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fuck-customers · 5 years

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I don’t care if you spend $150,000+ yearly here, you’re still getting kicked out

Hi! Im a casino dealer for a well known and one of the largest Casino chains in the USA. I adore my job and 9/10 nothing happens to me that I feel the need to bring up to a supervisor or security. My regulars are great, the new faces are usually fun, and the worst thing I have to consistently contend with is my players getting antsy over how long the servers take with drinks on busy nights. Its a great job for the most part.

The absolute only thing, that 1/10 times, that I have to deal with is people, usually men, getting overly aggressive or sexual. When money and alcohol are involved, it can bring out the worst in people. And Im also quite young looking, with a very soft voice and demeanor at work, and Ive been warned by management that bc of that I may deal with some harrassment. Luckily, theyre never shy to support me and do what needs to be done to get it sorted. Because of how great management and security are, Ive never felt unsafe, despite how people can act.

This story is not about the average guest, however!!! No, this story is about a reoccuring character in my casino, a misogynistic high roller who only ever seems to come out of poker room or high limit to harrass me.

At my casino (and those sister casinos under a larger, well known brand) we have a rewards program that ranks the guests on, basically, how much they spend and win.

Basically, you get 1 point for every $1 to spend or win on a table game (there are other ways to win but thats the way thats relevent to me, a table games dealer). For each rank, you have to earn, yearly:

Gold: 1-4,999 points

Platinum: 5,000-14,999

Diamond: 15,000-149,999

Seven Star: 150,000+

Which, yes, means that a Seven star player spends and wins more money at my job than Ill ever see in my bank account! In one year, EVERY year, they want to be a Seven Star member!

So, Ive had issues with this one Seven Star (7S) member, consistently. Mainly, he treats me like crap and calls me a b*tch to his friends when he loses (which happens, bc its gambling, and its not my fault). In the same breath, he’ll refuse to continue the round until I ~apologize to him or ~blow him a kiss to make up for taking his chips. Or he’ll make uncomfortably intense and detailed comments on my appearance.

Every time I go to tell my floor supervisor about him, he sees me and colors up his chips and runs before they can handle it. On the bright side, it means I usually only have to deal with him once a night, because after that he avoids me (although he will walk by my table and tell my players how bad of a dealer I am despite how attractive he thinks I am, and how much of a shame that is).

This weekend is Halloween weekend, however, and we were allowed to be in costume. Im in love with fashions inspired by older time periods, so I went into work in an all-wine red outfit inspired by Edwardian fashion. It was really cute, and I got a lot of compliments from my coworkers, so I was having a great night.

But 7S sees me as hes coming out of High Limit BJ and makes a beeline for my table. I dredge up my best customer service smile and buy him in and shuffle the cards. As Im working, however, he is wasting nO time in making sure I understand how physically attractive he finds me in my costume.

Before I can say anything, he is pulling his phone out and pointing it directly at me, saying hes going to take a picture.

1) Policy states that, for security reasons, guests are not allowed to have their phones out while sitting at a table.

2) Policy also states you arent supposed to take pictures on a table, or anywhere really, bc of above. There are of course exceptions, like taking a quick selfie or SC, that security wont bother with. But if the officers on the floor or the Eye in the Sky (the security watching the cameras) see you taking video or photos a suspicious amount, please know you ARE being followed my an officer, either on the floor or over cameras.

3) Common decency and security both also state thst you dont take pictures of employees without their consent.

Now, still smiling, I tell him he knows full well he’ll get in trouble if he takes a picture of me because he knows the rules. Hes not supposed to have his phone out, at all, at the minimum. He just smiles lecherously and tells me its an exception bc its Halloween. False.

Luckily, however, I’m just there for 20min to give a coworker a break. In the mean time, no matter how often I insist he has to stop, he doesnt. It just so happens that my floor supvervisor was having to deal with 2 drunk guests fighting 2 tables over from me, so I couldnt immediately reinforce the rules. I had to spend 20min dealing with this guy drooling and taking photos of me when he thought I wasnt looking until my coworker came back and I could walk up to my supervisor directly. (Poor guy was dealing with a lot, so i dont blame him for not seeing what was happening at my table.)

Typically, 7S saw my ratting him out and tried to run. My awesome floor sueprvisor didnt hesitate. All I had to say was “The 7S player at spot 5 kept taking pics of me” and he was calling security, no further explanation needed.

I was giving another coworker a break when the rest of the story unfolded.

Security and my shift manager track him down and force him to delete the multiple photos from his phone, explaining in detail why that wasnt allowed. The female security guard even went so far as to take the phone away, go into the deleted section, and made sure to hard erase the photos so he couldnt recover them.

He, apparently, insisted that it was an exception bc it was Halloween, that I gave him permission, that did we know how much money he spends here?!?! How dare we tell him no! He’ll never come here again! You’ll take an employee’s word over hIS? When he spends so much money here?!?!

Security, many of whom Ive made a point to become friendly with over the months Ive worked here, werent having his crap and told him that he had a 24hr ban for the premises. Unfortunately, the only way out was to walk him in front of my new table.

7S, no matter how many security officers were walking him out, kept trying to walk up to me and start talking. At one point he managed to just stand there in front of my table and just... stare at me, ignoring the security trying to make him leave. He just stood there, perfectly in front of me, with a gross, malicious smile, waiting to be acknowledged by me as a whole security team tried to urge him forward without having to take physical action.

I had guests on my table, so I wasnt about to talk to him, but I glanced up at him and smiled, and continued to deal the cards.

I wish I could say I was trying to be witty, but honestly after working so long in this position, my default response to guests in general has just become the Customer Service Smile. I was actually very afraid in that moment, and very grateful to the security guard who finally wedged herself between us and forced him on.

Later, the female security officer who made sure my photos were fully deleted came up to me on break. She let me know that she made sure to get everything off his phone, and that she was honestly frightened of how he treated me and how he was acting towards me, and that its now going to be known how he feels towards me. She said that if he ever sits at my table and even vaguely makes me uncomfortable, bc of his history with me they wont hesitate to take care of it.

Working here is one of the best things to ever happen to me, and Im glad the security and management here are able to minimize the guests who give me problems. And hopefully he hates me enough that he never plays at my table, again.

TL;DR: A guest who spends $150,000+ yearly at my casino repeatedly sexually harrasses me over a period of months. It comes to a head when he takes photos of me without my consent in my Halloween costume. Security and management make him delete the photos and temporarily ban him from the establishment in a scene that was bad enough for security to put a policy in place to keep him from bothering me ever again.

#submissions #tw #happy ending #trigger warning #fuck customers #casino problems #submission

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terrifying-testicles · 5 years

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Sugar Daddy!Bakugou x Reader Ch. 1

Okay soooo I had this written weeks ago but just needed to get it typed up and wasn’t sure if I wanted to post it without part two ready. I’m impatient though! So, here it is! This is more of an introduction into why our gremlin would be a sugar daddy, so hold tight guys, the second part gets into the actual sugar daddy nonsense. I also have plans to get saucy as the series continues, since I wasn’t originally planning on it turning into such a m o n s t e r. Also, the line I put in near the end is an actual thing someone has sent me before. Go figure.

Btw, the reader’s quirk is based on my OC’s quirk, Energy Manipulation and Absorption, which she will explain in the second chapter, I promissssse. Enjoy!

Words: 6.3k

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“Well how am I supposed to help you if you won’t even tell me your type?” “I don’t want your fucking help!” Bakugou huffs and increases his pace to avoid Kirishima’s persistent pout. Kirishima jutts his bottom lip out further. He honestly didn’t understand how his partner could be so fast and agile in such baggy pants. The two heroes continue walking through the city, on their usual patrol. It had been a relatively quiet day, only having calmed (threatened) a rather rowdy group they had strolled upon earlier in the day. Given how little there was to hold their attention, Kirishima filled the gaps with conversation. However, recently the topic had been circling back to Bakugou’s love life, which was, in Kirishima’s words, “almost more depressing than Denki’s.” The red head had been trying to goad Bakugou into giving him something to go off of so that he could help set him up with somebody. Of course, Bakugou objected. Kirishima was beside Bakugou in three long strides, silently thanking the Gods for the few inches over his friend in height. “Oh, c’mon man! You and I both know how lonely you are—” “I’m not lonely! I don’t need annoying people to fill my time. You do that enough,” Bakugou snapps harshly, refusing to meet Kirishima’s eyes. “Bro, listen,” Kirishima steps out to block Bakugou’s path, left hand raised in a placating gesture. Bakugou’s fists clench at his sides as he levels Kirishima with a ferocious glare, teeth clenched. Despite his hostile posture, he makes no move to push his partner out of the way. “The last time you tried to date someone it didn’t go that well,” Bakugou growls.

“But! I think you’ve let that discourage you! You should try getting back out there, man. You don’t know who you could be missing out on.” Kirishima gave a small, reassuring smile. Bakugou scoffs and crosses his arms. He casts his glare aside and notices a few people around them. Already tired eyes catch a couple of women who were watching the two of them from across the street, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially. “You really aren’t going to leave me alone about this, are you shitty hair?” he rumbles lowly. Kirishima shakes his head vigorously, not unlike a 5 year old denying that they broke their toy. Bakugou sighs dramatically. “I’m not about to have this conversation here.” He accentuates his statement by glancing back to the women across the street, who now scurry off at the heated look he sends their way. Kirishima’s carmine eyes light up. “You mean you’ll actually talk to me ab—” “Yes, alright?” Bakugou hisses. “Just— later. And you can’t keep bugging me about it after that!” The ash blond punctuates his statement with a gloved finger shoved into Kirishima’s broad chest. He only grins, nodding his head before stepping to Bakugou’s side and throwing a hand across his shoulders. “Excellent! I have this idea…” “Shitty hair—” Bakugou’s warning tone is interrupted by the shrill whine of an alarm. Both men snap their heads up to see a storefront about two blocks down blow out in a spray of glass, three figures jumping out and bolting away from the now wailing alarm. “Fucking finally!” Bakugou roars, feet already carrying him in a spring, Kirishima hot on his heels.

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“I’m sorry, I know this isn’t the last thing you want to do today but he’s too new. If he ruins another experiment I’ll throw him in the pressure chamber.” You sigh through your nose, setting your coffee on the cafe table. “I’m in town right now, so it’ll be at least fifteen minutes before I could get there.” You press your shoulder against the phone so that you can shake the two sugar packets, ripping the tops and pouring them into the black coffee while your coworker continues to grumble on the other line. “You’ve got to give him a chance, Aki, he’s only an undergrad. He doesn’t know just how serious our work is.” A sound between a laugh and something offended has you pulling the phone away from your ear quickly. “Why not have him do some observation, keep him busy with recording data or something?” you suggest, smiling to the barista as you shoulder open the door. “What, and have him mess up the numbers? I don’t think so!” Aki yells. You roll your eyes. You thoroughly enjoyed your days away from the lab, but always felt anxious for the disaster group that were your coworkers, worried about what they were up to while you were gone. Too many times had you come back to a poorly hidden disaster or a professor greeting you to explain what new things your lab had been banned from doing or using. “It’s just reading numbers and writing it down. He can’t be any worse than you and that radiologist from Ikeda’s lab.” You sipped your coffee to hide the smug smile spreading across your face in response to your coworker’s sputtered response. “That was only once and we paid for the damage!” You laugh. “Still. Why do I need to go in anyway? I’m not coming in on my day off just to babysit the intern.” You really put up with far too much, more than a supervisor should without bringing in your bosses, but it was never anything you couldn’t handle yourself. You would likely die trying to fix your lab partners’ mistakes before getting the Dean involved. They may run you ragged but you’d never put the lab and your chance to conduct research in jeopardy. “It took three of us to set this experiment up, and not counting the shit inter there’s only one other person in the lab.” “I don’t get paid enough for this,” you grumble into your coffee. “I’ll owe you!” Aki singsongs. With another eyeroll, you hum into the speaker. “Fine, fine, I should be on the train in li—” A loud rumbling draws your attention away from your phone. You and the pedestrians around you look down the street, where the sound of explosions and screeching metal grew louder. You ignore your coworker’s yelling, stepping off of the sidewalk to get a glimpse around the street corner. Another explosion shakes the ground beneath your feet, almost throwing you off balance. You watch people run away from the right side of the street but being 10 meters away you were unable to see the actual force behind the tremors. Your curiosity had always posed a problem for you. Plenty of broken bones and burns and disciplinary action growing up has only proven how dangerous the depths of your inquisitive nature can be. Most people in this situation would follow the crowd and put self-preservation first. You couldn’t be most people if you actually made an effort. So, as bodies brushed past you and orange light flickers across the glass of the office buildings across the intersection, you push forward. Just to see, you tell yourself. You had only moved forward a few steps before a loud crack shocks her into stillness. Glancing up, your (e/c) eyes go wide, the skyscraper on the corner beginning to bow out at the 10th floor, glass cracking and bursting from the pressure, two floors above and below the point of tension suddenly bared to the open sky. The corner beam of the building rips away, split at the place where it bowed out. The piece that meets the ground whips out and down, arching and then reaching around the side where all of the commotion seems to come from, and effectively out of sight. A strong impulse tells you to get just a little closer, to watch whatever mayhem was unfolding so near, but before you can take a step, you hear a scream above you. On the 11th floor, the room that was once a corner office is now destroyed, the floor falling. The floor flaps down, desk sliding with gravity until it tumbles out, landing with a loud crash on the pavement. You, however, only see the person clutching onto the disconnected floor, legs kicking around in panic. You look around to find the street fairly empty. Not only of people, but of heroes. “Please don’t get caught,” you mutter under your breath, slipping your phone into your back pocket before dashing forward.

