouts. “I really did.”

“You didn’t,” Yam says and Luna needs to stop her snort.

Jim flips her hair and starts braiding it, because it started getting into her eyes. “You may all be mean, I don’t care. I just want to know how’s Matteo with Luna. Maybe if someone tells him that he should bring her a drink instead of stealing her vodka shots he will learn. Plus he is too hot to be mad at him long.”

Luna blinks surprised, this is the most ridiculous shit she has ever heard Jim saying, and she has heard much, much of weird stuff.

“Well,” she shrugs. “You can be the one who enlightens him, I am not sure if he is willing to study anything except physics or some music connected things.”

Yam bites on her muffin and sighs heavily. “I’m sure he would be thrilled to learn some anatomy with you.”

Nina chokes on her coffee so much that her glasses almost fall off the bridge of her nose and she has to support them. Jim giggles and high fives her bestie and Luna just wants to go home.

She came here to study and yet here she is, being the protagonist of her friends’ kinky jokes. The day sounds dazzling.

“We should change the topic,” Nina says quietly, “I remember you girls talked about some party before when Luna went to order our stuff.”

Luna nods to herself, because that sounds like a safe thing to talk about, Jim and Yam always love to get some idea to drink, and dance, and definitely flirt with the boys.

“Actually yes! There is one on this Saturday, but we don’t have invitation.”

“Does any party really need an invitation these days?” The brunette asks with raised eyebrows and her ginger friend sighs sadly. “Yes. Or that’s what we overheard the other day from the conversation of Ramiro, the curly guy who is buddy buddy with Balsano, and some girl. You can’t just get there.”

She turns to Nina who shakes her head as well. “So if we can’t go then why are we talking about that?”

“Because you can totally get us in.” Yam grins saying it as if it was obvious, and Luna almost feels silly for not understanding the hidden meaning. “I can’t make someone invite you to their party if they don’t know you. Plus going somewhere without knowing anyone and the host is dumb and even you aren’t that dumb.”

Jim hums and kicks her foot lightly. “Talk to Matteo. He will be there probably and it will help us.”

Luna rolls her eyes. “He never talked to me about that, this is his personal life and I am not getting into that, because you are bored and decided to get more acquaintances in uni.”

Nina sends her encouraging smile and nods, which makes her feel a little better.

“You don’t really care that he will go there, and drink, and meet some drunk people as well?” The blonde asks, mixing her coffee with the spoon. “You know, drunk girls, and stuff.”

She isn’t looking directly at Luna, but they all know what she is doing right now, trying to manipulate Luna into this shit, but she is better than this and she won’t break even if the tight knot in her stomach makes drinking tea very difficult. She should chill and ignore this, not think about that since Matteo is his own person, he doesn’t need to be watched out and followed like a child in case he does something bad.

“I’m not doing anything. If he decided to not tell me about it, it’s his business and I can’t mix into his private life, girls.”

Heavy sighs from both sides reach Luna’s ears, but at least it means she won the battle. If they knew about the kiss from last night they would never let her get out of this situation. Her phone buzzes softly and there are two texts from Matteo, one ten minutes after the first.

Matteo Hope we can hang out today ?

She bites on the inside of her cheek, not sure if the question mark was to remind her that he exists and needs attention, but despite all promises she has made and will make, the promises she never really promised, yet simply decided she wouldn’t be putting herself on a silver plate for him, are really not in her head right now.

Me yeah what time?

🌙

She hasn't expected that he would actually still want to hang out after she told him she wasn't going to move out of her place anymore today. It was cold enough and when she and the girls left the coffee shop, it started raining, and she didn't have any umbrella or a hood to cover herself. She decided it was enough for her and that's why she is now sitting on the couch in big sweater, wrapped up in a blanket and drinking hot chocolate, while Matteo Balsano is comfortably seated right next to her.

He hasn't texted anyone or talked on the phone since the moment he entered her dorm, but also he hasn't done more than kissing her cheek hi and this has Luna lowkey disappointed. Though, it's all probably because her brain keeps having high hopes for literally everything.

His arm is around her shoulders as he seems very focused on the movie they ended up choosing. Luna isn't able to think clearly having him so close and having his scent in her lungs with every breath is like breathing in nail polish scent that makes her dizzy after being around it too much. The only difference is that he actually smells good and Luna is already addicted to this cologne of his.

It’s a nice and soft afternoon, she doesn't need to think about every word she says in case Matteo will use it against her like her friends would do. She kinda missed the moment when he pulled her to his side, but he is warm and feels safe, so she softly allowed herself to lean against his shoulder. It's not like he wouldn't do that if he didn't want to have her close, right?

He even got her food and snacks, and that has her so, very biased, because as soon as someone brings her any kind of food she is sold, and being sold to Matteo doesn't seem like a bad thing, even if it lowkey feels dangerous for her sanity. His eyes slide quickly over the English subs he put on and he doesn't seem to be throwing any any sneaky glances towards her, she knows because she's been very obviously staring at him and he apparently hasn't noticed it yet. He would tease the hell out of her and Luna would die, but she just can't take her eyes off his face, so steady and calm just like the sea after sunset, already hiding something dark and mysterious.

She sighs softly eventually turning her face to the laptop, deciding to chill and act like a normal person finally, not like a psycho weirdo.

“Are you enjoying the movie?” He asks quietly with a hum and playing with the ends of her hair. Luna blinks turning again to him. “What?”

“I just see you are having fun, being all focused on the screen so I decided to ask you.” He turns to her with a smirk and she wonders how bad would it be to push him off the couch in this very moment.

“I think, Matteo, that you should focus on it yourself, instead of watching me with the corner of your eye.”

He chuckles softly, wrapping a strand of her hair around his finger. “Touché, Luna Valente.”

She just shrugs and wants to move away, but he doesn’t really let her. He pulls her closer instead and kisses top of her head. “I was just messing around, you need to relax sometimes. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something anyway.”

Luna straightens her spine and sits a little up, so she isn’t melted in his arms as he says it. Thousand thoughts runs through her brain, tons of them hopeful for all kinds offers from him to all bad things that could have ever happened and it’s the weirdest thing ever.

“What is it?” she only asks.

Matteo looks back at the screen and sighs a little, leaving Luna wondering if he will look her in the eye or not, but eventually his face is back close to hears, his eyes a little serious yet playful. “There is this guy in my physics group who lives nearby and his parents are out of the town for weekend, because of the work.” Something passes in his eyes, and Luna doesn’t miss this, though she doesn’t touch the topic fully knowing that it’s not the reason why he is talking to her.

“And Ramiro made him organize a party, so I’ve been wondering if you would wanna go with me.”

He is smiling a little, leaning his head against the back of the couch and Luna has no idea what to say. To be honest, she likes him and be around him, but on totally different conditions, when they can chill together somewhere where no one will stare at her and talk, because he is himself and she is lucky that he is giving her his attention.

“I don’t think I should go, Matteo,” she says with a shrug and his eyebrows go up. “And why is that?”

Luna doesn’t feel like she needs to excuse herself, but apparently this boy over here isn’t used to hear no as an answer to anything. “Because I won’t feel comfortable enough there.”

“Come on, you’re never uncomfy.”

“I am, very much and you just never notice it.” She pouts tiny and he boops her nose. “I really think you are life of the party and you would do amazing. Plus I wouldn’t leave you alone for a second so you don’t have to worry about being left and awks.”

The brunette sighs and bites on her lower lip, not sure why he cares so much about bringing her there. She is probably taking it very childishly, but he hasn’t promised that he wouldn’t go away from her to hit on something else, and she plans on not making him do so.

“I want the girls to be there as well.”

He sighs heavily with his eyes looking at the ceiling and she can say it’s a weird offer so she continues. “I mean it’s not that I don’t believe you, I just would feel better that there is someone there I know, plus they would be together so it’s not like they would make drama I’m ditching them for you.” She hopes it makes sense or at least sounds convincing. Her eyes don’t leave his face until he clears his throat, saying just one word. “Fine.”

Luna grins and kisses his cheek a little awkward. “Well then I will go.”

🌙

It’s not that she doesn’t like parties, or people, or alcohol, but it still makes Luna feel very ridiculous and uneven, and the heels she put on didn’t make her any taller actually. Being so tiny can be a curse, especially when people always tease her and lean down while talking to her. Hopefully those creeps who know Matteo will let her go.

Jim pulls her by the hand inside, since they came here together and her ginger friend made sure Luna doesn’t “get lost” on their way, just lacing their fingers and no matter what kind of touch is that, for Luna touch is always reassuring and it’s the support she needs in this situation. Even if she doesn’t really want Matteo or anyone see her holding hand with Jim, no offense to her friend of course.

First thing that hits her as soon as they enter, Yam following them both alone since Nina very surely denied the offer, (leaving them all not-that-surprised), is loud music and basically no light. It’s so dark Luna needs to look under her feet in case she steps on something and trips, especially when those heels are high and she isn’t the most graceful person on the Earth.

The people they pass by are strangers and Luna is sure she sees them all for the first or second time, but in general she doesn’t know anyone personally. Yet, if she did, she probably wouldn’t recognize one human here with the surroundings being too distracting. The hazy chatters, bumping into someone again and again while pulling her friends behind, the music is getting even louder, making Luna’s skin tingle and her thoughts completely messy. The house itself seems to be prepared for the party as much as it’s possible; any vases or breakable things are hidden or out of the sight, everything from the center from the big living room is moved to the side so part of the guests can dance or support the walls while talking to others.

Yam pokes them both at the same time. “We should look for the bathroom and the kitchen now, so we don’t have to search for them later.”

“OMG, yes! First kitchen, though, because I’m hungry.” Jim jumps excited. Luna is kinda tired of her friends using the OMG, but they learned it from their English buddies, so she lets them live with it.

“Already?” Luna frowns, but nods in agreement, since she is forever in need of food and the ginger haired girl pulls them both in some direction as the brunette is definitely not trying to find Matteo in the small crowd formed in the living room.

🌙

The kitchen, as it ended up, is placed nearby. They had to just cross another hallway and open the door to get in. There is another ton of the food on the counters, right after the table in other room. The girls came kinda late, but there is still pizza waiting in few boxes, and Luna is the first one to appear near and take a slice. Jim and Yam do the same while Luna checks on her phone in case Matteo sent her a text, but he hasn’t, he hasn’t texted her or called, or posted on his story anything recently except his laptop with Netflix logo on the screen. If he doesn’t appear here today, she swears she is going to kill him as soon as her eyes reach him, and then herself.

Or she will just take her friends after they have free pizza dinner here, and go to some club just enjoying her girls-only time, and forget Matteo Balsano and her dramatic ass.

That is why she shouldn’t have drunk the few shots Jim made her drink to “chill” before leaving the dorm.

At some point in the middle of taking another bite someone pats her shoulder and she turns around almost smashing the pizza in the person’s dark shirt, because they are too close.

Here she is, out of all possible ways to meet him today, she ended up with mouthful of pizza and lips probably stained with tomato sauce.

“There you are, sweet thing. I see you are enjoying the party already,” he says, smiling as if she wasn’t messiest thing existing. He leans and kisses her cheek before passing her a napkin and taking his arm around her shoulders.

The girls stare at him and he looks at them without changing his face. “Jimena, Yamila, I hope you have fun today and I’m afraid I will have to steal Luna from you.”

Mentioned Luna rolls her eyes at the full names and stealing thing, since she is the one to decide with who she wants to spend the party. Even if she wants to hang out with Matteo, still it’s her choice.

He pulls her closer to his side, yet still casually and the girls just nod, smiling, and Jim raises her eyebrows. “Well, we hope you two have fun too, but please don’t babysit Luna today, because if you will, you will need a babysitter.”

Yam snorts and Luna gasps, Matteo seems surprised a little as well, but he sends her friend a wink. “There is nothing you need to worry about, really.”

“Okay girls, remember to not go alone anywhere, promise me that,” Luna warns them with serious eyes and both of her friends just nod before turning away and leaving with another slices of pizza.

Matteo turns to her with happy grin, as if he got extra toy on Christmas, the one he never found while searching around house. “I almost thought you wouldn’t appear, but at the same time I knew those two would drag you here even if you went back to Mexico.”

She rolls her eyes, but smiling as well, she likes simple being around him and just talking, and his teasing, and when he is looking at her with those funny, excited sparks in his eyes. She might like him a little bit too much.

“Do you really think I would miss an opportunity of getting free food?” she asks, raising her eyebrows and he laughs, reaching to push one loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “Why is your hair up, though?”

Luna shrugs. “I don’t know, I was in a mood I guess. Why?”

Matteo takes his fingers to the back of her head and releases her hair from the hairband. She immediately feels soft tickles on her shoulders and shivers. “Why would you do that?” she asks, but softly, without any drama in her voice surprisingly.

“I don’t know. I like your hair down more i think.”

She smiles. “You do?”

He nods and leans closer, having her almost breathless. “Yeah, and I very like your skirt.”

🌙

Luna has really no idea how much has she drunk yet, but it’s definitely much more than she should. Her head is spinning lightly, yet Matteo is holding his hand on her waist steadily all the time, which she appreciates. She doesn’t really see Jim or Yam since they left her alone with Balsano, and she is sure they are having fun or drinking until they throw up, or both.

Matteo introduced her to some people, though they haven’t stayed with anyone longer, because as he said, he didn’t want them to weird her out and ask too many questions since it's a party, fun for her, and not an interview. This makes sense enough in her head for Luna not to push, it's not like she wanted to meet all of his friends at once. She got to meet Ramiro, Matteo's good friend, or so it looks like, and few girls there keeps watching her with angry eyes. Each time Luna feels uncomfortable enough that she went to get a drink, and here she is now probably too drunk for her own good.

Yet, she still lets herself drag Matteo to dance, even if he sends her amused glance, but she doesn't stop and as long as he doesn't stop her either, it's okay.

Matteo is giving her this weird feeling, this idea of actual freedom that she doesn't have to follow what everyone tells her. She does what she wants, wears what she wants and she isn't sure if she feels like this because of all alcohol she has drunk so far, if it's because of Matteo being so close to her and keeping his hands on her body, while they are dancing slowly in between so many people, or if it's simply her relaxing finally after all those months. She likes it anyway.

She likes swaying lazily pressed to his chest with her arms loose around his neck. He is so, so close she can’t think straight, but she would never anyway especially when his hands are on her lower back, his thumbs sneaked their way under her a bit cropped tshirt. The song is quick and loud, people are jumping and hitting her with elbows, and sometimes pushing her a little. Luna can't care now, she is just focused on those two brown eyes, so warm and soft while he is mouthing her song lyrics and honestly it's the most perfect moment in the world even if she probably looks like mess with her curled hair. His tiny, annoying smile is almost enticing, asking her to go further, to take more, to feel more and feel less at the same time, she loves it and lets it all consume her in this very moment.

It’s the first time he is having her so close in public, around other people and she likes it so much, that he isn’t awkward, or pulling away, or pretending she is just a friend. Though, at the same time he is not kissing her yet, and she thinks that he should have already done that, not once.

He leans closer but turns towards her ear and his breathing on her neck makes her tingle. “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asks and traces the skin behind her ear with his nose, taking deep breath and Luna wonders if it’s still possible to move.

“Yeah, it’s very nice,” she says clearing her throat, because her voice comes out shaky and raspy. Matteo smiles at her and nods, but she continues. “Are you having fun with me, though?”

He raises his eyebrows just so slightly and hums. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “You probably had always had other things to do than spending whole party with one person.”

Matteo bites on his lower lip, making her want to do the same. “What if I like to do so? You are fun, Luna Valente.”

“I’m not sure what is your definition of fun, but that’s definitely not me,” she murmurs while playing with the collar of his shirt. He sends her almost annoying look before sliding his hand from her arm up to her nape and pressing her lips lazily to his finally.

It’s a slow, effortless kiss, but also a hungry and needy one. She can taste the alcohol drink he had before, it’s a bitter taste, yet now she doesn’t care, she just wants him closer and more. They stop in one place, closer to the wall than to the center of the room though, and her fingers tangle in his already messy hair. He tenses for a second, probably having the reflex of taking her hands away from his head, but she kisses him more urgently and he focuses on claiming her mouth as his once again.

The music is somehow dimmed and hazy now, as if her brain couldn’t take more things into her senses and process them, and Luna can only agree that Matteo kissing her is such an overwhelming thing, and she wants to kiss him forever.

His tongue is playing with hers almost teasingly, gliding across her lower lip or backing out for her to decide what she wants now, and she appreciates that. The hand he had placed on her nape to keep her close relaxes now a little, letting it fall a little before he takes it to her waist, under the tshirt she is wearing as the kiss becomes harder. His lips are more expecting and more wanting, he grips on her as if she was the one good thing in the world, or at least that’s what her dramatic, burned mind is saying. She wouldn’t really trust herself though, not when she is in a place like this, with him and doing what she is doing.

Matteo pushes her a little backwards and she is sure that she will step on someone’s foot or other body part, but she meets only cold wall and he is everywhere now. It’s almost too much how lost she is, how she can’t breathe and when he bites on her lower lip, the last drops of her conscience make her stop him and push away for a few inches.

He stares at her with dark, very confused and messy eyes, his breathing is short and shallow, his cheeks are actually red as never before and he looks absolutely breathtaking.

“Everything’s fine?” he asks with a quiet, raspy voice and if she wasn’t so close, she wouldn’t have heard it because of the music being loud again.

She nods tiny and clears her throat, wondering how bad she has to look if he is such a mess now. “I don’t think this is a good place to do something like that.” Matteo opens his mouth softly, but she places her hand on his chest. “And tonight it’s not a good night to do anything more.”

He smiles with this small troublemaker smirk. “I wouldn’t have suggested anything like that, sweet thing.” Luna rolls her eyes, but smiles trying to regain her steady heartbeat. “I think that I need a drink.”

🌙

She doesn’t really care what she will drink, she just wants to cool down her body, and when Matteo asks her if it’s supposed to be alcohol free or not, she just shrugs. “Whatever, as long as it’s cold.”

He laughs and takes some bottle from the fridge and opens it, first taking a sip from it, not really caring to use the glass. The still awake “safety” part of Luna’s brain appreciates this reassurance that nothing suspicious is there, so she takes the bottle and drinks a little.

It tastes bitter, but just a little since it’s probably been sitting in the fridge for a long while, something in her head dims, and that was apparently more than she could have drunk for one night, because everything goes blank.

#soy luna #lutteo #hft #my writing

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tigerlover16-uk · 6 years

Text

Goodbye, GT

This is a very personal post written mostly for the sake of posterity and closure. You're free to read it if you really want, but I'd rather nobody comment or make a big deal out of anything I say here, I just needed to get my thoughts written out for the sake of moving on. So I'd rather people just scroll past.

Well, I finally finished watching Dragon Ball GT subbed. Thank goodness.

I have a lot of complex thoughts on GT, many of them very negative. I've made it no secret that I hate this series, and I have a lot of reasons why I hate it. The complete refusal to do anything meaningful with the vast majority of the supporting cast (With the things they actually do end up being very minor stuff, or downright insulting), especially the complete mishandling of Pan and Uub's characters. The boring stories, the bad designs and the general aesthetic of the show. The unengaging fights, and that utterly STUPID ending!

There were a few things I liked here and there, but in general I have a lot to complain about. And maybe if people ask me I will talk more about the show, but since this will likely be the last time I ever watch it, I felt now was a good time to really wax poetic about why I really feel so negatively about it.

Because after really thinking everything over and my experiences with GT and the franchise in general, I think I've found a more deep-seated reason besides it's own admittedly poor quality as a show. And I just wanted to get it all out for posterity's sake and so I can really move on.

I watched GT as it was airing on Welsh television as a kid, the Blue Water Dub specifically. It aired right after Dragon Ball Z finished, and the original Dragon Ball started airing after GT wrapped up. Like with DBZ, I watched every episode as it aired, and in general my childhood self enjoyed it. I was too young and stupid to really think critically about most of the media I consumed, so I never tended to notice any flaws in the shows I watched.

And Dragon Ball Z was my favourite growing up, alongside Spider-man The Animated series, so naturally I was inclined to think of everything GT did as being amazing and cool. And to be fair, yeah there is some cool stuff here, I can see why I enjoyed it. Even though now that I look back, a lot of it didn't stick with me the same way the stories, action and characters of DBZ and later Dragon Ball did.

I was confused and uncertain about the ending, but given that the original Dragon Ball started airing soon after I was never much concerned with it. Dragon Ball couldn't really be over, here was more of it showing me all that backstory and stuff that was always hinted at or flashbacked to in Z but I never saw for some reason. I quickly fell in love with OG Dragon Ball the same way i did with it's sequel series.

It was soon after that series finished airing, however, and I came to accept that Dragon Ball was over... that a powerful, uneasy feeling started to set in. While I know I hadn't actually been watching it for ALL of my life, it really did feel like Dragon Ball had always been there. A constant, welcoming, wonderful presence in my life that made everything feel so much cooler and life in general so much more fulfilling. Something to always look forward to...

I didn't dwell on it too hard at the time, but as time passed, and life generally got harder and more miserable as time went on (I'm pretty sure I was in secondary school when Dragon Ball finished, and that was one of the worst parts of my life, let me tell you!), I started to feel very alone and wistful.

To give an idea of what I was going through without giving too much away, I was losing friends, with my longest friendship ending in a great personal betrayal, my home life was an utter mess right up to and through my parents divorcing.

And between school work, undiagnosed aspergers that my teachers refused to acknowledge might be a possibility, and just realising how harsh, cruel and kind of miserable the world really was... let's just say that I became a pretty closed off, miserable person for a while.

I got better when I started going to college and life in general became more stable, but through all of that, and for the next several years after it even... the thing that made it especially unbearable, was that through it all, I felt like something was missing.

Something important, something grounding. Something that had helped carry me through life prior to all that, and give me something to always look forward to and find comfort in whenever things seemed rough.

It felt like a part of my soul had been missing for a long time, and I never understood why.

I think it was during my later years in secondary school that my family got a computer for the first time. I can clearly remember spending so many hours of my life browsing through wiki's of all sorts of shows, games and movies I liked.

One day, I inevitably started looking up Dragon Ball stuff.

