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kiras-sunshine · 3 years

Text

I’m gonna hold onto your heart for sure

Written for day 3 of Carlos Reyes Week: “well, that just happened” + friendship

Summary:

“It’s not out of obligation or anything like that,” he says immediately, “we are friends, no matter what. Besides, you’re basically part of the team, like an honorary member of the 126.”

on ao3

Carlos is surprised to find Paul, leaning against his blue Camaro outside the police station when he finally gets off from shift.

The sun is already setting, painting the whole yard of the police station in golden light.

Paul’s face lights up when he spots him near the doors, and he gives him a small wave. He has changed out of his uniform, but he is still wearing dark pants and AFD t-shirt.

He tries to go through in his mind if he has forgotten any plans they might have made when he walks up to the car and him. He cannot come up with anything, but he is still glad to see him.

“Hey, everything okay?” He asks, mostly out of habit. He looks fine and he guesses he wouldn’t be grinning that widely if something atrocious had happened.

“Yeah,” he agrees and claps his hand on his shoulder. “Just checking up if you’re moping like a lovesick puppy,” he jokes.

Carlos flashes a smile, but he shakes his head as he glances their shoes. “I’m not.”

TK had to leave up to New York to attend his cousin’s wedding. He had been invited too as a plus one, but he couldn’t get four days off from work, and TK had assured that he was completely fine going there alone too, but he misses him.

It has been three days, which is ridiculous considering how much he wants to see him and longs to have him back in Austin. He cannot remember when he would have missed someone this much, and it almost terrifies him a little.

Obviously, they have been texting and calling, but it still isn’t the same thing.

“TK seemed pretty miserable when I called him,” he shrugs, with innocent smile, “just saying.”

He just huffs at that, amusedly, as he tries to fish out his car keys from the pocket of his jeans.

“Also, it’s family dinner today, so I’m picking you up. Well, I don’t have a car ‘cause Marjan just dropped me here on the way to supermarket, but still, the point stands.”

The 126 has created a tradition of having a proper, full-scale dinner once a week. The time and day changes, adapting to their shifts, but they never fail to have one. Owen has dubbed it as a family dinner for team bonding reasons. He has attended it a couple times with TK, but he feels like it’s a quite accurate term.

The crew definitely is a family, and they care each other a lot and deeply, and there is so much love and affection in the air when they don’t have to worry about getting called to scenes, and they always have each other’s backs.

He is almost a little jealous of the bond they all share.

He lets out a small laughter and fidgets with his car keys. “That’s nice but you don’t have to--,” he starts, but Paul is gesturing him to stop talking.

“It’s not out of obligation or anything like that,” he says immediately, “we are friends, no matter what. Besides, you’re basically part of the team, like an honorary member of the 126.”

He would be lying if he said that hearing that wouldn’t make him feel fondness towards the entire team and it makes him feel cared for and a little special. He knows he generally gets along with people well and he has no issues making friends, but he has been missing Michelle and he appreciates it more than he can say that he has become friends with everyone in the team and they aren’t just tolerating him for the sake of TK.

“Okay,” he agrees.

Spending the evening with friends and eating a proper dinner definitely beats his plans of cleaning his apartment and ordering takeout.

“Yeah,” Paul laughs and before Carlos knows he has been pulled into a tight hug. It’s surprisingly comforting hug despite the fact that it’s short and brief.

“Well, that just happened,” he says, and there is a certain edge of uncertainness that wasn’t there before, with apologetic expression when he lets go off him. “Sorry, got carried away.”

“Hey, we’re friends, friends get hugged,” he tells him, immediately, resting his hand on his shoulder.

He isn’t maybe the most tactile person in the world, but sometimes it is easier to say something through touch than words and he firmly believes in hugging.

“Yeah,” Paul agrees, softly and his grin is back and already brighter. He nods towards his car. “Let’s go. Cap won’t like if we are late.”

***

Carlos isn’t sure if his stomach hurts because all of the food he has eaten or because of all the laughter. The food was delicious and there was way too much of it, and they had been talking about everything that came to mind. They had been sharing anecdotes of work and what their lives had been like before they arrived in Texas and the firehouse.

The 126 is back on shift in a couple of hours, and the whole team, except Owen, has sprawled on the couches, trying to survive their food comas. Judd and Mateo are talking about basketball, deep in their conversation and Marjan is showing Paul some video on his phone, and they all seem content in the moment, and the whole room is filled with laughter and chatter.

Carlos smiles as he looks at them, but his phone starts to vibrate in his pocket. He quietly slips away and walks towards the doors to get some more privacy. It’s basically all for nothing because the firehouse been built so that privacy is almost non-existent. Especially with this particular team.

“Hey,” he says, when the video call connects and he sees TK’s tired, but beaming face on his phone screen.

“Hey,” he says back, but tilts his head and squints his eyes at him. “Is that a fire truck?”

He turns his phone a little, so that he gets a glimpse of the bright red side of the truck. “Yeah.”

His grin gets wider. “Missing me that much?“

“Yeah,” he breathes out, with genuine laughter, “also Paul dragged me to the dinner.”

“Oh yeah, the family dinner. I should’ve remembered,” he says, as he runs his hand through his hair, making it stick up slightly. “That’s nice.”

“It is,” he says, sincerely. “I wish you were here with us.”

It’s nice that he is, in their eyes too, his own person outside of their relationship. He knows they are close, and they still keep complaining when they will grow out of their honeymoon stage, but he still knows how to be his own person and he doesn’t feel less whole without him. He feels that together they are something more, but not lacking otherwise either.

“Me too,” he admits under his breath, “we do have pretty great friends.”

It feels like an understatement but it’s still true. “Yeah,” he says, nodding. The corner of his mouth twitches into a gradual smile. “Your dad promised to teach me how to bake a sugar free key lime pie.”

It makes him laugh, and it’s such a beautiful sound and he would gladly spend rest of his life listening to it. His eyes are glistering with what looks like happiness. “He doesn’t teach just anyone,” he points out. “Kitchen is like a sacred place for him. He certainly hasn’t taught baking to anyone I have dated.”

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing his neck.

He likes Owen, and he feels like they would get along even if he wasn’t dating his son, but it is sort of a big deal for him that he seems to like him, too. He knows he doesn’t need anyone else’s approval, but he still loves the fact that all of them just took him in as one of their own.

“Also,” he starts, and points at the screen with grimace on his face, “his sugar-free key lime pie is terrible. It tastes like flour, so good luck.”

“Ah, I’ll just make the others eat most of it. Practice the fine art of guilt tripping,” he deadpans, but it is getting impossible to hold back the smile.

“Good strategy.”

“Your dad misses you, too,” he points out softly, “he had a baby pic of you on the dinner table.”

He had placed the framed picture on the spot that he usually sits on. It had been mostly a joke, a way to boost the team morale, but he had noticed how many times Owen had glanced at the picture during the dinner. The picture had been of TK, barely standing on his own, grabbing leg of a table and he was wearing orange overalls and grinning as widely as a one year old can.

TK groans, and he cannot help but chuckle. “It’s on the wall now. According to them, they have put it high enough so you cannot take it down when you get back.”

“I hate them all,” he mutters, but there is no heat behind his voice.

“You were a cute baby,” he adds, just because he can.

“I wasn’t,” he insists, “especially if it was the orange overalls picture.”

“It was, but I guess I have to ask him to show me the entire photo albums,” he says, mostly just teasing him and mostly because he genuinely wants to see the photos.

“Please don’t,” he says, but the amusement shines through his voice. “He would love it.”

It would probably take hours, but he might do it one day when he has time.

“How’s the wedding?”

“Good, it has been nice seeing everyone,” he tells him, sounding genuinely happy. Carlos knows he hasn’t seen his mother’s side family in years. “It would be more fun if you were there. They all keep asking about you.”

“I’m sorry for not making it,” he says, gently.

He would have loved to go with him, but the wedding had seemed a little like a last-minute thing for him, and the invitation had come in mail just a couple weeks before and there was no way he could have managed to change all of his shifts.

“Hey, I didn’t mean it as a jab,” he remarks, softly.

“I know.”

“It’s mostly just funny. I head a bunch of my aunts talking and doubting if you’re even real because you sound a little too perfect, and that if you’re real, how did you end up with me,” he explains with a huff, but his voice sounds amused and there is certain mischief in his eyes.

“You could tell them that I’ve a very specific type,” he jokes, because he can feel the warmth creeping up on his neck.

He knows how to accept a compliment, but perfect definitely isn’t a word he would associate with himself, let alone expect a bunch of people he has never met to describe him as such.

“What would that be?”

Before he has any chance to answer, he spots Judd walking towards him and he claps both of his hands on his shoulders and flashes a smile at the phone screen. “Rude green-eyed firefighters who don’t let their family know they are calling,” Judd quips into their conversation.

TK is laughing again, but he is definitely delighted to see him, too. “I feel like you can find twelve of those in a dozen.”

“More like once in a lifetime,” Carlos murmurs, as rest of the team swarms in and forms a sort of half-circle around them. He knows TK hears him, because he holds his gaze, and his face softens. His smile is tiny but genuine and he feels like it’s only reserved for him.

“Ugh, you’re too sappy,” Marjan complains, but she ends up sounding mostly fond.

Carlos tries to hold up his phone high enough that he manages to see everyone. They keep waving at him, and he looks genuinely touched. “I’m glad you’re there.”

“We are glad to have him,” Mateo pipes in.

“We miss you,” Paul adds, “but we think we like Carlos better,” he says, deadpan.

“Cannot blame you for having good taste,” he shoots back, with a wink, and suddenly the warm feeling in his neck creeps back up.

“At least he knows how to cook, unlike certain someone,” Marjan says, with a glare that doesn’t linger on her face.

“Hey, the casserole I made last week was edible,” TK argues.

“Yeah, kid. Edible, not good,” Judd says with deep sounding laughter.

“It made my stomach feel funny,” Mateo admits, sounding a little distraught.

“Even Buttercup didn’t eat it,” Paul reminds him.

“Y’all are so ungrateful,” he says, with mock exasperated sigh as he stares beyond his phone, but amusement doesn’t disappear from his eyes.

Carlos knows that TK’s culinary skills are common joke for them, and he can admit he shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near kitchen and unfortunately, he had gotten the leftovers of the casserole too. It had been dry and tasteless, but he still he had eaten it.

“I wouldn’t have eaten it if it wasn’t made by you,” he admits, too.

“Ah, blinded by love,” Judd says, shaking his head.

“You’ll end up with food poisoning,” Marjan tells him, as she pokes him in the arm.

Before he has any chance to reply, TK looks like he is listening to someone speak in the other end of the call. He flashes them a smile. “Sorry, I gotta go. Carlos, I love you. The rest of you are okay, I guess,” he jokes in a light tone, and his smile is so wide and genuine that it definitely reaches his eyes.

His crew fake exasperation around him, but they all end up erupting in laughter and keep telling TK how much they miss him before they manage to actually end the call.

#carlosreyesweek2021 #tarlos #tarlos fic #day 3 #this was really fun to write #i have soft spot for team and carlos #carlos reyes

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surveyhoursss · 3 years

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98.

Prep

I shop at Abercrombie, Hollister, American Eagle, or Aerospatiale.

I am/was a cheerleader.

I'm pretty ditzy.

I wear pink 24/7.

My looks are very important to me.

I can't live without my cell phone.

My hair is always straight.

I say 'like' and 'omigod' a lot.

I laugh 24/7.

I have a million friends.

I always hang at the mall or movies.

I'll only date popular guys.

I listen to rap & pop music.

I have at least one designer bag.

My myspace pics are of me making a kissy face or are mirror pics

It takes me at least an hour to get ready for school in the mornings.

Uggs + Miniskirts = Love

I don't have a job

I wear lots of makeup. (wouldn’t call it lots, though)

I can be stuck up or snobby sometimes.

I flirt with any guy, as long as he's cute.

Total = 5

EMO

I cry a lot.

I go to local shows.

I wear black everyday (typically I always have something black on)

I write sad poetry.

I play an acoustic guitar.

My favorite bands include: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, or Panic! at the Disco.

I think about suicide or death often.

People have told me to cheer up.

I cry when I see dead animals.

My myspace/Facebook pics are black or white or angled.

I wear many band shirts.

No one understands me.

I don't talk too often.

I look down when I walk.

I wear black eyeliner.

I have an ex I still cry over.

My hair is black

My hair covers one of my eyes.

I always say 'life sucks'.

Total: 4

NERD

I have straight A's.

I wear glasses.

I always do my homework and study.

Lord of the Rings was a massive achievement.