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“Stay still, you bastard!” Bakugou propels himself forward in the air, heat blanketing the exposed skin of his neck and the back of his shoulders and forearms. After giving chase, he and Kirishima had taken two bank robbers down with ease. The third, however, proved to be a challenge. His quirk had something to do with manipulating metal, and Bakugou was absolutely fed up with being smacked by lampposts and narrowly avoiding cars. The fucker had even managed to throw a manhole cover at the explosive hero and Bakugou really wasn’t looking forward to the resulting bruise on his shin. The criminal kept dipping between different streets to throw him off, but Bakugou was locked on, refusing to lose him. Bakugou shoots forward with another blast from palms open to the world whipping past him. Like this, he was easily gaining on his target, who ran on foot. The man checks behind him at the rapidly approaching blasts, panic in his eyes and the set of his jaw. Swiftly, he throws his left arm out and his hand shakes, but he never slows his pace. Bakugou was so close. Another blast and he brings his knees up closer to his chest, a wicked grin curling at his limps as he aims his body at the criminal. Creaking and shattering drew Bakugou’s eyes up, barely catching the steel beam swinging out from a building and right at him. His eyes widen and his palms shoot out, detonating just in time to push him back from the beam. He lands harshly but keeps his footing and is running in a matter of seconds. He sees the criminal pushing himself up, likely having been thrown over from the blast. He’s almost to his feet when Bakugou comes up behind him and slams one gauntlet-clad arm across his back. The man grunts as he goes down. Bakugou grabs the man’s hands and keeps them in a vice grip in one hand, the other reaching back for the quirk-nullifying cuffs. “You’re gonna regret running.” He barely has them out of his belt when there’s a loud scream. Bakugou looks up to see a desk fall through the air to the left of him. A shoulder bag follows, and his vermilion eyes shoot up to catch legs dangling from the corner of the building the villain destroyed. “Shit!” he yells, slapping the cuffs onto the villain, harshly in his haste. He takes two steps away from the man with a threat to stay put, palms aimed at the ground and ready to blast him into the air, but before he can even get a spark going, he sees [h/c] hair just to the right. It takes him a moment to realize it’s a person. A person jumping through the air. Is that a civilian?! He watches her gaining altitude, knees curling up to her chest, arms aimed out, and she lands, ungracefully, on the floor below the person dangling. Now that Bakugou has moved he can see the floor falling out and the person’s failing hold on the edge of it. Bakugou blinks, realizing that he’s just standing there watching this. He’s a hero for fuck’s suck! He runs closer to the mess of glass and office decoration. Bakugou get a better look at their position: from the way the floor sags down if the civilian feel they’d clip the edge of the floor below them, but it would be likely it would also fall in with the force of their fall. There was also a chance of them tumbling over the side with the momentum. The woman stands straight and reaches up to the person with both arms, speaking to them, but Bakugou can’t hear her from this distance. The person turns their head to look at her and he’s sure they respond before the woman bends her knees as if bracing herself. Bakugou’s hear pounds in his chest, and then the person lets go and tumbles into the woman’s awaiting arms.

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You hadn’t thought farther than making it onto the 10th floor. Your landing had been met with an unsteady surface, the floor beneath your very feet warning of impending collapse. Anxiety inflates in your chest, wind whipping at the hem of your shirt, hair brushing your shoulders and you are distantly thankful you put your hair up on the way out of your apartment this morning. The person before you whimpers, clutching as tight as they can to the carpet, fingers drained of color with the strain. You step closer to them. “Hey,” you try not to yell and startle them, but the wind whistling past the maw of destroyed glass makes it harder to hear anything. The person tenses. “Oh my Gods, please help me.” It comes out as a sob and your chest tightens. You take a deep breath and take another step closer, arms spread out before you in an almost welcoming gesture. You quickly eye the space behind you from your peripheral, where the floor begins to bow in at the point where it once met a corner and now meets the city air. “Listen, I’m right behind you. You’re going to have to let go and fall back into my arms. I promise, I will catch you.” Promise? You purse your lips at your own choice of words. The person turns their head as much as they can to see you, eyebrows furrowed, tear tracks obvious on their cheek now. “O-okay. Please don’t drop me…” They turn their head back and tighten the grip of their aching hands momentarily. You bend your knees, ready to brace yourself for the weight. You hate your impulsive nature but remain thankful for the nature of your quirk. “Ready.” She yells. When you feels the person’s weight hit you, you absorb the force of them throwing themselves backwards, but still stumble back somewhat, right foot sliding and lodging itself in the gap between the floor and the steel frame, which gives a low groan at the force you unknowingly put out in your panic. Arms securely around the person’s waist, you glance back to check your foot placement. The floor that had been dislodge from the frame is sagging in more with the pressure of your weight pressing right into its weakest point. “Now what?” the person asks, sounding winded. “HEY!” You startle, craning your neck further to find the source of the shouting. Your breath catches in your throat as you spot a hero. Not just any hero, but Ground fucking Zero. You let go of the person and turn to fully face him, brushing away the hair that blows into your eyes. Below, Ground Zero is walking up, kicking glass aside. “What the fuck are you doing?” he yells. His arms hang at his sides as best they can with the gauntlets he wears, shoulders bunched up and what you know to be his signature scowl pulling at his lips. “Uh, well, I –“ you try fishing for an excuse, but are cut short by the jolt of the floor under your feet. The added weight of another person and support of the building’s frame quickly disconnecting have you struggling to think fast. You hear Ground Zero curse but can’t decipher it, not that you’re focusing much on it. “Jump!” You look back at the hero as he walks closer. The person grips your arm tightly. “W-what?!” they squawk at him. “Fucking jump! You did it before, didn’t you?” His tone is impatient, but you feel the anxiety hidden behind it, mirrored in the way your knees tremble slightly. “But that’s t-ten stories!” You bite your lip and glance to the person holding to your arm deathly tight, a tremor running through their body. “Hey,” you start softly. Their wide eyes cut over to you. “Don’t worry. I caught you. That man down there is a pro hero, so if I can catch you then you have nothing to worry about.” The frenzied look does not leave their eyes. “Come on!” Ground Zero barks. You look at him, then back to the person. “It’s okay,” you say before reaching one foot forward and bracing it on the empty frame. You push slightly to test its strength and hear the slightest protest from the floor beneath you. “Step up here, I’ll keep you steady.” The person lets out a sound somewhere close to a sob, shakily moving after a moment’s hesitation. They step up, both hands holding yours so tight you feel your bones creak. You keep your other foot on the increasingly unstable floor to provide yourself balance as you keep the terrified person steady. Ground Zero holds out his arms, and he looks ready to dash whatever way he needs to receive the civilian safely. You nod to them, and it’s still another minute before they let go of your hands and leap out. Ground Zero moves forward and locks his knees as they land in open arms. He ends up falling back onto his ass, but the person scurries to their feet and offer to help him up. The blond hero brushes them aside and hops to his feet. “Your turn, lady.” Ground Zero rolls his shoulders, possibly to prepare himself for the next impact. You puff out a laugh. “I’m good.” As his face morphs into confused rage, you remove your foot from the floor, swing it out, and use the one on the frame to push off. You ignore the ‘what the fuck’ screamed at you and focus on your landing. Blacktop comes at you fast, and a breath away from landing you flex your toes out, energy dispersing through the movement and the pavement cracks shallowly beneath the front of your feet. Rolling to the heels, you gaze up to your right, only to find vermilion eyes boring down at your. Ground Zero must have gone to catch you but didn’t make it to you first. He’s less than an arm’s reach from you, heat rolling off of him, and you wonder if it’s from his exertion or his anger. “Are you fucking crazy?” he spits. You frown and cross your arms. “No,” you’ve barely turned to face him when he’s suddenly right in your face, teeth bared at you in a snarl. “You could’ve died up there. What kind of dumbass are you?” “Well, they could have died, and you weren’t here.” You snap back, angry at his scolding. Was he right? Of course. Were you going to admit that and roll over? Fuck no! You didn’t respond well to most authority unless you were paid to. Ground Zero growls, a retort heavy on his tongue. “Zero!” His head snaps to look over his shoulder, murder in his eyes. Red Riot now stands beside the villain Ground Zero had been chasing, holding him by a cuffed arm. The ash blond grumbles and turns back to the newest source of his annoyance, only to find the space in front of him empty. He frantically looks around. You have already made it to the end of the street, eager to avoid whatever the explosive man had to say. You look back, seeing the stunned and furious look on his face, and hive a wide smile and a waggle of your fingers before darting around the corner. Hopefully he wouldn’t give chase. You pull out your phone, dialing your coworker as you slip into the curious crowd of onlookers and flee the scene of your impromptu rescue.