I went all in trying to find as much information as possible about this series. I read all up about the behind the scenes information and Akira Toriyama's writing process. I read up on all the characters, the manga prototypes of Dragon Ball, and the reasons for why Toriyama wrote a lot of things the way he did.

I learned about all of the dub changes, and the various dubs that were out there for that matter. I used to have a laugh about some of them. Learned about a lot of the movies, games, Specials and other stuff I hadn't been aware of because I'd never seen them before.

While I didn't have any DVD's for the series available for a while and felt uncomfortable pirating the show (Didn't stop me from looking at some other things on YouTube, I notice though... I'm a weirdo :p), but I did frequently refamiliarize myself with stuff that had happened.

And when Dragon Ball Z Kai became a thing, I watched that, and I kept up with animated specials like the Yo! Son Goku and his friends return! special or Episode of Bardock (Which I actually watched before I even watched Bardock: Father of Goku, despite knowing about that special and everything that happened in it for a while, for some reason...).

I remember hearing about Dragon Ball Online and all the stuff about it's lore, and being utterly fascinated by the prospect, since I had never imagined another take on the series post-EoZ other than GT actually being presented, even though I REALLY did wish we had more.

Over time as I was doing this, the feeling of wonder and fun that I had always felt watching Dragon Ball as a kid started to come back, and I remembered why I loved this series so much. How much it meant to me... and how sad it made me that it seemed the series would never come back.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I appreciated that we had stuff like the video games, or the occasional specials, and even the SD manga when that became a thing was something I frequently read synopsis for since I didn't know where to actually read the manga for a while. I was glad there was content being made... but it was never nearly the same thing as having a proper continuation, you know.

And a lot of the stuff we got, like the YO! special, was pretty mediocre fluff in the long run. It was fun, but it didn't fill the void. And I thought nothing ever would.

I had begun to realize what that missing part of my soul had been.

I was excited when I heard about Battle of Gods being released, but I also assumed it would just be a one-off thing, something that would be great to pass the time and give me another chance to see all those characters I loved again, but it wouldn't lead to anything bigger. And despite stuff like the hints of there being multiple different universes, I was still certain by the time Resurrection F was announced that an occasional mostly self-contained movie would be the best we could ask for in terms of new Dragon Ball content.

I can't even begin to tell you how shocked... and how darn HAPPY I was when Super was announced. I never expected it to happen... I couldn't believe it was. For the first time in years... a new Dragon Ball series. One that ignored GT's continuity, and thus it's definitive ending, and opened up the possibility of more new Dragon Ball stories for many years to come.

I wanted to cry.

I didn't start watching the show until it was part-way through the Champa saga... mostly because there weren't legal ways to view it until part-way through the Future Trunks saga, and I thought I'd wait for the dub at first. but keeping up with news and spoilers about what was happening, and browsing the tv tropes pages for Super every day and watching clips on YouTube, I just couldn't control myself and started looking up episodes of the Champa saga myself.

And oh God... I felt at home. I mean, it wasn't a perfect story, really, but... it was good. And it was new Dragon Ball. Watching things unfold was such a magical experience, and when it got to the Hit fight... HOLY COW, was my mind blown. THAT... that was Dragon Ball, through and through! And then we got the Baby Pan episode, and dear God that was adorably perfect and I love it to bits. And then we found out that Future Trunks was coming back for a saga, and the new villain for it and, OH GOD THE EXCITEMENT!

Having Dragon Ball back in my life again was just... it felt just so... right. The missing part of my soul was restored. I had my childhood... I had my best friend back.

I suppose by now you're wondering about how all of this relates to GT. You're probably thinking "Oh well then, you only hate it because you blame it for ending Dragon Ball for so long!" and... well, okay, that's kind of on point. But I didn't hate it for that until after I actually re-watched the series not too long ago.

Truth is, I've always defended GT. I mean, I knew it had problems just listening to people talk about it, and remembering it for myself. I definitely agreed the ending was wrong. But... I remembered liking it as a kid. Even loving it.

I remembered there were ideas and a few characters I really liked. People complain about a lot of things in DBZ as well, yet whenever I re-watch that and the original Dragon Ball, they both hold up exceptionally well despite some issues. Better than so many things from my childhood.

So, why shouldn't GT hold up the same? I always told people that GT was okay, that a lot of people overreacted and that it wasn't anything offensive. People were just overreacting.

I strongly believed that for years. I was glad it was non-canon, because that meant there was another chance for another, better post-EoZ series that utilized the next gen characters (And the long standing supporting cast, for that matter) better, and I didn't want Dragon Ball to have a definitive ending. But I stubbornly refused to have negative feelings about GT.

I started re-watching GT when Super was about half-way through, out of curiosity and because I wanted to have an actually up to date, informed opinion on it. Especially where comparisons to Super came up.

I didn't go into the series intending to be negative, I went in with the intention of DEFENDING IT. I knew there would be stuff that would annoy me or that would be frustrating, but I wanted to enjoy it like I had as a child. I wanted to be able to say with confidence that despite it's faults, GT was a worthwhile addition to the Dragon Ball franchise and that I liked it.

And for the first two to five episodes, I did kind of enjoy it, despite some things I took issue with...

But the more I watched and was bored of the first saga, and the more I started looking ahead and really dwelling on what went on in the show. How it used the characters, how the stories were written and how it ended... after a while, I started to doubt it. I started to dislike it more and more.

While I had made up my mind about GT not being a good continuation of Dragon Ball Z by the time I finished the Baby saga, I still mostly enjoyed that saga at least, despite some glaring issues that bothered me. I was willing to say that was mostly fine. I hated the Super 17 saga a lot, but even going into the Shadow Dragons saga, I expected to like that. I tried very hard to be positive going into it... and then it kept spitting in my face.

And by the time I got to the penultimate episode, I was sick of the show and glad to stop watching it. I did something I never expected myself to do, and declared it horrible, a blight on the franchise! And I meant it, because after experiencing such a disappointing let down, and especially after that insulting final episode when I did watch it... I felt betrayed.

THIS was the show I had been defending all these years?! It was trash! People were right, GT WAS an insult to the franchise... it was an insult to me as a fan, as someone who loves this series.

And I feel this way because it feels like the series is specifically designed to annoy me. The first saga is a boring slog where it feels like nothing of actual value happens after our heroes leave earth, all for a stupid contrived premise. The only really notable episode is episode 15, and for ALL the wrong reasons! Goku is turned into a kid for no reason, which just feels wrong at this point in the series, Pan is derailed into an annoying brat for no good reason, and the only other character that comes along for the journey is Trunks. Who is one of the few characters I don't really care that much about, and he's blander here than he was in DBZ.

We get one half-decent story after that, one horrible trainwreck of an arc that did NOTHING right apart from a funny gag with Chichi and Videl, and a saga that sounds on paper like it should be the greatest thing in the world... but everything apart from Nuova and Eis Shenron's episodes was handled in the WORST WAY POSSIBLE.

The fights range from passable, occasionally good, to just BORING. While there were good jokes sometimes, the humour was usually dull. The many characters I loved either barely showed up and then only to get fodderised, have a lot of their personality drained away so they're just kind of dull, or in the cases of Piccolo and Majin Buu, get POINTLESSLY KILLED OFF! And in Piccolo's case he got shoved into freaking Hell for his troubles and never got out! What were you thinking, writers! That is NOT how you treat one of the greatest anime characters ever created!

Everything I felt could have potential to be interesting felt like it was deliberately sabotaged. Uub was shoved aside in the first episode and didn't show up until it was half over, and then despite getting a transformation all he does is have a fight with Baby that's way too short and anti-climactic and then stall the villain later on in the saga, otherwise he's so insignificant to the show he might as well never show up.

I always thought his character was very interesting and I wanted to see him be at least the co-protagonist and actually do stuff... and GT just bent over backwards to make him irrelevent, give him almost no personality or real purpose, and just generally undermine the entire point of the ending of Z...

Pan got off almost worse. She was never allowed to go super saiyan, only useful a few times throughout the show and didn't defeat anyone that mattered on her own. She got no real character development, and was mostly just a damsel in distress... because the writers LITERALLY ADMITTED that they only kept her around so she could get beat up by the villains so Goku could look better by comparison. But oh I've already made some long posts on how badly Pan was used, so I won't go on now.

Bulla and Marron barely existed as far as the show was concerned. Krillin was basically a prop that was there to be a butt monkey who disappoints his family in the Baby saga, and his only notable contribution to the story was to DIE to move the plot along.

Android 17... oh God, the poor guy. He barely had any personality left when he showed up inexplicably under Dr Gero and Myuu's mind control, that whole Super 17 fusion was stupid as all heck, and then they senselessly killed his character off for real without ever doing ANYTHING of interest with him in a really insulting manner.

Despite the brilliant premise of having all the past villains invade from hell, the show did NOTHING with ANY of them, apart from turning Frieza, my favourite villain of all time, and Cell, into a couple of jokes who are defeated in an embarrassing way.

As cool as the Shadow Dragons are in concept, not only does their explanation and build up make no sense, but only Nuova and Eis are worthwhile characters. Haze and Rage Shenron were absolutely pathetic, Oceanus Shenron felt like a monster of the week from an earlier point in the series and not suitable endgame villain material, Naturon Shenron was annoying and lost because he was the BIGGEST IDIOT in the entire franchise, and Omega Shenron was the most disappointing final boss possible with no personality beyond "Evil bad guy" and a dull final fight that just poorly rips off stuff that happened in the Buu Saga, as well as that one episode that was just pointless padding that existed to tease people who liked Nuova Shenron by bringing him back only to have his contribution mean nothing (Kind of like how Vegeta going super saiyan 4 meant nothing thanks to Gogeta being a time wasting idiot and Vegeta not even putting up a half-decent fight against Omega).

And besides that, there were only two new characters in the show besides Nuova (Who was killed off way too soon, IMO) and Eis (The only character used as well as he could have been, probably) that were any good, them being Baby and General Rilldo. And Baby devolves into discount Frieza with none of the charm halfway through his saga, and Rilldo only gets a mediocre at best fight and then gets a bridge unceremoniously dropped on him.

And apart from them? Giru/Gill was an occasional nuisance and as interesting as drying paint. Valese was awkward and pointless, Dolltaki was the WORST character in the franchise, Dr Myuu/Mu was a boring dollar store Dr Gero with a stupider moustache and nothing interesting to him at all, and none of the other few characters were anything worthwhile.

And it's not like the show did a lot of interesting stuff with the characters it already had, half the characters are barely around, with several being only silent cameos, and they don't get any development from when we last saw them. Even 18's highly touted contribution in the Super 17 saga just involved her conveniently showing up to shoot energy blasts at Super 17, allowing Goku to then do all the hard work necessary to defeat him. It was kinda cool, but it was barely anything and it still comes at the expense of wasting 17 completely.

And then that ending... that above all insulted me, because after the show went out of it's way to wreck up so many of the characters, and treat us to mediocre to horrible stories, destroy any of the potential that Dragon Ball Z left open for future stories... after all that, it had the GALL to offer up what it intended to be the definitive, no going back ending for the ENTIRE series... an ending that was out of nowhere, depressing, and overall just kind of pointless... I was so angry.

THIS SHOW... this show is the reason we went so long without another Dragon Ball series for almost two decades, outside of Kai being just a re-cut of Z. And it went out of it's way to be the worst possible send off for the franchise imaginable, and try to cut off all avenues for future series.

I was so angry over this! All those years wistfully longing to have Dragon Ball come back... all those years that I felt incomplete, like I'd lost my anchor to make life feel more bearable when things got bad... like I didn't have a lot to look forward to... all of that was GT's fault, and it was TERRIBLE to boot!

And I DEFENDED this show all that time, because I was just so clueless... I felt sick.

And yes, I know I can't blame GT for how bad life got for me, that's childish... but I really do feel like having a little hope that Dragon Ball would continue with more series would have helped through it.

Dragon Ball is not just a show or manga to me. It is my favourite media franchise of all time. The series, it's characters and it's world resonate with me like nothing else. Nothing makes me happier than watching Dragon Ball, nothing else gets me more excited. The magic I felt watching the show as a kid is something I have yet to experience from any other work of fiction, despite trying my hardest to find it elsewhere in the time since. Maybe Pokemon comes close, but it's not quite there.

Dragon Ball is an integral part of my life. And GT tried to rip it away from me. To torch the franchise and run, as tv tropes would put it.

That is why I was so happy to have Super come into my life.

Dragon Ball Super is not a perfect series, as I have stated many times before. It has plot holes, inconsistent animation quality, especially earlier on. It occasionally screws up writing certain characters like Vegeta or Goku (Even though I don't think the latter's portrayal overall is anywhere near as bad as people blow it out of proportion to be), and there are plenty of missed opportunities. The Future Trunks Saga's ending was a complete mess, some of the things it introduced didn't really pay off. It has problems...

But at the same time, it's given me more joy than any other series of the past decade. Because when Super is good... oh my God, is it good.

The best fights from Super are honestly some of my favourites in the entire franchise. Goku vs Hit, the big fight with Goku Black and Future Zamasu in episode 57, Gohan vs Lavender, Gokus first fight with Jiren, Android 18 beating Ribrianne... there are SO many good ones, and the best are so much better than any of GT's action scenes. Heck, just watching the clip of the last bout of the fight between Goku, Frieza and Android 17 against Jiren did more for me than the entire final battle against Omega Shenron did.

There are so many good jokes and funny episodes, I think I've laughed more watching Super than any other Dragon Ball series. The slice of life episodes and moments scattered throughout are wonderful, and give me such an unbelievably pleasant feeling. We see so much more of the supporting cast too, and while the show struggles with a lot of characters especially early on, they all ended up getting so much good character moments over the course of the show and especially in the final arc. It was so wonderful just to spend more time with everyone.

There were so many cool new concepts thrown in. The 12 universes, the integration of the Galactic Patrol from the Jaco manga, the super dragon balls.

And there were so many new characters that I'm actually interested in.

Obviously we have Beerus, Whis and Jaco carrying on from the recent movies, and I love them so much. But in Super we got to meet Hit, Champa, Vados, Cabba, Frost, Magetta, Goku Black, Caulifla, Toppo, Ribrianne, and so many awesome and intersting new characters, many of whom I desperately want to see fleshed out and get to do more in future series. I didn't care about anyone from GT NEARLY as much as I care about half of these new characters, except maybe Nuova.

There's just so many amazing things that have happened that I never dreamed I would experience.

I never thought Android 17 would not only come back and be developed more, but that he'd go on to be one of the best characters in the show and one of my new favourites. I never thought Frieza would make a big comeback either, but oh God was he so perfect in the Universe Survival Saga and I think I love him even more now than I already did! I never thought I'd see Master Roshi getting to be cool again and have what felt like an even better send off to his time as a martial artist than the original Dragon ball gave him, but oh lord was episode 105 so good and got me emotional.

I never even knew I wanted Pan the adorable super baby to be a thing, but oh God is she wonderful and perfect in every way and I just love her so much! Ahhh!

Already I have so many fond memories of watching Super. Sure, it's done things to upset me from time to time, but when it's good, and it is most of the time, it does more for me than most other shows I watch. When Super is at it's best, I feel the same magic that Dragon Ball Z made me feel as a child.

A feeling I never once got from watching GT.

And as much as I panicked when I heard the show was ending, we got confirmation soon after that Super would continue through the upcoming movie, and all signs pointed to a new Dragon Ball series being produced in the near future. When the final episode aired, I felt a great sense of satisfaction in how it concluded... and also excitement and hope for the future, because that last episode made it so clear that there was much more to come.

Dragon Ball GT's ending threw me out of the house, slammed the door in my face and flushed the keys down the toilet. But Super left the door open.

It wasn't a goodbye this time. It was a "See you later"

A promise from my oldest, most dear friend that we would meet again.

It was such a beautiful feeling. And I cannot wait to see what the future holds for Dragon Ball. I'm sure there'll be bad stories now and again, every franchise has those from time to time, but Toei seem to be making all the right moves to get things stable to better produce future dragon ball works. The movie seems like it's having a ton of effort put into it, at least. So I have faith. Now my dream where Dragon Ball can go on forever might finally be coming true, and I couldn't be happier.

And after all is said and done, looking back on GT... I can't help but resent it for trying to deny me that.

I can't help but hold GT responsible for all of the years where there were no new Dragon Ball series. All the years it felt like Dragon Ball would never come back for real. And for all the loneliness that caused me deep in my heart.

It had some good points. Bad as it truly was, I can't say it was the worst sequel or show ever produced, there are many works of fiction that are objectively far worse than GT, and stuff that has caused actual harm to the world.

It'll never be One More Day or Holy Terror levels of bad... but on a strictly personal level, GT causes me more anger than any other fictional work I have encountered.

Why did I bother watching it again? That was a question I found myself asking as I was binging the subbed version. Obviously the reason I started doing that was because I have a personal goal of watching each Dragon Ball series both dubbed and subbed, and I thought I might as well get GT out of the way since I'd watched it all dubbed not too long ago... but why did I keep going as quickly as I did, when watching it just caused me so much frustration to the point of feeling actually painful?

I don't fully know, but maybe deep down I just really wanted to convince myself that I was being too harsh. That it wasn't all that bad, that I could go back to liking it somewhat. Because I really didn't want to resent it so much.

Guess that didn't work out, since honestly I think the only thing it accomplished is making me all the more aware of why I dislike it.

But you know what... whatever. I could keep being angry about GT until I'm blue in the face, but it's really not worth it. Because it's not relevant anymore. As much as it still bothers me we don't have another series set post-EoZ yet, GT has officially been replaced regardless by Super. It's clear that the franchise is back, and here to stay. Hopefully for good, this time. So really, what do I have left to be worried about?

I've got what I wanted all this time. GT's attempt to end Dragon Ball failed, the story goes on. And now that I've watched it both ways, I have no reason to ever come back to GT, or worry about it ever again. I have closure.

The show is still there for people who do enjoy it, for whatever reasons I'll never be able to relate to again. But I'm free from having to worry about it getting in the way of more Dragon Ball stories.

Now I have hope again, hope that a new Dragon ball series where Uub and Pan are treated with respect will happen down the line. Hope that I'll get to see more good character development and cool moments from all the characters I love. Hope that Launch might come back, or that underdeveloped characters might get to come back and be made a thousand times better like Android 17 was.

Here's to a bright future for Dragon Ball, the story that never ends.

And so, with all that out of the way... I guess it's time to say goodbye.

GT, you were a frustrating experience. I will admit, a part of me will always cherish those good childhood memories you gave me, even if they've been somewhat tainted. I will always love Super saiyan 4, and Nuova Shenron, and there's probably some good moments I might watch again through clips if I'm bored. I'll certainly listen to that english opening song again.

As bad as I make you out to be, in the end you weren't a complete disaster, since Dragon Ball ended up coming back anyway. And while I can never say I enjoyed watching you, part of me is glad there are others who feel differently, because people do deserve to be happy, even if I can't share the experience.

Because I'm not coming back. Because unless some exceptional circumstances happen, like I somehow become a big-name internet critic and I decide to review you for views, I highly doubt our paths will ever cross again. And I think that's for the best. I am sorry we grew apart so much, but I'm much happier where things are now.

Goodbye, GT. May your memory fade with time.

#personal

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mamaimpala67 · 7 years

Text

Two Worlds, One Family (Chapter 11)

Words: 1559

Warning(s): N/A

Your computer was all set up. It was the weekend - Sunday afternoon to be exact - and Gen had taken Shepherd and Thomas to a nearby park. You had kindly declined the offer, knowing that it would give you some time to get some videos done for your Youtube channel. It had been a while since you made a Supernatural edit or a video game episode. That day was going to be a rather old game that has sparked many sequels and fan made games.

Slenderman.

You had never actually played the indie horror game. Of course you had seen other people on the internet play the game, but you never got to experience the horror that was the tall, white faced man with a black suit. At that point, you were rather excited to be able to do so. You had already downloaded the game and gotten it loaded up. Next thing to do was plug in your headphones. They were simple earbuds, nothing extravagant or expensive. You could never afford luxuries like that. Hell, even the camera that you used for your face cam was the one that was built directly into your laptop. It wasn’t the best quality, but it would have to do until you were able to afford your own camera and microphone - that was if you decided to stick with the YouTube channel for a while.

You had been on the website for a good year or so. Your subscriber count wasn’t that high, but you were still proud about the fact that you got some people that liked your content. Most of the likes came from your Supernatural edits that, in your opinion, kept getting better and better the more you did it, and you weren’t surprised that they were your most viewed, considering how large the fandom actually was. That, and the games that you played were mostly online indie games. Nothing expensive. Free, actually. You didn’t wanna spend money on a channel that you weren’t sure was going to last.

It was time to start the video, so you put in your earbuds and pulled up the WebCam options and hummed. With a deep breath, you started the camera and smiled.

“What is up my Subbies! It’s (Y/N) here with another gameplay. I’m here playing a game that has been out for sometime now, but I have never played it. Today we are going to play Slenderman!” You said, looking into the camera, smiling. “You may notice that the background is different, and, in all actuality, I will get to that in a Vlog video that I will make...sometime...when I plan it all out correctly. So, for right now, ignore this,” You gestured back to your bedroom. “And let’s get started.”

The curtains to your windows were drawn and the light was off. The door was closed as well so that it drowned out sound a bit better. You used your wireless mouse and clicked on the start of the game. You turned up the brightness on your screen a little bit so you could see your surroundings more clearly.

The game was in a forest. A rather dark and eerie forest. You began to wander around, looking for the eight pages, all the while saying stuff here and there. When you found a page, you clicked on it and smiled.

“Ooh,” You said. Then, the sound of pounding came into the earbuds. You frowned. “Crap.” You mumbled and began to carefully guide your character deeper into the forest.

Soon, there was static sounding into your buds. Your eyes widened as you looked around. You jumped when you saw the large man. You turned your character around.

“Why won’t this go faster?” You chuckled and groaned, despite the fact that your heart rate was slowly increasing with the situation.

You grabbed another page that you found in a giant concrete tunnel. You then began to move around. The sound of the static and the pounding was getting louder and louder in your ear. You mumbled small curses underneath your breath. You walked straight through to the large bathroom area and found your third page.