Computer games.

I'm 'teachers pet'.

I've never had a real boyfriend/girlfriend.

I have a bedtime.

I use an asthma inhaler.

I carry a calculator with me.

I bring my lunch to school.

I always follow the rules.

I'm shy around the opposite sex.

I'm always on the computer.

I've never had beer or cigarettes.

I always answer every question in class right.

I correct people's grammar.

I read a lot.

School is very important to me.

I always stump people.

Total: 8

REBEL

I always speak my mind.

I have 0% of school spirit.

F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me!

I stand up for what I think is right.

On spirit days at school, I wear the rival's colors.

Whenever people are doing something, I do the complete opposite.

I won't listen to authority figures.

I always break the rules.

I refuse to compromise.

I'm always arguing with people.

I love debate.

I always do what's unexpected of me.

I don't give a sh*t what people think of me.

If I watch a cruddy movie in theaters, right after it's over, I'll say 'that sucked'.

I'm not afraid to contradict others.

I only respect my own beliefs.

If I don't want to do something, I won't do it, no matter what.

I laugh at compromising people.

I cheer on the rival's sport team to stand out.

Rules were meant to be broken.

Total: 1

JOCK

I'm on one or more sport teams.

I always wear my varsity jacket.

I've won awards for my athletic ability.

I will only date popular girls/guys.

School Spirit

I'm going to a college for sports

I watch sports on TV all the time

I'm muscular.

I play sports or exercise at least 3 hours a day.

Go Team!

I'm a chick/dude magnet.

I eat a lot.

I'm egotistical.

I'm too focused on sports to make really good grades.

I sit at the jock lunch table.

All I talk about with my friends is sports.

I go to lots of sports games.

I'm very athletic

I wear sport inspired clothing.

play at least 3 different sports.

Total: 4

COMEDIAN

I'm funny.

I'm always making jokes.

I interrupt class by making people laugh.

I like to entertain people.

I worship Kevin Smith.

I watch comedies more than anything.

I also watch SNL and Mad TV a lot

I'm sarcastic.

I've been told I'm hilarious.

I always imitate people.

I pull lots of pranks.

I always make sarcastic remarks after everything.

I have to prove myself by being funny.

People expect me to make jokes, always.

I have a lot of pressure to make everyone laugh.

If I don't make jokes, people ask me what's wrong.

Jim Carrey is my idol.

I mostly get along with everybody.

At pep rallies, I'm the one acting crazy and silly.

My teachers or parents tell me I need to focus more on work and less on joking around.

Total: 3

SHY

I don't have a lot of friends.

I don't talk too much.

It's not that I'm snobby, I just get nervous when talking to people.

When people say my name, others say 'who?'

I'm pretty sure mostly no one knows who I am.

People have told me I need to talk more.

I only talk when other people talk to me first

I look down when I walk.

I avoid social gatherings, such as games, dances, or parties.

People have tried to help me be more outgoing, but it never works.

I always plan to talk to more people, but I never do.

I sit in the back of the classroom.

I never participate in class discussions.

I hide behind people to avoid being seen sometimes.

I could never be a cashier, talking to strangers.

I talk quietly.

People have called me shy or quiet.

I usually let others decide for me.

If someone is talking about my favorite book or movie in front of me, I don't join in the conversation.

Total: 12

GOTHIC

I wear black.

I don't like to be seen.

I'm very, very pale.

I only listen to metal or emo-ish music. (neither of these is goth, mallgoths XD)

I love creepy, weird movies.

I love gothic cartoons and drawings.

I don't like people.

I only go out during the night.

I have black fingernails.

I wear a long black coat.

I also wear big black boots.

'The Crow' is one of my favorite movies.

I only date other Goths.

I love black humor.

I love pain.

People think I'm crazy.

I don't talk to anyone who isn't as deep as me.

I love to scare people

I laugh at teenyboppers.

People are scared of me.

Total: 3

WEIRDO

I talk to myself.

I say really random things all the time/have to say it out loud.

I fidget a lot.

I still use a wheeled backpack.

People laugh at me.

I walk really funny.

I have a very different sense of style.

I talk in a robot voice often.

I'll stop whatever I'm doing, and break out in a crazy dance if the mood strikes.

I debate stuff with myself.

I hear voices.

I'm obsessed with aliens and the other planets.

I have a fascination with robots and machinery.

I use really big words no one understands, and they give me weird looks.

I say random lines of babbling that make sense to no one but me.

I dart my eyes from side to side.

I always pretend I'm a robot or other weird non-human thing.

People have no idea why I think the way I do.

I have some very unusual, extraordinary talents.

When people ask me if I like something that's trendy, I pretend to be scared or confused.

Total: 3

ANTISOCIAL

I hate/dislike most people.

I prefer to be alone.

When people talk to me, I just give them a death glare.

Actually, most people don't talk to me.

People are freaking idiots and I wish they'd all die.

I live in my room, writing in my diary. On the computer...

I go out my way to avoid everyone.

I never greet anyone.

I despise people who talk too loudly.

I want people to think I'm a freak.

I never talk.

I can't wait to get off this earth.

I always sit by myself at lunch or anywhere else.

I listen to music on full blast on my ipod/mp4 player/headphones to block out the world.

I don't know why I am the way I am.

People have said I'm antisocial.

I use drugs or alcohol to escape the loneliness.

Why bother when people don't like you anyways?

I occupy myself so it won't look like I'm a loner.

I just don't get along with anyone.

Total: 1

SKATER

I skateboard to everywhere.

If I'm not skateboarding, I carry it with me.

I shop at Pacsun.

I'm obsessed with Tony Hawk.

Oh yeah, and Bam Margera.

I always play skateboarding video games.

I have shaggy hair.

I wear baggy pants.

I wear only skater shoes.

I always wear hoodies. (well, much of the time)

I hang at skate parks 24/7.

I'm always learning new board tricks.

Forget school, I want to be a professional skateboarder.

I've been skateboarding for over 4 years.

I hang with other skaters.

I've been hurt while skateboarding.

I've been in a skateboarding competition.

I wear vans.

Tony Hawks games win.

I've met some of my closest friends at skate parks.

Total: 0

GANGSTER/HOOD

I say 'yo'.

I also say 'fo shizzle'.

I wear extremely baggy pants.

Mah chainz hang low.

I hang with my homies, biotches, and Hoe's

I'm a thug.

I only listen to rap music.

50 Cent is my idol.

I don't give a frick about school.

I steal/have stolen before (as a child lol)

I freestyle.

I breakdance.

Gold chainz is tha way to go, biotch.

I'm white but I act black.

All my heroes are dead rappers.

Tupac is still alive.

I party with all my nigs.

I wear a sideways baseball cap.

I wear hoodies.

I wear converse with the tongue flipped out.

Total: 2

BULLY

I always steal people's lunch money.

Geeks are afraid of me.

I get in trouble all the time.

I steal people's stuff to be an a**hole.

People have called me a bully.

I have beat someone up before.

I'm always looking for a fight.

I pick on people smaller than me.

I push people out of the way when I'm walking.

I've never been in a relationship before.

People are afraid of me.

People know not to mess with me.

I'm taller than most people my age.

I pick on people for the fun of it.

I make fun of everything anyone else likes.

If anyone crosses my path, they're dead.

People know not to try and stick up for themselves when I'm around.

I'm one of the strongest kids in school.

Even some authority figures are afraid of me.

People get out of my way when I'm walking.

Total: 0

GAMER

I own at least 2 different video game consoles.

I love Final Fantasy.

DDR & Guitar Hero

I've missed school before because I was trying to beat a video game.

I'm always trying to beat high scores on games.

I even play a lot of computer games.

I play at least 3 hours of video games a day.

My thumbs are sore often.

I spend all my money on new video games.

My boyfriend/girlfriend has to be into video games.

All I talk about is video games.

I've been in a video game competition before

I pay over 30$ a month in online games.

I have bought more than 5 accessories for my console

I know about more than 10 cheats and mods in the game I play most.

I have played at least a complete week in the game I like most.

I wouldn't know what to do in an afternoon without electricity.

My parents often tell the internet is broken or simply disconnect it so I don't spend whole weekends and holidays playing.

I have more than one online account on the same game.

Total: 2

GIRLY

I have long hair.

I wear make up every day.

I carry a purse.

I have to get someone else to come kill a spider.

I paint my nails.

I use perfume.

I keep my nails clean/shaped

I shower regularly

I used to or still do Dance, Gymnastics, or Cheer/Pom

I like to accessorize

I like flowers.

I don't like to be outdoors.

I'm more like my mother than my father.

I like hanging out with girls than boys.

I like going to the mall/shopping.

I watch my weight/ count calories.

I plan outfits ahead of time

People say I have a soft/sweet voice.

I dream about and am already planning my wedding day

I watch dramatic shows on tv, soap operas, reality TV, etc.

Total: 9

BOYISH

I have short hair.

I hate doing laundry.

I like war type video games.

I like playing or watching sports.

People say I have a deep voice.

I'm more like my dad than my mom.

I beat up or tease my younger siblings or friends.

I act tough, it doesn't matter what's going on inside me.

There's only two emotions.

I shower only when I start to notice I stink

I think about the opposite sex a lot.

My room isn't neat.

I bite my nails instead of using scissors/clippers.

My clothes don't match sometimes, but I don't notice or care

I like to play rough with dogs.

I like the movies 300, Transformers, The Dark Knight.

The best way to get the opposite sex to like you is to act like a jerk.

I don't read

I don't ask for help even if I need it.

Total: 3

scored highest on: Shy lmao

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valiantgentle · 4 years

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HOUSE OF TALK. an ashley adams one-shot. c. touch of fear, multiple chapters.

─ jerome talks about ashley with different people, including his father, poppy, and eddie.

( — chapters three and four. )

Barely three days into the new term and already Jerome was being blackmailed by his devil incarnate little sister. There was a reason why he didn’t want anyone to know she existed and now she was blackmailing him in order to keep her existence a secret (from everyone except Ashley, apparently, who met her by accident and was now keeping the secret as well).

“I said six.”

“That’s all they had in the shop,” Jerome retorted, gesturing to the five chocolate bars he’d just given Poppy—one of her requirements for keeping the secret. “Why do you need so many?”

“To make friends and influence people,” Poppy replied, just like a Clarke. “This stuff is like currency on the inside.”

“This isn’t Alcatraz.”

“Oh, and I want half your allowance,” Poppy added. This was one of those times Jerome regretted teaching her his tricks. He looked at her incredulously and she continued, “Unless you want me to blow the whistle. Remember that I’m not the only secret I’m keeping for you, Gerbil.”

That other secret? Not exactly a secret at all. Poppy was also blackmailing him about his feelings for Ashley, which she figured out over the holiday when she stole his phone. But what Poppy didn’t know was that her telling Ashley wouldn’t do anything, considering the blonde had already been told several times by everyone in Anubis House and she still wasn’t even close to believing it, and given what Ashley knew about Poppy thus far (that she’s basically a younger and female Jerome), she wouldn’t believe it coming from her either. Probably. Hopefully.

It was the whole ‘Jerome’s-got-a-sister’ thing he didn’t really want to get out. “Okay,” he agreed to her terms. “Okay.”

“Okay. Pleasure doing business with you, Clarke,” Poppy said, pushing him before leaving.

Yeah, definitely the devil incarnate.

Except he trained this girl himself, knew all her tricks because they were his. He’d probably be able to be two steps ahead of her. And he was getting really tired of paying her off, especially when she’s now demanding half of his allowance—not likely. So the next time they met up, he barely gave her a fourth of his allowance.

“What’s this?” Poppy questioned. “You may as well give me actual peanuts.”

“Take it or leave it,” Jerome replied.

“We agreed. Half your allowance.”

“No, you agreed. I did not.”

Poppy looked like she’d just accepted a challenge. “Hardball it is, then. Prepare to lose.”

“I refuse to be blackmailed by you anymore,” Jerome said. “Do your worst.”

“Fighting talk,” Poppy remarked. “You’ve got sass, Clarke. I like that. I think I’ll start with Ashley,” this brought on by Ashley’s figure passing by the room they were in, eyes on her phone with no notice of the two siblings, “tell her how much you love her.”

“You can try,” he said, shaking his head and blatantly challenging her now, “she’ll never believe you. Everyone else’s been telling her that for almost three years, she’s not gonna start believing it now.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll think differently coming from your little sister.”

“You forget that she already knows one Clarke.”

“Pretty well judging by all those photos you’ve got of her on your phone. See you later, loser.”