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Bakugou slumps into the booth, arms crossed against his chest and a scowl hard-set on his features. After the fight, they’d talked to reporters, did the necessary paperwork, and all Bakugou had wanted after showering at the agency was to go home to his cat and zone out to nighttime television. Instead, Kirishima had talked him into (“harassed” as Bakugou had put it) going out and grabbing a drink. He had to admit that a drink would help ease the irritation from being shown up by some wannabe civilian. Of course, Kirishima had steered him to a bar near their apartments and when they approached a table the redhead had seemed set on, Bakugou was met with the familiar cackling of two of their friends. “Oi, what the fuck, shitty hair? I thought you said this was ‘winding down’?” Bakugou huffed as Kirishima slapped Sero on the back in greeting. “What? We know how to wind down,” Kaminari feigned offense, scooting further into the semi-circle booth and patting the now open seat beside him. “And it involves shots!” the blond cheered, Sero laughing in response. “He’s already two in.” Sero took a sip of his drink, obvious in his refusal to down it in one go. “You guys better catch up.” The challenge wasn’t subtle, Kirishima laughing and looking over to Bakugou. On any other day, he would have put up a fight, or made a bigger deal out of it than necessary before partaking. Instead, he reached out, snatched Sero’s glass and knocked it all back. Tequila was not on of his go-to’s, but he should’ve expected the tequila-based cocktail to be the ravenet’s choice. Not that it really mattered now that it was burning down his throat and putting a different kind of heat in his chest. Sero made a noise of complaint. Kirishima laughed and stood up from the booth while Bakugou finally dropped into his own and slumped into the seat. “Why don’t we grab some drinks for the table?” he grinned at Sero, who just sighed and waved his hand at the other two dismissively as he got up to join his muscly friend. Once out of sight, Kaminari leans across the table to squint at Bakugou. “What’s got your panties in a twist?” Bakugou slumps further into the seat. “Fuck off.” “You’re mighty grumpy.” “I’m always grumpy.” “But not like this.” Bakugou kicks his leg at Kaminari under the table, but the shorter man had anticipated it and pulls his legs up to sit cross-legged. “This is more like…like ‘someone wronged me and I’m pouting’ kind of grumpy.” Bakugou growls half-heartedly. “I don’t fucking pout.” Kaminari hums a disagreeing noise. “Sounds fake but okay. You didn’t deny the first part, though!” He smiles brightly, pressing his palms flat on the table and folds himself almost in half to lean closer. “So~ who kicked your cat, huh? “No one fu—” “Some woman from patrol.” Bakugou snaps his teeth at his partner as he and Sero approach the table with a tray of shot glasses. “Shut your damn mouth,” he hisses. “What’s this about a woman?” Sero quips cheekily, sliding in and pressing his shoulder to Kaminari’s, smile wide and sly. “Nothing.” “A civilian saved someone and totally blew him off.” Bakugou lets out an undignified sound. Kaminari leans back when Bakugou slaps his hand on the table. “Shut your shitty fucking mouth before I do for you.” He growls low at Kirishima. Said man pops down beside Sero after setting down the tray, laughing all the while like he hadn’t just been threatened. “Speaking of women,” Kaminari sets down an empty shot. Bakugou’s glare was almost exhausted. “how’s your shitty love life going?” “No, nope. I told you cocksuckers I wasn’t gonna tell you shit.” “Actually…” Bakugou looks over to Kirishima’s devilish smirk. “You said you would.” He sounds far too pleased with himself, Bakugou decides, and he has not drunk nearly enough to have this conversation with these idiots. “Not with dunce face and horse mouth.” With a sweeping gesture to them, both men frowning harshly. “We’re a delight!” Kaminari snaps, taking another shot and pushing one to Sero. The latter nods sagely before downing his. Bakugou swayed his bothered gaze over to his best friend. His resolve wavers at those puppy dog eyes. He grumbles and snatches a shot, knocking it back, followed by another. The ash blond slumps back into his seat and releases a heavy sigh. The three eager men watch Bakugou expectantly. After a long beat of silence, he snaps, “Well, I’m not starting this shit! If you want to know, you fuckers gotta ask.” He eyes another shot, debating how inebriated he could be without this conversation going all kinds of sideways. Kaminari immediately goes to speak, questions ready to burst forth, when Sero holds a hand out and looks pointedly to Kirishima. The redhead purses his lips and holds his chin, contemplation creasing his brow. Bakugou avoids the scrutinizing look and reaches for the drink Kaminari had set out for, enjoying the offended scoff he gets in return. Kirishima hums. “Okay, how about” why are you so scared to try dating again?” Bakugou scrunches his nose. “I’m not scared, you moron.” “Then what is it?” Kirishima looks as if this subject honestly concerned him, that empathetic shine in his eyes that Bakugou claims to hate so much. The other two merely raise their eyebrows at their grouchy friend. Bakugou crosses his arms over his chest and huffs, looking at the dried water ring on the table. It wasn’t that he just refused to think about it. It was quite the opposite, actually. He knew why he couldn’t date someone, what he regretted in his last relationship, what he missed, what he, dare he say it, feared about getting into something that he’d only ruin again. “I can’t,” Bakugou growls and clenches his fist. “I don’t have the time. I’m gonna be number one and I won’t date someone just to leave them alone all the time.” He purses his lips, feeling the warmth of the liquor hitting him and trying to puke his feelings out in front of this many people. “If I’m gonna be someone’s boyfriend then I’m gonna be the best, and I can’t do that with the way I’m working now.” Kaminari leans forward, face scrunched in an expression of disbelief. Bakugou briefly wonders how many of the empty glasses belong to the loudmouth beside him. “Dude, that’s way less irrational than I thought that would be.” Kaminari sits back to avoid the half-hearted swat from Bakugou. He leans on the table again and says, “Why not just find a friend with benefits or something?” Bakugou sneers. “I’m not looking for a quick fuck. I can take care of myself; I don’t need to rope somebody else in just to satisfy me. Or to spread rumors about my sex life.” “I think you actually offended him,” Sero looks from one blond to the other. “Okay well, what do you want from a relationship? Like, if you could have it without the commitment?” Kaminari asks. Bakugou curls his lip and jabs an accusing finger in his direction. “Are you saying I can’t do commitment?” Kaminari raises his hands in surrender. “What? No! Bro, now way I just—” “Katsuki,” said man turns to Kirishima, shoulders tense. “what were your favorite things about having a girlfriend?” He gives a soft smile, genuine, a weapon more efficient than any other when bargaining with the gremlin. Bakugou holds his glare, then exhales, whole body deflating and sinking into the booth. Kirishima remembers talking vaguely with his friend about this when Bakugou had initially started dating his now-ex. He’d been so much more relaxed an open (as much as he could be). Kirishima knew first hand that Bakugou took his role as boyfriend very seriously and enjoyed many aspects that came with it. He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess,” he scratches the back of his head. “I liked getting to spoil her. Seeing her light up when I bought her gifts or taking her out to dinner and showing her off.” Bakugou frowns, suddenly thinking back to all of the dates he planned, the trips he planned and endless effort he put into making her happy. “I liked getting to treat her like a queen and making her feel good.” He gives a half smirk at the multiple meanings behind that last bit. “Just wish it hadn’t turned one sided…” it’s under his breath, but the three of them catch it. Before he can spiral any further through memories, Sero snaps his fingers. “Holy shit, Bakubro, you should be a Sugar Daddy!” Kaminari, mid-shot, snorts and coughs as the liquor comes out of his nose. Kirishima dissolves into laughter, wheezing and smacking his hand on the table. Bakugou goes from a look of pure shock to absolute fury. “Ex-fucking-scuse you, Tape Face?!” Sero waves his hand around as if remorseful, though the shit-eating grin says otherwise. “Hear me out!” Bakugou glares him down while the other two try pulling themselves together. Once Kirishima gets his breathing under control and Kaminari is wiping up the liquor from the table’s surface, Sero speaks again. “I have a friend, another pro, and he’s on this sugar daddy site. Don’t give me that look, just listen!” Bakugou rolls his eyes and tries to keep his features as neutral as he can manage. “He found a sugar baby and he says it works well for him. She’s his date to galas, she does all that publicity shit with him, and he pays for outfits, lets her buy shit, I think he even pays her rent.” “Do they sleep together?” Kaminari asks with a look of bewilderment. “I didn’t ask.” Sero holds his hands up in a shrug. “My point is, if you want to treat some girl like a queen but don’t want to date her, there’s women out there who would be beside themselves if THE Ground Zero said he wanted to spoil them.” He wants to yell at him. Tell him how stupid it is, how low it is, how he’d never do something so…sleazy. “Don’t people like that expect sex? It’s the same as paying for a prostitute and playin’ ‘Pretty Woman’.” Bakugou crosses his arms again. “I mean, some sugar daddies do. A lot, actually.” Sero says the last part under his breath. “But! Not everyone does, and not every sugar baby does, either. Each person has different needs, I guess.” Bakugou scoffs, willing another refusal to come to mind. “I don’t know, man. It might be worth it to check out.” Kirishima says, picking out a shot. Bakugou grumbles and looks at his phone to take his attention away. After a couple of minutes, the rest of the group catches on that he’s done with this conversation, and move along to other topics, laughing and yelling like drunken idiots in no time.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You crouch down, pouring the cup of food into a ceramic bowl next to the fridge. The cup wasn’t even empty before you feel a wet nose against your elbow, then the weight of your dog leaning against your left side. You laugh and turn to pet the red heeler. He shoves you over, losing your balance and tumbling over, almost knocking into the water bowl. “Rōrupan, you naughty boy! You’re such a bully, you know that?” You scratch his scruff while the brindle dog scarfs down his kibble. You stand and walk to the dining table, opening up your laptop and typing in a webpage. You walk around the kitchen, pulling out leftovers and assembling some sort of meal before throwing it into the toaster oven. Once the timer was set, you sit down in front of your laptop and sigh. “What do we have today?” you ask aloud, briefly glancing at Rōrupan, who could care less. You scroll through four new messages and grumble at each of them. All were from men with no tact in their greetings, coming on way too strong, one even saying: “Any chance you’re interested in a tall, attractive, and well hung married man?” You snap your computer shut, not even bothering to browse tonight. You would put more effort into your search if you hadn’t gotten home only mere minutes ago. You had originally joined the site as a joke, not really putting any stock in sugar daddies and that sort of lifestyle. Browsing through your options, you laughed at half of the men, coming off as try-hards facing a mid-life crisis and wanting to splurge on someone other than themselves – or their wives. You expressly ignored anyone who made their married status known, having no desire to be some rich fuck’s side piece when he had a loving wife at home. In the few months you’d been on, though, you had managed to go on a few dates, completely paid for. One man had bought you a beautiful silver evening gown for the dinner date with him. A couple of men offered to give you an allowance, which you politely declined at the realization that you didn’t want to be a reoccurring presence with these men. You weren’t a materialistic person, by any means. Your apartment was a simple one bedroom with decent amenities. It was well decorated but most of it consisted of gifts from family or absolute steals you found while browsing thrift stores. You spent more money on your dog than yourself, most times. That didn’t mean you didn’t enjoy gifts, though. Treating yourself was hard, but you absolutely lived for others tending to your needs and treating you better than most. You never looked too deep into that, ignoring the psychological implications of what led you here. Browsing may have sounded more enticing had your mind not been so occupied by one of your favorite heroes. You had dreamt so long of getting to meet the hothead, and this is not how you imagined it going down. You cursed your impulsive nature. This took the cake for “Dumbest Thing I’ve Done Because of My Cool Quirk”, which had previously been held by “The Tree Incident”, aka “The Reason I Can’t Bend My Left Leg All The Way”. You pull yourself from the table, grabbing your food and wandering into the living room. Setting the food down on the coffee table, you throw yourself onto the couch face first with a groan. He was so much dreamier up close, even when enraged. You turned your body to face away from the couch. Rōrupan trotted over, tongue lolling out of a perfect smile. You grab the throw pillow at your head and hug it to your chest. “You should have seen his eyes,” you complained to your pet. “Rōru, they could pin you in place all on their own.” Rōrupan plopped onto his rear and gave a dramatic yawn followed by a whiny rumble. “Don’t be rude,” you grumbled into the pillow. “If I see him again, I’ll DIE. He probably wants to kick my ass. Right now, I want to kick my OWN ass.” Your dog set you with a bored look. “I pulled some real vigilante shit today. You would be proud of me, bud.” You pull your head up and reach out for the still steaming plate. Sitting up, you furrow your brows and give a worried frown. “What if he tells a cop or something and they come looking for me? You’d starve without me, y’know.” At that Rōrupan leaves the room and retreats to his owner’s. You pout and huff loudly. “Let’s hope that doesn’t actually happen.”

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xaphrin · 5 years

Note

oooooooh!! if you’re doing prompts how about #4 damirae, where a fairly rich looking guy hits on rae and damian goes full on “hey you lil shit with the basic porsche go fys i-am-richer-and-holier-than-thou”, flaunt that wayne fortune mode?!??!! XD

Raven’s stare was utterly flat as she looked around the heavily decorated ballroom. Her fingers were tight around the champagne flute, but she had barely sipped it. The last time she had been in a position like this, it was over two years ago when she had been at the Wayne Manor over the holiday break. And things hadn’t exactly gone well that night. In fact, things had pretty much gone horribly awry. So, no one could blame her for being a little gun-shy about being in this situation all over again.

And where in the world was Damian? He practically forced her out to this thing, the least he could do was try and make her feel less awkward. She tilted her stare above the heads of most of the men in the crowd, seeing a shock of black hair make its way towards her. For a moment, she thought it might be him, but instead of Damian’s brooding face, Raven was greeted with Jon’s polite, genuine smile, as wiggled his way between the tightly packed crowd.

“Sorry! Damian told me to let you know he’s caught up in a business deal with Tim and some company from Star City, so he might be a little longer.” Jon fidgeted with his suit jacket, the sleeves too short and too tight, like he’d bought it years ago off a clearance rack and never bothered to get a new one. “I’m here to keep you company. Oh! Canapes.” Jon reached for a plate on a passing waiter’s tray and stifled a grin as he shoved a canape into his mouth.

Raven gave him a sly grin and looked back towards the crowd. She wasn’t exactly sure how Jon and Damian had become friends - they were two completely opposite people - but there was something good about knowing they could count on each other. Jon was good for Damian, a little more innocent and a bit more fun, which is what Damian needed. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and shifted, her feet aching in these dumb heels. Cass had told her they were the height of fashion, but Raven was pretty sure they were the height of pain instead.

“All alone, Miss?”

Raven nearly kicked herself for not noticing that someone had managed to sneak up on her, and next to her she could feel Jon stiffen, a half of a canape hanging out of his mouth. He blinked and shared a look with Raven before shoving the rest of the food in his mouth. Raven looked back at the slender man next to her, his perfectly tailored suit practically oozing wealth as the thin light of the ballroom glinted off his diamond cuff-links. She blinked, and said nothing.

“I saw you all alone, and I thought that you might need some introduction around the room.”

Raven looked over next to Jon, who looked just as confused as she did. Alone? She was standing here, with Jon. Her nose scrunched and she shook her head. “You don’t even know me.”

“Ah, but that’s the beauty of introductions, right? We both get to know each other.” His smile widened, displaying a row of perfect teeth. He reached out and took her hand, kissing the top of it gently. “I definitely think you’re worth getting to know.”

Beside her she could hear Jon swallow loudly, followed by a nearly silent: “Oh god, no.”

“But, I swear I’ve met you somewhere before… the country club?” He stood up and pursed his lips, pretending to think.”The Maserati dealership? Maybe on one of the many flights I make to Paris or Berlin? Or maybe it was at Saks this week? I bet I saw you shopping for your dress there. If your goal was to charm the pants off of me, then you’re halfway there. My pants are very ready to come off.”

Ew. Gross.

Raven opened her mouth to politely tell him to fuck off, but she could feel Jon stiffen next to her, and then Damian was towering next to her, his hands shoved in his pockets. Even without the ghost of their bond, she could feel him radiating anger. His lips twitched and he stared down at his nose at the boy who was trying to chat up Raven.

“Are you serious?”

The kid swallowed loudly and took a step back. He stumbled over a few responses before finally looking into Damian’s stare. “Ah, Mister Wayne. I didn’t… you throw together a good party.”

“I’m not entirely sure what you’re hoping to accomplish by chatting up my girlfriend-”

“Girlfriend?” Jon and Raven repeated at the same time, glancing at each other, before looking back into Damian’s face. Jon looked like he was about to burst with excitement, but Raven was utterly confused. They hadn’t even talked about what they were, she had only been back on this world for a few weeks. And, sure, Raven felt her heart skip beats when he was around, and Damian couldn’t keep his hands off her for more than a few minutes (not that she was complaining), but it was… different to name it.

“-and trying to flaunt the wealth you don’t have.” Damian adjust the cuffs on his sleeves and stared at the other boy. “I know for a fact that you work in accounting, and you’re not even that good at it. I have to fix your mistakes at least three times a week before submitting the paperwork to our board.” He titled his head to the side, lips twitching. “So unless you want me to permanently ban you from this party and all other parties, as well as tell your direct supervisor and the entire board of directors what a useless and incompetent accountant you are, I suggest you find somewhere else to stand.”

The boy nodded and rushed off without saying another word. Damian snorted and waited until the kid had left before looking back at Raven and Jon. Next to her, Raven could feel Jon practically bursting with excitement, and he gripped the empty plate in his hand so tight it split in two. Damian’s face was unreadable and still, but he looked them both up and down as if trying to figure out what he had said that would make them react that way.

“What-”

“Girlfriend!?”

#damirae #demonbirds #'eeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy #look at these idiots

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prorevenge · 6 years

Text

Sexually harass me and think you're getting away with it? Find out that I get by with a little help from my friends.

First post, and a REALLY long one, I’m so sorry. Obviously on a throwaway.

This was awhile ago, way before the Me Too movement, before stuff like this was taken seriously. Additionally I feel a need to re-iterate that this was not revenge wrought solely by myself, but also by some of the fantastic guys I worked with, and the brave women who also stepped forward. They deserve credit as well.

TL;DR at the bottom.

---

I was working and going to college in a high-tourism area in one of the lower states, getting my Bachelor’s in Hospitality. I loved the company I worked for, and my university was practically partnered with them, so initially my life wasn’t super hectic. Go to class, go to work, and go home. At some point though, the branch of the company I was working for started to cut hours, a lot. As a part-timer, this meant I was among the first to have their hours chopped. Around this time, I was also told that I needed a third internship for my degree, and it couldn’t be in the same place I had been in. (They had already counted that position as internship #2) Because of this, and helped by the fact that I was barely getting by with my reduced paychecks, I went to the career center to ask about jobs in the area, and they recommended me to a nearby golf course that needed employees.