“Third page. Third page. I can do this. This is going well.” You said and made your way out of the building.

After several minutes of traveling through the forest and finding nothing, the static got louder, and louder, and louder. You panicked and turned around and then back. You couldn’t help but let out a terrified scream as Slenderman appeared on the screen and the computer screen turned completely white with static. You covered your face and leaned back. The game went to the home screen.

You groaned and covered your heart. “Oh….my….God.” You breathed and laughed. “I hate that.”

You ran your fingers through your hair and took the earbuds out. You set them on the desk and sighed. You shook your head.

Suddenly, your door was slammed open. You shouted and looked at the door. Jared stood there, a hand on your door and the other on the doorframe. He had a worried expression on his face.

“Don’t do that!” You said.

“Why did you scream? What’s wrong?” Jared asked.

“Don’t worry Jared. I was just playing a game and I got scared.” You said.

You could see Jared visibly relax. “Good.” He said.

“Yeah,” You blushed lightly. “Do you wanna play? Give you something to do?”

Jared hummed and looked around. He shrugged. “Yeah, sure.” He said and walked into the room. He closed the door and walked over to your desk.

“You can have the chair if you want.” You said.

“No, no.” Jared shook his head. He knelt down on the ground. From there, he was about up to your shoulders when his back was straight. You looked at him and then shook your head.

“Have you ever heard of Slenderman?” You asked and gave him an earbud.

Jared placed the earbud into his ear. “Kind of.” He said. “I’ve heard of it. Never played it. I’m not that much of a...gamer.”

You nodded and shrugged. “Alright. So...we’re going to play it….yay.” You said. “You have the option of either controlling the flashlight or the walking.”

“I think I’ll do the flashlight because you know what to do.” Jared said.

You pointed out the buttons to control the flashlight - which controls the direction that the character looks in. “You ready?” You asked.

“I guess.” Jared said and chuckled.

“Great!” You said and bit your lip. You started the game and the screen faded to black.

Collect 8 pages.

“Eight pages?” Jared asked. “That sounds easy.”

“I collected three last time.” You told him as the game loaded and the forest appeared.

“Oh…” Jared trailed off. “Maybe...not that easy.” He said.

You couldn’t help but laugh at Jared. The two of you began to move around the forest together. There were times when Jared accidentally pointed the light up or down and left it like that. You chuckled.

“What’re you doing?” You chuckled

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Jared said with a smile and realigned the torch.

You chuckled as you began to move the character around. You collected a page from the same concrete tunnel that you had done once before. It was then that you began to hear the pounding sounds in your ear. Jared frowned.

“What’s that?” He asked.

You couldn’t help but smirk. You said nothing to Jared and continued on. It was then that they found a large area filled with tankers that contained Gasoline - at least that was your guess. You and Jared began to guide the character through the mazes of tankers. Finally, you found a page. You clicked on it. The pounding got continuously louder. You could tell that Jared was trying to be cautious about his actions on the game. For a while, the two of you went through the game and got another page. However, when Jared went to turn one direction, there was slenderman right there. The screen buzzed and a high pitched scream ran through the headphones. Jared jumped and you let out a scream as Slenderman appeared on the screen.

Game Over.

You placed her hand over your heart and began to pant. Jared shook his head and looked at you. “Why do you play things like that if it scares you?” He asked.

After a couple of seconds, you looked at him. “Why not?” You asked and chuckled. Jared shook his head and stood up. “Do you wanna play again?”

“No.” Jared said. “The kids and Gen are going to be home soon. Just make sure that you don’t play this in front of Tommy and Shep, alright?

You nodded. “I promise.” You said with a smile.

Jared smile back. He kissed the top of your head and walked out. You watched him as he closed the door behind you. You sighed and looked at the camera in your computer, that you knew was still on. You waved at it.

“Sorry for that possible cut guys, I had to take care of something.” You said with a chuckle. “Anyway, thank you guys for watching me play. Hopefully I will play in the future.” You smiled lightly. “I will see y’all next time!”

With that, you turned off the camera.

#Two Worlds #One Family #Jared Padalecki #Chapter 11 #Reader #Slenderman #Indie Game #Supernatural #SPN #Supernatural Imagine #mamaimpala67

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scottidols · 7 years

Note

14, 15 Ur dumb

What? 1-60? Omg, thank you so much for doing this completely unprovoked!1) Put your iTunes on shuffle. Give me the first 6 songs that pop up.I don’t have iTunes so here’s from my Spotify:Fall Out Boy - Save Rock And RollWATERS - Ones You Had BeforeOf Monsters and Men - Love Love LoveMKTO - Just Imagine ItMarianas Trench - Truth Or DareHamilton - Cabinet Battle #22) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?Uuhh Jeff Probst? To get the survivor gig going3) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.It dropped the quiver on the altar.4) What do you think about most?Reality TV and Love. 5) Ever had a poem or song written about you?Not really, but kind of! A good fried commissioned to have a song written about our group and my name was in it! 6) Do you have any strange phobias?I don’t like eating/drinking after people, and I absolutely fucking hate armadillos.7) What’s your religion?Christianity, Non-denominational8) If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?Internally complaining about being outside9) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?AJR10) What was the last lie you told?I don’t remember, but it’s almost definitely something D&D related 11) Do you believe in karma?Eh. Kinda? Not like... “Karma” per se, but something along the lines for sure.12) What does your URL mean?I go by Scott, and “Idols” is just because I love Survivor.13) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?Laziness; Luck?14) Who is your celebrity crush?Uuhhh god, Tom Holland?15) How do you vent your anger?Writing16) Do you have a collection of anything?Half filled notebooks I guess?17) Are you happy with the person you’ve become?I’m working on it! :)18) What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?Oh, when I’d play that mancala game and the marbles would scratch that one way? Hate that. I love the sound of boys laughing- I know I’m super gay. 19) What’s your biggest “what if”?The only What if’s I have are self deprecating so I tend to ignore them- nothing but eyes on the future.20) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?Ehhhh... not really. I mean, anything’s possible, so I can’t rule them out, but if I go my entire life without ever seeing any sign of either of those things I won’t be surprised.21) Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.So despite other answers I’m actually outside right now, so... tree, and air.22) Smell the air. What do you smell?Dogs. 23) What’s the worst place you have ever been to?Oh! I got a sad one, so when I was like 3 or whatever my mom was deemed unfit to take care of me since she didn’t own a house and was just taking me from trailer to trailer before she’d get kicked out by a friend for her intense drinking and smoking. Anyways I was taken to a child services place that was really horrific as it was just like 50 children all crying because they miss their families and they didn’t have enough beds for all of us so I slept on the ground. 24) Most attractive singer/s of your opposite gender?Female singers? Zendaya is absolutely stunning. Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande too. Tbh all women are beautiful wtf is this question. 25) To you, what is the meaning of life?Just, do what makes you happy, and don’t be a dick to those around you.26) Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?Nope!27) What was the last movie you saw?I think it was The Greatest Showman (again). 28) What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?Nothing major really. One time I sprained my wrist when I was in like, 3rd grade?29) Do you have any obsessions right now?Always obsessed with Survivor and URealms, but I’ve also been rewatching Gravity Falls30) Ever had a rumor spread about you?Idk! Maybe!31) Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?Nope. I always try to find forgiveness. I can’t deal with being angry, it just makes me feel gross.32) What is your astrological sign?Leo!33) What’s the last thing you purchased?A large pizza and some stick-shaped foods!34) Love or lust?Love35) In a relationship?Yes!36) How many relationships have you had?Two37) What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?Charisma, and being able to love both yourself and those around you.38) Where is your best friend?Florida!39) What were you doing last night at 12 AM?Sleeping, the fuck?40) Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?Probably not dksksksksks41) You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?JOKES ON YOU! I work at a dog-place where we look after dogs and take care of them, soooooo, win-win!42) You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?A) I’m fucking telling everyone. Putting this shit up on YouTube. Let’s get it viral. B) Well if the video blows up use my new found fame to spread love and acceptance, if not I guess I’m blowing my money on traveling. C) Hard to say. I want to say no, though.43) What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?Set It Off - Upside Down44) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?Communication, Mutual Respect, Love.45) How can I win your heart?Be kind and courteous, and then also buy me a bunch of things for quicker results46) Can insanity bring on more creativity?I mean, I’m not gonna SUPPORT insanity.47) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?Getting super addicted to gameshows has honestly kinda opened a lot of doors for me and what’s allowed me to get to know a lot of great people.48) What would you want to be written on your tombstone?Whatever tbh, Imma be dead either way. 49) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “heart.”Love.50) Basic question; what’s your favorite color/colors?Gold...?51) What is your current desktop picture?Just a basic preset one from Microsoft.52) If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?No, definitely not.53) What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?I... don’t know? I’m faaaiiiirly open? Ask me anything!54) You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?Unrealistic, would never eat vegetables. But for the super power part, I always thought teleportation would be the best- travel costs? Irrelevant. Never late to anywhere ever again. 55) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?I don’t... want to say the no cut run. But... the no cut run.56) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?No thanks, I’ll keep ‘em.57) You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?/MUSIC/ Celebrity? God I don’t know, fucking, Brendan Urie? Is he gay? Idk.58) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?Uuhh California?59) Ever been on a plane?Yes, the first time was just earlier this year!60) Give me your top 5 hottest celebrities. Nyle DiMarco is the hottest person to ever live. Tom Holland, John Boyega, Lucky Blue Smith and Zach Miko are all hot too.

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romeo-being-extra · 7 years

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Hi!! So, I just found Romeo and I'm more than ready to Stan, but I wanted to know if you can give me a little more information and shows about them? If you can't is ok. Also, your blog is super funny! Have a nice day/night. 😌🌟💫

Absolutely! Welcome to our small and humble group of Juliets lol :) For more info about them, you can always watch that one meme filled intro video I made on my youtube (or scroll through the playlists i made for them), but for a more personal opinion on the member, click the “keep reading” down below ⬇⬇⬇

As for shows, check out their V live page, or watch their Idol x Idol episodes in YouTube - sweetjuliet8 has posted almost all their shows/livestreams. Also, if you check out my tumblr on desktop, I have a bunch of pages with a ton of info on each member, their social media, and other links for their videos with subs!Oh and thank you sm for liking my content haha 👌👌 it means a lot! Hope you have an amazing day💜

I feel like giving a personal opinion on each of the members may seem better than just, ‘his age is etc. his birthday is etc.’ I may exaggerate bc I get over excited n all haha but here’s a quick intro to the members!

Seunghwan: He’s the eldest as well as the leader. He’s truly the father of the group, but he likes to play around just as much as the youngest members.He’s a rapper, but his vocals are amazing, really. He appreciates his members a lot; more often than not you’ll see him grinning proudly when the other members are leading the conversation, and my heart melts every time.

Yunsung: He’s is a living, breathing, actual angel! His vocals are amazing and he’s also really sweet and kind. He also tries to be funny, but usually his jokes end with the the group groaning at the cringyness but he never lets that him get to him. I feel like the other members go to him a lot for advice or to talk about problems, he seems like he’d lend a shoulder for you to cry on in an instant. I don’t think I can ever roast him bc he’s Too Pure For This World™.

Milo: two words - adorable baby,, Really, he’s an adult but he looks like a child because he’s so short and soft and I just want to hug him ?? But don’t let his cute face fool you - he’s an amazing and talented dancer, and he spends a lot of time making his own choreography. He’s really out going and he’s wild af

Minsung: A true visual - seriously, his looks are stunning and he know it. I make fun of him a lot because he has a quirky personality, but he likes to tease the most, so I think my actions and roasts are justified. It doesn’t seem like it, but he seems shy or insecure sometimes? Maybe it’s just me, you know. He seems like someone who might have been a real loner despite his good looks. According to the members he’s a really interesting and he talks about the weirdest things. Sometimes I like to think he’s in love with Hyunkyung

Kyle: You have Yunsung, who’s an angel, and then you have Kyle, a hell-spawn. The fact that they’ve been best friends since high school still surprises me. Like Yunsung, Kyle’s voice is amazing af, and his crooked teeth are actually childishly cute and seeing him wearing large sweaters is adorable?? But of course, he’s a real tease - but I enjoy him roasting the other members. You have got to see that one time he managed to bury all of their dignity in the ground it was wild

Hyunkyung: I want to say emo tall dude, but he’s hot and sometimes very kind. He’s also a living meme. He seems really social despite having the looks of a shy person and he as well as Kangmin know a lot of people from other groups. He excessively uses Snow filters and likes to exercise but I’m mad bc he never posts gym selfies. The other members say he thinks deeply about life n all that, and I can totally agree with that. I feel like he’s really close to all te members and really comfortable with them.

Kangmin: I love him? But I hate him?? He’s cute and social and his dancing is on point - but he’s a total meme and he kisses up to the older members so they let him hang out with “the cool older kids™” more often. He loves taking selfies more than doing homework. He learned a lot of different dance styles and my fav so far was popping n I’m really hoping he and Milo do a really cool collab one day

#ahh this took a while to reply sorry it was late !!#asks #minminisamochi

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armyhealth9-blog · 5 years

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Anthony Colpo vs The Evil Duo (Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone & South Australia Police): Part 1

WARNING: This article contains words that rhyme with puck, skit, and even runt. If you don’t like strong language, then you should close this page immediately.

Ladies and gentleman, to my sheer astonishment, on 12 September 2017, I was arrested by members of South Australia’s largest street gang, South Australia Police (SAPOL). At first, the two arresting officers flatly refused to tell me exactly why I was being arrested. It was not until after I was handcuffed, had my ass repeatedly groped, carted off in a paddy wagon, and placed in a lock-up cell that I was finally told I’d been arrested based on allegations made by pathological liar Harley David Johnstone, of Beulah Park, South Australia.

Johnstone, bullshitter extraordinaire, told SAPOL that on 29 February 2016, I “jumped from the bushes” whilst he rode his bicycle and “sucker punched” him to the face. This sucker punch, Johnstone and SAPOL were alleging, not only cracked two of his teeth but caused $8,000-$9,000 damage to his bicycle. This version of events differed to the events already recorded by SAPOL after interviewing Johnstone and his ‘witness’, and it also differed to the events Johnstone described in YouTube videos he posted shortly after the alleged incident.

But as you’ll soon learn, there is nothing consistent, rational or honest about Johnstone and SAPOL.

Despite the fact I never hit Johnstone and caused no damage to his bicycle, SAPOL nevertheless proceeded to charge me with “assault and property damage.” Before I recount the bizarre events that ensued, and their outcome, I’d like to introduce to you the key players in this surreal saga.

Harley David Johnstone, a.k.a “Durianrider”. This evil waste of space claims to be a vegan, a former pro cyclist, and a tough guy. He audaciously poses as a diet and fitness expert, and aggressively markets himself as the epitome of all-round awesomeness.

In reality, he is a vile, ignorant, sickly, dishonest, cowardly, narcissistic and hate-filled sex predator.

Until 2011, I had little idea who Harley David Johnstone was. Unbeknownst to me, he was an obnoxious jerk who had already established a solid reputation as a virulent Internet troll. Johnstone’s modus operandi was to create ‘controversy’ by unceremoniously attacking other dietary and fitness commentators on the Internet. These attacks were invariably unprovoked, big on ridicule, and involved a battalion of defamatory lies about the victim. Johnstone justified his repugnant antics by claiming he was on a mission to rid the diet and health arena of “scammers”.

Never mind that he himself is the biggest, sleaziest and most obnoxious scammer in the entire diet and health arena.

Now, if you are going to accuse another health or fitness commentator of spreading mistruths or otherwise engaging in impropriety, you need evidence. If it is their dietary or health claims you are taking issue with, then you need to outline their claims and then present a thorough scientific breakdown of why they are wrong.

Johnstone, however, is a semi-literate bogan that has never read a single scientific paper in his life. His idea of a ‘scientific’ document is easily-debunked mass-market vegan propaganda like The China Study and Skinny Bitch. As such, Johnstone’s attacks on other diet and health commentators were solely of a personal nature, riddled with unfounded and extremely hypocritical accusations of dishonesty, poor physical condition and drug use.

Johnstone, of course, didn’t give two hoots about cleaning up the diet and health arena. Nor has he ever earnestly given a damn about other seemingly noble causes for which he claims sympathy, such as animal welfare or the environment. The primary goal of his behaviour was simply to draw attention to himself and his videos. This, in turn, increased his YouTube revenues and provided the insecure narcissist with the self-validating attention for which he so desperately craved.

Johnstone’s true agenda, in other words, was financial self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement. In pursuit of this dysfunctional agenda, one tactic routinely employed by Johnstone was to accuse his male targets – without any proof whatsoever - of using anabolic steroids. This, coming from someone who himself is a prolific and long-time user of anabolic steroids!

Johnstone: The idiot who attacks others for (allegedly) using steroids, while using them himself.

Incredibly, this hateful, talentless and monumentally hypocritical troll somehow established a sizeable following. Bless the perennially gullible human species and its penchant for worshipping useless, dishonest twats!

Thanks to his growing legion of moronic followers, Johnstone began earning sizable revenues from his monetized YouTube videos. This, of course, merely spurned the money-grubbing troll on to ever greater levels of defamatory nastiness.

“I’ll kick his ass, bro!”

And so it was in 2011 that the toxic troll known as Harley David Johnstone set his sights on yours truly. It was barely a day into 2012 when I received an email from a reader alerting me to a recent post on a cycling internet forum by some “psycho vegan.” This “psycho” was claiming he’d challenged me to go bike riding with him, but that I’d chickened out for fear of having my ass kicked. Of yours truly, our psycho vegan wrote:

“He still doesnt want to hit the local bergs with me cos he knows I will kick his a'ss and make a blog post about it lol!”[sic]

Not only was psycho vegan falsely claiming he’d challenged me to come riding and that I’d cowardly demurred, but he was also claiming I ate a “low-fat diet.”

Never mind that I consider the entire low-fat paradigm a total crock, and have publicly stated as much on numerous occasions. Heck, I even wrote a book outlining why the low-fat paradigm was a failed and dangerous sham.

I read the post in question and immediately wondered, “Who the hell is this wanker?”

It turns out that wanker was Harley David Johnstone, also known as Durianrider.

Needless to say, Johnstone had never challenged me to “hit the local bergs” with him. In an online reply to Johnstone’s hogwash, I told him that, if he really wanted to test my cycling prowess, I’d be more than happy to race him up his beloved Corkscrew Road. This is a winding <3km section of road in the Adelaide Hills that the demented Johnstone has repeatedly defiled with vegan graffiti.

But after announcing to the world he’d kick my ass, and incessantly bragging about what a magnificent cyclist he is, Johnstone suddenly caught stage-fright. History has since firmly established that Johnstone has never gone through with any of the challenges he’s made to the targets of his disaffection, and he certainly hasn’t met any of the counter-challenges they’ve made to him.

That’s because Johnstone is the quintessential Internet troll: An incurable little coward who is quick to mouth off about people online, but soils his panties at the thought of actually meeting them face-to-face.

While Johnstone clearly had no intention of standing behind his abundant bullshit, he started defaming me online every chance he got. Like a lot of belligerent Australians, Johnstone staunchly believed he had every right to mouth off about me, and that it was my duty to just sit there and obediently suffer in silence. This, as you’ll soon see, is also a cornerstone tenet of the notorious SAPOL.

Problem is, my concept of freedom of speech differs markedly to that of entities like Johnstone and SAPOL. In my worldview, freedom of speech operates on a two-way thoroughfare. If you are going to antagonize and make false and inappropriate comments and accusations about someone, then that someone is fully entitled to exercise their right of reply. You can’t swagger around like you’ve got the balls of a wild bull, lying and mouthing off to all and sundry, only to get your panties in a massive twist when the objects of your antagonism truthfully defend themselves.

But that is exactly what Johnstone and SAPOL do.

Unfortunately for Johnstone, and much to the chagrin of SAPOL, their self-entitled approach to freedom of speech is exceeded only by my dislike of liars, hypocrites and bullies, and my insistence on exercising my right of reply. As such, I refused to remain silent while Johnstone continued to issue an ever-increasing litany of lies about me.

I was even forced to hire a lawyer in 2014, after an especially bizarre episode in which Johnstone, using an alias, publicly claimed I’d purchased steroids from him. Johnstone further claimed, among other things, that I was obese, a scammer, that I claimed to be a scientist and that I wrote blog posts about not being able to gain muscular weight despite taking steroids (this, coming from an emaciated 65kg weakling who has injected more steroids than an IFBB bodybuilder)!

Really?

When was I obese, Johnstone? Who did I scam? When and where did I claim to be a scientist? Where are the blog posts in which I wrote about taking steroids?

And how the fuck could I have been a member of an Adelaide gym and purchased anabolic steroids from you there in 2005 when in fact I lived 900 kilometres away in Melbourne?

Johnstone, sleazy piece of pond scum that he is, knows full well I never was or did any of these things.

So I went to a lawyer, who sent Johnstone several takedown letters, and even arranged for a process server to corner him at a park in Queensland and personally serve him with a takedown notice. Johnstone, staunchly committed asshole that he is, refused to remove the offending material. At this point, the lawyer told me getting the material removed would mean going to court, arguing the matter before a judge, and hopefully getting a court order for the removal of the material.

Here in Australia, especially after the terribly sad death of Charlotte Dawson, our politicians and police commissioners have talked much tough talk about Internet trolls. Like so much of what these jokers mutter, it was all ultimately empty drivel. Here in Australia, unless someone explicitly issues a violent threat (and even then, the cops probably won’t give a shit), you’re pretty much on your own when it comes to battling Internet trolls. No matter how vile or damaging, getting defamatory material removed from the Internet in Australia is a ‘civil’, not criminal, matter. Meaning you have to pay for any removal attempts out of your own pocket.

Faced with the option of spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on legal action, the outcome of which is always an unknown, I grudgingly decided to give up the legal chase.

Johnstone thought he’d won, but his exploitation of Australia’s lax approach to Internet trolls would eventually come back to bite his bony ass.

You see, Johnstone is a true idiot who doesn’t comprehend the significance of the old maxim “two can play that game.”