Poppy left before he could get a retort in. She was off to do exactly what he said, her worst, and though by the end of the day his housemates knew he had a sister and had seen several embarrassing childhood photos of him, it turned out that Poppy actually did not speak to Ashley. At least that was a win—Jerome was bluffing when he said Ashley wouldn’t believe her. If it was coming from his sister, despite all the tricks, she might actually start to believe it.

( — chapters twenty-three through twenty-five. )

“Mr. Sweet stopped Ash and I from starting a food fight,” Alfie remarked as he came up to Jerome.

The masked ball was in full-swing and Jerome was enjoying it majorly until Mara made him give Joy and Nina their money back after selling them the exact same dress. The metal band mix-up was also fun, until they started playing classical rock music. Now he was just people-watching—well, more like Ashley-watching. She was talking to Mara about something when Alfie came up and started saying stuff about a food fight. That definitely would’ve made the night more fun.

“Shame he did,” Jerome replied. “This party’s getting boring.”

“Yeah. Do you always have to stare at her like that?”

“What?”

“Ashley. Why don’t you just go over and ask her to dance?”

Jerome looked back at Ashley; she was speaking with Amber and Patricia now. But something just a bit more interesting, in terms of things he could use to his advantage somehow, caught his eye, because Patricia was smiling this way, right at one Eddie Miller—who was smiling back at her. Alfie noticed it, too.

“Does someone have a little bitty crush?” Jerome remarked nonchalantly. “You have been hanging around her rather a lot lately.”

Eddie scoffed and corrected, “Her hanging around with me, Jerry. Her hanging around with me.”

“No way,” Alfie countered. “She hates you, man. I’m willing to bet there’s no way you could get militia Patricia to dance with you.”

This could be interesting. Jerome looked at Eddie with an expectant smile and Eddie said, “What, are we in kindergarten now?” A little more encouraging should probably work. Jerome and Alfie shrugged and fist-bumped and Eddie added, “Okay, okay. You’re asking for it. What are the term?”

“If you win,” Alfie started, “Jerome will sing ‘She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain’ on stage, in the style of a rap artist.”

That was most certainly not what Jerome was expecting to hear. “What?”

“But if you lose, you have to give Jerome the rest of your money for the month.”

That’s more like it. “Yeah, that works,” Jerome agreed. Besides, there was gonna be absolutely no way Eddie would actually get Trixie to dance with him. He wouldn’t have to sing ‘She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain’ on stage in the style of a rap artist (and what exactly possessed Alfie to come up with that, of all things?)

“Deal,” Eddie said. “What am I gonna spend it on around here anyway?”

Eddie and Jerome shook on it; the bet was on. Now all left to do was watch, except it was just Ashley and Amber by the curtain now, and then Fabian went over to talk to them. Patricia was at the refreshments.

Eddie put his mask on his face and went over to Patricia, and Jerome and Alfie watched amused as he tried and failed to get Patricia to dance. And then, against all odds, she set her mask down and let him take her onto the dance floor. He actually got her to dance with him, and when he spun them around so that Eddie was facing the direction Jerome and Alfie were watching from, he gave them a smug look.

“Hope you know the words to ‘She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain,” Alfie remarked as Jerome mouthed several things he couldn’t say out loud to Eddie, who winked at them. This wasn’t gonna be fun. “Ashley’s gonna have so much fun with it when she sees it.”

Jerome slowly turned to Alfie, narrowing his eyes and clenching his jaw. Not only did he now apparently have to go rap a folk song on stage, in front of everyone, at some point during the night, but Ashley was going to see it as well. She’s never gonna let him live it down.

“Oh, by the way, she wants you to ask her to dance,” Alfie added casually.

“Yeah,” Jerome retorted dryly as he glanced back to where Ashley and Amber had been standing, only to find that neither blonde was there anymore. “‘Cause I’m going to believe that after what just happened.”

“No, seriously, she does,” he insisted. “She said she was bored and wanted you to ask her to dance. It was right before Fabian’s speech, it’s how we almost started that food fight. So, go find her and ask her to dance. Especially since you apparently turned her down when she asked you to save her a dance. Seriously, why would you do that?”

“For the record, she took back that offer when she saw me in the stupid mummy costume.”

“Well, the offer’s back on. So go, ask her to dance before you start rapping.”

Jerome turned to him. “Tell me, do you see her anywhere? Or Amber or Nina or Fabian?”

Alfie looked around the room, shrugging. “No.”

“Exactly. She’s disappeared. Probably off playing hopscotch or whatever those four are up to.”

Ashley had indeed disappeared somewhere, which meant she wasn’t actually going to be there to watch Jerome completely murder ‘She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.’ Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for Jerome, there was this little device called a camera phone and Alfie’s phone just happened to record videos.

As Jerome reluctantly stepped up to the mic on the stage, Alfie started filming.

“What’re you doing?” Joy questioned.

“Making a video of what’s about to happen for Ash,” Alfie replied as Jerome gestured for the music to cut out. “She’s going to be so mad she missed this!”

Thus, the world’s worst rendition of a folk song began. And it was, as promised, as ridiculous and embarrassing as it sounded like it would be. Alfie happily ended the video when he finished the song and immediately sent it to Ashley’s phone with the all-caps caption ‘JEROME RAPPED SHE’LL BE COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN ENJOY!’

Meanwhile across the room, Mara and Poppy had just discovered that the letter Poppy had snuck onto a tray of drinks that ended up in Trudy’s hands while Jerome was interrogating them about what was going on with them was no longer on the tray at all.

“There!” Mara exclaimed, pointing at the letter on the floor, but as they went toward it, someone’s foot knocked into it and sent it sliding all the way toward the stage. But before she could get it, Jerome jumped off the stage and unknowingly set his foot on it.

He figured out something was there when both sets of eyes glanced at his feet. He moved his foot and grabbed the envelope, unfolding it. It was addressed to both Poppy and Jerome Clarke, at Anubis House, and turning it over, there was a sticker on the back that sealed the letter from Huntswood Prison.

Jerome looked up from the envelope to Poppy, who looked careful but not regretful about what she’d done. Then he looked at Mara, who was standing right beside her. “You went behind my back. I would expect this from her, but you? Did Ashley know, too?”

“No, she didn’t, I swear—” Mara started.

“And why should I believe you? I saw you talking tonight. Was it about this?”

“No! I’m sorry, Jerome—”

“Spare me!” he retorted, brushing past them.

Mara grabbed Poppy’s arm as she went to follow. “I think we should wait this one out.”

Jerome returned to Anubis House, far before the masked ball ended, with the letter in hand and mind only on what could be in it. Poppy wrote a letter to their dad, a man who was literally in prison for God knows what. But he tore the letter open, and he read it, and then he reread it a dozen times, because his dad wanted them to visit.

When morning came, he’d slept on it, and still didn’t know what to do. But it wasn’t just Poppy who had kept this from him. Mara helped her do it, and maybe Ashley helped her, too. Ashley was the only other person besides Mara who knew that his dad was in prison, and he wouldn’t have expected it from her, either. Maybe last year, just to spite him, but this year? It didn’t seem like her, but it didn’t change the fact that she was close with both Poppy and Mara, especially on the subject of his dad.

For what it was worth, Ashley didn’t seem too off at breakfast. He didn’t look at her through most of it, which might’ve definitely been unusual, but the few times he did look at her, she looked genuinely confused as to why he was acting like he was. And Mara seemed to have noticed that, because before they left for school, Jerome went back to his room to grab his bag and she knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for a response.

“She really didn’t know,” Mara repeated what she’d said last night. “We didn’t tell her.”

“She was the only other person who knew—”

“The only thing she knows is that there was a delivery for you and Poppy,” Mara interrupted. “That’s only because she was there when it arrived. She asked me what it was last night and I told her that she couldn’t tell you and she stopped me from telling her because she was sure it was something to do with your dad and she didn’t think she could lie to you about it. That’s what she and I were talking about last night.”

Jerome paused, thinking it over. He put his bag over his shoulder and turned around to face her. “You really didn’t tell her?” he asked cautiously.

Mara shook her head. “No. Poppy didn’t want to. Ashley has no idea about the letter. Jerome, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interfere. It just meant so much to Poppy.”

The letter was sitting on his nightstand. He glanced at it, grabbing it and holding it up. “He wants me to go and visit him.”

“Is that bad?”

“No. How could meeting my estranged father in prison be bad? Yeah, I’d say it’s not good.”

“But—”

“I need to think about it,” Jerome interrupted, locking the letter in the nightstand. “Maybe. I don’t know. In the meantime, I’d appreciate you not telling any of that to Poppy. I mean it, Mara. You owe me that much.”

Mara looked at him for a few seconds before nodding. “Will you talk to Ashley about this? She’ll tell you the truth. You can still trust her.”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to her.”

( — chapters twenty-nine and thirty. )

When his dad said that he wanted him to visit alone next time to tell him something in private, Jerome had no idea what to think of it. He knew that Ashley said it sounded mysterious but she was one of those people who looked for a mystery in everything, which after what happened last term made sense for her. Sort of. But he had stopped speculating and returned this afternoon to the prison—only to find that Poppy was already there, sitting across from their dad.

Aside from the fact that her being there meant that he wouldn’t find out whatever it was their dad wanted to tell him, Poppy’s presence meant that she read the letter and given that smug smile on her face, she wanted Jerome to know it. So after that and figuring out how she got there, and after their dad stopped them from swatting at each other (and said that was the first time in a long time he’s felt like a real dad, which had them laughing lightly), Poppy had just come back with some sweets from the machine (which gave Jerome’s dad a chance to say that whatever he wanted to discuss would have to wait and he’d have to come alone next time).

And it was just after that that one blonde Australian came up in conversation.

“Poppy was telling me about your girlfriend, Jerome,” said John. “She sounds like quite a girl.”

Even Poppy looked confused. Jerome just asked, “My girlfriend?”

“Ashley.”

Poppy seemed to realize what exactly had happened and awkwardly scratched behind her ear before lowering her hand. Jerome turned to her, narrowing his eyes before questioning, “What did you say to him?”

“Just the truth!” Poppy defended.

“Oh, yes, she told me all about how Ashley’s been helping her and you with finding me,” John continued, with apparently no notice of the way Jerome was glaring at Poppy. “Poppy’s very fond of her. You should bring her sometime, Jerome. I’d love to meet her.”

“That’s not happening,” Jerome replied. Aside from the fact that he was most certainly not dating her, he also knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t want to come. “Ashley’s not my girlfriend.”

Now John looked confused. “But Poppy said you were in love.”

Poppy cleared her throat and shook her head. “No, I said that Jerome’s in love with her but refuses to tell her, even though it’s so obvious that her boyfriend even told her—”

“She has a boyfriend?”

“No, they broke up,” Jerome answered before turning back to Poppy. “And how did you even know about that?”

“Everyone heard about it,” Poppy said. “I was in the next hall over and heard it myself. People were looking at me all weird because they know I’m your sister. And anyway, I thought it was really strange how he brought you up when he’s the one that cheated on her—”

“Do you mind not telling him all of Ashley’s business?”

“Wait a moment, I’m confused,” John cut in. Both of his children turned back to look at him. “So, this Ashley isn’t your girlfriend? But you love her? Does she love you back?” Jerome said no, Poppy said yes, and Jerome glared at her again. “Well, which is it, yes or no?”

“No,” Jerome answered definitively. “No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes, she does,” Poppy argued.

“Poppy—”

“Come on, Jerome. The entire school knows it. Why do you think there’s a bet on when you two will get over yourselves and get together?”

A bet? That was news to him. Jerome turned to his sister again, questioning, “Bet? What are you talking about, a bet?”

“The bet,” Poppy said again. “I don’t know who started it but it’s spread across the whole school. People have even come to me asking for the inside scoop so they get their money. So, when do you think you’ll tell her you love her? This year or next year?”

“Which did you bet on?”

“No way I’m telling you! You’ll just make it so whichever I didn’t bet on happens.”

Jerome rolled his eyes. John looked between them, now utterly confused as to what was happening, and said, “Wait. Give me a minute to get this straight. So…Ashley isn’t your girlfriend, but you do like her. And she recently broke up with her boyfriend who cheated on her. And there’s a schoolwide bet on when you two will get together, and everyone but you thinks she likes you. Is that right?”

Poppy nodded. Jerome glared at her again.

You know, her telling their dad about Ashley was one thing. Her telling him that Jerome’s in love with her, therefore leading their dad to think that Jerome and Ashley are dating, was another, and something told Jerome that when Ashley herself found out, she wouldn’t be too happy. But on the other hand, the fact that his dad heard as much as he did about them and made the leap to them dating was kind of…it kind of felt nice, if irritating.