Relevant Info: To explain the backstory on the management of this golf course: it was run by a third party management company, operating under the umbrella of a massive hospitality company. This is not unusual for golf courses, the golf industry was/is hurting and frankly this is the only way for most of them to break even. While I was technically working directly for this third party, I was also listed as a “contractor” for the large umbrella company.

My upper boss, the director, was okay, if not a little oblivious. The assistant director under him was a jerk, and the string of supervisors under him were hit or miss. When I started, I was the only woman on the operations side of the team. You had several groups: The pro shop guys (also supervisors), the beverage/snack girls that ran the snack stand and the carts that buzzed around the course, the course starters (usually older, retirement age, been with the company a long time), and the ground operations group (where I was). Most of the ops guys were wary of me at first, but after they saw that I was willing to do as much of the manual labor as they did, they accepted me. I didn’t love my job, but it was a paycheck and it counted for my degree. It was a lot of manual labor: lifting clubs, baskets of practice balls, running from one spot to another, shifting golf carts around throughout the day, driving big course equipment, and lots of guest interaction. Everything was okay, and I was learning a lot, until one of the older ops guys (let’s call him Bob) got promoted to supervisor.

Bob had been stellar as an operations guy, but around the time he got this promotion, his wife also filed for divorce. His home life took a steep nose dive, and unfortunately it carried over to his work ethic. We all felt bad for him, and initially tried to help as much as we could. As time went on though, Bob went from being sad and depressed, to being an outright asshole. He was in his mid-40’s and started crashing gatherings with all of us 20-somethings. This wouldn’t have been an issue, except he started aggressively trying to pick up girls wherever we went. He became the textbook case of the sleazy guy that would get roaring drunk, and complain “She didn’t respond to my creepy flirtations, so she must be a b*tch”. I stopped going to these group outings for this reason, along with several others. His behavior was making a lot of us uncomfortable.

Eventually, his creepy behavior rolled over to work. He would be AWOL for hours, out chasing down the cart girls. When he wasn’t doing that, he was sitting in the club storage area regaling the younger ops guys with his stories of “conquests”. I tried to stay away as much as possible, but there were several shifts where I was assigned to deep clean the rental clubs, or re-stock equipment, and then I couldn’t get away. I won’t go into detail on some of what he did, but it was bad. Major sexual harassment. Some of the lighter instances were suggestive comments about my appearance, or “let me show you what you can do to your boyfriend” –with matching hand gestures. I felt I couldn’t quit because I only had a few months or so left of my time with the job before I graduated, and I needed that internship credit. Going to the director and the guy under him went nowhere, his answer was to pull Bob from the course to “apologize” to me, and then “…go on and give her a hug! See? Everything is fine now!” I felt totally powerless, but got some sage advice from my dad to start documenting EVERYTHING. Dates, times, location, witnesses, and what Bob was doing.

After seeing how the director treated his infractions, Bob started getting bolder and less careful. These harassment events were beginning happen in full view of several of the other guys. One afternoon, two of the starters that I had become close with happened to walk into club storage right as Bob made one of his sexually-charged remarks. Bob seemed not to notice them, but I saw both of their eyebrows shoot up. One of the guys started to get visibly angry and had to be quietly pulled out of the room by the other. I made a lame excuse to leave the room right after this, ducking Bob’s grab, and ran outside. The two starters were standing not far away, speaking in low, angry tones. As soon as they saw me, they waved me over, far out of earshot of the other employees and Bob. They asked for an explanation, and I told them everything that had been happening, including how the director had treated me when I went in to complain. They were incensed. Immediately, they physically walked me back into the director’s office, and shut the door behind them. Keeping me between them, they told the director what they had witnessed, what they had heard, and if he didn’t handle it the way he was supposed to, by company policy, they would go over his head and report it to the umbrella company themselves. The director was startled, but calmly told them that one witnessed incident was hardly reason to go to “corporate”, and that this issue had already been “handled”. This was when I finally chimed in, re-iterating that the sexual harassment had only gotten worse, that I had a 4 page word document at home with countless time stamps and witnesses, along with the record of how he previously “handled” my complaint. A document that I would not hesitate to email to whoever needed proof, per the starters’ advice. We saw the blood physically drain from his face, and he asked us to step out so he could make a phone call. I ended up finishing the rest of my shift with the starters, then went home.

When I showed up the next afternoon, the jerk under the director came out and asked that I run back home to get a copy of my reporting’s. He also said that we had to sit in on a group call with the umbrella hospitality company in about 2 hours. During this time, they sent Bob out to monitor the course so he wouldn’t get suspicious. What I didn’t know, and found out during the meeting, is that in the span of one evening and morning, the other cart girls had somehow gotten wind of my report being taken seriously by the director. (I suspect the starters mentioned it to them)They came in, nearly the entire female snack staff, to pile on their own harassment claims. It was no longer one minor female “peon” reporting him, it was now a massive group. The director knew they had a problem. The umbrella company requested that I read my entire record during the call, and when I got to the bit about the “hug and apology” that the director had requested, he looked like he wanted to become one with the carpet in his office. When the call ended, the voices in the phone requested to speak with the director alone, and the rest of us (me, assistant director, starters, and the third party company rep that had been asked to come in) filed out of the room. After about 10 minutes, we were called back in. The director was silent and pale, and the voice in the phone promised me that I wouldn’t be bothered anymore by Bob, and to contact them directly if I had any further problems.

They sent me out to the other side of the course, to keep me away, while they then called Bob in to the office. I didn’t witness what happened, but I was told later that Bob came storming out of the office after about 10 minutes, kicking golf carts and throwing things as he left. Yelling out to the other ops guys in the vicinity that “all women are b*tches!” as he went to his car. Not only had been fired, but he was further statused as a no-rehire, and BANNED, with/from ALL the courses (run by both the umbrella company and the third party, who owned/operated a sizeable list of properties) in the area. The director eventually was transferred out to a smaller course, and the jerk under him was moved as well. We got a much better management team in to replace them, and I was able to finish my time with the company with no further issues. I am happy to say that I still keep in touch with the starters and other guys to this very day.

TL;DR I was continuously sexually harassed by my supervisor, but was finally able to get justice with the help of my coworkers, and he lost his job while also being blacklisted from all courses in the area.

(source) (story by Iwritenovels1234)

#prorevenge #by Iwritenovels1234 #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #last10

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ltbroccoli · 5 years

Text

Reg’s Timeline (Updated)

This is a far too detailed outline of Reg’s timeline and history, including more with his childhood, parents, and grandfather.

Please do not reblog. This is highly headcanon based and meant for my version of Reg only.

2324 - Reginald Barclay Sr. is Captain of the U.S.S. Budapest. His son Reg Jr. is visiting and meets his second officer, Alicia Stafford. They’re rather taken with each other.

2325 - Reg Jr. marries Alicia after getting her pregnant. Reg Sr. disapproves of this marriage, thinking they’re moving too quickly. Reg Jr. and Alicia’s daughter Jacqueline (Jax) is born a few months later.

2326 - Reg Sr. violates the Prime Directive to save a pre-warp civilization from an asteroid. Alicia helps, promising to keep his secret, then reports him to StarFleet Command behind his back, getting him discharged from service. She hopes to advanced her position, but winds up transferred to Starbase 26 instead. Reg Sr. urges his son to take Jax and leave, now seeing firsthand that the woman cannot be trusted, but Reg Jr. is too frightened to stand up for his father and goes with her. Father and son do not speak for several years.

2330 - Alicia is transferred to Earth, and the family moves to Cleveland, Ohio.

2332 - Jax, age 7, attempts to run away from home and gets herself seriously hurt before her parents find her. This finally prompts Reg Jr. to step up and say something about his and Alicia’s marriage, as it’s harming their daughter’s mental health. The two begin marriage counseling and there is a noticeable improvement in their relationship.

2333 - Reg is born.

2340 - Reg’s anxiety and shyness have been growing worse for years, and his parents cannot agree on the best way to deal with it. It causes a rift in their relationship again, and Alicia finally kicks Reg Jr. out of the house, beginning divorce proceedings. Reg Jr. is too frightened to go back for his children. As soon as she is able, Alicia requests a transfer and moves her and her children to the U.S.S. Merrimac.

2343 - Jax turns 18 and immediately moves out on her own, returning to Earth. She wants nothing more to do with her mother, but she keeps in touch for her baby brother’s sake.

2347 - Alicia is transferred back to Earth, and moves with Reg to San Francisco.

2349 - Alicia signs Reg up for the StarFleet Academy entrance exam on his 16th birthday, giving him no choice in the matter. He takes it and passes.

2351 - Reg begins at StarFleet Academy, choosing the Operations track and eventually settling on Systems Diagnostics, since it’s a fairly vague career path.

2356 - Reg graduates from StarFleet Academy with the rank of Ensign and is assigned to the U.S.S. Cochrane.

2359 - Reg is transferred to the U.S.S. Grissom.

2363 - Reg is transferred to the U.S.S. Zhukov.

2364 - As holotechnology grows more and more advanced, Reg retreats into the holodeck more often, and his performance slips from satisfactory to poor.

2366 - Captain Gleason of the Zhukov has a bet with his first officer, to see whether he can get Barclay off their hands and transferred to the Federation’s flagship. He’s successful, giving Reg a promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade before having him transferred to the U.S.S. Enterprise D. His holo-addiction becomes worse than ever, but his performance improves when he befriends Commander La Forge and begins regularly seeing Counselor Deanna Troi. He helps resolve the ship’s invidium contamination (TNG: “Hollow Pursuits”). Later that year, he is present for the Battle of Wolf 359 (TNG: “The Best of Both Worlds”).

2367 - Reg’s mind is altered by a Cytherian probe that vastly increases his intelligence and confidence. He takes over the Enterprise and brings it to meet the Cytherians, who return him to normal (TNG: “The Nth Degree”). The same year, Reg is captured by his mirror universe counterpart, who traps him in his quarters while taking over his life. This lasts for several weeks. (TNG comics: Terra Incognita).

2368 - Reg leads his first away mission, which goes very badly when his shuttle crashes in a jungle where a creature tries to hunt them down. He manages to get everyone home safely and earns himself a commendation (TNG short story: “The Naked Truth”).

2369 - Reg finally faces his transporter phobia and helps rescue the surviving crew of the U.S.S. Yosemite, earning himself another commendation (TNG: “Realm of Fear”).

2370 - Reg is given a synthetic T-cell by Dr. Crusher that mutates and spreads through the ship, causing the crew to de-evolve. The mutation is corrected and later named Barclay’s Protomorphosis Syndrome (TNG: “Genesis”).

2371 - The Enterprise D is destroyed (TNG film: Generations). While repairs are underway, Reg is temporarily transferred to Jupiter Station to work on the Emergency Medical Hologram with Dr. Zimmerman.

2373 - Reg is transferred back to the newly completed Enterprise E, and is aboard when it goes back in time to prevent to Borg from interfering with Earth’s first contact with the Vulcans. He is part of the team that helps rebuild Zefram Cochrane’s vessel (TNG film First Contact). The Dominion War begins that year (DS9: “Call To Arms”).

2374 - Reg decides that being aboard the Enterprise is too much stress and that for his mental health he needs to take a quieter job. He takes a promotion to lieutenant and a transfer to Earth to begin work on the Pathfinder Project.

2375 - The Breen attack StarFleet headquarters in San Francisco, where Reg lives (DS9: “The Changing Face of Evil”). The Dominion War ends later that year (DS9: “What You Leave Behind”).

2376 - Reg has become obsessed with contacting Voyager, lost in the Delta Quadrant, and desperately misses his Enterprise family. Because of all this, he has a holo-addiction relapse. When no one will listen to his plan, he breaks into the Pathfinder facilities to implement it himself. It is successful and Reg is the first person from the Alpha Quadrant to speak with the Voyager crew in over five years. Reg also briefly begins to date his supervisor Pete Harkin’s sister-in-law, Hope (VOY: “Pathfinder”). Later that year, he decides to seek out his father, who still lives on Earth, and two begin a tentative relationship.

2377 - Pathfinder has established regular monthly communication with Voyager. When Dr. Zimmerman falls very ill, Reg writes to Voyager’s Doctor, who has his program transferred to the Alpha Quadrant to treat him (VOY: “Life Line”). Later that year, Reg begins a relationship with a teacher named Leosa, who suddenly ghosts him. Reg attempts to transfer a hologram of himself to Voyager, but it is hijacked by the Ferengi, with Leosa’s assistance, who attempt to use it to steal Seven of Nine’s nanoprobes and destroy Voyager. Reg and the Pathfinder personnel manage to stop them. Reg briefly dates a friend of Will Riker’s named Maril (VOY “Inside Man”).

2378 - Reg testifies in an inquiry to determine the Voyager EMH’s sentience (VOY “Author, Author”). Later that year, Voyager returns home (VOY “Endgame”). Reg is promoted to lieutenant commander shortly thereafter, and continues to work at StarFleet Headquarters on Earth, categorizing Voyager’s information from the Delta Quadrant.

2380 - Reg begins instructing at StarFleet Academy, and uses his time to research and experiment. His focus is on holography, as more issues of synthetic sentience are coming to light. He’s seen as the successor to Lewis Zimmerman in this regard.

2385 - Reg is promoted to commander. The synth attack on Mars occurs later that year, prompting the synthetic ban that Reg strongly protests (PIC “Maps and Legends”).