Johnstone knows full well those who seek to have his defamatory bullshit removed from the Internet will need a lawyer, thanks to Australia’s “meh” approach to cyber bullies and the open-slather policies of sleazy companies like YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. He further knows that most of his victims can’t afford, or have no inclination to spend, the significant costs this would entail.

The problem for Johnstone is that his victims now know this too.

So when Johnstone accuses you of taking steroids, you simply go ahead and point out that it is in fact he who takes them. If he objects, just send him a link to this clip:

When he falsely calls you a scammer, you correctly point out that not only is he a scammer, he is also a pathological liar, a narcissist and a cunt.

When Johnstone maliciously accuses you or anyone else of sexual impropriety, you simply point out that it is he who forces himself upon young women:

If Johnstone wants to get such unflattering revelations removed from the Internet, he too will need to go to a lawyer and spend thousands of dollars.

But he will also be faced with an additional obstacle.

You see, while all the things Johnstone accuses others of are invariably bullshit, the things he has been accused of are true. So even if Johnstone were to cough up the funds for a lawyer, and that lawyer wrote you a nasty letter telling you to remove the ‘offending’ material, you could simply write back to the lawyer and tell both him and Johnstone to go fuck themselves.

Because it’s hard to argue something is defamation when it’s true.

And the truth is Johnstone is a scammer and a liar. He is a sexual predator. He is a prolific user of anabolic steroids. He is a sleazeball who falsely accused others of child porn and paedophilia, when it was in fact he that admitted he’d love to “fuck” an underage girl.

The evil maggot was also recently the subject of rape allegations, something we’ll explore in more detail in Part II.

Johnstone is a pathological liar who makes false allegations to the police in order to extract revenge on his non-compliant targets. As you’ll learn in Part II, the slimy little bastard even lied under oath in court.

Johnstone is a narcissist – his behaviour more than meets the criteria for pathological narcissism.

And, given the definition of “cunt” as a “mean or obnoxious person” … Johnstone is unquestionably a cunt.

If Johnstone wants to legally challenge you when you write this of him, he not only needs to engage a lawyer, he needs to prove the aforementioned facts are not true.

Good luck with that, Johnstone.

It was this realization that empowered me to pull the cyber gloves off and go to town on Johnstone. I might not have been willing to part with the $$$ required to nail the bastard in court, but there was nothing to stop me from going online and enlightening the world as to just what an evil, malevolent, dishonest scumbag the guy really was. This realization gave birth to the following exposes, which people all around the world have since thanked me for posting. And, boy, have some of those people shared some interesting revelations about Johnstone!

http://anthonycolpo.com/the-ugly-truth-about-harley-durianrider-johnstone/

http://anthonycolpo.com/six-reasons-why-harley-durianrider-johnstone-is-an-evil-worthless-prick/

Be sure to continue spreading those articles far and wide folks, because it is extremely important that people know the truth about the highly manipulative and evil Johnstone.

By the time I posted those articles, Johnstone’s attention-seeking, money-grubbing hate campaign was out of control. The bastard was like a runaway train - no-one was beyond the reach of his puerile antics.

Not even victims of cancer or domestic violence.

Harley the Scum of Scum, Case Study 1: Jennifer Faulisi

At only 33 years of age, American girl Jennifer Faulisi found herself diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer - the same disease that had already killed her mother. Jen had not had an easy life (she told the story of her troubled, dysfunctional upbringing here), and now she found herself on death’s doorstep.

Conventional oncology offered little hope, so Jen began looking into ‘alternative’ treatments. She learned of a cancer clinic in Mexico that sounded promising, but simply could not afford the clinic’s fees.

Jen then came up with a potentially life-saving idea – a GoFundMe campaign. She appealed to the “generosity” of the vegan community to help her raise funds for what she believed was her only hope: Gerson-style cancer therapy at the specialized Mexican clinic.

And initially, that generosity was forthcoming. Jen did manage to raise enough money to get to Mexico and begin treatment, where her condition began to improve.

Unfortunately, the vegan community also harboured other traits: Stupidity, malice and gullibility. So much so, that when an evil maggot by the name of Harley Johnstone came along and – incredibly – started publicly deriding Jen as a “scammer”, people actually believed him. Despite the fact Jen was indeed a genuine cancer patient, and despite video confirmation from her US physician, and despite the pleas of Jen’s stunned support team, people instead chose to believe some feral, sleazy, lying asshole from South Australia.

As a result, Jen’s funding dried up. She ran out of money and had to leave her treatment in Mexico, where her tumour had shrunk.

She died not long after, on April 4, 2016.

To add insult to injury, after Johnstone began making his patently false and malicious accusations against Jen, she found herself on the receiving end of an abundance of Internet hate.

Jennifer Faulisi – a genuine and very unfortunate cancer victim - went to her grave labelled a “scammer”, thanks to Harley Johnstone and all the fucking morons who looked up to him.

It’s been over a year since I first learned of Jen’s plight, but her story still makes my eyes water. How can people be so FUCKING STUPID AND EVIL?

Harley the Scum of Scum, Case Study 2: Ashlee Savins

In December 2015, 19-year-old Ashlee Savins was viciously beaten and bloodied by her 21 year-old coño of a partner, Justin Toro. The incident drew media attention when it was revealed that after the beating was promptly reported to NSW police, they did nothing.

“Sorry, we can't press charges without substantial evidence,” NSW's 'finest' told Ashlee. Apparently, being covered in blood, sporting a broken nose and a chipped front tooth wasn't substantial enough for NSW police. Nor were the messages from Toro in which he begged Ashlee not to tell anyone what he'd done, and blamed her for not letting him "vent":

"Ashlee please don't tell anyone I can't get done for this I'll lose everything," wrote Toro in a private message on Facebook.

"You have no one to blame but yourself," Ashlee replied.

"ok ashlee. do i acept [sic] you feel you didn't contribute to this in any way? maybe not allowing me to vent [sic]," replied Toro.

Hey Toro: If you want to “vent”, hit a fucking punching bag – not your partner’s face!

It was not until militant feminist Clementine Ford posted details of the case to her 94,000 Facebook followers, triggering a barrage of complaints of police inaction, that the cops suddenly developed an interest. Toro was subsequently served with an Apprehended Violence Order, and Ashlee was called in to the St Marys cop shop to give another statement.

So what does this horrible and infuriating episode have to do with Johnstone?

Everything.

You see, when the Doucherider read about Ashlee’s plight, he just had to chime in with his ten cents' worth. However, Johnstone’s contribution was not to chide the repugnant Toro.

Nope - it was to taunt and ridicule Ashlee!

No, I’m not kidding. Here, see for yourself:

Victim-blaming on steroids: This is what Harley Johnstone thinks of domestic violence victims.

Yep: According to Johnstone, the assault was “100% her fault!” Ashlee’s culpability, according to Johnstone, was due to her allegedly staying with Toro after he had previously assaulted her. This, Johnstone loudly proclaimed on Facebook and YouTube, made her a “dumb bitch” and “fucking doormat loser”.

Why was Johnstone so quick to come to the defense of someone who beats their partner? Because the scumbag beats his own partners. He has openly admitted to hitting his former partner Leanne “Freelee” Ratcliffe, and I have it on good authority he violently abused his previous partner.

Suffice to say, Johnstone is a truly horrible human being. It also goes without saying that Johnstone’s evil nature and his hateful behaviour are no secret. Anyone who Googles the asshole’s name will learn within 5 minutes just what kind of a truly malevolent, evil turd he really is.

So just what kind of a morally and ethically bankrupt law enforcement agency would ever team up with such a disgusting creature, in order to prosecute and harass someone they resented?

South Australia Police, that’s who.

Meet South Australia Police (SAPOL)

Boy oh boy. To fully capture SAPOL’s rampant malfeasance would literally take years, so I’ll try and make this as brief as possible.

South Australia, like numerous other Australian states, has introduced "anti-association" laws aimed at stamping out organizations with a penchant for criminal activity. The primary purported targets of these laws are Australia's outlaw motorcycle gangs or, in Australian lingo, "the bikies."

Now, I'm not here to defend the bikies: I think we all know what they get up to.

To believe the bikies and their hired PR guns, they're just a bunch of largely harmless good ol' boys who love getting together and riding motorbikes.

To believe the cops, bikies are all heinous, vicious thugs involved in drug manufacture and trafficking, prostitution and extortion.

The truth is many bikies are indeed involved in these activities - but not all. Some guys really do join biker gangs primarily for the sense of comraderie and the buzz that comes from riding down a highway surrounded by a hundred other thumping V-twins.

But even if you join a biker gang for seemingly benign reasons, you'll still need the ability to turn a blind eye to criminal activities. Because many of your new brothers-in-arms will be actively involved in illicit endeavours and they'll be using the intimidatory power of the gang to facilitate those endeavours.

Ever since they were first proposed, anti-association laws have been the subject of endless controversy. I fully agree they are problematic, but not for the usually cited reasons. My issue with anti-association laws is this:

They're not being applied equally across the board.

You see, under these laws, gang members are forbidden from wearing their 'colours' in public. And it is illegal for two or more identified members of these gangs to associate with each other in public. If they do, they can be arrested.

Trouble is, there is a gang roaming the streets of South Australia engaged in a wide range of criminal activities, yet it remains immune to prosecution. Not only does this gang boldly wear its ‘colours’ in public, but several years ago it flippantly changed them from blue to a more menacing paramilitary-style black. The message was clear:

“DON’T MESS WITH US.”

Members of this gang routinely swagger around in pairs and sometimes in large groups, in full public view. If you join this gang, you will quickly realize an ability to turn a blind eye to unethical and downright illegal behaviour is essential for continued membership.

Members of this gang have long engaged – and continue to engage - in all manner of illegal activity, everything from petty theft...

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-09-07/news/1991250019_1_adelaide-police-australia-corruption

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-08/sa-police-charged-after-corruption-probe-may-face-more-charges/6377294

...and hoon driving...

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/police-officer-matthew-lumsben-in-court-over-2017-crash-with-teenage-motorcyclist/news-story/b1ccc6e4c505a462372a3a494ef9d30f

...to assault and rape...

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/police-officer-charged-with-rape/news-story/2e675e4161d437f2d75bb89da59b358e

...and drug trafficking:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/disgraced-drug-cop-dead-at-65/news-story/d11ef74f1f8b6cf67b3a5531f4a332d0

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-26/former-police-officer-jailed-for-trafficking-methamphetamine/9700304

And as folks like Brian Stanton and Mick Skrijel can attest, if you ever come forward with information about this gang’s longstanding involvement in the illicit drug trade, you can fully expect its members to make your life hell:

https://www.wattpad.com/10875719-hell-in-australia-the-mick-skrijel-story/page/7

https://www.todaytonightadelaide.com.au/stories/police-problem-part-1

https://www.todaytonightadelaide.com.au/stories/police-problems-part-2

I’m talking of course, about South Australia Police.

South Australia Police, or SAPOL as it likes to call itself, masquerades as a law-enforcement agency, when in reality it is little more than a taxpayer-funded street gang. If you think I’m exercising a wee bit too much artistic license when making such a statement, then I strongly suggest you read on. Keep in mind what follows barely scratches the surface in terms of SAPOL’s malfeasance.

Luckily for SAPOL, Australia is not a true democracy – it is a two-party autocracy. And luckily for SAPOL, everyone is not equal before the eyes of the law - some entities enjoy special treatment.

If Australia was a true democracy, and if all Australians truly were equal before the law, then SAPOL would find itself in a real pickle. That’s because the organization’s routine involvement in illicit activities and its penchant for strutting around wearing unifying ‘colours’ would see it tagged as an outlaw gang.

As such, SAPOL officers would routinely find themselves the subject of citizens' arrests every time two or more of them congregated in public.

The [Misogynistic] Men in Black

To give you a further idea of the true calibre of South Australia’s police, in 2016 the Equal Opportunity Commission released a report titled Sex Discrimination, Sexual Harassment and Predatory Behaviour in the South Australian Police Force. The title pretty much says it all. The EOC found there was a toxic "boys' club" culture within the force. When compiling its report, the commission heard from around 2,000 respondents - about 30 per cent of SAPOL. Of those respondents, 61 per cent perceived sexual harassment and predatory behaviour occurred in the organisation, 36 per cent had personally experienced sexual harassment and 45 per cent of respondents had personally experienced sex discrimination. The report found discriminatory and harassing behaviour was seen as being "acceptable and normalised".

A few months ago, I spoke with someone who for several years worked in one of SAPOL’s administrative departments. This person confirmed to me that SAPOL is, to put it politely, “a male dominated culture.” In less polite terms, working at SAPOL meant enduring hordes of inappropriate sexist comments from predominantly Caucasian buffoons who carried on like they were still trapped in the 1970s. While working at SAPOL, this person also experienced the ignominy of racist remarks about her ethnic group (the predominantly Anglo SAPOL would do well to remember that most people who commit crimes in South Australia are of Anglo descent).

So what sort of sexist stupidity do the lads at SAPOL get up to? Well, in 2016, a female officer filed action with the SA Employment Tribunal alleging she was sexually harassed while working with the SAPOL “boys club”. She says the lads at SAPOL sent her explicit text messages, ranked her attractiveness, and drew genitalia in her hat. The officer told the Industrial Court her male colleagues touched her and sent her crude messages while she was working, including one about a “gluten-free penis.”

The EOC found the reported incidence of predatory behaviour (i.e. the misuse of authority or influence to exploit others for sexual or other personal gratification) in SAPOL was 21 per cent higher than the general population figure (49 per cent vs 28 per cent).

Stop, for a moment, and let those shocking figures fully sink in. SAPOL personnel – the people entrusted to uphold law and order in South Australia - are more likely to be sexual predators than the average person! This, in a country whose rate of sexual assault is already a total disgrace (Australia has one of the world’s highest rates of rape. Having endured considerable racist abuse by those of Anglo descent during my lifetime, I also feel compelled to note the so-called “wog” countries like Greece, Italy and Spain experience only a fraction of the rape incidence that Anglo countries such as Australia, USA and UK do).

Source: European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control. International Statistics on Crime and Justice. HEUNI Publication Series No. 64: 25. Available online: https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Crime-statistics/International_Statistics_on_Crime_and_Justice.pdf

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rape-rate

The types of sexual harassment reported of SAPOL ranged from inappropriate sexual comments and jokes to criminal acts such as sexual assault and rape. Sexual harassment was experienced across all levels of the organisation, with targets more likely to be women (not surprisingly). Of the perpetrators, 81 percent were men. While more sworn employees indicated having experienced sexual harassment across their lifetime employment at SAPOL, more administrative and specialist support staff reported being subjected to this behaviour in the previous five years. Reported impacts ranged from feeling uncomfortable to having thoughts of suicide.

The findings were so damning, SAPOL Commissioner Grant Stevens said he accepted all of the Commission report's recommendations: "Sadly what this review tells us, is there is an unacceptable level of sexual harassment and discrimination and predatory behaviour within South Australia Police and this means we have to do some work to change our culture."

The significance of this admission cannot be downplayed, because SAPOL’s usual response is to lie, deny and aggressively cover-up allegations of misconduct. So when SAPOL actually admits it has a problem with sexual harassment, you better believe it’s serious.

Racism is also clearly a problem at SAPOL, especially towards Indigenous Australians. In 2015 it was revealed a SAPOL constable questioning an Aboriginal man called him a “black cunt”, before saying he would like to tie a hose around his neck, set him on fire and drag him behind the police car “with the lights and sirens on”.

As both the acting SA ombudsman, Michael Grant, and his predecessor, Sarah Bolt, noted, the unnamed constable was “entirely unsuitable to continue as a member of the police force”.

“I am currently dealing with another complaint from Aboriginal people about the conduct of the same officer, which occurred only a few weeks after the abuse of the Aboriginal man in this case,” Grant said.

So what happened to this repugnant racist officer?

Pretty much nothing.

He was ordered to undergo "cultural awareness training as part of six-week disciplinary action at the police academy". No other penalty was imposed:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/29/police-abuse-of-aboriginal-man-shows-racism-still-rife-says-warren-mundine

I can only imagine what would happen if an Indigenous Australian got in the face of a SAPOL officer and called him a “white cunt”, or if someone of Mediterranean descent told a SAPOL cop he was a “skip cunt” who deserved to have a hose placed round his neck, set on fire and dragged behind a car with the horn loudly blaring.

Something tells me they’d be forced to endure a lot more than a token six-week “cultural awareness” course!

As the old adage goes: One set of laws for them, another for us.

SAPOL’s Outrageous Hypocrisy

SAPOL presides over the most draconian and predatory traffic fine system in the nation, gleefully causing untold financial hardship upon thousands of law-abiding South Australians. In order to justify this vulture-like behaviour, SAPOL repeatedly cites the disingenuous excuse that it improves road safety.

If SAPOL is truly so concerned about road safety, why does it look the other way while its officers routinely break every law in the state’s road statutes? Instead of punishing these officers, why does SAPOL instead use intelligence-insulting excuses to cover for their law-breaking?

Here are some examples of SAPOL’s nonchalant disregard for road rules:

That photo was taken on 16 June 2018, and show a SAPOL car illegally parked on the footpath. This was outside a police complex on the appropriately named Bent Street. I’m told by others who work in the area that this is a routine occurrence. Those photos were taken just over a week before I was to stand trial on false assault and property damage allegations – an infuriating reminder that while SAPOL were free to persecute me on vexatious grounds, they themselves routinely get to break the law as they please.

And check out this pearler:

That photo was taken only a few days ago, on 22 September 2018. The location was a busy shopping strip in the Adelaide suburb of Norwood known as The Parade. It shows a SAPOL vehicle illegally parked in a bus zone. As any semi-conscious person with an Australian driver’s license can tell you, this is a big no-no.

When the law-breaking SAPOL officer returned to his illegally parked vehicle, the person who took this photo approached him for a little Q&A. She politely quizzed him about his unlawful parking etiquette, but received a rather impolite response. This is what transpired:

“I asked him how much I would get fined for parking in a bus zone. He did not answer my question but got all defensive and tried to say that he was attending an emergency at the rear of the building. That is bullshit because that would have been the rear of our shop. When I pointed out that there was more appropriate legal parking available he got all shitty and left.”

This illegal act occurred on a sunny Saturday afternoon - a time when the popular Parade is at its busiest. In other words, SAPOL cops are so cavalier, so convinced of their own exceptional status, they will illegally park in the middle of a busy shopping precinct. And they are so hypocritical and self-entitled that when you rightfully question them about it, they promptly get in a huff.

According to section 183(1) of the SA Road Traffic (Miscellaneous) Regulations 2014, the "expiation" penalty for stopping in a bus zone is $130 (see p. 25 of this pdf: https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/lz/c/r/road%20traffic%20(miscellaneous)%20regulations%202014/current/2014.206.auth.pdf).

And according to section 197(1), the penalty for "Stopping on path, dividing strip or nature strip" is $97 (see p. 26).

A so-called "Victims of Crime" levy of $60 also applies to South Australian traffic fines (http://www.mylicence.sa.gov.au/road-rules/offences-and-penalties#summaryofoffences).

So if Australia was a true democracy, in which everyone was truly equal in the eyes of the law, South Australian citizens could approach wayward police officers like those above, and issue them with fines ranging between $157 and $190. But alas, Australia is in reality a two-party autocracy in which police can routinely break the law with impunity.

One set of laws for them, another for us.

In the above instances, the illegally parked SAPOL vehicles were stationary, limiting the amount of physical harm their law-breaking drivers could cause. When SAPOL officers get behind the wheel of a vehicle and actually start driving it, it’s best to keep your distance. Because here’s what can happen:

All indications are that the two SAPOL officers indulged in a spot of hoon-driving in quiet suburban back streets at night, when they figured they’d be safe from prying eyes. Unfortunately, things went a wee bit awry and they found themselves upside down in a wrecked police car. If you or I did something this stupid, we’d be in a lot of trouble. But the officers needn’t have worried: As always, SAPOL quickly contrived an intelligence-insulting excuse, this time claiming the officers were travelling under the speed limit of 50 km/h. As one of the residents who helped pull the cops from the crashed car stated, "I think they were doing a little bit quicker than that!"

SAPOL’s unlikely explanation immediately begs the question: How on Earth do you rollover a car when travelling at less than 50 km/h?

Either SAPOL wasn’t being straight with us, or the officer behind the wheel was an incredibly bad driver.

If I had to put money on it, I’d bet both.

And here’s another fine example of SAPOL driving:

Yep, in less than sixty seconds, this reckless SAPOL officer breaks no fewer than ten road rules. He speeds, meanders all over the road, crosses solid lines and overtakes on a traffic island, drives in the bicycle lane, and generally behaves like an all-round hoon. All that’s missing is a big fat, tyre-squealing, smoking burnout.

All this, mind you, in front of a learner driver. What a way to set an example!

SAPOL vs the Truth

To give you some idea of just how dishonest – not to mention thuggish - SAPOL is, let’s start by watching the following clip:

What you just saw in that clip is unmistakable: Two SAPOL officers standing over two unarmed homeless men, with the male officer – Matthew Shwarz – bashing them with his baton. The full Channel 7 footage of the incident, along with comments from witnesses, can be viewed here:

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/charges-against-homeless-men-of-assaulting-police-dropped-magistrate-finds-officers-used-unnecessary-force/news-story/ab6aa97fbfe3fbfd505062afcf452653

In the above video, we see an enraged Shwarz beating the men with his baton; he also later admitted striking the men with his elbows and fists.

As a magistrate later confirmed, the men had done nothing wrong. Shwarz simply became angry when the men refused to talk with him - as was their legal right - and he became violent. I can hardly blame the men for not wanting to engage with Shwarz, because experience has taught me that when a SAPOL officer approaches, it means one thing and one thing only:

I’m about to get fucked over.

I’m about to receive a harsh fine, summons, or even get arrested, for something I simply did not do.

The homeless men, no doubt, were also very wary of SAPOL. Due to their limited financial resources and their “eyesore” status, homeless people constitute especially easy prey for domineering cops.

If anyone else launched a vicious assault on two innocent homeless men in full view of bystanders and a TV crew, they’d earn themselves a guaranteed – and well-deserved - ticket to jail.