But now he finds out that there’s some kind of bet on them? He’d bet money that it was Alfie or Amber that started it.

“You know, there’s even a nickname for them,” Poppy remarked. “Everyone calls them Jashley.”

Jerome wished he was unfamiliar with the nickname. He’d heard it from Alfie back when he’d first found out Jerome had feelings for the other half of that equation, apparently it had been coined by Amber. And Alfie really enjoyed using it.

“You know, all this talk of Ashley,” John said, “and no one’s shown me a photo of her yet.”

“Oh, I can do that,” Poppy said immediately, taking her phone out of her pocket. After a minute, she handed it across to him. “That’s her and Jerome at prom a few months ago. They went together.”

“She’s very pretty, Jerome,” John noted.

“Yeah, I know,” Jerome responded before laying his eyes on Poppy again. “Where did you get that photo?”

“It’s on her profile,” Poppy explained. “She friended me. I thought Dad might ask. She’s got tons of photos on there.”

And judging by the way John was clicking on the phone, he was looking at some of the other photos Poppy saved. “You and she make a nice couple—”

“We’re not a couple,” Jerome interrupted again as he reached for Poppy’s phone, giving it back to her. “And you—stop saving photos from her profile.”

Poppy shrugged and said, “Okay.” She clicked a few times on her phone before passing it across to their dad again. With a smug smile, she continued, “Here’s one she sent to me.”

Jerome knew which photo it was before his dad had even had a chance to look at it. There was only one photo he knew Ashley had sent to her—the one she’d taken of them at the opening gala for the exhibition, while he was dressed as a mummy. That was confirmed when John laughed at the photo and said, “Why are you dressed like a mummy?”

“It was a job,” Jerome replied quickly before taking the phone back. “How often do you and Ashley text?”

His sister shrugged again. “Sometimes.”

“Okay, that stops now.”

“Afraid she’s going to tell me something embarrassing about you?”

“More like worried you two are going to start conspiring against me together.”

“Get over it, Gerbil.”

John interjected before they could start swatting each other again, tapping his fingers on the table and pointing toward the phone Poppy was taking back from Jerome. “Well, if this Ashley isn’t your girlfriend,” he said, “she still seems like a very good friend and I’d still like to meet her. You should bring her sometime.”

Very good friend.

That’s all Ashley would ever be, and maybe that was his own fault. The second he realized that his feelings for her were more than he expected, he swore to himself that she’d never know. Mostly because at the time he realized it he’d barely known her a month and he’d accidentally started a less-than-friendly rivalry with her. And things seemed to have gone pretty well with that swear until Alfie figured it out and decided to try and set them up for the next year and a half. Though the first time Ashley did hear him say that she reacted with a scoff and theorized that they were planning something, using that to preoccupy her mind so she didn’t figure it out, and she’d sleep with one eye open.

Though Jerome would admit, reluctantly of course, that there were more than a few times over the past few months that he caught her looking at him differently than she ever had before, and when he caught that, he let himself forget that swear and wonder what things might be like if he told her and, by some miracle, she felt the same about him.

But she didn’t, and he knew that, and before he could think too much on it he always pulled himself out of it, forced himself to come back to the real world where she was his best friend and he was nothing more than that to her.

“She’s not coming,” Jerome responded to his dad’s offer after a moment.

“Jerome, I think you should let the girl,” John said, “make that decision herself—”

“I know Ashley, she’s not going to want to come,” Jerome said again. Aside from that, he couldn’t quite figure out what exactly she and her roomies plus Fabian had been up to lately, but whatever it was, she was certainly keeping busy with it. There was also the fact that if on the unlikely chance Ashley did want to come, Jerome was relatively certain his dad would try and suss out if she had feelings for him, and that was something probably better left to Alfie and his wild theories. “And I think she’s got too much on her plate without making the trip out here for an hour.”

“All right, but I do expect to meet her at some point.”

( — chapter fifty-seven. )

“Eddie, do you have the crib notes for French?”

Eddie responded with a distant yeah, handing him a plastic-wrapped sandwich from his locker like it was the notes he’d asked for without even glancing Jerome’s way. It was definitely odd, even for Eddie. Seemed like he’s not entirely focused on schoolwork (if he ever was), but this begged for more questions.

Jerome looked from the sandwich to Eddie, adding, “Something on your mind?” Eddie closed his locker and scoffed. “Oh, come on. I’m not all bad. Try me.”

He tilted his head at him, and Eddie admitted, “Uh, well, me and Patricia went on this date the other night—”

“And it was a romantic disaster,” Jerome finished with a laugh, the only plausible ending to that sentence. “Yeah. That’s a surprise.”

“No, the date was fine,” he corrected. “It’s just after, we didn’t—we didn’t kiss.”

“Oh,” Jerome said, drawing it out a little. Patricia Williamson—militia Patricia—going on a date with American Eddie Miller was interesting enough on its own. “But I thought you were one of those supercool, uber-confident, piece-of-cake kind of guys.”

“Uh, thanks,” Eddie replied sarcastically, “but uh…no. It’s—I don’t know. Patricia’s…” Right at that moment, Patricia and Ashley passed by them, the latter talking to her about movies or something. Eddie turned around to look at the subject of the conversation while Jerome watched curiously. There was something to be said about the fact that the girl Eddie liked and the girl Jerome liked were currently down the hall conversing while one of them was the thing they were talking about. “Different. I’ve never felt like this before.”

Jerome would be lying if he said he couldn’t relate to what he was saying. Ashley was different too, definitely not in the same way, but she was different. A challenge with fire in her eyes and a never-ending storm in her head.

He regarded her for a moment until she glanced his way, at which point he turned back to Eddie and said, getting back on the Trixie line of thought, “Okay. Then here is what you do, my American friend.” Eddie crossed his arms. “Right, the next time you’re with her, you’re going to plant a big, fat smackeroo right on those luscious lips on hers.”

Eddie glanced back at Patricia, who was now opening a bag of crisps and offering some to Ashley. Ashley must’ve declined it because Patricia shrugged and put a handful in her mouth. “Think so?”

“Yeah, everything except luscious.”

“Huh,” Eddie murmured. “All right, yeah. Pretty good advice, Jerry.” Jerome rolled his eyes at the nickname; Eddie refused to give it up and called him that more than his actual name. But it got under his skin, which is probably what Eddie was aiming for with it. “Should probably take it yourself.”

“What?”

“Ashley,” Eddie elaborated, turning back to where both girls were standing. They were going down another hallway now, still talking. Jerome narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, dude, it’s insanely obvious that you like her. I’m pretty sure the only person who doesn’t know is her.”

“Surprised it took you this long to jump on the bandwagon,” Jerome retorted, neither confirming nor denying. He’d meant to tell her exactly that two days ago, after babysitting Alfie’s surprise little brother, but she’d left before he could, which he briefly considered a good thing because he had no idea what he was going to say to her nor any idea how she’d react. “Those rumors seemed right up your alley to use to your advantage.”

“Ha, yeah. Actually Joy said if I want to be an official Anubis resident I’ve got to at least pretend to care about you and her being so obviously into each other. Didn’t really see why everyone cared so much ‘til just now.”

“You’d probably do well not listening to Joy about it anymore.”

“Yeah, don’t think so. Seriously, dude, just take your own advice,” Eddie said, clapping his hand on Jerome’s shoulder before walking away—the exact opposite direction of both Patricia and French.

“Where are you going?” Jerome questioned. “French is that way.”

“Oh, I’ve been to class all morning. It’s Eddie time. See if Ashley’s got those notes you’re looking for,” Eddie said, smugly grinning at him before disappearing around the corner.

Jerome shook his head, rolling his eyes. See if Ashley’s got those notes—Ashley never has notes for French. And if she does, she probably burns them once she’s finished with them considering how much she hates that class.

( — chapters sixty-six and sixty-seven. )

It was raining.

And Jerome was hidden behind some tires, his bike near him, waiting for a car to pull up so he could know if Trudy, who had been recently kidnapped, was safe. Jasper was waiting by his own car, a doll that once belonged to Sarah Frobisher-Smythe in hand, with no idea Jerome had followed him out here.

A car pulled up, and a familiar woman stepped out from the passenger side. “Vera,” he murmured at the sight of her. There was always something off about her and obviously everything Mara had written in her article had been accurate, and somehow Vera made herself seem like the innocent party in the eyes of everyone who didn’t know Mara. “I knew it.” Another figure stepped out of the car, his face hidden beneath the hood he was wearing. “Wait. What?”

“I don’t see a dollhouse,” said the other figure’s disguised voice. The Anubis dollhouse was initially what Jasper had promised after Jerome caught it lighting up and smoking on its own in Ashley, Amber, and Nina’s room upstairs, but it was too big to get out unnoticed immediately. The doll was the next best thing, creepy riddle and all. “Are you incapable of completing one simple task?”

“I need an assurance from you that Trudy is unharmed,” Jasper said.

“She is safe, for now. Where is the dollhouse?”

“It’s coming, but it takes time. Meanwhile, I’ve brought this.”

Jasper took the doll out of the bag he had with him. Vera asked, “Where did you get that?”

“It belonged to Sarah Frobisher-Smythe. And it plays a message. Listen.”

Before Jasper could play the cryptic riddle the doll hid, the Collector grew angry, grabbing his arm roughly. “I don’t need a doll.” He tossed the doll into the mud and grabbed the front of Jasper’s shirt. “I need a dollhouse!”

Jerome had stood to get a better view, see if he could see the face beneath the hood, but his foot hit a chain and he was ducking to hide again before he was seen. If Vera found him, there wasn’t any doubt he’d end up kidnapped just as Trudy was, and he really didn’t like the idea of that.

“What was that?” Vera questioned. “Have you brought someone with you?”

“You better not have,” said the disguised voice.

Jerome looked out just enough to see that Vera was coming his way with a torch in her hand, preparing to search the area where the sound was, and the closer she came, the more likely he’d be found. Even hiding the best he could wouldn’t get past her, but he was hoping for the best. Another distraction maybe…

“We don’t have time for this,” the disguised voice said. Vera stepped away from the tires and went back to him and Jasper. “You have twenty-four hours. After that, Trudy will pay the price. And so will you…” The man turned his head the direction of Vera. “And so will Ashley Adams.”

“You’ll have her, very soon,” promised Vera.

“Twenty-four hours!” the voice shouted to Jasper again as he turned.

“Ashley…” Her name was hardly more than a whisper from Jerome, more from his shock hearing it from a disguised voice than his still hiding. Hearing her name from that voice was like getting punched in the gut, and what Vera followed it up with? That felt like being crushed by the tires he was hiding behind. “No. Not her.”

Vera knew. Vera knew who Ashley Adams really was. That was the only thing Jerome could get from what she said. Jasper said that The Collector wants anything and everything that belonged to the Frobisher-Smythes. Maybe that even included the one person living who was related to them, even if it wasn’t by blood. Lily Henry had been adopted by them, hadn’t she? He remembered her telling him something like that.

Jasper left in his car with the doll, with still no idea Jerome had heard all of that. Jerome got on his bike and returned to Anubis House, mind racing the entire night, and yet it was a pair of piercing blue eyes that looked at him all sorts of different ways that kept coming back. The next day, he went back to Frobisher Library, ready to get some answers about what happened last night.

“Truth time,” Jerome started. Jasper was repairing a mosaic and stopped when he heard his voice. “I know Vera’s involved.”

“Jerome, what are you—” Jasper said.

“No more lies,” he interrupted. “I was there. I know she’s involved.”

Jasper looked back at the mosaic he was working on, some green tacky thing that used to be in Anubis House, before confessing, “Yes, Vera is involved.” At least now he’s telling the truth about one thing. He put the mosaic in the drawer of his desk. “But she’s not the Collector.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“No,” Jasper denied. “And there’s nothing I can do about Vera. Not while the Collector’s got Trudy. We need that dollhouse. I’m afraid that if we don’t get it—”

“You’ll have it,” Jerome said. “Which brings me to my next point. The dollhouse is in Ashley’s room. Ashley Adams. When was the last time you heard that name, Jasper?” The curator’s mouth parted. “That’s what I thought. What does he want with Ashley?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.”

“No more lies.”

“It’s not a lie, Jerome. I never heard Ashley’s name from neither Vera nor the Collector.”

“Then what have you heard? What have they said? They had to have said something!”

Jasper quieted him. Jerome ran a hand over his face, trying to calm himself down, before looking back at him expectantly. After a few seconds of thinking on it, Jasper said, “Well…the Collector wants anything and everything Frobisher. She does live in Anubis House—”

“So do nine other people, but I only heard her name.”