#just plain old barclay ( .｡.:*☆ About. )#this seems important ( .｡.:*☆ Reference. )#timeline #very long. not entirely necessary. :D

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millercrystal · 6 years

Text

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Fandom: Star Wars sequel trilogy

Finn appreciation week 2018 - day 4 (Apr 12): home

Warnings: 1 very short scene at the beginning that is about Finn being taken by the First Order, some snippets of Finn’s life in the First Order in the 1st half of the fic, and also recounts the Finn vs Kylo Ren lightsabre duel in The Force Awakens. I tried to write these scenes with as few graphical descriptions as possible, but I’m tagging warnings for kidnapping, violence and injury just in case.

If there’s anything else you need me to tag for, please let me know.

Rating: teen and up

Genre: friendship and family

Word count: 3562

Remarks: I'm rather captivated by the idea of Finn chipping away the necessary walls he has built around pre-stormtrooper memories for surviving within the First Order, and re-learning his freedom for expressing emotions and affection to connect with his newfound family.

Who let Finn wander around by himself on an unfamiliar ship freshly woken up from a coma? And how did he manage to stagger past the hangar at the same time Poe saw him? That's too coincidental, I have so many questions.

---

One of the earliest memories that Finn has, is being hugged tightly as a young child. The hug was warm, like a cookie fresh out of oven.

Then, a voice, presumably his father's, urged him to run and hide in the nearby cave until they go find him.

He ran as fast as he could on his short stubby legs, but was lifted off the ground by strong arms. He tried to kick himself free, but all he managed was a grunt from his captor, who must had given him an anaesthetic patch as he had no recollection of the following events.

---

The next thing Finn remembers, is waking up groggily in a hall with dozens of children, all around the same age as him.

People in white armours and helmets slowly patrolled up and down their lines; the children, seeing the blasters in their hands, wisely stayed quiet. A man in a funny hat, dark tunic and knee-high boots went up on stage, talking about restoring order to the galaxy and loyalty to the First Order. Finn did not recall hearing about the First Order until now, and wondered when his father would come get him.

When the man on stage finished, a child a few rows away asked hesitantly, 'Where're Papa and Mama?' The voice rang through the quiet room.

The man searched through the room until his gaze landed on the child. He replied indifferently, 'From this day onwards, you will not have parents, but only comrades. The First Order is where you belong.'

Order, comrades, loyalty. What big words. Finn did not understand them, nor did the child who asked for their parents either, as they repeated in confusion, 'Mama? Mama?'

The man on stage gave a single sharp nod to one of the armour-clad, who reached the child right at that moment. The armour-clad pressed a patch to the back of their neck; the child soon crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

None of the remaining children spoke up afterwards.

---

Finn was remarkably calm during the first month. Although, the time was spent on memorising their designation numbers, easing into prescribed routines, and working on classes and duties, so he did not have a significant reason not to be. The supervisors for his batch seemed to have experience in training recruits during their first weeks, so punishments were just heavy enough to keep them in line without being too harsh. Extra laundry folding duties here, vacuuming duties there, or meal bans if a more severe punishment was needed. All of this, Finn could manage.

However, he could not quite comprehend the coldness, or rather, lack of warmth projected by any supervisor. Although there would be rare praises of 'Good.' or similar variants, none of them smiled when he or his batch mates did things correctly. He had come to the conclusion that success was expected.

On the last evening of the first month, a supervisor gave a short speech congratulating the batch on making pass a month. She then stressed their loyalty to the First Order, now their official family.

That night, after his batch mates had dozed off, Finn muffled his face in the pillow and quietly sniffled for the home he was taken from.

---

The initiates quickly learnt to hide how much they missed their real homes, for whenever supervisors caught wind of it, additional loyalty lessons would be scheduled.

It was only when they prepare for bed and no supervisor would be present, that they had relative privacy to talk about home. Finn was sure every one of them dreamt about home. They would trade stories, some of which were exaggerated in childish imagination.

Finn shared a few stories of his own, though he could not differentiate between memory and wishful imagination.

---

The cadets did not find out how severely they were discouraged from thinking about their birth families, until rotated training with a newer batch of trainees.

This particular introductory exercise was about the priority of mission completion. Finn, finding it easy to deduce expected actions of the trainees, did not struggle with the exercise. He completed the mission quickly and then sat down to watch the other trainees going through the scenario, with the stimulation projected onto a screen in the waiting room.

A young initiate from the newer batch was next. He made good progress until the last hurdle, where he froze.

On the projected screen, a middle-aged woman with red hair gathered into a bun kneeled on the ground, in front of an astronomical map marked with trade routes and schedules of the New Republic. That must mean the cadet had red hair, as the simulated woman was designed to resemble them.

He slowly raised his blaster with shaking hands.

She pleaded with tears in her eyes, 'Don't you remember your mama? My baby, what have they done to you?'

'Mama?' he attempted, the word foreign to his tongue.

'Yes, it's me. Don't you remember how I tucked you in every night? Come here, give your mama a hug.' she opened her arms cautiously.

The blaster paused in mid-air. Then, the cadet lowered it and walked to the woman. 'I miss you so much, Mama.'

The simulation ended immediately, with harsh white lights turning up to regular brightness. The supervisor for this exercise stepped out from the control room and addressed the trainee. 'FR-3056, were you clear on your mission?'

'Yes, Ma'am.'

'Summarise the mission.'

'Yes, Ma'am. The mission is to extract the map with trade information of the New Republic. Get rid of enemies protecting the map as needed.'

'Exactly. And yet, you chose not to continue your mission. Why?'

'Sorry, Ma'am, I could not kill my mother.'

'So, your personal interest interferes with the mission.' she stated with a blank expression.

Every cadet held their breath, waiting for her decision. Finn felt a sudden chill racing down his spine, even though the room, like every part of the starship, was temperature controlled.

The supervisor consulted her datapad, then continued, 'FR-3056, this is your second incident. Report for recondition tomorrow.'

When Finn saw FR-3056 again in the next training session 1 week later, the trainee fired his blaster at the red-haired woman without a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

The cadets whispered about FR-3056, and stopped talking about the homes they never knew.

---

Eventually, Finn rarely allowed himself to dwell on the voice from his memory. He told himself that, it was because there simply was no time between all the classes and duties when he had the luxury of not being too bone-tired to think for himself.

Deep down, he knew it was only part of the truth.

He had not thought of the voice in a long time, because pretending a home had never existed for him was less painful than knowing he had one but then lost it.

---

Years later, on Finn's second real-world mission, Jakku happened.

He looked into the eyes of scared villagers, young and old. The fact that they were humans, very much alive, struck him. This was not a simulation anymore; if he pulled the trigger, these families would be torn apart.

Around him, his squadmates shot left and right without hesitation.

He had always felt like an outsider among them even when he acted like a model trooper. Now, he refused to fit in. He would not kill for the Order; it would never be where he belonged.

It had never been a 'family' since the beginning.

He lowered his blaster and mentally prepared for an opening to slip away.

---

The Resistance pilot was on his knees before the warrior of the dark side. Finn could not hear their exchange from his position halfway across the squad, but he could see the 2 troopers who searched him brought him onto the ship back to base.

Finn had heard about interrogation methods, he hoped the pilot would not suffer too much at Ren's hand.

He must have projected the thought, for Ren abruptly spun to stare at him. He squared his shoulders and trotted nervously behind his leaving squad, feeling Ren's eyes on him the whole time.

Back at the base, Captain Phasma requested him to submit his blaster for inspection. Waiting for a subtle opening to run away was no longer an option, he had to make one himself.

He gave himself a quick pep talk and marched through the interrogation wing to the imprisoned pilot.

The Force was on his side. He bluffed past the trooper guarding the pilot and took him out of the cell. 'This is a rescue. I'm helping you escape. Can you fly a TIE fighter?'

'I can fly anything.' the pilot smirked. 'I'm Poe. Poe Dameron. What’s your name?'

---

Why did Poe want to go to Jakku again? Oh right, he had to get back some map. Unfortunately, they crashed and Poe was nowhere to be found, his leather jacket the only proof he had escaped with Finn.

Finn hated the planet; all he could see was sand all over the horizon and the blinding sun. The scorching heat drained him quickly; his mouth was dry and his bodysuit was drenched in sweat. He was convinced Jakku was determined to snuff out his existence before he could enjoy his newfound freedom.

When he met the scavenger girl after walking for the whole morning, he had just lost the first person who was kind to him in years (no, don't think of the pilot; losing his first friend - if he can count him as a friend - kriffing hurts). It must be the galaxy sending him a note not to open himself up to another person.

With the scavenger, came a droid. One assumption led to another; before he knew it, he was caught up in the girl's plan to reunite the droid with its owner. And then, he tripped and fell down. She ran to him, offering a hand to help him up. He stared at the outstretched hand like a simulation he could not figure out; surely, she was not really offering? If there was one thing Phasma partially succeeded in drilling into his head, it was that strength is only as strong as the weakest link. That was not wrong from the point of view of an army, though he refused to believe it was the whole truth.

Warily, he looked into Rey's eyes but only found sincerity. Maybe, she was like him, refusing to stop helping others even though a lifetime of teaching had taught him otherwise. He decided to take a leap of faith and took her hand.

He was pulled up and running alongside her and the droid.

This time, he was determined not to lose his new friend.

---

He had failed Rey.

After confessing to her about defecting from the First Order because he did not want to kill innocents, she was initially mad at him for hiding his former involvement with the Order. However, once she calmed down, she forgave him.

He noticed her following Solo around like a lost puppy. He had asked if she knew Solo; she replied no, but he felt familiar. She wished she knew if her father was like him. When Finn gave her a puzzled look, she looked down at the engine she was fixing and explained that she was left on Jakku as a child, with only blurred memories of the people who walked away from her while she cried for them to come back.

Rey had no family, just like Finn. He felt a surge of protectiveness; how dare those people willingly leave a defenceless child behind to fend for herself?

And right when he felt he had known her for his whole life, she was abducted. By Kylo Ren, the First Order's resident ill-tempered dark warrior, no less.

He vowed to get her back, the Order would not take away another friend from him.

---

It turned out Finn had not lost his first friend after all.

As the Millennium Falcon landed on the Resistance base, he looked out of the cockpit to see the ground bustling with activity. Pilots in orange flight suit talked with mechanics in earth brown overalls and droids. In the distance, officers and crews hurried into and out of the compound. Solo directed Finn and BB-8 to go ahead into the compound, while he and Chewie shut down the Falcon.

Strolling down the stretch of the runway taking in the base, Finn saw a pilot climbing down the side of a black painted X-wing. BB-8 knocked into the back of his knees and sped towards the starship with a series of excited beeps and whirls. The pilot talked to a mechanic while taking off their helmet, revealing a wave of black hair. Then, they turned towards BB-8 and a familiar airy voice carried over.

No, it couldn't be! Finn made himself blink once, twice, and was elated to find his eyes and brain were functioning properly.

His feet started running on their own accord. Before his very eyes, Poe stood up from talking to the droid, a wide grin breaking out on his face upon locating him. Poe stepped forward and rushed to meet him halfway, tackling him in a bone-crushing hug. Finn only hesitated for a fraction of a second before hugging back just as fiercely.

If all hugs felt as peaceful and safe as this one, maybe he could get used to them.

---

When Finn told Poe about Rey, who saved BB-8 first, and her subsequent kidnapping, Poe took him to General Organa directly. Unlike First Order officers, she was understanding and sympathetic, readily agreeing to help upon learning the Order's involvement. Finn offered whatever knowledge he had about Starkiller Base and everything else needed. In a short time, a planned mission was approved for the next day. They would soon be off to rescue Rey and stop the planetary weapon.

That night, Finn started awake in a cold sweat and could not manage to get back to sleep. His quarters for the night had no window, too similar to First Order-issued bunks for his liking. He put on Poe's jacket - no, his now - and slid silently out of the room.

Not wanting to get lost around the interconnecting corridors, he pressed onwards to the few zones he was introduced to during the day. His feet took him to a bench right outside the command centre, where they discussed out the mission plan earlier in the day.

Needless to say, he was surprised to find the General seated at a desk near the entrance, still up alongside the night shift officers.

General Organa looked up from the pile of charts she was studying. Not used to friendly interactions with officers, he greeted her and pass it off as simply walking past the centre on a stroll.

'Finn,' she halted him with a tired smile, catching up to tell him 'good work' for proposals on how to destroy the Starkiller. She then reminded him to try and rest enough for the mission while on the Falcon.

'Rey would be back before we know it.' she reached up and patted his arm.

Finn tried not to think about how much of an open book he must be for her to read, idly wondering if that was a skill all mother figures picked up.

---

Flying at light speed to Starkiller took a few hours, which Finn spent half of it fidgeting. Solo and Chewbacca shared a look, then Chewbacca shrugged. Solo sighed and addressed Finn.

'Look, I'm anxious about Rey as much as you do. But she'd survived on Jakku for so long, she's tough. I'm sure she can hold on until we get to her.'

'I know.' Finn glanced at him, then back at the wall panel he had been staring a hole into.

A few beats passed, then Solo made up his mind.

'Tell you what, I've been meaning to fix this squeaky panel in the cargo bay. How 'bout you give me a hand?'

Finn got up and followed him.

They sat on the floor fixing the panel in silence, until Finn asked tentatively, 'Do you ever miss home when you're flying around the galaxy?'

'Well… Sometimes, but I try not to think about it.'

'Where's your home?'

'What's a home? Is it where you were born? Is it where you grow up? Is it where you settle? Or is it a person?' Solo gestured around with the screwdriver still in his hand, then raised an eyebrow at him.

'So, which is it?' Finn tilted his head, frowning.

'That, you have to decide for yourself. You'll know when you've found yours.'

---

Finn was awed to find Rey broke out all by herself.

It was a whirlwind of finding out truths, each more shocking than the previous. Ren was actually Solo's son; him killing Solo for some twisted access to the Force; him choosing power granted by the First Order over genetic family.