But guess who got arrested in the above incident? That’s right: The innocent homeless men who got viciously beaten by Shwarz! Instead of arresting Shwarz, his SAPOL buddies helped him arrest the two battered and bruised men.

SAPOL prosecutors also knew full well what really happened, but instead of dropping the charges against the homeless men and charging Shwarz, they did the exact opposite. They threw their full support behind Shwarz and forced the homeless men to stand trial.

On 29 May 2014, Magistrate Stefan Metanomski dismissed all charges against both homeless men. The magistrate found the police had “exceeded their authority” when dealing with the men.

Magistrate Metanomski found Shwarz acted unlawfully by continuing to pursue the men after they made it clear they did not wish to speak with police. He noted the officer did not reasonably suspect the men of any crime and therefore had no authority to follow them.

Now here’s the real cracker: Along with exonerating the homeless men, Magistrate Metanomski said he found Schwarz’s version of events to be inaccurate and unreliable, finding there was a real possibility the officer was embellishing his story (in plain English: lying) to justify his actions. Even though the incident was caught on camera and widely broadcast, Shwarz still tried to “embellish” his version of events. And as he did so, SAPOL stood loyally behind him.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how deeply ingrained the dishonesty is at SAPOL. Even when they are caught red-handed on camera viciously beating defenceless people, and even when their thuggish antics are broadcast on the evening news, they still try to lie about what happened!

While this saga was still playing out, it was revealed a second complaint of aggressive misconduct had been made against Shwarz. This time, a teenage P-Plate driver complained the belligerent officer had thumped on her car window and threatened her.

Despite his unprovoked violence and dishonesty, SAPOL did not terminate or even suspend Shwarz's employment. The Police Ombudsman called for the Shwarz’s police ID to be revoked in the interests of public safety but Commissioner Grant Stevens - who solemnly pronounced SAPOL "must show we are committed to preventing inappropriate behaviour, supporting victims and investigating complaints and taking action as appropriate" - refused.

So much for fighting inappropriate SAPOL behaviour and supporting victims! The reality is SAPOL endeavours to cover up as much of its malfeasance as possible, instead arresting, prosecuting and harassing its victims.

The Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to bring criminal charges against Shwarz because he was in a "fragile and suicidal state of mind."

This then begs the obvious question: Why the heck is a mentally disturbed SAPOL officer who claims to be “fragile and suicidal” allowed to continue carrying a gun and other weapons while circulating among the general public … ?!?

Because SAPOL has a gang mentality, pure and simple. Like most outlaw gangs, its primary allegiance is to itself, not the public. When your comrades do something wrong, the gang’s ‘brotherhood’ mentality dictates you help them cover it up. This isn’t necessarily because you like them – I have it on good authority a lot of SAPOL cops can’t stand each other (I’m also told the overwhelming majority hate their job, a contention supported by the brief average career span for SAPOL cops - a mere 7 years).

Nope, you cover up for your miscreant workmates because:

One day you may need them to cover up for you, and;

If you don’t, you will very likely be ostracized and harassed by other officers and your ‘superiors’.

SAPOL’s secondary allegiance is to the South Australian government, upon which it relies for funding.

As for the public? Sorry folks, but you come a distant third. SAPOL officers frequently believe themselves to be above the law, and have little patience for those who refuse to treat them with the God-like respect they believe they are entitled to. You may rightfully believe that if you aren’t hurting anybody you should be free to go about your business unaccosted, but SAPOL doesn’t see it that way. When it comes to interacting with the public, the old maxim “treat others as you wish them to treat you” doesn’t carry much weight at SAPOL. As we saw with Matthew Shwarz, this obnoxious disdain for mutual respect and civil liberty can have violent consequences.

Another lucid example of SAPOL’s pervasive “put up and shut up” attitude towards the public is the behaviour of traffic cop Constable Norman Hoy. In 2015, the Advertiser revealed Hoy had been the subject of eleven Police Complaints Authority complaints (it should also be noted that SAPOL diligently tried to prevent the Advertiser from revealing this fact). According to a damning Police Complaints Authority report, "Hoy was a threatening, harsh, unfair, arrogant and rude bully whose insulting, unprofessional behaviour breached regulations."

SAPOL constable Norman Hoy: A "threatening, harsh, unfair, arrogant and rude bully".

In 2010, Hoy pulled over successful Adelaide businessman Yasser Shahin, who at the time was driving a Rolls Royce. Now, despite what some people think, being a person of Mediterranean/Middle-Eastern appearance and driving a nice car is not a crime. Indeed, at the time of being pulled over Shahin had done nothing wrong - he was driving along with his mum, wife and son, minding his own damn business.

So why did Hoy pull him over?

Because – wait for it – the factory-fitted windows on his Roller were allegedly too dark!

For chrissakes … who cares?!?

How the hell did that negatively affect Hoy or any other person on the planet?

Welcome to the Nanny States of Australia, folks, where governments and police fully believe they have the right to micromanage every last aspect of your lives!

The audio recording of the exchange between Hoy and Shahin can be found here:

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-court-jury-finds-police-constable-norman-hoy-not-guilty-of-assaulting-yasser-shahin/news-story/e778f1d1ff4b93c6556a55be6b368092

As you listen to the recording, it quickly becomes apparent why the PCA labelled Hoy an "unprofessional bully who was rude, arrogant and harsh to drivers." His manner and behaviour towards Shahin are truly disgraceful.

At the start of the audio, after sighting Shahin’s Rolls Royce, Hoy can be heard gleefully remarking: “I wonder who’s in that … aaaah, that looks a bit dark! Pull him over and defect the mother...”

Hoy and his sidekick Constable Alexander Wasley (who had only been on the job a week) proceed to sound their siren and pull the so-called “mother” over. When Shahin asks Hoy why he has been stopped - a perfectly reasonable question - Hoy refuses to tell him (the exact same thing happened to me when I was arrested). Instead of telling Shahin why he has unceremoniously barged into his day, Hoy immediately becomes hostile, again demanding Shahin’s license and snidely telling him, “You don’t get to dictate … when I stop you, okay?”

Things quickly go downhill from there. Hoy, it turns out, is hellbent on slapping a defect sticker on the Rolls Royce, using the excuse its window tinting is too dark. Hoy, who wears glasses (indicating he suffers some degree of visual impairment), claims he couldn’t see who was in the car. We know that’s a lie, because upon sighting Shahin’s car, Hoy’s own audio recording captures him correctly identifying Shahin as a male.

And just why Hoy needed to see who was in the car, he never explains.

“Yeah, it looks too dark,” claims Hoy of one of the Roller’s windows. When Shahin informs him the windows have not been tinted, an indifferent Hoy simply mutters, “okay.”

“Fourteen percent, it’s gotta have 35 percent, I’ll be defecting your vehicle,” Hoy declares to Shahin, who by this point is no doubt wondering how his day could so suddenly turn to shit.

Hoy then demands the keys to Shahin’s car. The businessman, understandably apprehensive about handing the keys to his pride and joy to a belligerent stranger, questions this directive. Hoy then announces he will remove the keys. Shahin instead tries to remove his keys from his car, only to have the heavy-handed Hoy physically accost him. Hoy starts man-handling and shoving Shahin who, it should once again be emphasized, had done absolutely nothing wrong. He didn’t need to, of course, because Hoy is an "unprofessional bully who was rude, arrogant and harsh to drivers."

As it turns out, pulling over luxury car drivers using the tinted window ruse was apparently a Hoy favourite. Another complaint, in 2008, also arose from Hoy pulling over and defecting a luxury car because its front passenger window tint was allegedly too dark. In a sequence of events similar to those involving Shahin, Hoy told the driver to “shut your mouth” and “don’t have a hissy fit”.

Welcome to South Australia, folks, where one moment you can be innocently minding your own business doing absolutely nothing wrong, and the next have some obnoxious SAPOL cop all over you like a rash.

What a truly disgraceful state of affairs.

If I was to swagger around talking to people the way Hoy and his ilk do, I’d be getting into a hell of a lot of fights. People don’t generally like being treated like shit. But SAPOL officers routinely prey on the public and treat them like garbage, then earnestly wonder why people treat them with suspicion and disdain.

Hello?

Incredibly, despite the incriminating nature of the above tape, Hoy was acquitted of assaulting Shahin.

Maybe this was due to the fact that Hoy is an Anglo-Saxon while Shahin is of Lebanese descent. All bullshit niceties aside, there still remains a lot of racism here in Australia towards those of Mediterranean and especially Middle-Eastern descent.

Or maybe it was because bully-boy Hoy - a grown 59 year-old man who tells others not to have hissy fits – constantly cried and snivelled in court. Not a very becoming display for someone who has no qualms about acting like Mister Mucho Macho when armed with a gun and a badge. Maybe Hoy’s waterworks tugged on the heartstrings of the jury, sufficiently softening them up for a not guilty verdict?

Who knows, but it does bring me to another observation I’ve made of SAPOL and its officers:

Like many bullies, they are notoriously thin-skinned.

SAPOL is quick to harass others, to accuse them of things they didn’t do. The callous, heartless and often violent outfit is more than happy to prosecute, harass and even assault innocent people. SAPOL has no qualms about causing innocent people untold financial hardship and driving them to a nervous breakdown.

But when they are put in the hot seat, it’s a totally different story. For an organization that sees fit to cruelly drive innocent people to the brink, SAPOL sure has an extremely low tolerance for criticism.

That’s because, like any totalitarian outfit, the thing SAPOL fears and hates most is a challenge to what it perceives as its supreme authority.

So What the Heck is SAPOL Really About?

While disingenuously masquerading as a protector of the public, SAPOL’s true mission is in reality dominated by the following agendas:

Revenue-raising for the South Australian government. The big earner here is traffic and speed camera fines, which earn the SA government hundreds of millions of dollars each year. I must tip my hat off to Channel 7’s Today Tonight, who exposed internal SAPOL communications showing SA’s fine system is indeed a revenue-raising rort. Officers who don’t meet their fine quotas (a.k.a. “benchmarks”) are even vigorously berated for their lack of team spirit!

This repugnant racket really got out of control under the former and staggeringly corrupt Labor government, who fell hopelessly in love with the idea that its financial ineptitude could be at least partly offset by SAPOL’s revenue-raising capabilities. Despite its appalling performance, and repeated controversy, Labor enjoyed an uninterrupted 16-year term of rampant taxpayer-funded debauchery and malfeasance. Why South Australians repeatedly voted these rortmeisters into power for four consecutive terms remains a mystery to me; I can only assume it has something to do with the pathological fear of change that seems to pervade the state.

South Australia is hardly the only state to extort hundreds of millions of dollars per year from law-abiding citizens under the cynical guise of ‘road safety’, but it does have the nation’s most punitive traffic fine system. The state’s exceedingly harsh fine racket has been publicly dubbed the most unfair in the nation.

SAPOL incessantly claims this draconian approach to speed enforcement is saving lives, but when you ask for them for proof of this, they have none. SAPOL knows full well that speed is a “factor” in only a minority of motor vehicle accidents. If you’ve ever driven on Australian roads and marvelled at the incredibly bad driving on display, chances are you’ll know the real reason Australia has a far higher road fatality rate than countries like the UK and Spain: Australian drivers are routinely discourteous, aggressive, impatient, easily-distracted and often affected by alcohol and drugs. In a continent that already drinks too much, South Australia has the dubious honour of having the highest drink driving rate.

The major road safety problems here are not 'speeding' but factors such as the Aussie penchant for excessive drinking and smoking/snorting/injecting/swallowing toxic shit on a regular basis, not to mention texting friends while commandeering a 1,500kg missile (and more – I’ve seen semi-trailer drivers using mobile phones. IDIOTS.)

Even the cops here are terrible drivers, as we’ve already witnessed.

What our revenue-raising police and governments will never tell you is that the decades-long reduction in the road toll slowed after the introduction of speed cameras. Take a look at the following table, bearing in mind that most Australian states began using speed cameras between the years 1988-1991 (WA = 1988, VIC = 1989, SA = 1990, NSW = 1991).

Sources: Road Deaths Australia, 2008 Statistical Summary, Road Deaths Australia, 2011 Statistical Summary.

During the sixteen-year period spanning 1975 to 1991, the Australian road toll declined by a hefty 54%. Over the subsequent sixteen years, from 1992-2008, the road toll declined by 45%.

It gets worse.

In recent years, despite increasing speed camera revenues, the road toll has stopped declining and begun rising again. This trend got off to an especially early start in South Australia, in 2012:

https://www.police.sa.gov.au/about-us/traffic-statistics

The likely reason is the increased use of electronic devices by stupid reckless twats who should instead be keeping their eyes on the road. Despite this alarming development, and despite the fact SAPOL is fully aware of all the above facts, it remains doggedly committed to its draconian speed-centric revenue-raising racket.

Why?

Because that’s where the money is.

If militant speed enforcement really was effective in reducing the road toll, then South Australia would by far enjoy the lowest per capita rate of road fatalities. But as of March 2018 - after 28 years of the rabid speeding fine racket - South Australia’s road toll is still above the national average (see page 15 of https://www.aaa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AAA-Benchmarking-Report_Q2-2018.pdf)

So tell me again how draconian speed enforcement and outrageous traffic fines save lives?

I will repeat: Australia’s speed enforcement system does not save lives. It is purely a money-grubbing scam, nowhere more so than in South Australia.

Furthermore, there is a wealth of evidence from around the world showing relaxed enforcement of speeding on highways brings reductions in road fatalities:

http://speedcamerascam.com/2017/02/02/rip-off-fines-rising-road-tolls-rubbish-research-why-the-australian-obsession-with-speeding-enforcement-is-a-sick-joke/

This includes Australia’s own Northern Territory, where the removal of speed limits on outback roads has brought welcome reductions in the road toll.

Given that SAPOL knows full well of the above information, we are faced with an extremely disturbing reality:

Namely, SAPOL places far more emphasis on revenue generation than reducing road deaths.

This also helps explain why SAPOL officers frequently exhibit such appalling driving habits.

The enforcement of such a draconian system that does nothing to save lives requires an army of compliant individuals who, when faced with a choice between principles or their salary, will reliably opt for the latter. A SAPOL female officer actually admitted to me once, when I questioned the dubious caper she was involved in, that “there are a lot of things we [her and unnamed fellow officers] would change if we could.” In other words, she knew full well that she worked in an unfair system, but that system paid her salary and therefore she wasn’t about to challenge it.

Welcome to SAPOL, whose employment screening questionnaires are carefully crafted to weed out pesky individuals who like to think for themselves and stand up for what is truly just.

And why is SAPOL so dedicated to extracting millions of dollars from law-abiding citizens, causing them untold grief and hardship? Because making lots of money for the government means that SAPOL continues to get lots of money from the government. I guess SAPOL’s top brass need to afford those lavish taxpayer-funded overseas junkets somehow:

SAPOL commissioner Grant Stevens, using taxpayer money to visit a beer factory in the UK. Because watching Irish beer being brewed, apparently, is crucial to fighting Australian crime.

More taxpayer-funded beer, this time in Dubai.

Persecuting and harassing those who stand up to, embarrass or expose SAPOL for the malfeasant outfit it truly is (i.e., people like me). For an organization that constantly complains about a “lack of resources” to pursue real crime, SAPOL sure seems to have a remarkable abundance of resources when it comes to pursuing absurd allegations and harassing those to which it takes a disliking. The reason for this is that, like most gangs, SAPOL gets angry when someone shines a light on its seedy underbelly. Like most gangs, SAPOL will go to great lengths to silence those who threaten its gravy train.

And like most bullies, SAPOL hates it when people stand up for themselves, instead of cowering in submission. But while many bullies will quickly back down when you call their bluff, SAPOL’s otherwise physically unimposing force is emboldened by its access to guns, batons, a legal monopoly on force, and farcical legislation that allows SAPOL to investigate itself when accused of wrong doing. SAPOL’s Internal Investigation Service (IIS) is an audacious sham which should be renamed the Internal Cover-Up Service (ICUS), because its chief purpose is clearly to dismiss, deny and cover up as much of SAPOL’s abundant bad behaviour as possible.

SAPOL’s All-Too-Frequent Response to Real Crime: NO RESPONSE

A striking insight into just how little SAPOL cares about real crime can be garnered from the horrific murder of Zahra Abrahimzadeh. Zahra's estranged husband Ziaolleh had a long history of violent and threatening behaviour towards her and their children. On February 12, 2009, this psychotic bastard assaulted Zahra and their eldest daughter, and threatened to kill both their son and youngest daughter. Eleven days later, after the terrified family resolved to flee the violent Ziaolleh, they packed their belongings into their car and drove to the Salisbury Police Station, in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, to report the incident.

And what did SAPOL do in response?

Bugger all.

Apart from issuing him with a largely useless piece of paper known as a domestic violence restraining order, SAPOL essentially did nothing. Apparently, bashing your wife and adult daughter and threatening to kill your family doesn’t warrant an arrest in South Australia!

SAPOL, after all, has far more pressing matters to attend to, like relentlessly hounding motorists who refuse to pay vexatious and unlawful traffic fines.

The bottom line is that thanks to SAPOL's sheer disinterest in bringing Ziaolleh Abrahimzadeh to justice, he remained free. This lack of action emboldened him to approach his estranged wife at a function in the Adelaide Convention Centre on the evening of March 21, 2010, and repeatedly stab her to death in a frenzied attack occurring in full view of shocked onlookers.

As the subsequent Coroner's Inquest report stated:

"Ziaolleh was never dealt with by the criminal justice system for his alleged offending. That was because the first step in the criminal justice process, namely arresting and charging Ziaolleh for the reported offending, never occurred at anytime during those 13 months.

In my opinion the single most important and decisive step in deterring Ziaolleh Abrahimzadeh from acting violently towards his wife was to arrest and charge him for his alleged offences."

Caught Red-Handed on Camera, but … “Not Enough Evidence, Mate!”

Another jaw-dropping example of SAPOL’s indifference to real crime came to light in December 2017 when a frustrated victim told the Advertiser the highly irrational force was refusing to charge a man who slashed three of his car tyres. The entire incident was captured on CCTV footage, which clearly showed the culprit’s face and the license plate of the silver Mercedes SLK in which he drove away. Despite the slam-dunk nature of the evidence, SAPOL refused to charge the man, claiming “there wasn’t enough evidence to guarantee a conviction.”

You can’t make this stuff up folks; here’s the original article:

I was discussing this lunacy with an acquaintance when he told me of a very similar case that occurred at a shopping centre in Adelaide’s North-East (a precinct covered by Holden Hill police). In this instance, his shop assistant friend had all four of his car tyres deflated by a disgruntled customer. As with the abovementioned incident, the shopping centre’s CCTV cameras identified both the culprit and his license plate. The victim promptly took the footage to SAPOL, who proceeded to inform him they couldn’t use the footage as evidence because he had watched it and therefore it was tainted.

I know, that makes absolutely no sense, but as I said earlier, there is nothing rational or logical about SAPOL.

I guess the moral of the story is that if you ever visit South Australia and want to commit a crime without fear of being arrested, make sure you get caught on CCTV camera!

In contrast, if you do want to get arrested by sleazy SAPOL, here’s a foolproof guide:

How to Get Arrested by SAPOL When You’ve Done NOTHING Wrong: Step 1

First of all, you need SAPOL to come to dislike you, to view you as a pain in the ass.

One sure-fire way to achieve this is to vigorously stand up to SAPOL when they issue you an unlawful traffic fine.

So how do you cop an unlawful fine in South Australia?

With the nation’s most predatory fine regime, it’s quite easy. And if you have olive skin and a nice-looking car, you’re really in the running. In predominantly Anglo South Australia, this will make you stand out to the police. It’s no guarantee of unwanted police attention, as we saw with the tyre-slashing incident above but, as Yasser Shahin and yours truly can attest, it sure seems to help.

All you Andrew Bolt types who think I’m ‘playing the race card’ would do well to pull your heads out of your posteriors and get with reality. As a person of Mediterranean descent, I can state unreservedly there is a clear and noticeable difference in the way I’m treated by both the public and police when I’m in Adelaide compared to far more cosmopolitan Melbourne. And there is published research to support my personal experience. In 2007, Australian National University researchers sent 4,000 job applications to prospective employers in three Australian cities. The applications were identical in all but one respect: The ethnicity of the fictitious applicants' names. The researchers found that in Sydney and Brisbane (who, like Adelaide, have far lower Mediterranean populations than Melbourne), applications bearing an Italian surname were significantly less likely to receive a callback. In Melbourne, which sports significant Greek and Italian populations (Melbourne has the largest Greek population of any city outside Greece), applications with an Italian surname were actually slightly more likely to receive a callback.

Anglo Police versus Ethnics

Okay, so after having slapped on some olive skin lotion and colouring your hair and eyebrows black, the next step is to get in your car and do the big drive from Melbourne to Adelaide with an olive-skinned friend visiting from the United States. As she will confirm, you are a very conscientious and safe driver, being careful not to exceed Victoria and South Australia’s posted speed limits.

Commensurate with your 30-year accident-free driving record, you have a safe and enjoyable drive – that is, until you get to the Adelaide Hills. As you near the end of the long and treacherous descent down the disgraceful ski ramp that masquerades as South Australia’s South-Eastern Freeway, a traffic cop flashes his lights and quickly pulls out behind you.

You pull up, and an officer by the name of Senior Constable Ian Stanley struts over to your car, demands your license, then claims he clocked you doing 78km/h in a 60km/h zone. He then informs you that he is going to give you a $417 fine.

You are stunned. And so is your passenger.

His only evidence that you were ‘speeding’ are two digits on an orange Lidar device, which read “78”. There is no footage or image of your vehicle on the device, only the two digits of ultimately unknown origin.

There are a plethora of problems with this scenario, the first and foremost being the fact you were not travelling at 78 km/h. When you approached the end of the 80km/h zone and saw the first of two 60km/h signs, you braked and your car slowed significantly. You continued to brake and your car continued to slow as you approached the second 60 sign.

Yet Stanley is effectively claiming – with a straight face – that you had not slowed at all at the first 60 sign, and you only slowed by 2 km/h after reaching the second 60 sign.

What utter garbage.