“Perhaps he thinks she has a stronger connection to the Frobisher-Smythes than anyone else in that house. Although I don’t understand why he or Vera would think that. She’s Australian, and there’s no Frobisher-Smythe connection to that country.”

A connection to the Frobisher-Smythes. Always comes back to Robert, doesn’t it? Jerome sighed. “Have you ever heard of Michael and Elizabeth Henry?”

Jasper nodded. “Of course. They were on the expedition to open Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 with Robert and Louisa. Very close friends of the Frobisher-Smythes, though they both went to prison after being convicted of stealing from the tomb. No one ever found what it was they stole, nor what the Frobisher-Smythes were suspected of stealing. What have they got to do with anything?”

“They had a daughter called Lily who was adopted by the Frobisher-Smythes after they went to prison. Lily Henry is Ashley’s great-grandmother.”

“I see.”

“That has to be why this guy wants her, right? And Vera said that he’ll have her—”

But Jasper interjected, shaking his head as something like remembrance appeared in his eyes, “No. No, I’ve heard Vera say something like that before. She didn’t think I was there, she was on the phone with him. She said that he’ll have the…the Bringer of Death.”

It was like someone had heard Jerome thinking to himself over and over ‘this couldn’t be any worse’ and said no, let’s make it worse. Jasper was about to figure out what Vera and the Collector must’ve already known.

“She was talking about Ashley Adams, wasn’t she?” Jasper said. Jerome stayed silent, watching the pieces fall into place in his head. “Of course. Ashley Adams is the Bringer of Death. Michael and Elizabeth’s granddaughter—of course!”

“What do you know about the Bringer of Death?” Jerome asked cautiously. Every time he said it, the title sounded even more ridiculous and he got flashbacks to that one scene in The Mummy, which wasn’t doing anything to help his nerves at the moment.

“Well, not much, she’s merely a legend, or—or I thought she was,” Jasper explained. “There have been dozens of women throughout history who have been rumored to be it. But there’s never been any proof she actually existed, just rumors and theories. I thought she was a myth.”

“Well, she’s not.”

“You knew who she was. Well, that—that makes sense, I do know that you’re close with her. But so is Fabian,” Jasper said, speaking now of his godson. “Does—does he know about her as well?”

“Fabian’s the one who figured it out,” Jerome reluctantly confirmed.

“It’s really Ashley Adams? She’s not who I would have expected.”

“Jasper, focus. Is Vera going to try and kidnap Ashley like they have Trudy?”

Jasper let out a heavy sigh. “She might. Unless we bring the dollhouse to them first,” he said. Right. Back to the dollhouse. “He’ll let Trudy go and he might back off Ashley if we bring it to him. Jerome. Do you want to keep Ashley safe?”

The question had a simple answer. “More than anything.”

“Then we need that dollhouse.”

( — chapter seventy-four. )

It had been two days since Jerome went to Ashley’s room and confessed that he had romantic feelings for her to her face. He still wasn’t sure why he chose that night to tell her—maybe it had something to do with them being locked in that barn, or to do with the fact that Rufus and Vera were plotting to kidnap her—but he told her, expecting nothing of it. Well, he sort of expected for her to tell him to get out. That was it.

The one thing he didn’t expect, and the only reaction he didn’t prepare for, was for her to tell him she felt the same way. And that was exactly what happened, and after that he tried out the eyelash trick, which she immediately called him on before kissing him. Which basically means the eyelash trick worked. And honestly, if Amber hadn’t walked in and started freaking out about it, he probably would’ve stayed with Ashley until Victor called curfew.

But now their relationship had changed—right there between friends and more. He hadn’t had a chance to speak to her the day after they first kissed because she was by Nina’s side all day after that article posted on the Jack Jackal column, but he’d had a chance to talk to her today and more when he pulled her into that classroom (and accidentally scared her into thinking she was about to be kidnapped, but that part wasn’t relevant.)

And yeah, Jerome was a little disappointed that Ashley didn’t want to come to the prison with him to tell his dad about the gem, but at least she was up for meeting him sometime. Just not today. Although given that he was afraid his dad may have a less-than-stellar reaction to the gem being stolen again, it was probably a good thing she hadn’t come. He’d invited Mara to come on Ashley’s suggestion, since she’d already met him.

“The gem was right there in the shield,” Jerome explained hesitantly. “And—and then it was gone. I let you down, Dad. I’m sorry.”

John didn’t look at all disappointed. “At what point did you let me down? You found the missing gem. Then you retrieved it from inside a goose,” he started to recap the gem’s journey back to the shield in the 21st century. “Then you cat-burgled the housekeeper who stole it.” Technically that one was Fabian and Nina but he wasn’t going to correct that. “Then you won a ping-pong championship to get the shield to put it in.”

“Pretty much,” Jerome confirmed with a light laugh.

“You’re a true Clarke,” John said, hitting him lightly on the arm as he laughed. “You couldn’t write it.”

“Someone should. ‘Saved by the Gem: A Tale of Two Clarkes and a Goose.’”

“What do you reckon, Mara? Would anybody want to read that?”

Mara thought on it. “Well, actually, yes. Definitely.”

Jerome had an idea suddenly, taking his phone out of his pocket. “Oh, hey. I can, however, show you a picture of the gem.” He went through the photos on his phone before finding the ones from after the tournament, handing it across to his dad.

John took the phone, smiling at it. “Ah, there she is. Beautiful.”

“I will get it back, of course,” Jerome promised. “I will. I just need to figure out how.”

“I know,” John said. He turned the phone around on one photo; it was the one Ashley had taken of Jerome and Poppy. “This one—this one may be my favorite.”

“Oh, Ashley took that one,” Mara recalled. “She took tons of photos of the tournament for the school website. She told me that was one she thought you might like.”

“Jerome, you really should bring her,” John told him as he turned the phone back around, continuing to click through the photos of the gem. Jerome gave a somewhat awkward smile, not about to tell him that he tried to get her to come today. Then John’s entire face changed as he clicked through to a photograph that was taken that very morning. “Oh. Well, this is certainly another reason why I should meet her. I see my boy’s finally got his act together.”

“What?” Mara asked, eyebrows furrowed.

John started to turn the phone around but Jerome caught the photo on the screen and scrambled for the phone before Mara could see it. Amber was still the only person who knew that the relationship had shifted and if Alfie found out Mara knew before him, he’d never hear the end of it. “Ah, no,” Jerome said quickly, clicking the screen off. Mara looked at him confused. “No.”

“Oh, the ping-pong,” Mara said with a tone of realization. “You should be very proud. Jerome told me Ashley was sort of his good luck char—”

“Right, well, we better be getting back to the house,” Jerome interrupted with a clearing of his throat as he stood up. He definitely regretted mentioning that to Mara now. “Mara?”

“Uh, sure,” Mara said, still bewildered. “All right.”

John grabbed Jerome’s sleeve before he could turn around. He lowered his voice as he asked, “Are you sure you and this Ashley aren’t an item? I’ve just seen a photo that says otherwise.”

“Dad, it’s a bit complicated,” Jerome started.

“Then keep it simple, stupid,” John retorted. Jerome would admit he was a little taken aback. “Based on everything you and Poppy and now Mara have told me, she seems like a good match for you. And judging by that photo, she seems to like you. Uncomplicate it. Don’t miss your chance, okay?”

Don’t miss your chance.

Her schedule seemed to be busier than ever, but he’d managed to catch her alone a few times. Next time he did, he’d make sure he didn’t miss his chance to be with her. “Okay.”

( — chapter ninety. )

All in all, the day Jerome had just had was one of the more unbelievable ones he’d lived.

First, he spent half the day in Rufus’ creepy barn, waiting for a chance to escape. Then when he finally got a chance, Rufus found him hiding amongst the hay bales and dragged him back inside—only for him to bring a disoriented Eddie into the room a few minutes later, replacing him in the chair and tossing a blanket over Eddie’s head (but it gave Jerome a chance to put the real gem in Eddie’s pocket so Rufus didn’t have it anymore) and dragging him to the car.

Then he was roughly shoved into Frobisher Library, forced to go into some dark and dusty tunnel through a secret passage behind a bookcase and down to some chamber by Rufus, saw the (fake, as it turned out) Mask of Anubis, figured out that the gem he’d given to Eddie was the thing that completed said Mask, thrown the (fake) Mask to Alfie, and got out of that strange tunnel with Amber into Frobisher Library.

And then it turns out that Eddie is some kind of—some kind of Osirian or something? Jerome still wasn’t sure what exactly that meant but Nina and Ashley seemed to know, and Ashley seemed pretty shocked. Then Nina put the third eye in the Mask, put it on her face, the thing began to weep gold tears, and then that ghost Mara and Eddie had captured on film was on the second level and possessed Nina or something, shot some lightning bolt at Joy—and was promptly defeated by Ashley and Eddie working together somehow. At that point he still didn’t understand a thing that was happening. Pretty much the only thing he did understand after that was Rufus putting the real Mask of Anubis on, declaring that he was about to be a god, only for a fiery pit to open up in the floor that he must’ve gone down or something.

All in all, pretty unbelievable day.

But fortunately, things began to look up when he returned to Anubis House after trying and failing to get a hold of Poppy to see how the hearing went. Mara berated him for missing it, which was about when Alfie came in holding the real gem which he had left behind in the chaos, and it was just after that he turned around and his sister and his father were standing right behind him. He won the hearing, and now he was free. And now that he had the gem back, he could put it back where it belonged, in Frobisher Shield.

And things certainly began to look up when Ashley called his name, kissed him in front of everyone, and told him that she loved him. And Jerome had kissed her, and he had told her he loved her, too. He’d figured that out a long time ago and it had been on the tip of his tongue every time he’d seen her since. Finally telling her made him feel like despite everything that had happened that day, and despite whatever happened in the library…things had turned out pretty all right.

Jerome had danced with her a little bit, talked about their new relationship, and told her again he loved her so many times she was probably getting sick of it. Well, probably not, but it was right after that last one that Ashley stopped dancing with him and instead pulled him over to his dad and Poppy to chat. She was probably trying to fix things considering that she’d met his dad literally one minute after their relationship had become official.

“So, Jerome told me you’re an artist,” John was saying now.

Ashley was taking a sip of her punch. “Mm. Yeah, I am.”

“She’s good at it,” Jerome remarked, smiling adoringly at her.

“And I know it.”

The not-so-modest comment had all three Clarkes laughing and Ashley, visibly relieved it had gone over well, brought her cup to her mouth again. John said, “She’s got wit. I like her.” And that one had that look of relief returning to her face. “I don’t mean to sound…but have you got anything you think I could see?”

“Actually…” Now Ashley looked thoughtful and she nodded. “I might. Stay here.” She handed her cup to Jerome and started toward the door, running into Patricia and Eddie on the way. Eddie held his hands up in a somewhat defensive position as she said bluntly, “Out of my way, Edison.”

Patricia chuckled and said, loud enough that they could hear from where they are, “Wow, she is really not taking it well.”

“I know,” Eddie said, a devious smile on his face. “I can’t wait until tomorrow.”

Jerome had absolutely no clue what either of them meant by what they said, but he put it at the top of the list of things he wanted to ask Ashley about. Also on the list: first actual date, when should she meet his mum, is he really willing to meet her sister again but this time as the boyfriend given what happened the last and only time they met (her sister was not his biggest fan, to put things lightly), things like that.

Ashley came back down about a minute later, and he recognized her sketchbook in her hands. She was flipping through it as she returned to where she was standing. Among the sketches he saw was one of that photo of Lily and Sarah that was in that box Sarah left her, some landscapes, one of an elderly lady and Nina. “Ah…here.” She stopped at one of the sketches, tearing it out and handing it to John. “You can have this one. I finished it last night, couldn’t sleep.”

The sketch was of the very same photo that his dad had recently seen of Jerome and Poppy, the one from after the tournament when they put the gem back in the shield (for the first time). Like all her other drawings, this one was good as well. Good wasn’t a strong enough word; it was amazing. “You sketched me and Poppy?” Jerome questioned, a light smitten tone accompanying his words.

“When you’ve got a photo that good,” Ashley replied, “it’d be a crime not to sketch it.”

“Wow, Ashley,” Poppy said, beaming. “You’re really good.”

“You are,” John agreed with a nostalgic smile. “Thank you for this, Ashley. I’m glad I’ve finally a chance to talk to you. And thank you for helping my son get the gem back.”