And the most worrying turn of events? Ren had been waiting for them as they trekked through the forest back to the Falcon, wanting to turn Rey to the Order's side. He had made his intentions crystal clear.

To Finn's eternal relief, Rey rejected the 'offer' outright. She did not waste one second in insulting Ren, calling him a monster. Kriffing right she was.

Ren responded by knocking her into a tree by Force and Finn's heart nearly stopped. He ran over and dropped to check her pulse. It was only when she groaned that he knew she'd be alright and his brain restarted.

A few crackling swishes and 'Traitor!' reminded him that Ren was still preying on them.

Rey had defended Finn; it was now his turn to return the favour.

He knew there was no way he would stand a chance against an experienced Force user, but Force if he would let anyone else be taken away from him. He was not going down without a fight.

He fired up Skywalker's lightsabre and charged Ren.

He held his own relatively well for a first time user, until Ren swept the sabre from his hands and punched his face so hard, forcing his back to be exposed. Ren followed up with a heavy upwards slash.

Instantly, a fiery pain exploded across Finn's back. He collapsed onto the snow.

If he was going to die, at least he had fought back against the organisation which had manipulated him since he was a young child. He could only hope Rey and Poe would forgive him for not succeeding.

Too exhausted by the overwhelming pain, his vision grew dark.

---

When Finn regained his senses, he was in a transparent bacta suit strapped inside a clear tank.

Thinking the First Order caught him again, he kicked open the cover and scrambled out, gaining his bearing to formulate an escape plan. It was then the interior decoration theme finally caught his attention - the Order's default colour theme was dark grey and black, not light grey and white.

A nurse parted a sliver of the privacy curtain to investigate the commotion. Finn took note of the Resistance emblem over her lapel and relaxed slightly.

'Ah, you're awake! That's good, it means your spine's nearly healed.'

'My spine?'

'Yes, do you remember what happened?'

'Not really. Where am I?'

'We're on the Resistance fleet, this ship's called the Raddus. Better let the doctor check you over first though, just sit here while I get her. Dr Kalonia!' she strode off without waiting for his reply.

For his part, Finn padded out of the medical bay to find Rey and Poe, taking the opposite route from the nurse. It was admittedly not the best idea, as he had no way to know if they would be on the same ship.

He wandered around with a stiff spine and occasional funny looks thrown by passing staff. It was a miracle that he managed to ask someone who knew where Poe would be and could give him the right directions.

He was stumbling past the hangar scanning for Poe when a loud voice exclaimed, 'Finn, buddy!' followed by a heavy thud. When he turned clumsily towards the voice, he was greeted by Poe's thick dark curls suddenly sticking up everywhere right in his face and a hand on his arm. 'You were in a pretty bad shape, I was so worried about you.'

'Good to see you too. Where's Rey?' he squeezed Poe's shoulder in return, not realising water was sprouting from his suit until Poe got busy covering up the disconnected tubes with his bare hands.

'It's a kinda long story, buddy. Let's get your bacta fixed first before I update you, yeah? Bee, go on ahead and tell Dr Kalonia to prep for Finn.'

---

It feels like a whole month of jumping through the galaxy with the Resistance before Finn finally sees Rey in person on Crait; he cannot help himself from crashing into her and burying his face into her neck. She's alive, she's come back for him, she's hugging him as tightly as he's hugging her. Then, he is openly sobbing into her tunic. Poe comes up and puts a hand on his back, mindful of his still healing spine.

This must be what a home feels like, Finn muses. Maybe, he has found himself a new home without realising.

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blyanten · 8 years

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THE DUCK AVENGER PK2: #2 JUST A LITTLE FEAR

These new covers are ugly.

Donald is heading down to his old refuge, thinking that it’s the latest strange thing in a long line of strange things.

To his surprise, One is waiting in the basement.

Between this and the later “dream”, I think the Avenger just might be having trouble dealing with One not being there.

He needs to tell Donald something very important, but an alarm goes off, and Donald must turn it off before he can hear what One has to say.

The scene changes to reality, revealing it all to a dream. Donald’s nephews walk in to make sure their uncle is up in time for work and to turn off the alarm so they can go back to sleep. Donald bemoans the hour and the terrible, rainy weather, before he presumably gets going.

Somewhere else someone is waking up, having a bit of trouble seeing. A blurry blonde guy introduces himself as Hobey saying he lives "here". Here are the sewers, and when asked for a name, mystery person looks at a pipe saying "Profu-", covering the rest of the word with their hand.

Donald arrives at work, only to meet Tempest, who informs him that all shifts are doubled. There’s been a series of robberies, and the security needs to be increased since current levels have failed to deal with it. It’s hit the electronic department hardest, but since some of that, like TVs, are stuff that’s hard to walk out the front door with, they have no idea where the thieves are coming from.

At this point, they’ve arrived at the electronics department, where staff is busy getting ready for the day. This includes turning on the TVs and exposing everyone to Angus. First thing in the morning too, and Donald claims to right to complain about this, since he knows Angus personally.

The big news of the day is Ducklair Enterprises being back on the economics scene. Which would normally be great for the news, but Everett has been impossible to reach and no one working for him is talking to journalists, leaving them with basically no information.

Angus is annoyed.

Business as usual, in other words.

Lyla...

...makes a bit fun of him, but Angus is annoyed enough that he’s going to take the elevator upstairs and get some answers.

Upstairs, the offices are still being built, but there is a secretary in place. She tells Angus that he needs to talk to their press office. She is then really sorry to inform him that the press office doesn’t exist yet.

Fluency in sarcasm is a requirement when working for Ducklair Enterprises.

Before Angus can have a rage stroke, Birgit Q walks in, and makes a heroic effort at kicking Angus out. Angus whips out a camera, expecting the opportunity to get some violence on tape or Birgit backing down. Neither happens, as Anymore Boring walks by, and Birgit, excusing herself from dealing with "a reporter so skilled and demanding" as Angus immediately hand it over to Anymore.

Thus two more important players have been introduced.

“Well, first we must define clearly every single word coming out of your mouth.”

After Anymore has nitpicked Angus into submission, Angus is back at the new with nothing but insinuations about Ducklair Enterprises being up to something. Maybe. Moving onto Everett himself Angus asks the questions that probably a lot of other people have been asking. Where has he been? Why is he back? What kind of threat has he brought with him?

Okay, the last one is probably only Angus (unless you’re a competitor of Ducklair Enterprises, I guess), but in the sewers, mystery person agrees. Only that they change it from "what threats" to "who".

Hobey returns, and we get a better look at where they are. There’s a bunch of TVs up against the wall, explaining the mystery thefts and the place is soaked.

Which is why Hobey has brought "Profunda" a raincoat.

With this lovely little fashion item on we finally get a look at Profunda.

… it looks like it might be a woman.

She isn’t happy to be there, and Hobey agrees. Street level is better, he says, but Profunda disagrees. Somehow the situation becomes a little ominous, but we cut back to Donald, wo is struggling with the after effects of waking up early.

In other words, he’s tired as hell. Rather than take a nap, he decides to go for a walk to wake up, impressing his nephews.

What is really going on is that the car comedy subplot is back.

The Duckmobile has been transformed into a truck, as Donald tries to find a place to put it.

First attempt: Make it look like a bus and park it among old, no longer in use busses!

Unfortunately, a bus is needed to transport a bunch of kids, and no one wants to risk a new bus on that, so the Duckmobile is not safe there.

Second attempt: Turn the car into a giant sign and hang it on a building.

That almost results in a 2000 dollar fine for hanging signs without permits.

All good things are three however, and The Avenger suddenly remember an old factory on the outskirts of town. A place called Century.

Clearly another attempt meant to fail. No way could this lovingly drawn palace of a factory be important.

There is a minor problem of car thieves running a chop shop there. Well, normally it would be a minor problem, but Donald isn’t dressed for this, so he can’t leave the Duckmobile. And then he manages to literally back himself into a corner with a bigger car about run over the Duckmobile.

Then a man appears and douses the bigger cars windows with something, causing it to veer of course and crash, saving the Avenger.

Nor this mystery man.

The car thief declares that this isn’t over, just wait until he gets some bigger weap- and then falls on his ass after the Avenger dumps oil in front of him. The thieves are defeated, and the mystery helper is gone.

The Avenger dumps the thieves at the police station, and heads for work. Still driving the Duckmobile, yes.

In the Duckmall locker room, Donald has brought snacks to work, which is remarked upon despite seeming like the sensible thing to me. Who goes a whole work day without eating, even if it’s a night shift?

He’s also brought the Avenger outfit in the thermos, thinking his superhero alter ego will be useful in catching the thieves. While he’s probably not wrong, this causes some problems.

I’m with the supervisor. The cameras are there for your safety too.

After spending the night changing back and forth between the two uniforms, the Avenger is about to call it a night, when finally, something happens. He asks security camera guy to check the hardware department, but everything looks normal there. If course, this means that when the Avenger gets there, the camera is hacked and the place is being robbed.

Homeless in Duckburg = hippies.

By Hobey and his friends. They think they’re saving Duckburg from… lots of things really. The Great Uniformator, who will force everyone to wear suits and ties, The Definite Winter that will freeze everything. Exactly how stealing screwdrivers and chainsaws are going to help with that is an open question, but Profunda will help them.

The Avenger takes down two of them easily, leaving Hobey to explain that they have to stop the Canceller, before it devours their memories.

The Avenger notes that they’re all terrified, but their fears make no sense, even less so because they’re all scared of different things. It’s almost as if they’re semi-coolflamed, but the Evronians are gone.

The Avenger lets them go, even more confused by the fact that none of them even suspects he’s going to follow them. Unfortunately, he loses them in the maze of the sewers.

As a side note, that seems like terrible security, to have a door with no alarms or anything just leading down to the really big sewers. How did this go unnoticed?

Fortunately, he then walks into a door with the text "Profunda Pipes" on it.

Behind the door, Profunda is upset that Hobey and friends revealed all the terrible things that might happen to a stranger. They defend themselves by telling her that the Avenger is the city’s protector and therefore on their side. The Avenger takes this as his cue, and enters.

Which is when things get weird.

Nope, not unless Everett is also a shapeshifter, because Profunda just lost like a meter in height here. You know, aside from the other obvious reason.

"Everett" orders Hobey and gang to attack the Avenger, and they reveal themselves to be droids. The Avenger backs off, telling them to do the same, when he walks into something.

My friend, your issues are about to become books.

One is looking somewhat zombie-fied and "Everett" says he needed an ally, so he reprogrammed it. One suggests the Avenger surrender so they can reprogram him too, at which point the Avenger bolts.

There’s only so much a guy can take, okay?

The Avenger finds a tunnel leading straight up, and into his basement. The Avenger says he thought that entrance was closed, but «Everett» notes that it obviously wasn’t. The Avenger appears to panic, but instead wakes up in Duckmall’s boiler room.

Still caught up in the illusion, he realizes that if he led "Everett” and the other to his basement lair, then he led them to his home, where Huey, Louie and Dewey are.

Keeping your priorities straight for once.

On his way out, he runs into Bloom, but claims to be too distraught to give a report and runs off.

Meanwhile, Angus is having a bad day. It turns out that Ducklair Enterprises won’t put up with his crap, and has banned Angus from coming to their press conference. The can send anyone else though.

Editor Dan has sides with Ducklair Enterprises, because this is unsurprising and Ducklair is their landlord. Lyla is going instead. She tells Angus to calm down, these things are pretty standard after all. Nothing surprising will happen.

Then she gets a phone call from someone asking for a favor.

Upstairs, Everett appears to have hired Dragonball Z fans to stand guard so that only people who were invited can get in.

I like how the other people here looks like they’re taking notes and laughing.

Lyla has brought her invitation, but unfortunately, she can only bring one camera man. This leads to poor Camera 9 being confiscated, AKA forced to wait outside.

The other cameraman turns out to be the Avenger. Lyla takes the camera from him, and puts it to record automatically. Not as good as a real cameraman, but better than nothing. Not that it matters, Lyla says, basically repeating her earlier statement about press conferences being standard affairs.

The Avenger tells her to wait before she says that.

Everett decides to take this moment to begin, introducing Birgit Q and Anymore Boring, who’ll help him transform the city-

-into a smoldering pile of ruins, finishes the Avenger.

I keep cracking up at the “why?”, I can just hear the exasperated tone so clearly in my head.

Everett threatens to have him kicked out, but the Avenger laughs at this, the way someone who thinks they have all the power, but no humor does. It gets worse if you note the tiny star-shaped lines floating around his head.

The DBZ security respectfully, and slightly terrified, points out that a) the Avenger is a hero, and more importantly, b) if the Avenger doesn’t want to go they can’t make him.

If I were Everett, I’d keep these guys around. Like, observant, smart enough to know when they’re out of their depth and capable of making that clear? As far as security in comics go, these guys are elite.

Everett figured, so he brings in the droids.

Normally, they don’t need to be.

Except that the Avenger knows all their weaknesses, despite never having seen them before. He also makes one fall out through the window. Hopefully the sidewalk is empty, but at this point people are probably very careful when walking part the tower. Weird shit happens there.

Everett says that someone has taught the Avenger his robots weak points, and the Avenger says "maybe". And maybe that person suggested the Avenger didn’t drop by empty handed. The Avenger brings out a device that Everett recognizes and immediately goes from sort of smug to serious, asking who gave the Avenger that.

Logic bomb in three, two...

Profunda did. The Avenger has a minor moment upon saying this, and it now becomes impossible to ignore that he’s acting weird.

Everett tries reasoning with him, and at this point I am really wondering what their in-universe audience is thinking, because this sounds kinda personal. Reasoning fails however, and the Avenger activates the device.