To top off the ignominy, Stanley – who can clearly see you are upset and stunned – evidently takes a disliking to you and menacingly asks if he should record your speed as 80 instead of 78. This, as Stanley keenly reminds you, would knock your fine into the next category and strip you of even more hard-earned money.

At no point did your olive-skinned self, or your olive-skinned passenger, in any way abuse, threaten or refuse to comply with the Anglo-Saxon Stanley’s demands (if Stanley ever tries to claim otherwise, you now have the whole thing on video, courtesy of his own body-worn camera).

As you drive off, the shell-shock gives way to indignance. Angry at the manner in which you were just treated, and knowing full well you were not travelling at the speed Stanley accused you of, you resolve not to pay the fine.

And this is where the ‘fun’ (I use that term in the most sardonic manner possible) really begins.

You start doing some research, and you uncover an endless stream of discomforting facts. For starters, Stanley hails from Sturt Police Station, an establishment that seems to have a pressing problem with staff honesty:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-08/sa-police-charged-after-corruption-probe-may-face-more-charges/6377294

Having seen media segments about the ability of Lidar guns to clock stationary objects like trees and poles at speeds of 70-80km/h, you start reading more about these dubious devices. You learn that curves in the road, nearby traffic, downhill descents and nearby objects like trees and poles are all contraindications for the correct use of these devices.

And guess what? All of those conditions were present at the location where Stanley claims to have clocked you ‘speeding’.

You further learn that crafty cops can bump up the Lidar’s speed reading by moving its laser beam along the side of the car.

Lidar guns, in other words, are dubious pieces of crap that should themselves be outlawed.

As you’ve probably surmised, the above scenario is not a merely a hypothetical one. It’s what actually happened to me and my Colombian-American guest on 21 January 2016.

Being fully aware of how SAPOL is very adept at dishing out unflattering accusations but not so good at receiving them, I will emphasize here I am not accusing Stanley of being deliberately dishonest or racist. That Stanley hailed from the dubious Sturt police station, and works for an organization that has well-documented problems with honesty and racism does not necessarily mean he himself is dishonest or racist. Ultimately, I have no idea how he arrived at his nonsensical speed reading, and why he chose to behave in the manner he did.

What I can say without reservation is the fine he gave me on 21 January 2016 was untenable, and should never have been issued to me.

And SAPOL were ultimately forced to acknowledge as much.

It took over two long years, but it was only until after I got a lawyer onto the matter that SAPOL suddenly lost interest in pursuing the matter. On 11 May 2018, a SAPOL prosecutor stated he would withdraw the fine because:

“… the IO hasn’t supplied notes or the PD477 so I’ll just discontinue it on the next occasion.”

Instead of taking the matter to trial, SAPOL withdrew it and, thanks to my very capable barrister Yasmin McMahon, I was awarded costs that were a multiple of the original fine.

So all that Stanley achieved in the end was to cost the taxpayers of South Australia an amount over twice that of the fine he tried to stick me with.

I insisted right from the get-go I was innocent of the crime Stanley accused me of (and rest assured, when a cop accuses you of a traffic offence, he is accusing you of a crime, all sanitized words like “expiation” and “infringement” notwithstanding).

She Won’t Be Right, Mate!

When SAPOL cops venture out with their Lidar guns to do a spot of fund-raising, they are first supposed to go through a series of steps aimed at improving the accuracy of the speed readings. They are also supposed to make notes of these procedures. If they don’t perform these procedures, any subsequent fine can be challenged as legally invalid. And if the required notes aren’t kept, the fine can also be challenged as untenable.

Astute readers will know where this is heading. Here in Australia, where a “she’ll be right” attitude to task completion often prevails, and where the cops often think they are above the law, the required calibration procedures and accompanying notes are frequently skipped.

As a result, numerous motorists have had speeding fines overturned because the police were not able to show proper procedures were followed. One such case that made the headlines in 2016 was Police vs Butcher:

http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/sa/SASC/2016/130.html

The Police vs Butcher decision only deepened my suspicion that there was something off about my speeding fine. My suspicions were eventually confirmed, because – surprise, surprise - the proper notes had not been kept.

What is infuriating is that SAPOL either knew, or could have easily confirmed this right from the outset. Instead of dragging the matter on for over two years, SAPOL’s Expiation Notice Branch could easily have closed the matter within days. When I protested the fine, all they had to do was ring Sturt police station:

EXPIATION NOTICE BRANCH STAFFER: “Hi, it’s Neville McNoodle from the Expiation Notice Branch. I’m after Senior Constable Ian Stanley.”

[Brief pause while SC Stanley comes to phone]

STANLEY: “Hello?”

ENBS: “Hi Ian, Neville McNoodle from the ENB. On 21 January 2016, you pulled over some bloke called Anthony Colpo and accused him of doing 78 in a 60 zone. The expiation number is GXXXXXXXXX. He’s disputing the fine, so I need the relevant notes.”

STANLEY: “Ugh…notes?”

ENBS: “Yeah, notes. You did keep the relevant notes, right?”

STANLEY: “Uh…no.”

ENBS: [Swears and says the Lord’s name in vain] “Great. Now I’ll have to write to him and tell him we’re withdrawing the fine!”

But instead of using a commonsense approach like the one above, SAPOL instead chose to pursue and harass me for over two years, no doubt wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars in the process. They ignored my repeated requests for evidence, they unlawfully handballed my fine over to the nasty bastards at the Fines Enforcement and Recovery Unit (FERU) and – most disgustingly of all – had an especially obnoxious officer illegally trespass on my mother’s property in order to serve me with a summons!

All this for a fine which was – as I maintained all along – a complete crock.

The problem with the current approach is there is no disincentive for the issuance of nonsensical fines. Rather than the current revenue-raising approach, fine issuance should return to being a genuine road safety measure aimed at penalizing only truly dangerous behaviour. There should be severe financial penalties for police officers who hand out untenable speeding fines or book people for irrelevant nonsense like window tinting. The old “I’m just doing my job, mate” excuse would get a lot less airtime when one’s job came with substantial disincentives for issuing trivial, vexatious and unjust fines.

This is in stark contrast to the current system, which laughs in the face of the idea of equitable justice. Motorists who suspect they have been issued an unlawful fine, and refuse to pay it, have two unappealing choices:

Ignore the fine, and become subject to a continual stream of threats, harassment, license loss and asset seizure, or;

“Elect” to be prosecuted. In other words, you can ‘choose’ – effectively under duress, considering your other option - to fight the matter in court.

Option 2 means either representing yourself in court, or hiring a lawyer to argue the matter for you. For the average person with no legal training, getting up in court and arguing a case before a magistrate or judge can be a daunting proposition. And hiring a lawyer might involve spending thousands of dollars to fight a $417 fine, with no guarantee of success. And whichever option you choose, you can be sure the matter will require considerable time and effort on your part.

Faced with these options, many people simply fold and grudgingly pay the fine. The system is stacked against them and, of course, this is no accident. The powers-that-be have deliberately structured the fine system in a manner that lumps all the disincentives on the hapless motorist. They know full well that, when faced with the daunting prospect of battling the 800-pound gorilla that is the state, most people will fold and just pay the fine.

As regular readers will know, I am not “most” people.

After receiving Stanley’s fine, and resolving not to pay it, I went online to get some idea of what my options might be. I quickly came across an Australian eBook that promised information on how to beat traffic fines. I purchased the eBook, and forwarded SAPOL the correspondence recommended in the book. SAPOL’s reply was a smug form letter stating it had already received a large volume of similar letters and that these letters were ineffective.

What especially stood out to me was SAPOL’s response to the question of whether the Lidar wielded by Stanley met the requirements of the National Measurement Act 1960. Instead of answering the question, SAPOL’s Expiation Notice Branch wrote:

“Supreme Court of South Australia has ruled the Imperial Acts Application and other legislation quoted in your letter has no bearing on the expiation notice process…”

This was a very curious response because my letter never mentioned the Imperial Acts Application Act. I asked a question about the National Measurement Act 1960, and instead of giving me a straight answer, SAPOL raised a strawman.

When people throw red herrings like this at me, it merely confirms they have something to hide. As we’ve already seen, that was exactly the case. SAPOL was hounding me for a fine that was legally invalid. But instead of being upfront about this, it chose to aggressively pursue me and even engage in a blatantly illegal trespass.

SAPOL’s shenanigans included re-sending me the fine, this time with an additional late payment fee - despite the fact I had already ‘elected’ in writing to have the matter heard in court! Incensed by SAPOL’s harassment and ineptitude, I promptly drafted and then sent an invoice to the Expiation Notice Branch, demanding a sum equal to the late payment fee plus the cost of registered post. I also allotted the same time frame of payment as SAPOL stipulates on its ‘expiation’ notices (28 days).

I was effectively holding SAPOL to the same standard it felt entitled to hold me. But as we’ve seen, the old admonition to “treat others as you wish to them to treat you” doesn’t carry much weight at SAPOL. Instead of reimbursing me for the inconvenience they unnecessarily caused me, the vindictive SAPOL ‘escalated’ my fine and unlawfully handballed it over to the goons at FERU!

SAPOL also prematurely escalated a second – and even more ridiculous – traffic fine I received in 2017. You’ll learn all about that fine in Part II, because I received it right before I got arrested. That fine was also prematurely handballed to FERU, which suggests the ENB has a habit of prematurely ‘escalating’ fines. The incentive for this would be the immediately increased fine amount, and the fact FERU is authorized to repossess your goodies and access your bank account, resulting in even more bounty for the state. And even if you manage to have the FERU order revoked, you still have to pay a fee for the revocation application.

In terms of revenue-raising, it’s a win-win for SAPOL either way.

The bottom line is that SAPOL and its extortionist Expiation Notice Branch did their best to sink their teeth into my ass, but I staunchly resisted their efforts. By doing so, I’ve since been told, SAPOL came to view me, not as a law-abiding citizen exercising his democratic right to fight unlawful state actions, but as a magnanimous pain in the ass.

The highly autocratic SAPOL, it turns out, doesn’t like suffering discomfort in its anal region.

How to Get Arrested by SAPOL When You’ve Done NOTHING Wrong: Step 2

Having staunchly exercised your democratic right to question untenable and vexatious traffic fines, you are now viewed by SAPOL as a PITA.

But you still haven’t been arrested.

So if you want to get arrested despite having done nothing wrong, the next step is to take a trip back to Adelaide. Yeah, I know, it’s a long drive, but that’s where the false arrest action is at these days. South Australia, after all, has the highest rate of failed prosecutions of any Australian state, so if you want to be falsely arrested, it’s not going to happen while sipping green tea in Chapel Street!

After you’ve arrived in Adelaide, call up a friend who lives there and go for a walk up to Skye lookout with him and your dog. Because your experiment involves being arrested on false grounds, make sure you are carrying no weapons or drugs. Make sure you are minding your own damn business and obeying the law.

With a bit of (bad) luck, you will accidentally stumble upon some sleazy fuckwit known as Harley David Johnstone while he is engaged him some bizarre wank known as an “Everesting” attempt. He will be riding three abreast with his friends (which is illegal). After walking around a corner with your dog, you will be greeted by the sight of Johnstone riding straight towards you in an unsteady manner with, incredibly, his head looking down instead of ahead at the road. Because your dog is on a leash and walking to your left, and there are cyclists approaching left, right and centre, your options for evading an imminent collision are severely limited. If you move to the left, your dog will get run over. If you move to the right, chances are both you and your dog are going to get collected. If you love your dog dearly, as I do, then throwing him under the bus (or in this case, bike) is simply not an option. Your best option is to protect him and simply brace yourself for the inevitable collision.

The inevitable happens. The irresponsible cyclist rides into you. Thankfully, the combined weight of this reckless prick and his bike are less than your bodyweight. As such, you remain standing while he ends up on the tarmac.

“Serves the clown right,” you think to yourself, “he should watch the heck where he’s going.”

The law-breaking cyclist, however, doesn’t see it that way. As he unravels himself from his overpriced and overrated Giant bicycle, he starts hurling a litany of abuse at you. This in itself quickly raises your ire, but then your eyes hone in on his cycling apparel - and that’s when the adrenalin really starts pumping.

Because that apparel is coloured an unmistakable orange and turd-green, and on his jersey, in all-caps is the word “VEGAN”.

“H-o-l-y shit,” you immediately remark to yourself, “it’s that Johnstone prick!”

Yep, the same evil, nasty prick that has spent the last five years taunting you, defaming you, threatening you and spreading nasty lies about you all over the Internet.

The same repulsive maggot who publicly labelled a genuine cancer patient a “scammer”, taunted a domestic violence victim, falsely and hypocritically accused others of child porn and sexual assault, and threatened to visit people’s houses and slash their throats.

This vile piece of pond scum is now right in front of you … and he’s abusing you for a cycling fall that was 100% his fault!

Well…

You proceed to tell this disgusting turd of a human being exactly what you think of him.

You also invite him to repeat, to your face, the abundant nastiness he has written online about you.

You further tell him that, if he has such a huge problem with you, then this would be a very opportune time to get it sorted.

You invite him to settle your differences right there and then. After all, the guy clearly has a major problem with you, issuing threats and going to great lengths to defame you – which in turn has caused you immeasurable grief, not to mention thousands in lawyer’s fees.

Here’s Johnstone’s big chance, his moment of truth – the chance to settle his differences with you one on one.

You’d think a self-proclaimed tough guy like Johnstone - who brags about jail and portrays himself as a Muy Thai expert – would jump at the chance to kick your “greaseball” ass.

But instead of taking off his cycling mitts and his carbon-soled slippers, he instead runs to hide behind his friends. Despite the endless parade of macho mean talk this hateful troll has spewed forth over the years, the truth is becoming quickly apparent:

He’s a gutless maggot.

At one point, he appears ready to break into tears. His voice is quivering and the muscles on one side of his neck appear to have gone into some kind of hyper-spastic state. As an individual who was there later recounts, Johnstone was “shitting himself.”

At first, this annoys you even further. If this maggot was a real man, he’d stand behind his words and have it out with you. You are truly disgusted by his hypocrisy and cowardice.

While all this is going on, a seemingly amicable lad by the name of Joey Armstrong is doing his best to defuse the situation. Joey has the balls Johnstone will never have, and calmly but diligently works to de-escalate what appears to be a rapidly escalating confrontation.

Of course, there was never going to be any physical attack because Johnstone is a gutless pansy, and you are not in the business of lobbing sucker-punches at pathetic weasels who are clearly shitting themselves. But Joey doesn’t know that at the time, and should be commended for potentially putting himself in the firing line in order to calm things down.

When it becomes abundantly clear that Harley Johnstone is a cowardly little turd who would rather eat a plate of free-range faeces than fight you, you realize there is little to be achieved by hanging around. The commotion dies down, you reign in your pooch, and walk off with your friend.

No-one was hit (except you, by Johnstone’s bike). No-one was hurt.

As you leave, someone yells “call the police!”

“Call the police?” you think to yourself, “yeah, call them. See what I care. What are they going to do? Arrest me for having been ridden into by some sleazy vegan asshole? For telling a pathetic skeleton that he’s a pathetic skeleton?”

To your dismay, that’s exactly what SAPOL proceed to do - albeit some twenty months later!

Partners in Crime: Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone & SAPOL

As you’ve no doubt also surmised, the above scenario is also not merely a hypothetical one – it’s the same scenario that actually played out on February 29, 2016.

After both my mother and myself received repeated calls and voice messages from a Senior Constable Anthony Petraccaro of Norwood Police Station over the following week, I heard nothing more.

Why Petraccaro felt compelled to badger my elderly mother, who clearly had nothing to do with any of this, remains unknown.

And why SAPOL have claimed I did not respond to their enquiries when I in fact contacted Norwood Police Station twice, leaving my name for Petraccaro, also remains unknown.

There are in fact a lot of unanswered questions for which I will be demanding answers in due course, but suffice to say for now that in light of SAPOL’s non-response, I could only assume they'd woken up to what a complete sleazeball Johnstone was. I assumed they’d done a little research, discovered Johnstone was a pathological liar, concluded his allegations were completely untenable, and decided to close the matter.

As it turns out, I severely overestimated SAPOL’s intelligence and honesty.

On 12 September 2017, I was arrested and charged for allegedly punching Johnstone and allegedly causing several thousand dollars damage to his bike. Again, this was despite the fact there was absolutely no evidence I had struck Johnstone and there was no damage to his bike.

To say that yours truly, and my friends and family, were shell-shocked by my arrest would be an understatement for the ages.

This, after all, was the exact same SAPOL that didn’t give a flying fuck about the murderous overtures being made by Ziaolleh Abrahimzadeh.

The exact same SAPOL that watched clear and conclusive footage of someone slashing an innocent person’s car tyres, only to yawn and mutter:

“Meh, not enough evidence for a conviction. Hey, any Krispy Kremes left?”

Sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason.

The exact same SAPOL that didn’t give a damn when one of its officers was caught red-handed beating the living bejesus out of two innocent and unarmed homeless men while they lay prostrate on the ground. Instead of punishing him, SAPOL rushed to his defence claiming the poor dear was in a “fragile” emotional state.

For crying out loud ...

While SAPOL remained distinctly unaroused by truly serious crimes with a mountain of compelling evidence, it sure developed a massive prosecutorial hard-on when it learned I’d been accused of punching Johnstone!

The case against me was so weak, the Magistrate presiding over the case even advised SAPOL the first morning of the trial that they should drop the matter.

In fact, SAPOL was given repeated opportunities to drop the case against me, but they flatly refused. Despite the utterly absurd nature of the allegations, and the well-known appalling character of the person who made them, SAPOL steadfastly insisted on prosecuting me right to the very end.

Even after getting smashed in court, SAPOL are now refusing to reimburse me for my legal fees – which amounted to over $19,000!

Decent lawyers don’t come cheap, folks.

To say that SAPOL’s behaviour toward me throughout this matter has been vexatious, malicious and vindictive would be a monumental understatement. Just why SAPOL targeted me in this manner is a matter for which I fully intend to get to the bottom of. I have my suspicions, which I have already touched on above.

Anyway, that concludes Part I of the sorry saga of Anthony Colpo vs the Evil Duo of SAPOL and Johnstone. In Part II, I’ll walk you through my arrest, and the ten months of sheer lunacy that followed. And I’ll give you a blow-by-blow account of the court hearing that literally ended in tears for Johnstone.

Hasta luego,

Anthony.

Anthony Colpo is an independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist, and author of the groundbreaking books The Fat Loss Bible, The Great Cholesterol Con and Whole Grains, Empty Promises.

Source: http://anthonycolpo.com/anthony-colpo-vs-the-evil-duo-harley-durianrider-johnstone-south-australia-police-part-1/

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kandadiff · 6 years

Text

Updates - Kay Snow part 1

I’m redoing yours and making it longer -

Many of you will know Kay Snow as the leader of the famous girl group Trinity, in which her and her two cousins (Adi Snow & Bri Snow) rocked the world with there very unique sound.

Or maybe you know her as the leader and main singer of her extremely popular (#1 worldwide) girl group The Sirens, name any of the sirens and they are all household names. Plus Kay and Adi snow videos are hilarious literally go on youtube and watch there videos it makes me laugh every time. Or do you recognize her as Harley Quinn, or Serena from the I Spit on Your Grave movie franchise or even her solo album Dark Paradise.

Anyway lets dive in, so another thing Kay is known for is her various public realtionships, first linked with Liam Payne former 1d member, actor Damien Thorne and many others. However it was her relationship with actor and producer Negan Morgan. They met on the set of the Left for Dead during season 4 and 5 when she was a recurring character as Lana, Negans love interest. And like many actors these two went from co-star to couple coming out during the after show after Lana’s death scene.

Holy shit did this not go over so well with fans, the Left for Dead fans loved it (theyre couple was the most popular on the show), but some of Kay Snows fans gave her a lot of flack for the 20 yr age difference. A few celebrities even chimed in against it. Wendy Williams calling it “shameful, what could a little girl have in common with a man like him?”, Bri Snow agreeing calling him a “cradle-robber.” and like always Azealia banks took to twitter trying to denounce there relationship saying it was “f**king gross but I guess that someone with no talent needs a sugar daddy to pay for her. I bet she was pimped herself out to him for Fire.” (Fire being the third album of The Sirens).

Both Negan and Kay came back at her both posting a picture with both of the sticking up the middle finger with the caption “I’m happy deal with it.” and then tweeted back at Banks, Shangela’s famous sugar daddy speech from Rupauls Drag Race and went on to co-write one of her most famous solo albums Off to the Races which describes her and Negans relationship mixed with there characters in Left for Dead.

Anyway despite opposition from others they stayed together for quite a bit considering Hollywood romances don’t last every long. Even going to the Caribbean together for vacation soon after that he went back to Left for dead and Kay and the Sirens went on the Playing with Fire world tour, which I went to it was amazing! Loved the show for real get tickets to them you wont regret it. . But nothing gold can stay and around them being together for three years they split up. Some people specuated it was because of Kay’s friendship with footballer Maximus Valente since they were seen out shortly after at disco style club Studio 54. She addressed it later on an episode of Ellen saying “Max, didn’t cause anything. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you plan, sometimes things happen but that doesn't mean I love Negan any less. He’ll always be apart of my life.”

And to move on from her relationship she moved out of her own house and bought a new one which is where Kitty and the Sirens wrote the singles Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood and Pity Party.

6 months after her breakup she was seen getting in a fight with ex-one direction member on the street in front of The To Anyone Entertainment building, during the fight Louis grabbed her and tried to drag her into into a car all while they are yelling at each other and cursing and hitting and this is all being filmed and everything - right here, the video is pretty crazy like youd think after being told to leave her alone he would- nope. So he got a restraining order on him and it turns out he had been harassing and stalking her for months previous to the fight and that day it all came to a head. She also sued but the argument was settled before it went to court.