“Yeah, you would not believe,” Ashley said, “the vendetta I’ve got against that gem.” Jerome chuckled lightly. He was the only one aware of the true history of the gem before his dad stole it all those years ago. The third eye. “I’m just glad everything’s how it should be.”

She looked at Jerome as she said that. He smiled at her in a way that could only be described as entirely smitten, and his tone was the same as he said, “I really do love you.” She leaned up and kissed him quickly, a peck more than anything, but it meant everything.

Behind them, Amber said, “Hey, Ashley. So sorry to interrupt. Hi, Poppy, Mr. Clarke.” Poppy waved at her a little. Amber looked at Ashley again. “I need your help with the cake.”

Jerome told his family, “That’s code for girl talk.”

“No, it’s code for Amfie talk,” Ashley corrected with a smirk. Amber tilted her head. “Oh, I have to hear this. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Amber dragged Ashley into the kitchen with the cake, already gossiping about ‘Amfie’ or whatever they were talking about. Jerome turned back, venturing, “So, uh…what do you think of her?”

“You better not let that girl go, Jerome,” was John’s immediate response, and definitely the one Jerome was hoping for. Poppy nodded to agree. “She is a real gem.”

Jerome glanced back at Ashley, catching her eye with a soft smile. “I know.”

#ch: ashley adams #ocappreciation #type: writing #in editing tof/rewatching s2 i noticed SO MANY moments where jerome would've spoken about ash to others #that obviously she would never have heard therefore it would not have been in the story #consider this an extension of some of those christmas one shots #such as the key; kid alfie; etc #anyway have 8.5k words of jerome talking about ashley!

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viogsquad · 5 years

Text

august evenings - david dobrik

authors note; this one wasn’t requested, just something i thought of late last night! please send in feedback, reblog or like idm. requests are open for a little while longer. i also do blurbs if you want to send them in, just let me know that its a blurb request and not a full on fic. word count; 3.2k. warnings; dom!david [ofc], masturbation, kinda public sex.

You were sure that it was the muggy humidity of the red-hot August evening that caused you to become so unreasonable with your words and the way you acted in a public area with your loving partner and closest friends by your side. The light, pretty summer dress you had decided to wear was sticking to your skin which you pulled at hastily, your frustration levels growing by the passing second as you listened to fellow friends make jokes that you would usually laugh at, this time you just stared dead ahead and prayed for the celebration to be over and done with quickly.

Or maybe it was the amount of booze you had consumed over the hours you had been stuck at the garden party - you needed something to get you through it. Long chats about YouTube did nothing but bore you, fake laughter shared between people who disliked each other irritating you, the falseness causing you to roll your eyes whenever an overly friendly remark was made. You couldn’t stand being at such events like this, especially when you didn’t fit in. You weren’t like David and the other members of the vlog squad, you had yourself a normal job like others and the events did not cater to people such as yourself. Discussions of video ideas, subscriber counts and the latest change to YouTube were of no relevance to you but you plastered a smile on your face for your boyfriend's sake and his sake only.

In the end, you decided that it was sexual frustration and nothing else. David had woken you up to kisses along your neck before moving in between your thighs, bringing you close to your orgasm before moving away and deciding that he was going to have a shower. You hated how much he teased, his talented fingers teasing you through the day as they glided along the inside of your thighs before moving away and acting as if he hadn’t got you all excited for nothing. You were longing for a release, desperate to taste him in your mouth or have him inside of you.

You tried to act calm and casual for as long as possible but David was no fool and could see the lack of availability in your eyes. Whenever he tried to make any type of contact with you, you would push him away and mumble an excuse before finding the table that was filled with expensive booze, finally deciding that if he was going to leave you high and dry then you would not give him any attention. The sun was slowly setting, an orange colour taking over the blue sky and the chats became more mellow, some people leaving the party to get back home or to be more adventurous with the Los Angeles nightlife. Like always though, David was still lingering around, deep in discussion with YouTubers about advertisements and sponsorship's as he filmed some content to put in the next vlog.

The slamming of your glass on the table had David, and others, turning their attention towards you. Quickly mumbling an apology to Casey, David made his way over to you to see what all the fuss was about. His arm wrapped around your waist as he dragged you towards a more secluded area of the garden where no-one would listen in on the conversation - or argument at the way things were going. Just from the way David walked you could tell he was annoyed, his jaw clenched and eyes wandering around the garden to check that no-one was looking.

“Are you going to tell me what the problem is or do you expect me to figure it out on my own?” David asked, his hands gripping your waist as he pushed you up against a tree, the bark pressing against the material of your dress and no doubt making it mucky. Your eyes fell to ground and refused to look into his, not wanting to cave in straight away, your hands fumbling with the bottom of David’s denim jacket that you adored. You refused to respond out of spite, bratiness something that David never appreciated but you didn’t appreciate being forced into a social situation where most of the people attending just wanted to use your boyfriend for his subscribers and views. “Don’t make me ask again,” he continued, voice only audible to you so he didn’t cause a scene.

David’s eyes kept shifting upwards, double checking that no-one was coming over to see what was occurring, the last thing he needed was an audience to your bratty behaviour. “I’ve told you; I want to go home.” Was all you said, somewhat feeling selfish for wanting to leave when David was still interacting with people but you knew him well enough to know that he would happily leave if that’s what you wanted, he was just being stubborn for the fun of it, just like you were acting like a menace for the fun of it. “I don’t like being surrounded by all these people, David. Can you not see that most of them are only acting all nice because they want to use you for their own gain?”

“You don’t know that, you're just making excuses up because you want to go home,” David scoffed, head shaking slightly at your comment. “Look, just another hour and then we can go, I promise. Let me get some footage of Heath and Zane being idiots and then we can go straight to the car.”

“I’ll just get a fucking uber, it will be quicker.” You attempted to walk away but David’s hands wrapping around your wrist and pulling you back stilled your movements, his fingertips gently digging into your wrist as a warning. “What do you want, David?” You snapped. A few people had turned their attention towards you but one quick look from David had them resuming their discussions.

David’s thumb ran across the palm of your hand as he tutted. “I’m going to presume it’s the alcohol you’ve had that’s making you act like this because you wouldn’t do this on purpose, would you? Maybe it’s the weather making you agitated, I don’t know. I just hope you're not doing this on purpose because that wouldn’t be fair.”

You knew that rolling your eyes at his words would not go down well but you couldn’t help yourself, the hot sun and champagne that had been placed out was getting to you drastically and causing you to put on a dramatic performance. “I just don’t like these events and that’s final,” you answered, not giving David a proper answer to the questions he was asking.

“Final?” He raised one eyebrow at your attempt to argue with him.

“Yes.” Pushing David away with all the strength that you had, you gave him a mocking smile before nodding towards the exit and placing one hand on your hip. “Now, am I getting an uber or are we going home and have you taken care of me?”

David understood the double meaning in your words and thankfully, nothing else needed to be said. His hand was in yours as he led you through the slowly vanishing crowd, mumbling something quick to Heath before raising his eyebrows in your direction. Heath laughed at whatever David said, angering you even more but you let it slide as you walked to where the car was parked.

“So then, are you going to tell me what’s gotten into you?” David asked, firing the car up and speeding away from the location of the party. Your hands played with the hem of your dress, eyes focused on the passing streets of Los Angeles and the young adults who were preparing themselves for a night out in the clubs. “That frown you are sporting doesn’t suit your pretty face.”

“These bullshit parties you attend don’t suit you either.”

“Can you not just answer my question or do you always need to talk back?” David asked, his spare hand moving to your thigh which he gripped harshly, another warning for you to stop. The back of your thighs was sticking to the leather seat of the expensive car causing you to wriggle around in your seat. David’s hand left your skin, a soft whine coming from you at the loss of contact. “Misbehaved all night and now you want my attention, it doesn’t work like that.”

Slowly, you let your tongue glide over your lips as you watched David’s hands tighten around the steering wheel and you mentally envisioned his fingers digging into your sides as he pinned you either against or the wall or into the bed sheets instead of the leather. You understand the dangers of leaning across the seats and pressing your mouth against his and you curse him silently for not flicking the car into autopilot and giving you a quick kiss, just something to get you along until you arrived back at home.

“How does it work then, David?”

David sucked on his teeth and attempted to ignore you, knowing full well that you were only trying to wind him up. You had succeeded so far, your words and angsty behaviour riling him up all night but he wasn’t going to vocally admit that to you, he would wait until you were alone in the bedroom where no-one could hear you cry out his name as you begged for forgiveness.

“Don’t make me pull up on the side of the road [y/n],” he warned, jaw clenched and foot pressing down on the gas pedal. “Won’t be able to walk straight for a week if I do,” he continued, eyes flickering over to check what your expression was. He could read you well, knew that you were soaked under your dress and desperate for some sort of touch but the secret side of David that only you saw was slowly coming out to play and that was dangerous territory.

“Sounds tempting.”

You finally turned to look at David, the bright lights of LA no longer appealing when your boyfriend looked as good as he did. His denim jacket was always your favourite along with the simple black cap he wore, a straightforward outfit that he managed to pull off so well. His neck looked inviting, almost begging you to leave a series of marks along the pale skin so he would struggle to cover it up in the morning when everyone came around to film some content. Those nights were your favourite, when David was at your beck and call and would do whatever you wanted, his wrists red and orgasm ruined. It wasn’t going to be one of those nights though.

David ignored your comment as he continued to drive back to your shared home, the journey seemingly longer and you swore that he went the long way home on purpose just to tease you and get you more wound up. The tesla was becoming hotter with every second, the car windows that were rolled down doing nothing. Sweat was forming along your hairline, sticking your locks to your forehead and causing a shine on your skin.

Knowing that you were still a good twenty minutes away due to traffic, you slowly slid your dress up your thighs until it circled as your waist, your lace underwear on show for David. “What are you doing?” Was the only question David could ask, repeating it a few times as he struggled to keep his eyes on the road to see if the car in front was moving forwards. You shrugged your shoulders innocently as you pulled your underwear down your exposed thighs, flicking the garment onto David’s lap which he quickly threw backwards, he refused to give into you.

“If you're not going to do anything about it then I might as well sort myself out. What are you going to do about it, David? Can’t exactly pull over when you're stuck in the middle lane, can you?”

“Don’t,” he whispered, mouth turning dry at the sight of you bringing your feet to the leather so you had better access. “People will see.”

“Let them.”

Rolling the windows up, David positioned himself so he was more comfortable, his eyes glued on your wandering hands. “Put on a show for me then, sweetheart.” He hated that he gave you into you so quickly.

Hair was falling into your face as you arched your back, the feeling of your fingers pressed against your clit bringing you a wave of pleasure that ran through your body. You hadn’t quite realised how desperate you were, your fingers already soaked after one simple touch. Nothing could compare to the feeling of David’s fingers though, nights spent alone in bed while he was in Chicago not getting rid of the sexual tension and you cursed him for being so skilled when it came to making you squirm. David adored seeing you in a vulnerable position, watching as your back arched off the hot leather seat and your free hand gripped whatever it could. It was erotic and sending his head into a spin. Words of encouragement fell from his mouth as you continued to work yourself to your peak.

“David,” you moaned loudly as you inserted one finger, picturing the sight of your boyfriend between your legs in the early hours of the morning. “I need you so bad.”

“I know,” he whispered, leaning over to press his mouth against your neck. “I can’t give you what you want though, can I? All because you couldn’t wait to get home. Impatient, aren’t you, girl?”

“Please,” you whispered, the feeling of two of your fingers bringing you pleasure but not like David’s did. You needed something from him, even if it was simple. “Don’t make me wait any longer. I’ve needed you all night, been waiting so patiently for you - “

“I know, I know,” he repeated, thumb stroking your warm cheek. “Bet they don’t fill you up as good as mine.” His mouth waters and he has to keep licking his lips to stop himself from drooling at the sight of you looking completely spent in the front seat of his expensive car.

Your eyes roll back at his egotistical words even though you knew he was right. Your thumb rubbed against your clit slowly as you let out a long moan, your hips flying forwards and sending your index and middle finger knuckle deep. Your free hand moves to David’s, grabbing it and squeezing tightly as you worked your way to the edge.

The sound of a car beeping behind you had you jumping forwards and pulling your dress down to cover your body, your orgasm running away and turning into nothing as David loudly swore and restarted the car. David ordered you to open your mouth, your breath caught in your throat when he slipped two fingers into your warm mouth. Your eyes fluttered shut as you moaned around his fingers, small hand grabbing his wrist to keep him in place.