Logic bomb FAIL. Everett is no Captain Kirk.

Everett tries to grab it, calling it a panic resonator and people around the freak the fuck out. Lyla shouts out a warning about trampling, but thankfully everyone collapses before they can rush the door.

The Avenger, having snapped out of the trance, asks what is going on. Everett explains that the devices causes people to panic, then feeds of that panic, using it as fuel, and then makes the panic stronger, feeding off that, and on and on. The Avenger has to destroy it.

Someone’s gonna go blind at this rate.

The Avenger fails, and the intensity of the panic waves has started affecting the tower itself. It’s going to collapse.

The Avenger freaks out, and Everett can’t even manage to let go of the device as it’s started to mess with his nervous system. That said for people who supposedly can’t do anything to destroy this thing they sure manage to do a lot of talking. Like, a ridiculous amount of talking.

While they’re busy talking themselves to death, Lyla steps in.

Hey, Everett, do you think maybe having an AI that controls the entire building and various robots around might have been useful here? Just wondering~.

Droids 1 - Biologicals 0. Sure took your time though! How big is this room?

Lyla helps the Avenger up, while Everett, still on the ground, but now angry, activates more robots. The Avenger leaves, not in any shape to deal with that.

Everett tells Lyla that out of gratitude, he won’t ask any questions. For now.

Later, Angus is in heaven. Turns out that the camera Lyla set on automatic recorded everything. Camera 9 gets all the credit, and it’s nice to see that he’s still an ally since we won’t get much, if anything, of him in this series.

This means that Angus’s biggest problem is who to blame? The Avenger, as usual? Or Everett, since he’s already laid some groundwork for that?

Lyla isn’t pleased, as the situation could have ended badly. Which, yeah, when the only reason the place is still standing is a droid from the future who technically shouldn’t even be around anymore… that’s luck.

Back home, Donald has made sure that the basement entrance is now sealed for good. He’s not sure he imagined absolutely everything, and he can’t put aside the suspicion that Everett really is Profunda.

And in Ducklair Tower, Everett is once again checking on his daughter. This time, however, something that might have slipped the audience’s mind last time is made very clear.

Some small hints about Profunda’s identity here.

There are two capsules.

And one of them is empty.

Well, that certainly explains why the alarm went off in the PKN series finale. So yeah, issue #2, best summarized as more mysteries, heavy hinting and Lyla is back.

#PKNA #duck avenger #PK2 #comic review #sort of #for fun

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sketch-bag · 8 years

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Overwatch Tim Horton’s AU

Since @meridok had a post recently that mentioned the concept of a Tim Horton’s AU (as opposed to just the boring coffee shop bs), I’ve not been able to get the idea out of my head. Since I’ve also been way too into Overwatch lately and have seen too much fandom blather on my dash (also ur fault jay. fight me), I figured I’d combine it all into one to try and get it out of my system, so here goes!

Mei - The only person who doesn’t seem to mind working the drive-through window between November and March. She volunteers for snow-clearing duty every time as a way to escape the customers for a little bit.

McCree - Baker. Tries to use his position out back to avoid workplace drama, but somehow he keeps finding himself getting dragged back in. Spends about as much time smoking as he does actually preparing food, which he thinks makes him look cool, but he’ll get all flustered and go back to work the second he’s called out on it.

Lúcio - Insists he’s just working here until his DJ career kicks off, but in the meantime, he’s the store goofball. Always keeping everyone in high spirits with jokes, hijinks, and freestyle dis raps about shitty customers over the headsets, he’s one of the most beloved members of the team.

All the rest after the break

Widowmaker - Store manager. When she first transferred from her old store in Quebec, everyone got along with her, but this changed as soon as she got the promotion to supervisor, followed by the manager position shortly thereafter. Now that she has power and authority, she lords it over anyone who draws her ire. She’s always watching the cameras, and readily manipulates workplace politics.

Tracer - Customer favourite and highly valued staff member, Tracer’s upbeat attitude and genuine friendliness are every bit as endearing as her commitment to helping out her co-workers. Due to disagreements with Widowmaker, she often finds herself on short-staffed shifts, though she multitasks like a champ to make things easier for everyone else. (”No worries, loves! I’ll hold down the drive-through myself, you just take care of anyone who comes in!”)

Ana - Overnight employee. She’s worked for various Timmie’s locations for the better part of three decades, meaning she can cover any position in the store and kick ass at it. She used to be the store mom, but workplace drama has led to her switching to the overnight shift to lay low, with some folks even thinking she’s quit.

Winston - Supervisor. The newest supervisor on staff, Winston is eager to prove himself, but tries too hard and winds up seeming foolish. Though he’s objectively a really smart guy, a lack of any practical management experience leads to constant goofs and shenanigans as a result of him overthinking things.

Sombra - Supervisor. Though she puts in an effort any time Widowmaker is around, Sombra prefers to take the evening shifts where she is free of direct supervision, as she knows how to get away with putting in the bare minimum effort without anyone noticing. She doesn’t like Widowmaker in the slightest, but plays friendly to stay on her good side and keep coasting by.

Junkrat - Overnight employee. Though he works until 7 AM every day, he’s still determined to get full use out of the day. He only sleeps 3 hours a day and liberally abuses his free coffee privileges, leaving him jittery and energetic but not even slightly of sound mind. There’s a betting pool on how long until he lands himself in the hospital.

Roadhog - Overnight employee. At the start of his shift, he’s always furious with the evening staff for leaving a mess, and by its end, he’s tired and surly, but according to the rare few who’ve seen him in the middle section, he’s actually a fairly pleasant guy to work with.

Torbjörn - Baker. He’s been doing this for literally forever He’s so used to all the equipment and routines that he could do it in his sleep, and has perfected the art of cutting corners in order to optimize his efficiency. Is always happy to show the new hires a few tricks.

D. Va - Has a running rivalry with Tracer to see who can get the most tips. Tracer doesn’t seem to be aware of this, which makes it all the more infuriating when she keeps winning. D. Va is committed to doing her best though, and the customers always love her, even if she comes off a little strong.

Pharah - Supervisor. Probably the most by-the-books supervisor on staff. Strict, but with good intentions, Pharah takes effort to make sure that everyone is putting in their fair share, but is also being taken care of. General store consensus is that she should be the manager. As she always handles the lunch and supper rushes, nobody’s sure if she’s even aware that her mother works there, and everyone is far too awkward to ask,

Zarya - When lunch rush hits, she’s the one one brave enough to volunteer to hold down the sandwich unit. Though gruff with both customers and co-workers, she’s a hard worker that carries the whole store on bad days, and can be caring and protective of those who get close to her.

Zenyatta - No matter how hectic things get, this guy is always perfectly calm, and never breaks a sweat. Either he’s always showing up to work stoned out of his mind, or he’s really chill. Either way, he gets the job done, so nobody minds enough to ask.

Hanzo - With a master’s degree and a rich family, nobody really knows what led Hanzo to get a job at Timmie’s, and he doesn’t seem keen to share his reasons. Regardless, he puts his full effort into any task put in front of him, and is one of the most determined workers on staff.

Mercy - When she started, everyone began making jokes about how she was a precious cinnamon roll and secretly taking bets about how long it would take for her to either quit or become jaded and cynical. Four years later, and she’s still as kind, sweet, and optimistic as the day she started. Since Ana moved to overnights, she’s taken on the role of store mom.

Reinhardt - A longtime customer who had been an employee years ago. Though he’s moved on to better things, he still swings by frequently to see how things are going. He’s always a perfect gentleman and excellent tipper to the newer staff who don’t recognize him, but if he see’s an old friend, such as Ana or Torbjörn, he’ll enthusiastically call them over to catch up.

Symmetra - Baker. She’s very focused on her work, and nobody can deny that she’s amazing at what she does, but if you bother her while she’s in the zone or mess with her equipment, you’re in for a world of hurt. All of her doughnuts always turn out perfect, so she’s always working any time there’s an inspection from corporate to make it seem like the store is actually functional. She appreciates the recognition, but can’t help but feel a little used.

Genji - A regular customer, always swinging by to either check on or antagonize Hanzo, depending on who you ask. Most of the staff loves him, though most just know him as “Hanzo’s brother.” He’s old friends with Zenyatta, who gives him free coffee if nobody’s looking.

Soldier: 76 - Night ops supervisor. Nobody really knows what he’s supposed to do, but he just sort of shows up with boxes of much-needed supplies in the middle of the night when nobody’s put in an order, and occasionally ducks into the office to fix people’s schedules when WIdowmaker won’t, even though that’s not his job. Rumour has it that he used to be the store’s manager years ago.

Reaper - That one asshole cabbie with a life ban from the drive-through that shows up every month or so to see if people forgot about him. Sombra will occasionally humour him because she really couldn’t care less, so he thinks they’re in cahoots.

Bastion - “I swear to god, guys, it’s like the Iced Cap machine has a mind of its own. I think it’s seen too much and doesn’t want to work any more or something...”

#overwatch #coffee shop au #Canada #Tim Hortons #overwatch au #I don't usually do fandom things #but this was rattling around in my head the past few days

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blackvelvetsunseteyes · 8 years

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Standing up to my boss.

It bothers me when people tell those who are getting seriously mistreated at their work place not to stand up for themselves because “Well what if this screws up your chance at getting a new job?”

I had explained to one of my friends today that I had written a very detailed letter to my old boss of why I as well as many others were so angry at him leading to three of us putting in our two weeks notice at the same time. This letter lead to us sitting down and talking, and that conversation lead to him personally attacking my coworkers and I which ended with me telling him face to face exactly just how screwed up everything he as well as the other owner and the manager he sent to “help” our store did was.

the response I received from this was “What you did was REALLY stupid.” followed up with a list of ways I should have handled it, all stemming around “Well what if this affects you getting jobs in the future?” Here is my problem with this. If everyone just quietly walks away from an abusive job, especially one at this level, nothing ever changes. The owners just continue on with their bullshit assuming they got away with it because no one said anything.

Just to clarify, there were countless things that lead to me telling off my boss, and they weren’t just little things that added up, they were big things and caused huge issues in the work place taking a serious toll on the workers. The situations that lead to fellow workers and I reaching the point we did were as follows:

Left without a manager or supervisor for ten months and were told they “couldn’t afford” promotions so no one within the store could be promoted.

Refused to hire people when we were in serious need of stock guys and sales associates leaving us very short staffed on a constant basis, sometimes only one person running the entire store for hours.

Were told multiple times that they had people ready to hire for management and supervisor positions and just never hired them forcing the keyholders to do the work of management and supervisor for months without the title or the pay.

Repeatedly forced us to fix corporate fuck ups causing us to deal with countless very angry customers because they didn’t want to deal with them, which lead to one of the workers being harassed by a customer to the point where we had to ban them from calling the store, so I personally was getting yelled at by him for telling him he could no longer call the store and talk to her, then she ended up getting on the phone and telling him herself. That’s right, WE, the workers at the store where he was harassing someone had to tell him he could no longer call, NOT corporate.

Had to deal with multiple people from other locations being sent to “help” us because they refused to just promote someone to keyholder so they could close, even though we only had one key holder who could work Wednesdays, which meant we were literally training people from other stores on how to do things in our store so they could do exactly what people who already worked there were perfectly capable of doing.

Were told we were being trained for Manager and keyholder positions that we would FINALLY be getting promoted to, only to find out other people who weren’t even training or qualified were offered the jobs behind our back and then told “You are qualified, it’s just not the right time.” as if we hadn’t been doing the jobs for months already.

Had a manager sent from the other store who was suppose to train us but literally did nothing but talk about her store and fuck up the displays, snap at people repeatedly, steal things from our stock room for her store, and go against our store policies causing us to have countless customer issues that she refused to fix because it was our store not hers.

Were personally verbally attacked on the regular because we spoke up about issues in the store and how we NEEDED things to change, these attacks included the manager from the other store as well as the owners constantly yelling at the keyholders, and the manager personally talking shit about me to my coworkers because I reported her for majorly fucking shit up at the store, causing me to spend an entire shift fixing all her fuck ups. As well as talking shit about my coworker for not finding the time to talk to her in the middle of us fixing all her fuck ups.

Were told that it was totally acceptable for the manager to treat the employees like total shit and do and say whatever the fuck she wanted because “She was a manager” and was told that those who were going to stay for their two weeks needed to shut up and not cause any issue aka not stand up for themselves while being disrespected.

Hired a manager that after three of us put in our two weeks had hired five new people instantly, then proceeded to threaten every one of the sales associates and stock from the old crew telling them they had people there ready to replace them if they didn’t “hold their weight” aka reach a ridiculous sales goal EVERY shift they worked (it was a furniture store, so many days were completely dead)

Within a matter of two days from being hired the new manager left the doors unlocks overnight (the store also had a starbucks inside meaning someone could have robbed both the furniture store and the starbucks,) had three citations from the mall, and multiple of her customers calling in with complaints, yet somehow the girl was not fired or disciplined, and continued to treat the employees like shit.

Workers at other stores were being told that the company was “Cleaning house” basically implying that the three of us that had quit were actually fired, using us as a way to make people think that they could be next.

Promoted one of the new hires to key holder who in no way or form was qualified (She has the attention span of a gnat and showed up to work in a crop top for training.) And the girl ended up kicking an employee out of the store because the employee told her that she filled out a form wrong and was trying to help her do it properly so she wouldn’t get in trouble. The new manager agreed with what she did, and when the girl who was kicked out put in her two weeks notice, she was given zero hours for those weeks, even though everyone else who put in their two weeks was given hours for both weeks.