When asked about it during a interview with Thomas Valentine “Louis and I were good friends during the one direction days especially when Trinity was new and I was learning about the industry from someone I thought I could trust. But I was young and foolish and let him get away with a lot of things that were sort of red flags because I thought he was my friend. But he took advantage of me and my kindness and I believed in him and his empty promises. I caught on more when he couldn’t rely on Liam to hide behind and told him to (bleep) off he didn’t take it well and really started to … harass me with constant calls and visits and I thought it was over but his family owned more then half of To Anyone Entertainment and I was supposed to act like he wasn’t doing what he was doing and sweep it under the rug as nothing and in return he was supposed to leave me alone especially in the building. He did not listen which is why a lot of the music writing and recording was not in building however Louis isn’t stupid and only did it around people he knew he could get away with it around, he rarely did it around Edward, Draven, William or Negan or Max because he was afraid of them that's why I was always around them and no matter how much I yelled at him or cursed him or even hit him he wouldn’t stop. He even had the nerve to write that song Addiction about me and I know its about me because when it came out he wrote me this like 14 page letter discussing how every lyric reflected his thoughts about me … I guess im grateful for that considering after the judge read it the restraining order was practically done by then.” Holy hell, the hate Louis received after that made him delete his all of his social media and a few assholes came after Kay saying she was making it all up but the Cat Crew backed the main Cat Girl up, including Adi Snow who called Louis out and said her story was all true.

To bring out the new year Maximus Valente announced his relationship with Kay snow on a cute Instagram video at a beach party thrown by fellow teammate player Romeo Popov. That is where Max and Kay became the couple goals we all know them to be. Seriously they are so cute together and by the way so good together can I just say. However another scandal rocked this girl during the filming of Harley & Ivy, where Kay played Harley Quinn, a sex tape featuring Kay and Liam leaked online from someone to have claimed to been an inside source having been taken years earlier.

A few people on twitter took to talking about it almost right away trouble maker Azealia Banks claims she was cheating on Maximus and was “a dirty bitch with an even dirtier p*ssy.” Camilla Cabelo liking the tweet and @ Liam then Bri Snow tweeting “Just waiting for this drama # GotMyPopcorn.” Liam tweeted back saying “That was filmed a long time ago, she isn’t a cheater, I am not a cheater and honestly its obvious it was a long time ago, both her and I have gotten tattoos since then and I don’t know how it was leaked but the hate is completely unnecessary. Its not a secret, we were a couple but this video is one we meant to keep private so please just respect us enough to not send us hate about it.” Finally able to get to social media Kay addresses the video in a video of her own. “Liam said it perfectly, the hate is stupid and clearly given most of my tattoos are missing and my hair is shorter and red in the video I mean really guys? I obviously never wanted it to get out and it is an incredible invasion of privacy but its out now so just be kind to Liam and I and be kind to Maximus and Liams partner.”

However the sex tape scandal faded as The Sirens announced there highly successful I Am The Best Album and following world tour and even had two remixes of the songs as a distrack of I am the best and Ddu du ddu du to those who have come for them, Kay addressing Camilla, Bri Snow and Azealia in the remixes. That amazing ass album went platinum and they deserved it. It was amazing!

During the Sirens hiatus following Makayla Arrabah’s pregnancy announcement a video that all Malyn shippers saved to look at forever came out of Maximus proposing to Kay in cute little restaurant in Greece during there vacation. Oh my god my heart hurt it was so sweet! This was a really sweet time by the way because within this year period Makayla gave birth, Adi and Edward became an official couple, the new Wonder Woman movie starring Draven came out and Katya’s solo album Diamonds came out.

The dream couple got married in October of that year near the couples favorite holiday (Halloween) and in Maximus’ home country of Italy in a beautiful ceremony captured by Maid of Honor Adi Snow and Best man Romeo Popov. The wedding was supposed to be private but since both the bride and the groom had star studded guest list paps actually had people trying to break in to the venue.

For their there honeymoon (after football season) these cuties went back Greece and enjoyed there little vacations, Maximus’s Instagram is filled with pictures like this. The year following there honeymoon she was pretty free from scandal and stayed pretty out of the magazines, working closer and closer with Edward Styles actually directing the film style music videos for his Album Abyss and starring as the Demon of Fame in the music video My Darling and this was also the time Real Time with the Snows the reality show about the snow family. It mostly revolves around her mothers side of the family and the constant drama around them.

But it was on an episode, now famous for revealing Kay’s pregnancy, which Kay was staying at her moms house and when her mother and Eva were coming back from the nail salon and a 6-month pregnant Kay was with Tyler and Adi in the kitchen complaining at who was eating her Rocky Road Ice Cream. And the fans went crazy after that aired all her social media was flooded with questions about her pregnancy and a few people actually sent her more Rocky Road Ice Cream. She and Maximus confirmed they were expecting twins and didn’t want to jinx anything that's why they waited to confirm the pregnancy.

2months later they gave birth to there twins a boy and a girl. Apollo Romeo Valente.

And Annabel Lee Valente aka Ella. These kids are the freaking cutest! So she really took a break from performing and got into the producing aspect of things directing a lot of To Anyone’s singers videos including Edward Styles, William, Kitty and the boy group Millennium and even helped recruit new talent for the Agency. She even traveled with the kids to start a To Anyone agency in South Korea.

During the next 2 years Kay was pretty much exempt from scandal and worked on the horror/ thriller revenge tale I Spit On Your Grave as Serena Lorelai. So okay I love kay but I held off watching it because I heard it has a lot of gore and I’m a big baby when it comes to that but I finally watched it and holy shit its amazing! Like it is just a woman taking charge after 5 men do some really fucked up stuff to her and oh my god it was so good! Like I bought it on iTunes and watch it every two months like its a great movie for real.

However, tragedy struck my favorite people shortly after something kay described as “the worst moment that ever happened to me.” Kay was spending time with a heavily pregnant Adi and the kids in her house when the news came on. Drunk driver struck celebrities limo all being rushed to the hospital. The limo was for Edward Styles bachelor party and in it was William Tomlinson, Harry and Marcel Styles, Stephen James, Robert and Andrew Hood, Ian Payne, Maximus Valente and Billy Hargrove. All besides Andrew Hood were seriously injured. The scene around the hospital was ridiculous, so many paparazzi and fans crowded the hospital not only because of the news but also because the news caused Arianna snow to go into labor a few days early. Sadly, Edward Styles, Maximus Valente and Robert Hood passed away just a day later. I can’t begin to imagine the pain these poor people felt and no one got out of that car crash unharmed. William has a metal pins in his legs since both were broken, Stephen has a slight limp when he walks, Ian and Billy both have scars where they had to get surgery, Harry had to have surgery on his arm and Marcel’s wrist still aches when it rains.

The three funerals were held within a couple of days of each other but all of them were so beautiful and heartbreaking, so many people came to the funeral and so many pictures were taken. You can see she just looked so sad delivering the eulogy and Ella and Apollo even ran on stage with her when she started crying.

In the following months Adi moved in with Kay and both found inspiration in there tragedy and while Adi was writing her Album For Him Kay co-wrote the songs and directed the beautiful cinematic music videos Dark Paradise, Like You’ll never see me again (I cry every time I hear that song) and You Found Me. She said writing and counselling really helped her get back out into the public and she slowly began to preform the songs live and began to go on social media again and became the face of Kyle Couture’s X! Line.

Then our leader headed to Asia at the request of Got7′s Jackson Wang and BTS’s RM both wanted to help write/produce the sirens newest album and they actually started one of the most successful collaborations between Korean artists with the song Oh Yeah!, Oh Nana (ft. Suga), and E.T. Like if you thought this woman was popular in asia before, this boosted her appeal out there by like 1000%. Actually Big Hit and JYP offered her a job as a producer to help create new girl groups for the company. With plenty convincing from both sides she decided to take the job with Big Hit and with RM helped create the girl group Dream. It was the closeness of the way both boys (Jackson and RM) acted with Kay during interviews, the constant inst pictures with the twins and how fondly they spoke of her, the fact that Jackson just straight up said he loved her and RM saying that she was an inspiration for the song DNA, that made many fans speculate whether kay was dating either boy and between the internet fans it actually started a sort of war between the two fandoms, shipping #Kackson or #Kayjoon.

Fans went real stalkerish during this time practically analyzing everything about Kay and these two boys, any pictures or interview that was made about them people analyzed. Half of Kays fans (and GOT7 stans) favored Jackson from the simple fact that hes always been close to her even before she met RM. They met through former Miss A member Jia and have been good friends ever since. Plus everyone knows he’ s like amazing with kids and Ella and Apollo seem to get along with him very well. Plus this sneaky boy is always posting pictures of the five of them (including his super cute dog) with the family emoji.

The case for Namjoon was that they clearly work so well together, even building a girl group and the long nights they have to pull together and on interviews they seem to be good friends. Plus he’s crazy smart and clearly cares for her, even on BTS TV he watched Ella and Apollo a few times and its honestly adorable how cute he is with them. Plus everyone can see how respectful he is of Kay. And this boy includes her in everything, Jungkook even joked they should just get a spare room for her at the house.

During Dreams highly successful debut stage and first mini album Kay stepped back for a moment and headed back to the States to return to Left For Dead season 9 returning as Lana. However, both Namjoon and Jackson posted them still facetiming and fans from both sides of the argument demanded or begged or pressured her to pick one but Kay stayed illusive about her relationships with the boys. The views for the Left for Dead episode where Lana came back was highly rated and a few people thought that Negan and Kay would get back together especially since the chemistry was 100% for real like I loved it, it was steamy af. She actually received an Emmy for her performance as Lana a few months later and during this time Kay was seen out more and more with her children and her left for dead costars but many people focused on her outings with Negan but what kills me is that she was never just them two in these outings all her pictures Adi or Shawn were by her.

Unfortunately for Kay just a week before the Emmy’s in which she was nominated for best guest actress as Lana Rhodes, she suffered from an armed break-in in her Los Angela’s home. The upcoming description is from what she said in interviews and released police reports, testimonys and her 911 call. At approximately 4:30 am, Louis Tomlinson, former One Direction member broke in through the laundry room of Kay Snow’s LA home with a gun with a silencer, while Kay, Apollo and Ella slept upstairs. Louis then got out laundry room and headed upstairs while Hades, Kay’s German Shepard Dog awoke from his sleep and presumably found Louis as he exited the laundry room, he let out a few barks that alerted Kay and was silenced when Louis shot him and dragged his body into the laundry room. Quickly cleaning up the blood with his sweatshirt when Kay walked downstairs, he hid once again in the laundry room until he heard the girl walk back upstairs. As soon as she went upstairs, Louis exited the laundry room and made his way upstairs and into Kay Snow’s room and proceeded to watch her sleep until she awoke at 6:30 where as soon as her alarm went off he hid in her closest and she went into the bathroom and as she was headed into the hallway he sprung out and grabbed her. She fought back but he threatened her with the gun if she screamed and told her to do her morning routine as normal because “this is the new normal.”

Kay proceeded to get her children ready for school, packing Ella and Apollo’s lunch while Louis watches and “he kept staring at the kids and he folded down every picture I had around the house of Max saying he was going to replace them all and when he was taking down the portait of Max and I, I wrote the note and sent the kids off.” In both Ella and Apollo’s lunches Kay wrote notes to there teachers both saying ‘Please call 911 and send them to my house SOS -Kay S.’ “I found Hades [her dog] and I was crying while I was cleaning him up, but he was so far gone he didn’t care or notice he took away my phone and every half an hour he was putting something up his nose, he was high out of his mind and waving that gun around. He was trying to test, see if I would fight him like I did before. I couldn’t- this time I had kids to think about. It was terrifying, he was ranting and raving how we were going to get married and how I was going to change mine and my kids named to Tomlinson. Just crazy shit like that and when the cops got there finally it got worse.” There was a standoff with the cops for 9 hours, where Louis held her hostage. Media went crazy, Adi Snow cutting her world tour short when she heard what happened. Louis then announced that if they cant live happily “then we can’t live at all.” He then proceeded to cook a dinner for him and kay lacing her drink with a sedative which “He didn’t notice I saw him put whatever it was in there and as soon as he set it down in front of me I threw It in his face and ran, that’s when he started shooting his gun, so I ran as fast as could upstairs and I went into the nearest room. Ella’s. I locked the door and I heard him coming up the stairs while shooting the gun. I was trying to climb out of the window but he shot off the lock and grabbed me back in and just kept hitting me with the gun. Then he dragged me downstairs and that’s when the swat team came in.”

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topicprinter · 7 years

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So I get asked many many times “how can I market better”.Here’s a list, in no particular order. All are important.1. Smile more.No one likes dealing or meeting or talking with a sad sack of nope. I don’t care if you had a shit night last night and argued with your other half and ended up in tears: I’m your customer and you make me feel good putting cash dough into your hands. Your other half will make up with you tonight. I won’t.2. Forget using social media for personal stuff only.Social media is evolved into an effective marketing weapon where you are the brand. Or if you work for a large company, you’re a brand ambassador whether you want that role or not. Social media is now good for showcasing you’re trustworthy and you know your shit. Facebook is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is Facebook. They’re interchangeable. Treat them that way. No one cares about your adorable kids in the weekend Park session but it does lead to trust that you’re a family man/woman. View all social media as a method of showcasing. If you want to be actually social? Go and meet someone face to face where possible. Shows you give a fuck about them.3. Get your video on.“I hate the camera”. Tough shit. Nothing ticks more boxes than appearing warts-and-all on a screen where you show people your face, your non-verbal signals you’re a top bloke/bird, that you obviously know your shit, and where you appear way more human than our carefully-curated and manicured HTML email templates.4. Get your live stream onVideo is king for cutting through the initial sales cycle bullshit of 15 emails politely skirting around the fact you want to be paid for doing a job you’re pitching for. Trouble is? How do you get an audience? You live stream your arse off. And you coat tail off bigger names without sucking their dicks too much, and interview them and ask them genuine hard questions that would be relevant AND FUCKING USEFUL to YOUR audience. Too many Gary Vee videos and motivational quotes and starry-eyes and guess what? You’re still poor. He’s minting it from your starry-eyed inaction on your own content and voice progression.5. Get equipment.People forgive shit quality video but they fucking hate bad audio. Get a good mic as much as you can afford. Use 4k30 or 4k60 recording mode now - all new smartphones have one or both of those recording modes. Bigly large files and a c*nt to edit on your shitty 6 year old laptop, but your viewers will love you and buy from you, and that’s all that counts.6. Work into the small hours and understand this isn’t hustle:This is fucking hard work and no one gives a flying fuck about your plight or your business. People care about what you can do for them. Period. Never forget that.7. Focus on low-hanging fruit wins first.Everyone wants the multimillion dollar marketing experience on their super lean budget. Fuck that. Focus on getting some sales in the door that are straightforward and easy and done via your existing network of people or clients - you could easily call every single one of your clients or send them a personal video message right now, and get a few referrals. Try it.8. Get the right tool for the right job.Doesn’t matter if it’s clickfunnels, Active Campaign or Tai Lopez’ latest marketing opus that I personally hate. The point is: You shouldn’t give a flying rats arse what I or anyone else says: Take it onboard, sure, but evaluate before handing over your dough and see how it fits in with YOUR business processes and YOUR sales funnel (or whatever the cool kids are calling them these days)9. Email is fucking shit.I don’t give a fuck who tries calling me out in this, the point is that they’re peeps already with big lists and they have that luxury of scoffing at your cute attempts to list build using tired marketing tools such as landing pages. YOU are the one that needs sales - and fast. What is more powerful out of these two: A) email drip sequence over 7 days using same wording for everyone and a shitty open rate and even worse click rate on your SUPASOARAWAYGIVEAWAYPALOOZA thing? B) a personalised 10s video to that individual where they can mentally tick all the boxes that they want in on your gig. Heavy lifting done by a bot and all front filtering done by the bot. >98% open rate. >50% click rate. So again - under those stats, tell me again how tired email rhetoric and practices trumps actual sales where the sales cycle is slashed to a few minutes instead of days or months again?10. For FUCKS SAKE stop beating yourself up.You’re awesome. No c*nt out there that’s you. YOU’RE you. You might not have a bajillion followers. You might not be doing 80000000 bajillion figures. But you know what? 9 times out of ten - those claims are bullshit anyway. Won’t name names (although people I know will grin at these..), but when I was starting out in personal training years ago, two of the biggest UK names I met personally. Stars in my eyes. Turns out they were both properly fucked up: One was supposed to leave for the US straight after a weekend show I was asked to speak at by them. I didn’t get to speak, despite flying from Oz to the UK. Turns out I met them in a coffee shop at a shitty seaside town in the uk a few days after the event: They were staying in a caravan at a holiday park. Starry-eyed Nate died at that precise moment. The other? Meh. Talked a really good talk as a lot of people do, but then went off the boil as it was quickly apparent to them I knew more than them, and without warning I found snark and negativity from him and his followers. Lesson learnt? You’re awesome. You should know that you don’t know, and be humble enough to seek help from sources you can fill that info void. I can’t stress how much I’ve relied on udemy, Lynda, YouTube and Reddit over the years. TL;DR - focus on your own sales and judge yourself on how well you did compared to last week, last quarter, same period as this time last year etc. DO NOT JUDGE based on lying pricks on social media - you’re going to have a bad time you and your mental wellbeing, if you do.11. There’s heaps more I got. This is just shit off the top of my headGenuinely, #PLUR - I keep writing it at the end of my posts but it’s an old raving days term for Peace. Love. Unity. Respect. A lot of them I need to work on (refer to me thinking a lot of people in the online space are total fucking cunts

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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downtownbrooklyn26 · 7 years

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Giancarlo Chico

SILENT HEART Here we go. The beginning. Level 1. Orientation day. The first trimester. I have to tell you right now, I speak in tangents. A lot. And then go off on tangents on those tangents. It’s not because I have ADD (an over diagnosed mental illness that gives parent’s a reason to justify their kid’s idiocy), but because I have learned that some misgivings could be instigated as an art form. That, and I just have a short attention span. My name is Atom. No last name. Not that I actually don’t have a last name. I just don’t want to give it. I have green eyes, am a Taurus, and I like long walks on the beach, and fried twinkies. At this very moment, I’m staring at the name Phil written out on my Styrofoam tea cup. When I’m at a café, when I’m at a restaurant, when I comment on a YouTube video, I never give people my real name. Everybody thinks it’s a scam. No matter where I go, no one can quite wrap their finger around the concept of a name like that unless they have an obscure name themselves. After a few years of dealing with that kind of disbelief, you tend to get burned out and stray to typical white names minimum wage employees can understand; John, Dave, Tom, Chuck, Shawn, Bill. At $8 an hour, their minds only function at one syllable per word. Cafés are a relatively pleasant environment, but I hate coffee. It only tastes good when you put a shit ton of sugar and cream in it (which is why everyone loves tiramisu), and even then it’s like drinking Soylent Green diarrhea with a money shot of vanilla extract. I am dreading my future, not just because I’ll be 25 years old in four days, but because my rent’s going up next month and I have no viable career options. In congruence to what most people say, creative writing pays about as well as a career in storm chasing. My father was right. I should have been a commercial jet pilot, or a trapeze artist, or a clandestine field agent, which is a fancy term for spy. Any of those would have been more plausible than trying to sell words for money. Summer is coming up soon and I have nothing to do. This is what I consider fun; sitting in a café alone, writing a novel that will be most likely be read by no one. I’m beginning to turn into my father. When I was little, he was constantly bustling about the house, studying, researching, never taking a fucking break. At the time, I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t just sit still and relax, but now that I’m older… I still don’t understand. I like to write a lot, and when you have chosen writing as your career, it never becomes work. Taking a break doesn’t constitute as being lazy, it’s just time used to get over a writer’s block. Contrary to my appearance, I’m not a hipster. Never mind my scruffy facial hair, horn rimmed glasses, and pork pie hat, the only reason I like to write in cafes is because it offers less distraction than my apartment. “Hey, man. We’re closing right now.” Comes a voice above me. The café is empty and my phone screen says 10:07. There goes another day.

I can’t look up. I know that 3 inches away, some guy has his crotch lined up with my face. One of the many setbacks of traveling via the subway. With my mind wandering, I forget my surroundings. My eyes inadvertently become glued to the perverse intersection of this hairy guy’s khakis. Being from out-of-state, I tend to stray from the normal norm of NYC culture. I noticed it the first day I moved here. Every one keeps to themselves. Always. They look at their phones, read their books, sleep. Nobody interacts with one another, or stares at that cute girl with tattoos creeping up her neck. I do. I’ve been a New Yorker for over a year now, and I have a girlfriend, but my eyes continue to scream bachelor and …. out-of-state. As I’m sure you’ve probably already deduced, my parents were the ones to name me Atom. It’s not a household name but they wanted to be creative, like people who name their daughter Alia, but spell it Ahleeyah, or people who learn how to play the accordion. Ridiculous. No, I’m just fucking with you. My father was a physicist, teaching theoretical physics at some no-name community college in the middle-of-nowhere town I’m from. Despite the fact that he dedicated his life to science in an effort to explain the unexplained, my father is still a god-fearing Catholic. As a result, I am not allowed to talk about my “atheistic views” inside his house. It’s strange that atheists can have something as ludicrous as a “coming out” story. You’d think those should be reserved for mouth breathers or people who hate chocolate. I remember being thirteen years old when I went to my first (and only) confession. While most people find peace and tranquility through this practice, confessing my “sins” to a random stranger in a fancy outhouse didn’t necessarily make me feel the most comfortable. When I entered that strange booth, and saw a man resembling Bill Gates in priest’s robes, I impulsively confessed deviant acts my friends committed while at school. Although I was most likely just being a coward, I’d like to think I was inadvertently trying to save my dear friends from eternal damnation. “Father forgive me, for I have sinned. I was playing with scissors last week and accidentally cut some girl in the stomach. She’s fine but my teacher told me she’ll probably have a scar there for the rest of her life. I also cheated (somehow) in my woodshop class, and ended up getting a C+.” The priest simply nodded silently to me, his head bowed. I remember wondering if I bored him to sleep. “You must make penance for your sins, my son.” The priest suddenly spoke. “Recite ten Hail Mary’s and twenty [blah] [blah] [blahs].” When I got home, I was unconventionally quiet. My father, his black mustache twitching from behind his newspaper, looked me up and down as I stared blankly at the wall. He obviously sensed something wrong with me. “The priest didn’t do anything to you, did he?” he asked. “No.” “Good.” He responded, as if that closed the matter for good. I stood rooted in the middle of the kitchen staring at him, as his attention returned back to his newspaper. And like a swift kick to the balls, tears began to pour out of my eyes. “I don’t believe in God!” I bawled. As I sobbed loudly in the middle of his kitchen, my father continued to skim the page he was reading, absorbing the words as if they held the answer to his preteen son’s sudden outburst. Turning the page, my father asked me, “Do you pray when your grandma gets sick? Or when you really want to do well on a test at school?” His voice seemed bored when he asked, and it calmed me down enough to fully contemplate the situation I just instigated. What possible use was there confessing to my father my soul’s absence of God? Why was I crying? Being an Atheist, you have to come to terms that you, and you alone, are in charge of your own actions, your own “destiny”. “Yes.” I lied. “Then you believe in God.” He concluded. And that was that. He flipped the page of his newspaper and went on reading as if nothing happened, chalking it up to his 13 year-old son going through awkward puberty stuff. Four years later, though, at 17, when I was going through my rebellious teenage phase, when I was learning how to conceal a constant boner, I decided to be honest and spiteful about his precious lord and savior. If blasphemy didn’t have a definition before, it did now. I think that was the first time I saw honest-to-goodness shame present itself on my father’s face. I could just see his whole world falling apart in his head, wondering, “Where did I go wrong? I raised the spawn of Satan….” And to that, I would have only responded, yes you did, fucker. If I had to pray to some divine being, I would have told it, “Lord, deliver me from yourself.” From that day on, I haven’t been allowed to say the word “atheist” under my father’s roof without getting reprimanded.