“Hike your dress back up for me, doll,” he instructed. David’s fingers were dancing across your exposed thighs, fingers getting closer to your cunt before sliding back down, not willing to give up on the game the two of you had been playing for almost an hour now. You longed for an orgasm, you previously one ripped away cruelly because of impatient drivers that couldn’t wait an extra ten seconds.

You needed to feel his cold rings on the inside of your thigh, leaving imprints in their wake as he slowly moved upwards until he was finally filled you up with his fingers. “Thank you,” you managed to get out when David finally slipped two fingers inside of you, his other hand on the wheel as he drove through the quieter streets of LA.

“Not a problem,” he replied, voice sweet and soft as he listened to you moan out his name, your hips bucking against his fingers. Your arousal was dripping down his fingers and past his rings, his fingers knuckle deep inside of you and moving at a speed that had you scratching your nails along the leather. You ignored the comment he made about having to get the Tesla cleaned seen as you were an impatient girl and focused on your orgasm, your eyes fixed on David. “So wet,” he seductively whispered, bottom lip tucked in between his teeth. “All for me, yeah?”

You nodded and bucked your hips. “Always for you,” you responded, head tilting to the side slightly and banging against the window.

You moved your hand to David’s thigh and moved across until you met his hard cock, a quiet groan coming from David at the sudden contact. “It’s your time, darling, not mine.”

“Want to make you feel good.”

“Oh you will, trust me - “David was interrupted by your moan, your chest heaving up and down as you said his name like a prayer, orgasm getting closer and closer with every thrust of his fingers. David was struggling to drive, his eyes stuck between looking in between your thighs and on the road. Grateful that he was on a quieter street, David pulled over and turned the car off, his fingers soon returning to your cunt. “Fuck girl,” he whispered, his body leaning over the handbrake as he kissed your mouth and silenced your moans.

His tongue was wet on yours as he swallowed your moans, your face a picture of bliss when he pulled away and moved his free hand to your throat, applying slight pressure as he tilted your head up and exposed your skin to him. Your eyes were glued to the roof of the car as you wriggled around in the seat, the feeling of David’s teeth sinking into your neck as he left marks making the burning feeling in your stomach grow with every passing second.

“I’m going to cum,” you managed to get out, words broken up. David didn’t have a chance to encourage you, your orgasm ripping through your body at lightning speed as you came around his fingers, his name the only thing that came from your lips as you arched your back and clenched your thighs together.

“Good girl, such a good girl,” David whispered as he helped you ride out your orgasm, leaving open mouthed kisses along your cheeks sloppily. “So good for me, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry for acting like a brat,” you said slowly, turning your body to the side and wrapping your arms around David’s neck. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“I know you will, darling.” A chaste kiss was pressed against your lips before David was pulling away and restarting the car. “Ten minutes until we get home so ten minutes for you to sort yourself out and prepare for what’s coming your way.”

You smiled softly to yourself, excited to have David to yourself for the night without anyone being around. You shot Natalie a quick text, briefly informing her of your plans without going into too much detail so she could arrange to stay elsewhere. A plan of action was already forming in your head, ways that you could get David back for his own behaviour that day and when you turned to look at him, affectionately placing your hand on top of his, you knew that he was preparing himself for what was about to come his way.

#david dobrik #david dobrik smut #david dobrik imagines #vlog squad #vlog squad smut

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maikatc · 4 years

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black sun tale | jackson

i want more jackson love so i shall share jackson love. also this is from the 3rd draft of bst too and most of it is still in the current canon, just a good amount of changes here or there (like the ending-)

Since the sun wanted to kill his skin like usual, Jackson stayed inside with his companion

Despite her constant rambling, he stared at his computer screen in focus. He checked left and right from every forum he travelled to, reading all of the comments and theories that left in each and every one.

“Do you think we should get Finn over? Since he’s basically the same as you and never bothers to listen. Well, actually he’s pretty good at multitasking so it’s mainly just you.”

There was a sour tone in her voice, which her minor complaints caused him to look at her directly rather than his screen. “Mirana, I can still hear everything you say while I read.”

She crossed her arms, “That’s impossible,” she scoffed.

“Have you ever seen some foreign movie with subtitles?”

Mirana looked at him deadpanned. “I was forced to, yes.”

Jackson sighed, he figured that socializing during the summer was probably a good thing. “Just call Finn over.”

“Okay! I’ll go on speaker.” Mirana grabbed her phone as Jackson comforted himself back to his laptop, muttering.

“Why am I even friends with you guys again?”

“Because childhood friends are bitches like that.”

“Right.” He cringed at his own lack of silence.

“I’m guessing Jackson’s being a prick again?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“That’s the reason you always invite Finn over here,” Jackson entered the conversation as Finn entered through the doorway.

Mirana crossed her arms. “I always tell you guys to go out but no,” she spited.

Jackson rolled his eyes, “You haven’t seen the news lately, haven’t you?”

Finn replied, “You mean the area deaths?”

“Mirana, do you really think anyone would go out with that situation at hand.” Jackson eyed her as she played with her red hair.

Mirana looked down, muttering words Jackson couldn’t hear. She looked back at both of them, “Well, we can always just go somewhere indoors. You guys just stay in your houses all the time.”

“I’m researching about the area deaths.”

“I’m trying to hack online friends for a prank.”

Jackson and Finn replied to her simultaneously.

The girl sighed and pointed at Jackson, “Okay that’s too depressing to spend days on,” she shifted her hand towards Finn, “And that just means you need more of a life.”

Finn chuckled, “They hacked me a few days ago, gotta get em back.”

Mirana shriveled downwards, “Y’all need more vitamin D, goddamnit.”

Jackson opened his computer again, “That’s why they made pills for it.”

“Don’t forget the flavored gummies.” Finn added, going on his phone in the process.

Mirana stared at them deadpanned. “… You guys suck.”

As Jackson’s focus drifted back to forums, a hand suddenly closed his laptop, causing him to jump. He saw Mirana take Finn’s phone as well.

“What the hell?” Finn his arms up as his phone was gone.

She swiftly grabbed both of their arms, her strength being able to pull them up. “I’m dragging you guys out. We’re going to the diabetes shop.”

Jackson’s eyes lowered at her. “Fucking hell.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you guys candy in return.”

Jackson pulled himself out of the girl’s grasp. “Let me at least get ready to go.” He looked at himself, still just in a white t-shirt and black boxers.

He walked to his drawer of clothing, taking off his shirt in the process.

“Don’t you ever think that’s too forward?” Finn commented.

Jackson opened a drawer full of shirts, “It’s not like I’m trying to get you guys to sleep with me. Well, anybody anyways.”

“Yes, we’ve already gotten over this: You don’t like people.” Mirana stood by his bedroom doorway as she spoke. All the while, Finn was on his phone he had gotten back from the girl. “Besides, out of anybody, Finn would be the one distracted by you right now.”

Finn turned away from his phone immediately. “Middle school means nothing.”

“And nothing came out of it, so now we’re just chill.” Jackson grabbed a grey t-shirt he’d gotten from concert Mirana brought him to around a year back. He put it on without much thought and then wore a red unbuttoned flannel over it.

As Mirana and Finn talked to each other, returning regrettable middle school memories, Jackson added a simple pair of jeans and a belt to complete his outfit. He tucked his shirt in as he walked towards the mirror. He fixed up his tuff of brown hair lying on top of his coffee-colored skin. Adding his grey newsie cap on his head, he turned towards the others.

“You definitely go on the internet too much.” Finn eyed his outfit.

Mirana laughed, “I still don’t get why you where that hat, I gave it to you as a joke.”

Jackson shrugged. “Well, I like it.”

“It makes you look like an old man.” Mira smiled.

“Let’s just go,” Jackson grinned at their common talk.

***

“I still hate the sun.” Jackson complained.

“Take off your flannel then,” Mira told him, rolling her eyes.

Finn said, “Hey Jackson, there’s this one video I’ve been meaning to show you too.”

“Finn, another video and I’ll take your phone again.” Mira remarked, causing Finn to place his mobile in his pocket yet again.

“Oh yeah, you heard of the Katzmann death, right?” Jackson asked Finn.

Finn nodded. “We’re screwed.”

“I still don’t get why you used the excuse of the area deaths when you still die indoors now.” Mira grumbled to herself.

“It’s more common outside though, the Katsmann kid was the first time a death was inside. And that happened like two days ago.” Finn spoke in defense.

“I still want to know why this is happening. It’s just getting weirder…” Jackson furrowed his eyebrows, his sight on the ground as he walked in the streets. His curiosity had peaked as always.

“Leave that to the government.” Mira’s hand made a brushing motion.

“It’s easier like that but people should try to figure it out so they’d know what to make best in the situation.”

“Yeah, yeah, but your ideas are too out of proportions.” Mira retorted.

“Don’t go into one of your journalism talks again please, Jackson.” Finn commented.

Jackson sighed and let go of the conversation.

The traffic was busy as always, creating the city noise he’s listened to for almost five years. Turning his newsie cap backwards, he observed the tall buildings engraved in his mind as his friends talked to each other about whatever gossip Mira had. Their snickers mixed with nostalgic sounds eased him slightly.

However, there were ideas peeking through his mind again, area deaths being the topic of course. The number of clues for the cause is nothing to discuss. There was no reason for many of them to just die so suddenly. Everybody would just fall from system failure. No way it couldn’t been a shooting, no injuries. How could a virus appear out of nowhere and kill others instantly without any other contact? How would the virus just disappear suddenly after mere seconds of so many dying? How could no one else around the area be affected if it were to spread so quickly? Why-

He bumped into somebody, someone shorter than him for sure. He looked down from his height to see a boy around his early teens down on the ground from lack of attention. Mira and Finn stopped with him.

The boy had white hair, likely dyed, covering his eye and strangely pale skin. He bore a simple, yet untucked, buttoned shirt and tight black jeans. His visible eye stared at him dully, though it shone a pretty blue.

He got himself up after muttering something under his mouth.

“Sorry, ‘you alright?” Jackson asked looking down at him. He was definitely short, maybe less than five feet compared to himself being over six.

The boy observed him again, and with a small curve on his lip, he said, “Yeah, but you better pay more attention.” He walked off without any other comment.

“You should probably pay more attention too,” Finn fussed.

They walked for about another minute until Mira noted, “Well this was a pretty short walk. Not much to complain about, right?”

“I’m still sweating like shit, Mira,” Jackson bickered, “Shut up.”

Mira ran to the store door, “There’s a thing called cold drinks, you know.”

Finn walked inside. “I’m just gonna have some sour candies and soda while I plan on what the hell to do with life after high school.”

Jackson sighed as he walked in himself. “Same though, I don’t want to think about the college applications in two years.”

“And I don’t want to think about that stuff since we just went through sophomore year and it’s summer, so be quiet.” Mirana entered, slamming the door.

The store was the same as always, an array of candies near the cashier and soda pop stacked upon each other in rows. Throughout the store held packs of what kids get nowadays: junk food. Though laid around were mediocre everyday items such as earbuds or chargers, which were simply begging to be bought with their cheap prices. Jackson and company mainly went however for the small table they held for customers who just wanted to relax. Though, behind the front counter was a man around their age, who they all knew well.

His name was Kasen, his parents were managers so it was the easiest job to get, from what Jackson heard. Whenever he’d visit the shop for a quick grab of snacks for a sleepover, he would chat with him whilst paying with the little cash he’d have at the moment.

His aloof attitude towards the job made the shop surprisingly more welcoming with his honest attitude. Which is its own downside since he makes the family more money from the teenage crowd, thus his parents force him to stay.

“Yo, Kasen,” Finn walked towards him immediately. “How’s today’s shift going for you?”

Kasen looked up from the article he was reading on his phone. “Boring as usual.” He wore his signature, busted nametag as well as a short-sleeved hoodie for the heat. All the while he placed iced coffee from the coffee shop down the street and a fan to keep him cool.

Jackson shrugged, “Well, at least you have company now.”

Mirana picked out three individual candies that each of them liked themselves and placed them all in front of Kasen as she grabbed her wallet. “I told you guys I’ll by candy for you,” she placed the exactly amount of money on the counter to pay, “So here you go.”

“I still have to scan it.”

Mira paused. “Oh yeah.” She handed the treats back to him.

Kasen quickly put his long-cut blonde bangs behind his ear and scanned all of them to hand them back to her. “Okay, now you guys can have it.” He took a sip of his iced-coffee again as he took the cash to put in the system.

“Wait!” Finn suddenly said. “What about the drinks?”

After a quick moment of silence, Kasen sighed as the computer printed out the receipt. “Just get your soda already and pay me again.”

“I still don’t get why you guys just have a table here…” Mirana sat back as she ate gummies.