The new manager showed up to work hung over smelling of alcohol and threw up in the bathroom then proceeded to pretend to have a cold claiming that was why she was throwing up, forcing a key holder to come in on her day off and cover her shift. This was an evening shift that she was working. The same manager will constantly refuse shift changes or days off to people, but then ask them to cover her shifts trying to guilt trip them into doing it, and even gave herself a holiday (New Years Day) off without even asking if the other keyholders had plans that night. She also told one of the new girls that she could not call out due to an emergency with her child telling her that if she did she would be written up. Once again, she did not get fired or disciplined in any way and continues treating the employees like shit, including lying about one of the starbucks workers (They have their own managers that are completely separate from the furniture store, but are under the same owner) claiming he was giving old employees free drinks, even though those employees had paid.

Since the new manager was hired they have had 7 people quit within less than a month, two new hires included due to employee severe mistreatment in the workplace.

Now this is just the bigger stuff, there is a ton of smaller stuff that over time also lead to serious issues. So combining those with all of the above, no, I was not just going to quietly leave and not stand up for my coworkers (now friends) and I, because honestly that is total bullshit. Why the hell should I have to feel that I have to stay silent and hope that karma gets them in the long run when they have done nothing but be abusive time and time again to us? WHy are we being made to feel that we can’t have a voice?

Can speaking up to my boss like i did affect who hires me in the future? Yeah. Do I regret standing up for what is right? Hell no! As far as I’m concerned, if someone doesn’t hire me without giving me the chance to explain why i stood up to my boss, those are not the type of people I want to be working for.

#retail hell #telling off my boss #standing up for myself #standing up for my coworkers #taking a stand

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deiupvote · 5 years

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Over the years, my job has been pretty diverse. I enjoy all the Master Electrician and Instrumentation work, but building and maintaining networks has been a joy as well. There are so many pretty blinking lights. All the testing and commissioning tools are fun to play with as well. There are also lasers.One thing that never gets old is seeing people’s faces (who don’t know me that well), when I rock up in high-vis clothing to start messing around in network cabinets. Here I am, a slightly scruffy-looking older guy, glue and resin on work boots, knocking about in IT. It’s pretty funny, and handy sometimes. (Glue and I haven’t been on good terms since Kindy. I don’t know why. As an Apprentice, I managed to get half a bottle of blue conduit glue in my hair for fucks’ sake.)—-“Tom” was a Junior Gov’t System Administrator, working at a Regional IT Dept. When the position of IT Manager became available at a 2000 student Gov’t High School, Tom was encouraged (finessed/manipulated/conned ?) to apply. See, Tom was a cockhead.As a wanker of the first order, in the 4 months that he’d been there after transferring in, Tom had pissed off the whole Gov’t IT team. You know that person who has to comment on everything, thinks they know everything, thinks they are always the smartest in a room, but is actually only about 67% competent? And a bit lazy? This was Tom.The Principal was so glad to have a Gov’t Sysadmin apply for the role that they changed the job title from Supervisor to Manager, to entice him. The role had an office and two support staff. It was also arranged that Tom would be given more control over the school network than previous Supervisors. (I heard later that his then Gov’t IT Director may have suggested the title enhancement to the Principal, as part of the finesse.)Tom had his own fiefdom. It also didn’t take him long to piss the Principal off either. As well as the admin staff, and most of the teachers.I’d done work with Gov’t IT for some time before Tom showed up and knew everyone, though only gotten to know him peripherally. He had yet to rub me the wrong way.We had two big-ish jobs at the High School, about a year after Tom started there.Change out a shit-tonne of keyed door locks for a brand new, standalone, networked door access system we would install and maintain.And change out existing room lighting for energy efficient LED panels.These two jobs would each be done during a 2 week term break, either side of a 10 week school term. I would get to run both jobs.In the planning phase of the door access network, Tom made it known that he would be trained on the new door system and be in charge of it, since it was a network in his school. The Principal made it known who’s school it was, and that Tom would stay right the fuck away from it, since it was standalone and had nothing to do with him. Tom was not happy about this.—-One Tuesday, a little over 5 weeks since the door system had been live, I was driving to a job when I got the phone call that kicked off this tale. “High School called. They’re having trouble with the new door system.” Turning the car around, I wasn’t sure what annoyed me more. That my sing-along with ‘Blink-182’ had just been interrupted, or that I would now miss out on scones fresh from the oven.At the system operator terminal PC in an admin office, I hear that there were two issues.Some teachers couldn’t open some doors this morning, and some other doors that the admin staff tried to change functions on weren’t responding. I suspected the regular user teething issues. (We were 5 weeks into the 10 week term at this stage.)They went on to explain that they’d looked and found the teachers door access had been changed to remove some doors. They’d re-added the doors and fixed that, but the doors they were trying to change functions on weren’t responding.Looking in the system on their user login, they were right. They’d re-added these doors correctly for these teachers. But why wasn’t the system updating the door changes? Logging in as the admin, I see that apart from the hub in this office, the other 18 network hubs are not responding. Hmm. Weird. Unlocking the cabinet, I see that the fibre optic patch lead which connects to the other hubs is dangling in space. Very weird. These take some doing to unplug, they don’t just fall out.Reconnecting the patch lead and rechecking the network, I see the other hubs are responding, so I push the door changes through. There are still questions though, so I open the system log. I see that the changes to the teachers access was made by one of the admin users at 5:33pm, and the hubs went off-line soon after. Strange, because the admin staff finished at 4.30pm. The log also showed that someone who is not admin staff entered this office at 5:08pm. Tom.I sat there and thought about asking the admin staff some questions, but decided against it. I suspected that Tom had insinuated himself here over the past couple of weeks to get the gist of how the door program worked, and had gotten a user login to boot. If I kicked up a fuss, he might be able to IT double-speak the teacher changes. Also, the patch lead being out could be waived away as incompetence on my part.As I was thinking, the admin staff said that Tom had been in earlier and had overheard the issues they were having. He’d said something to the effect of “That’s what you get when you let electricians manage a network.” Ohh ok, he was being pissy about being banned from this system. My crystal ball went through a variety of scenarios, and I decided to let sleeping dogs lie for now.Three days later, on the Friday, I got another call about the high schools door system.Checking in and checking it out, I found that the issues they had were almost identical to the first, except that only 4 hubs were offline. After going to one of the affected hubs and plugging the patch lead back in, I opened the system log again. To find it empty. What the flying fuck? The daily back-up file had been deleted as well. Only my admin login could do these things, and how the fuck did he get that?Checking that the secondary back-up on an external drive was still intact, I dumped that into my laptop and had a swivel on the chair for a few minutes. Yep, this back-up showed that the admin login had been used to do the teachers changes this time, and delete the system log. All after the admin staff had left yesterday.This operator console PC had been provided by Tom, it was one of the school assets. The Gov’t image was supposed to have been wiped and a clean operating system put on, so it couldn’t be connected to the Gov’t networks. Maybe Tom had a keylogger in there somewhere. I gave it a good Sparky go, but couldn’t find anything. I even checked for cameras. After changing the admin password, I left and put on some Nick Cave in the car.That evening, while Misters Cave and Daniels kept me company, I looked up keyloggers. And then went through my boxes of spare parts toys. It was Secret Squirrel time.—-On Monday, I timed my arrival to the school just as the admin staff were leaving. I “just wanted to check some things on the system.” They left and left me to it. I placed one small camera under the desk to see the back of the PC tower, one on a shelf looking at the screen, and one on top of a corner cupboard to see the room. Happy with my work, I went home.That Thursday, same thing again. Different teachers affected, and different hubs offline, but the same thing. Admin login used to wipe the logs and back-up. I changed the admin password again, for reasons. After coming back that afternoon to retrieve footage from the cameras, I figured out what he was doing.The first time, he used the user login to make changes, pulled the patch lead, then installed a keylogger device on the keyboard USB cable into the tower. It looked like a little black USB adaptor thingy. He used this to get my admin login to wipe the system log and delete the back-up, so there’d be no evidence of his card accessing the room.What he was doing was a fucking stupid way to go about it. His ego must be a thing of wonder. The contempt he must have held for my abilities (as just a Sparky) to figure things out, even without the cameras, was boggling. I maintain systems and networks far more complex than this. Like the schools security system for example. Or a similar door access system in a much much more secure facility. Ok fucker, game on.Over the next 4 weeks, Tom and I went through these dance steps 4 more times. I heard all about him ‘suggesting’ that if he ran the system, a professional sysadmin, there wouldn’t be issues like these. I didn’t mention to anyone about the logs or back-ups. I just kept collecting my video and secondary back-ups. Because through my association with Gov’t IT I’d learned a few things about their policies. And wanted to fuck with Tom, and maybe collect some more ammunition, before I absolutely fucking wrecked him. Purposefully using keyloggers on a Gov’t asset is a big no no.—-The next 2 week term break was here, and we began changing out light fittings. It was easy work, and I had a team of 8. Once I kicked them off, I went to work.I added a relay card to each of 6 specially selected security system expansion points, in 6 different buildings. These buildings were where the people worked who disliked Tom the most. I’d worked at the school long enough to know all about it.Relays are wonderful. Give me enough relays, timers and contactors and I can make your wildest electrical/control dreams come true. A relay is a switch. That’s all. Like a light switch that you can turn on/off without being there.Here’s a thing about data cables that not a lot of people know. Data cables connect the data socket in an office to a patch panel in a network rack. There are 8 wires inside, but they each have very specific jobs. 4 are commonly used to carry data traffic (2, or one pair, for upload, 2 for download). Another pair for power to a PoE device, like a wireless access point.Say you figured out a way to get one specific pair of these 8 wires into, let’s say, a relay. You could then maybe interrupt the upload wires, or download wires, or power wires. Any of these would cause issues for your computers ability to communicate. If you could turn the relays on and off at opportune times, for selected people, perhaps via a security system you had remote access to, you could maybe introduce weird intermittent faults in a network.If you could do this without it looking like the cables in a network cabinet patch panel had been touched, you might now have a method to cause grief without it being traceable through IT magic. Sure, a competent IT person would assume the cable was damaged, and go test it. But what if when you went to test, it was all ok? It would maybe look like a network system issue. That a competent Sysadmin should be able to diagnose and fix.A critical part of all this would be if you had a job, as an electrician, to make alterations to a buildings lighting. You could then turn some power circuits off, so that the network cabinet in a building was unpowered for a while. You could then take data cables out of patch panels without it being noticed by a Sysadmin. You could run a new length of data cable and terminate it into the patch panel, and make a nice coupled join of the two cables in the ceiling, then split off some pairs to relays.This could be done over 2 days. You could then begin switching the Principals relay on the third day of the 2 week student break. It would be pretty easy keeping track of Toms whereabouts so you could make the cable appear ok for testing. Once the Principal was good and pissed off at Tom for not being able to fix their issues, you could start switching the Admin Managers relay.The next day, you could go to work on the Head of English in another building. Then the Head of Science in another. Having Tom out of his office, and you having a legitimate reason to be in there (lighting job), would mean you could have a real good look around and find the the USB keylogger.—-Standing in Tom’s office, I took a picture of the keylogger among the mess on his desk. (It might have been hidden in a drawer before that) Then I called my mate, Tom’s old boss, the Regional Director of Gov’t IT. I told him about the issues I’d had with the door access system, the videos, the keylogger. He came down, took his own picture, and called the Principal.On my laptop, in the Principals office, I showed them the videos of Toms vandalism on the door system. The Director examined the keylogger. It was so much worse than I thought. They found not only my system info on it, but info from the school accounting department, Directors department and more. Tom had so much incriminating evidence on it, from all kinds of Government departments, that he was bend-over-no-lube fucked.When Tom answered the summons to the Principals office, I couldn’t help smiling at him. I know that’s mean, but I’m only human sometimes.He had no answers to the questions. He tried to claim the keylogger wasn’t his. The Director shot that down. It had too much stuff, from places Tom had access to. It couldn’t be anyone else’s. Then I showed him the videos.That look he gave me was priceless. He’d figured out I’d done this to him, and it was glorious. A simple electrician. (Go fuck yourself Tom.)He wasn’t prosecuted, because that would’ve caused too much of a public stink. But Tom got flagged and would never again be able to work in any Gov’t job, anywhere in the country. Not as a janitor. Or as a contractor doing Gov’t work. And since graduating Uni, he’d only ever worked in Gov’t.Sorry private industry, he’s all yours now.—-I did say something stupid though. After Tom left Principals office that reveal day, Principal asked Director if they could send someone competent to look at the schools network issues. Without thinking, I said “Nah, I’ll fix that.” (I blame having too much fun.)After they had me explain what I’d done, because I needed Tom out of his office, I had to cross-my-heart promise not to do it again. Principal didn’t fully understand what I’d done, but Director said I was like some evil MacGyver.I put the network cabling back in place and took all my toys home.Thank you for reading.(Again, Fuck you Tom.)—-GlossaryKindy - Kindergarten. Where you learn, as a small child, not to run with scissors. Also where a lifelong acrimonious relationship is formed with glue. Not ‘Clag’ glue though. That shit was tasty.Scone - a delicious flour based baked treat. Grandma scones are the best, with cream and raspberry jam. The scones you try and make yourself are excellent hockey pucks.Secret Squirrel - a cartoon I liked when I was a kid. A squirrel secret agent who has a mole mate. They have gadgets and adventures.Nick Cave - Australian Renaissance Man. Nick Cave is mostly known as a singer/songwriter. Excellent revenge planning music.Relay Logic - was used to run elevators before there were computers. So many things have relays. Little electromechanical wonders. I love them. Ok, so, a relay has a coil in it, that you energise. This creates a tiny electromagnet and pulls a piece of ferrous metal down. This changes the state of the contacts. Easy huh. Just like a light switch, but without the need of fingers. via /r/ProRevenge

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