My purple apartment is a second-floor piece-of-shit studio in Astoria. I like to peel the loose paint off the walls as I climb the stairs. The hallway light falters as I grab my keys out of my pocket, and my neighbors scream “Shut up!” at their wailing infant son who hasn’t even spoken his first word yet. After entering the living room, I have to remember to press the correct light switch, otherwise I’ll be paying up-the-ass for electricity I’m not using. Half the lights in my home have gone out but I’m not tall enough to change the bulbs. No to mention I’m lazy and don’t want to deal with the maintenance man who refuses to do his fucking job. The walls in my room are covered floor-to-ceiling with take-out menus I’ve collected from dozens of restaurants, and one massive poster of my favorite music group, Baha Men. I have a twin–size bed covered in Star Wars sheets from when I was 8. Regardless of the fact my girlfriend rides my dick on top of the Millennium Falcon, these sheets are still totes collectibles. Time to get to work. Unlike my own creative writing projects, my job doesn’t require me to go to a happy place of serenity. For my job, I need a constant outlet of distraction, otherwise I’ll end up chain smoking to relieve my stress. And after a year-and-a-half away from American Spirits, I don’t think I would be able to endure wheezing through another porn-filled night of self pleasure. My job isn’t what most people would call morally positive, but it’s not like I rob convenience stores or prostitute myself to Ricky Martin fanatics. I am a work-for-hire essay writer for a wide variety of clientele. It’s a wonderful little gig I’ve been doing for the past year. It’s amazing what kind of topics people are forced to write about; String Theory, gentrification, Alexander of Macedonia, how the Kardashians affect society. I have become a way station on people’s journey toward success. Three new emails today from potential clients. One client, 19-year-old Sue Yung Kim, needs a five-page research essay on the progression of cash flow in the 20th century, written by Friday (WITH a works cited page). Who said all Asians were ambitious scholars? Most essays I write cost around $100, depending on page length. Research and bibliographies cost extra, ultimately pricing this essay at around $175, if I’m feeling generous. I also take dead lines into account, so the shorter amount of time I have to complete a project, the more I charge. You may find my prices obscene, but I also guarantee every one of my customers a B+ or higher when it’s turned in, otherwise they get a full refund. So far, I have not had to return anyone’s money, and nobody’s been stupid enough to try and lie to me about their grade. Another email, a middle-aged History teacher going for his Doctorate in Psychology, wants me to write a 100-page dissertation by mid June. Two months to obtain a Doctorate education in psychology, only to write about the ‘implications of visual illusions and how they help understand perceptual processes’. I’ll have it done in one month, with a pay off of around $5,500, my biggest check yet. You may find this line of work to be a bit unorthodox, but the way I began is somewhat of an interesting story.

About a year ago, I was dozing off in the conference room of the Journalism Department at some dead-beat University. I was an office assistant working for this old Republican who was half in love with Rush Limbaugh. Aside from the usual tasks of organizing his desk, filing paperwork, and hiding his hemorrhoid medication, I also had to revise Journalism student essays. I have to tell you right now, those little fuckers are some of the worst writers I have ever encountered. How they managed to graduate high school and get accepted into a four-year University is beyond my comprehension, but I digress. One day, this girl barges into the department office demanding to see Dr. Billsby who, at the time, was in China giving a lecture on the education-economic fall out in America. I assure you, they couldn’t have cared less, not because it’s an insanely tedious topic of debate, but because the Chinese university forgot to book him a translator, so the attendees didn’t understand a word he was saying. All they did was smile and nod as he droned on for an hour. Either way, I was in charge of the office that week. I remember that day clearly. My cheerios that morning were stale and the broken office heater made me sweat more than a crack addict going through withdrawal. With my shirt clinging to my back, this girl, cheeks flushed, periorbitals swollen from stress asks me how I stand the heat. This is where I tend to run into a bit of a wall with people. There’s no real way to describe severe glossophobia to anybody. I suppose I could just give the simplest definition of the term, but that would be like a woman reading the definition of abortion to a man.

I was 20 when the idea came to me. 30 mg of Clonidine, 40 mg of Lexapro, 50 mg of Hydroxyzine, two tabs of LSD, and one packet of cigarettes per day was what it took to suppress my anxiety to a bearable level. I tried nearly everything to snuff it out completely, from public speaking classes to karaoke bars to drinking fucking coffee. Sitting in the middle of an abandoned beach parking lot with my friend, Bryce, he suggested, “Maybe you should go see one them shrinks. A psychologist.” Psychologists, those small people with their equilateral frameless glasses, their pathetic sweater vests, those ominous clocks that tick a little too loudly in the foreground of their office. My 5’5” black friend from Long Beach then offered me a hit of his cigarette as we listened to Abba in his 1980 Buick. “And maybe you should wear platform shoes to make yourself taller.” I replied, as I placed his cigarette between my teeth. “Light me, will you? It’s out.” The last words anyone will hear me say. “My lighter’s almost gone so make it count... dick.” He tells me. As the flame ignited the cigarette, I sucked hard and accidentally inhaled the butt, lodging it in my throat. I gasped for breath, placing my hands around my throat as the embers seared my larynx. If you’ve ever gone camping and made s’mores, then you most likely have an idea of how my vocal chords looked once I swallowed the damned thing. Looking back now though, that agonizing pain was probably the greatest moment of my life. I was like a dragon finally living up to my fire-breathing potential. All I had to do was rear my head back and scorch the earth. The hospital was an overall tranquil experience the following week. I had to have a full evaluation done on my throat and my father threatened to cut me off if I didn’t quit smoking, but my anxiety was gone. After 6 years, 3 months, and 17 days, my heart wasn’t thumping in my ears. I was able to breathe and, for once, my mind wasn’t swimming in an ocean of self-doubt and panic. Smiling actually hurt my face, but like people who partake in BDSM or jousting, this was the kind of pain I could thoroughly enjoy. Everyone around me talked and droned on about their lives, but for once, I wasn’t expected to reply. I wasn’t expected to over think a response. I wasn’t expected to participate. My Doctor told me my voice would come back within the next two-to-three weeks, but that’s like reminding cancer survivors they’re still going to die some day. So how does one best pull off a life altering deception? I suppose it really just comes down to eye contact. You wouldn’t suspect a 20-year-old virgin to look you directly in the eye and spoon-feed you the kind of bullshit only a deranged hypochondriac could invent…but I did. My sad big eyes would get all misty, my lower lip would tremble slightly, and pretty soon my hands would claw at your back as I embraced you in an effort to come to terms with the “loss of my voice”. I cried silently. You mumbled awkwardly. And the world went on spinning. Fuck Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio. The Oscar for most emotional performance goes to Atom @$%#&. The world can kiss my pale mute ass. Lord, deliver me from dialogue.

In the Journalism office, the flustered girl continued waiting for me to respond to her. I pointed to my throat, indicating that I couldn’t speak, which only made her all the more frantic. After cursing under her breath, the girl began digging around her purse as I sat calmly analyzing her. She was a peculiar woman, to say the least. Curly ginger hair that covered the shaved sides of her head, a pale complexion with light freckles sprinkled across her cheeks, and heavily mismatched eye-liner outlining her Hershey brown eyes. As for her apparel, she wore a black-and-white collared dress with wing-tipped bowling shoes, giving her a homeless Wednesday Adams look. After a while of digging around in her purse, she pulled out a packet and plopped it down on the desk in front of me. “I need to talk to Dr. Billsby!” She over enunciated. I scribbled on a piece of paper: I’m not deaf. And handed it to her. I opened the packet she put down and saw the name Kit Conrad typed on the upper right hand corner of the page, the title reading, Extra Terrestrial Influence on Human Evolution, and a large red D written at the top of the paper. “I need a higher grade than this. I talked to Dr. Sherry, and he told me to come to Dr. Billsby to help rewrite my paper.” He’s in China. Won’t be back until next Wednesday. I wrote. “Is there any way you could get in contact with him for me?” You have to wait until he gets back. “But I’m not going to be here next week. If I don’t get this grade up to at least a B, I’m fucked! I’m already on academic probation!” In a sudden outburst of rage, she hurled her bag across the room. A loud crack came from her purse as it collided with the book case, several books tumbling to the floor. “Shit….” She mumbled, as she hastily stooped down to clean up the mess. Even with her back turned to me, I could sense wave after wave of regret radiating off her like solar flares. Too many parties, perhaps. Too much alcohol. Regardless of what people say, two positives can sometimes equal a negative. Against my better nature, I decided to sympathize with her. After placing the books back in their designated spots, she turned around to find another note waiting for her to read. Leave your essay here. Come back tomorrow. It read. “Dr. Sherry said I had to work on it myself with Dr. Billsby.” I pointed to the line I just wrote. “Are you going to give it to Dr. Billsby?” She asked. I, once again, pointed to words I wrote. “Okay.... I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” Cautiously, she backed out of the office, unsure as how to feel about leaving her essay with a mute stranger. As soon as I was sure she was gone, I began to skim her work. Lord, deliver me from red pens. Aside from lacking reputable sources that failed to support her thesis, and an uneven flow of writing, her paper was riddled with literary and grammatical errors that made Joel Schumacher seem intelligent. In layman’s terms, George Clooney’s Bat nipples were a more feasible concept than this girl’s essay.

It’s important for people to understand the importance of owning useless trinkets. Things of sentimental value that serve no purpose in life whatsoever. This concept is what hoarders rely on to keep themselves grounded. It’s important for them to hold on to their dead father’s chipped wooden cane. Own an aquamarine basketball. A broken sphygmomanometer. Their old Beetleborg action figures. Because when the full force of that battering ram called life comes bursting through their front door, they’ll at least have something to distract themselves from the inevitable aftermath of doom and isolation. I sat and stared at her first page for over three hours. That’s one football game. One Peter Jackson movie. 36 cigarette breaks. That’s time I could have spent playing Dig Dug. Lord, deliver me from Ponchito’s delivery service. After that third hour, when I’ve become too scared to look at the clock, when my head is buzzing obnoxiously, that’s when I indulged in my old useless trinket of nostalgia: my mother’s old sticky Rubik’s cube. Although loose and faded, like my boss’s wife’s vagina, the Rubik’s cube provides me with an outlet to process all analytical thought. I have never solved it, even though there are tutorials available. Manuals. Youtube videos. Swiveling those sides around, I make sure to complete one side at a time. First red, then white. Green. Yellow. Blue. Orange. With each side completed, I erase five years of my life. With each swivel, I get one step closer to nirvana. Peace. Tranquility. Bliss. Once I finish that last side, I can feel hope and confidence fill my body like a drink. Hope, after all, is the poison our souls thrive upon. I returned to my desk and spun around in my swivel chair, a 7-year-old boy again. The first sentence in any written work is the most important. It grabs the reader’s attention, sets the tone for the rest of project, represents the passion of the writer. That is why one must never begin an essay, an article, a journal, with a question, because then their passion is under scrutiny. It soils the whole fucking thing. The next day at the office, as I switched out the inept professor’s pills with Viagra, Kit entered, her low-hung shirt revealing a large Medusa tattoo on her chest. Her way of warding off perverts, I imagined. “What are you doing?” She asked. I held up my finger, indicating for her to wait as I switched out the last of my boss’s medication. From under the desk, I pulled out her newly revised essay and plopped it on the desk in front of her. She grabbed it tentatively as I returned to my mundane office duties, which consisted mainly of me watching Family Matter reruns. Kit skimmed through her new essay, her new life. “So that’s it?” I yawned silently while Urkel on screen exclaimed, “Hiya, big guy!” Dead people laugh and cheer in the background. The magic of 60 year-old laugh tracks. They can break awkward interactions, enabling a pristine environment of relaxation and glee. Before exiting the office, she paused and turned back to me. “Give me your number.” She demanded. “In case I have questions.” If I must be honest, dear reader, while my initial reaction was to ignore her, feign apathy to the highest degree, I couldn’t help but panic. With no excuses to give, the only thing that occurred to me was to squeeze my eyes shut and hold my breath, hoping beyond hope that she would just go away. This always happens when you voluntarily interact with others; they expect more. “Hello?” She said as I continued to hold my breath. 20 seconds passed and my lungs were already on fire. I never could hold my breath longer than half a minute. As the awkward tension grew, I counted off the last few seconds in my head, all the while keeping my eyes shut. 10 seconds left…9 seconds…8…. “Seriously, dude, are you deaf or mute? Hurry up and give me your number. I gotta go.” 7…6…5…4…. “Are you okay? You’re not breathing.” 3…2…. “Atom?” My eyes flew open as I inhaled sharply through my nose. Black stars twinkled at me as I turned toward Kit. Her chocolate fountain eyes couldn’t have looked more intense, more alluring, like my father’s home-made paella or Scarlett Johansenn’s cleavage. I hastily scrawled my number on a piece of paper and handed it to her. After she swiped the paper from my hand, she finally left, leaving me in a frozen state of shock. I never told her my name…. I thought.

Two weeks passed with relative gusto. Every day at noon I woke up, showered, masturbated, brushed my teeth, got dressed, read a book, and masturbated again before falling into a deep sleep. The bachelor’s paradise. Somewhere in that time I ate, and pissed, and watched TV, but I never had to interact with anybody. My own personal utopia. My Disney World. My ecstasy. It was a Sunday afternoon when Kit called me on my cell phone. Unlike most people, I like answering unknown numbers, if anything just to listen to telemarketers struggle in their pursuit of potential business. “Hello, sir. I’m Amy, calling on behalf of the [blah] [blah] company. We’re just calling to conduct our annual survey on home improvement services. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to [tra] [la] [la].” “Hello? Atom?” Kit’s voice rang out loud over the receiver. Silence. “Oh, right. You can’t talk. Well, listen I need you to meet up with me in an hour at Aristotle’s Thrift shop on 4th Street. Tap the mouth piece twice if you understand me.” And just like, after a moment’s hesitation, after eternity ended, I knocked on the speaker. Tap. Tap. If you’re a Y2K kid, you don’t know what a VCR is. You weren’t born when people took pictures with something other than their phone. You didn’t know a time when people wore large wayfarer glasses un-ironically. And you definitely don’t understand the concept of phat farm shoes. I was 2 minutes late when I entered the store. I tucked my messy hay hair swiftly behind my ears as I searched through the racks for Kit. “You’re late.” Came her voice behind me. The disgusting, putrid, beautiful smell of tobacco filled my nostrils as I twisted around to look at her. Kit, with her resting bitch face and connect-the-dot freckles, stood there with an electric cigarette between her lips, staring at me. Around the corner, a smaller version of her entered the scene, texting on her cell phone. Unlike her older sister, this little-er Kit had straight blonde hair and Mick Jagger’s body with B-cup breasts. “Mikal, this is Atom.” “’Sup.” Mikal said, not looking up from her phone. “Excuse me, miss. There’s no smoking in here.” A hipster in a beanie shouted to us from the counter. “It’s a vape.” “I don’t care. There’s no smoking in here.” Kit, thoroughly annoyed, turned to her little sister. “Meet me outside when you’re done. Talk to him, will you?” So that’s how she thought of me. I was nothing but a parrot to her, an infant, Stephan Hawking. She didn’t care about leaving her sister alone with an anxiety riddled glossophobic pill popper. After exiting through the front, Mikal put her cell phone away and finally looked up at me. She smiled, encouragingly as if I were at a job interview, on a witness stand, as if I had to choose between two divorcing parents. That smile that says, “It’s okay. Take your time...bitch.” After giving me a thorough up-and-down inspection, she looked back up at my klingon forehead and asked in a high-pitched voice, “You speak sign language?”

There are people in life who end up being subconsciously regarded as secondary priorities. They are the people their friends talk over. Their jokes never get a laugh. They’re always forgotten (unless someone needs a shoulder to cry on). They’re always cut in line. Constantly getting stood up. Canceled on. These people are the visible invisibles who help bring up social moral. They are the perfect sidekicks, assistants, shoe shiners. Their sole purpose in life is to be the perfect foot rest. This phenomenon is something I commonly refer to as the Clark Kent Effect. They are crucial instruments in the pursuit of progress. They hide in plain sight for all to see, but are never valued. They are the nickels and dimes you find on the street, the chump change you need to do your laundry. That was the life I led for twenty odd years. That is, until I met Star, the deaf Canadian heart throb with the heart of bronze. I never liked to confess that I lost my virginity to a woman with a stripper’s name but I have to admit the memory of the occasion always brings a small nostalgic grin to my face. I’m always reminded of her at the strangest of times, like when I watch a Jim Carrey movie, or pour maple syrup on French toast, or when I sit in a Brookstone massage chair. Her face swims clearly in the forefront of my mind. On our first night together, with the hospital bandages muffling my gasps and moans, her mouth expelled noises that sounded like a constipated hippo or the tantrum of a down syndrome kid. It was a very instinctual time in my life, instructional, daresay even inspirational. Not only did I learn music theory through vibrations and how to overcome pregnancy scares, but I also became fluent in American Sign Language.

I nodded at Mikal, and signed, Do you? Yes. She replied. She was still looking at my forehead, giving that too-innocent smile some high school girls do at times. I read the essay you wrote for Kit. Your writing is really organized. She signed, as she finally looked me in the eye. Unlike her sister, her eyes are cold and grey, not matching the rest of her young, vibrant face. How old are you? I asked. 16. She looked back down at her phone to send a quick text. “I’m gonna go try this on. Come on.” Mikal suddenly said aloud, indicating to the sun dress in her arms. Like her sister, she had a natural instinct to command. Without objection, I followed her. I took a seat outside the fitting room on one of the rickety chairs as Mikal pulled one of the curtains shut behind her in the fitting room. The sound of a zipper being undone, followed by her jeans falling to the floor. My eyes couldn’t help screaming pervert and out-of-state again as I looked at the smooth pallid skin of her ankles. “Atom.” Mikal called, as she poked her head out from behind the curtain. “Come here. I need your help.” I looked around, making sure it was clear to approach the room. This is how people inadvertently become sex offenders. If it’s not a drunken piss in the park, it’s being lulled into dangerous situations by high school girls. As I reached the curtain, she grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me inside the room, pulling the curtain close. She wasn’t wearing the dress. I had a fleeting view of this 16 year-old girl in her mismatched bra and panties before covering my eyes shut. “Atom, it’s okay. You don’t need to close your eyes.” Brain damage begins to occur after five minutes without oxygen. I can only hold my breath for 30 seconds. Lord, deliver me from Vladimir Nabokov. 26…25…24…. “Atom, relax. Nobody’s going to come in.” 20…19…18…17…. “Come on. Give me your hands.” Gently, she grabbed my wrists and pulled them away from my eyes. I kept my eyelids locked, though. Not that keeping my eyes closed would bar me from sex offender status. 13…12…11…10…9…. “It’s okay…It’s okay…” I could feel her getting closer, her thin body and soft skin pressed against my chest. Her warm breath not three inches from my face. She smelled like strawberry lemonade. 5…4…3…2…. And as I opened my mouth to breathe, her lips were on mine. Her soft, cracked lips feeding me the breath of life, her half naked teenage body wrapped around me like a blanket of seduction. Our tongues slithered together, moving from mouth to mouth, hungry for more, always more. And right then, at our most intimate, at our most vulnerable, the curtain swung open to reveal Kit. “Dammit, Mikal. You couldn’t wait do that somewhere more private?” “It was pretty private until you yanked opened the fucking curtain.” Mikal grabbed her clothes and began hastily shoving them back on. My lips now tasted like strawberry lemonade. “I could see both your feet, dumbass. You were taking forever, so I came back to check on you. Did you talk to him?” Kit must not be a very good sibling if she wasn’t angry about a creepy 24- year-old man violating her teenage sister. Mikal looked at my reflection through the mirror, my strawberry lemonade colored cheeks and tousled hair projecting through my humility. Finger-combing her hair, Mikal asks me, “I have an 8-page essay that needs to be written by next week. You think you can write it for me?” And, just like that, in a thrift store fitting room with a blonde high school girl, my boner slowly receding, my lips gooey with strawberry lemonade chap stick, my career started.

Giancarlo Chico completed his MFA (Writing and Producing for Television, 2017) in the LIU Brooklyn TV Writers Studio, where he studied with Norman Steinberg. He also holds a BA in Communication (Radio-TV-Film) from California State University Fullerton, where he minored in Criminal Justice. Chico has worked as an emergency medical technician, a martial arts instructor, and a producer for a live news talk show. He has done script writing for Titan TV, video edited and produced for The Grio, worked as a freelance screen writer, and worked as a production assistant for WheelHouse Creative. In addition, he has been a background actor on multiple television shows and films, including the Netflix series Iron Fist and the feature film Ocean’s 8.

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