Kasen leaned forward from his counter. “Well, it was my idea when I was younger, my parents bought it as a present so I wouldn’t be running around the store while they worked. Plus, I thought that people who wanted to stay shouldn’t be standing. Didn’t really noticed how weird it was until I got older.” He snickered pulling up his glasses.

Finn chugged some of his cold, orange pop and took a sighed as he swallowed. “Aren’t we the only people who actually sit here?”

Kasen shrugged, “Well, there are some who do, but they don’t bother talking to me. Mainly since they’re basic bitches, but they get annoying easily so I don’t really try at the same time.”

“Makes sense,” Jackson nodded, “You’re a good man, Kasen, a good man.”

“Yes,” Kasen chuckled, “A good man without an idea of what degree I even wanna get.” He took another sip of coffee.

“Isn’t that half the students though,” Mira questioned.

“I guess so. I mean, at least I’m pretty sure my parents will let me quit after graduating.”

Jackson indulged in his popping candy as the others talked. He already had a basic plan after graduating high school, though without older siblings like Finn had, he didn’t have anything to make reference of for himself.

“Damnit…” He muttered, taking a sip of his lemonade as the others laugh about some random new topic.

***

Jackson had returned to his cozy apartment, lying beside his dining table and lightly chuckling from the thoughtless jokes of the media.

Mira and Finn had left hours ago, all the while his mother had arrived back from the hospital, cooking up dinner. Her bleached hair puffed up into a mess like always as her small eyes carried bags underneath.

Jackson turned towards her directing, eying that she wobbled as she walked.

Jackson stood up, closing his laptop as he slipped next to her and place his hand on her shoulder. “You’ve worked two nights shifts and a day shift to top it off, I’ll make dinner.”

The woman blinked at him slowly, only to place the cutting knife she held for vegetables and sighed “Fine.”

She stumbled towards the table and slumped down on a chair.

Jackson nodded to himself as she already fell to a slumber, and went on to cut the rest of the veggies to use for the last step.

The rice noodles were already being boiled and the chicken breast was already cut. All Jackson had to wait for was the rice noodles to be ready.

His mother blinked her eyes open as Jackson stirred all of the ingredients together in a wok.

Jackson stirred repetitively for some time until the clattering of plates struck his ears. He turned to see his mother grabbing plates without precaution. Though, he shrugged and laid his eyes down upon the food. “The pancit is ready.” He said as he began serving food to the plate that had been passed to him.

“You’re starting to make better food than me, it took seventeen years.” Her mouth slurred as she spoke as Jackson passed the plate he held to her.

“I’ve been good, besides you passed out immediately once I offered help,” Jackson scoffed.

After gathering their food and utensils, the two sat on the dining table together.

“So how did your day go?”

The light shined above them dimly, and his mother’s voice was weaker than normal.

“Mira dragged me and Finn to the shop. She paid for treats though so I didn’t have to use any money.”

The woman sighed. “Well that’s good. But I’ll pass you some more money by the end of the month.”

Jackson dragged his food around silently. “You know that you don’t have to save for college money now…”

His mother looked down on her plate as she chewed up her meal slowly. As she swallowed, she replied, “I’m just trying to being precautious. My family budget got screwed over for my education around your age.”

“But you still managed.”

“But, I had to work my ass off while you were just a baby.”

Jackson scoffed, “I know, I know. But it isn’t like I’ll be in that situation.”

She sighed, placing her spoon down gently, “Look, I’ve been working enough extra shifts for the hospital to offer me a vacation week. Will that make you a bit happier?”

Jackson took a spoonful of his meal. “Yeah, just rest for the week though. I’ll take care of the house.”

“Thank you, Jackson.”

They continued to eat the meal until Jackson picked up both of the empty plates to wash. His mother meanwhile, sat at the table to have some herbal tea and bread. An array of clean dishes on the other side were waiting to be put back in place, however Jackson’s desire to was barely existent as he washed more things.

“So, Mom, have there ever been survivors of area deaths that were in the hospital?”

“No, even the news says that no one in those places survived, you’d know that better than me.” Jackson could easily tell with her tone that she was confused.

He replied, “Yeah, but the news gets information wrong sometimes, so it’s always good to gain your own evidence.”

His mother took a sip of her tea. “That’s true. I’m guessing you’re making your own little conspiracy theories again?”

Jackson rolled his eyes with a grin. “No, this situation’s too vague to have a real solution here.” He said while placing a dish to the clean side of the sink.

“Are you going to keep trying to look for clues?”

Jackson groaned, “With how weird this all is, and the situation just getting stranger, I’m not even sure if anyone is gonna get a solid theory to this.”

His mother hummed thoughtlessly, “Well, even the absurd theories end up being true sometimes, so what do you got?” She took a bite of her bread in the process.

Jackson finished up the last dish and turned off the sink. He turned towards his mother with his hands holding the counter behind him. “The closest shot that I have is some artificial virus.”

She eyed him in a tired surprise while saying with bread in her mouth, “And what makes you say that?”

Jackson took a seat across from the woman, stretching his arms while looking at her straight. “Well, if you look at how the area-deaths go. They only happen in a specific location at the moment, and it kills everyone almost immediately. So, what if someone or some people had developed a virus they could activate and spread however they’d like. But at the same time if this were in a, most likely, terrorist perspective, it wouldn’t make sense to just attack specific people out of convenience when they can make mass destruction so easily with that type of destruction. Even more nonsensical that they would guess use this technology on singular people such as the children who’re kept and-… yeah.” He stopped himself from rambling too much.

“Hm, makes sense that this would be tricky. But maybe you should try and see other perspectives on who may have done this if there was someone in action.” His mother stirred her tea as she spoke, spreading the scent of plants and herbs across the room to Jackson’s dismay.

Jackson shrugged. “It’s hard to think of any. This tech would be impossible to create without tons of money or support.”

“With the world nowadays, anything can happen really.” She took another sip of her tea, tipping her head downwards only to get herself back up quickly.

Similar to past nights, Jackson got up to take away her tea and bread. “You’re going to work again tomorrow, right? Go to sleep.”

She blinked until she replied, “Okay, okay. But you’re drinking the rest of that tea for me.”

“That’s fine with me, mom.”

She got up with him as he walked with her to her bedroom.

“Oh yeah,” his mother said whilst slumping herself through the short hallway, “did you have fun with Mira and Finn?”

“Yeah, we talked with Kasen at the shop too, but I was still busy thinking so I spaced out for most of it.”

She softly chuckled, “Of course you did.”

They arrived at her room, all a mess with dirty clothing and mail, and she wobbled her way to fall on her bed. “Night, Jackson,” she said dozily.

“Night, Mom,” he replied as he closed the door with a soft creak.

Jackson walked back to the living room to go back to his laptop. All the while he was in the regular thoughts of a 34-year-old woman working herself exhaustingly for her almost already-independent child.

***

Mirana sat quietly on the floor with her sketchbook while Jackson took notes on his bed for summer homework. As Jackson bored himself with science facts, he noticed Mirana had observed him with her pencil at hand.

He listened to her sketching on her paper as comfort, the pencil tip scratching ever so slightly against the sheets.

“So, what are you drawing now?”

Mirana placed the pencil eraser on her lip, focusing on his position yet again. “Trying to make a sketch of you, but this angle is tricky of course.”

“Why don’t you just move somewhere else to get an easier angle?” Jackson raised his brow, though her answer would most likely be predictable.

She shrugged, “The harder the angle, the more impressive it is to pull it off.”

Jackson typed up a quick fact that he’d forget later. “I still don’t get how people can draw.”

“Well, at least you can take pictures,” Mirana scoffed.

Jackson rolled his eyes. “You just don’t know how to take pictures of people.”

“Adding a filter like you do doesn’t work on everything.” Mirana whined quietly as Jackson turned to his notes again.

They continued doing their own work. And whilst Mirana seemed to have fun in her focus, Jackson began to grow a headache as per usual.

“Hey Mira, are you almost done with your sketch?” He asked.

“Oh, I actually just did. You still have those colored pencils I gave you, right?”

Jackson replied, “You told me to keep them in case you drew here so I left them to die in my closet. Go look there. I’m gonna get some pills.”

Mirana put her sketchbook and pencil, beginning to stand in the process. “’Kay, thanks”

Jackson pushed his laptop aside and got up from his bed. Muttering to himself about not sleep depriving himself before working.

He quickly walked to the living room cabinets, finding headache pills quickly from the last time he left it there. He grabbed the cup of water he’d abandoned from morning breakfast and took the pills with it, having a good chug of the rest of the cup for safe measures. Though as he drank the rest of the cup, thoughts raised through his head.

The quicker I get this work done, the more time I have to relax and… maybe get some money from a job. I’ll look after. It’s starting to get dark though-.

His surroundings turned grey and silent as he felt a brush on his back in a flash. He choked on his water from flinching, though everything went back to normal the second he coughed it out.

Jackson gasped for air as he stumbled his hands towards the counter edges. He slowly breathed out, “What the hell…” as he stilled to calm down.

“Jackson, you okay?” He turned around to see Mirana by the end of the hallway.

Jackson let go of the counter and answered her. “I just choked on my water a little bit,” he sighed.

The woman crossed her arms and lowered her eyes. “I could hear from the other room. Your walls were thin enough.”

“Of course,” Jackson groaned as he straightened up his t-shirt.

“Have some more water. The pills won’t support your choking bit right there.”

“Sure, sure,” Jackson grumbled as his poured more water from the pitcher.

“So,” Mirana said as Jackson started drinking again, “what made you so startled anyways to that point.”

“It was an accident.”

“Yes, but choking that much by an accident isn’t really that believable.”

Jackson took another gulp of his water. “It was just random chills. I’ll look it up later or something.”

Mirana stayed quiet until she sighed, “Okay then, I’m just gonna go back to coloring.”

She walked back to where she disappeared in Jackson’s eyes. As he turned to look back at the window set on the living room wall.

The streets were just as lively as ever. Kasen was probably taking a nap during his breakshift of the day, while Finn procrastinated to even read his english books in the first place most likely. Despite his rural beginnings, everything that brought out curiosity and naivety to him had faded into the mundane.

His mind continued racing until he finished his drink, swifting the glass towards the sink to clean later and going back to his room.

Though, Jackson opened the door to find his room floor covered in multiple dull colored pencils. He looked ahead to already see a blur of colors in Mirana’s sketchbook.

Carefully, Jackson dawdled to the other side of the room. “You don’t have to throw all the shitty pencils across the room,” he retorted.

Mirana scoffed, “They aren’t shitty. They just aren’t needed for the sketch.”

Jackson rolled his eyes from her ignorance as he sat next to her, getting a better sight of the sketch.

She managed to catch his appearance well, like usual. His light tan-skin was replicated using a simple mix of pencil shades. His eyes squinted smaller than they already were as he focused, which was a usual habit in his defense. Though Jackson noticed his hair was a brown mess, and he subconsciously fixed his hair with his hand as his eyes analyzed the piece some more.

“Goddamnit Mira, it’s good.”

“Thanks, I mainly just colored you but I think I’m gonna move on to an outfit sketch.” She spoke as she turned to the next page, catching some stuck pages out from seemed to be dirt.

“What kind of outfit are you thinking of?”

“Just a thin dress, for when I go out swimming, you know?” She started sketching out lines of the model’s head.

Jackson’s mind swirled about what type of design it’d be, though another question came to mind.

“With how many outfits you made, did you ever consider being a designer or something?”

Mirana scrunched up, tapping her pencil slowly as she slightly hummed. “I’m not really sure yet. I like doing art in general, outfits are kinda just another hobby but I don’t know shit about actual fabric stuff.”

Jackson shrugged as she kept sketching slowly. “Yeah, but you can always learn, that’s what half the internet was made for.”

Mirana chuckled. “Yeah, but I prefer using the other half,” she clicked.

Jackson scrunched his eyes. “If you’re implying what I think you’re implying, get out.”

She snickered as he groaned back onto his own workspace.

“So, Jackson, what are you gonna do when I’m gone for the next two weeks?”

Jackson opened an online textbook, “Oh- Wait, shouldn’t you be packing right now?”

Mirana said, “I already did all of that last night. It was pretty easy.”

“You just stuffed everything you had other than your sketchbook and materials into your luggage without a thought, didn’t you?”

She grinned. “Pretty much.”

Jackson shook his head, “Your car trip’s gonna be around 2 days long…”

“Yeah, but out of anything, all I really need for survival is my sketchbook. Same goes for my music but I always have that so no need to worry.”

Jackson sighed, “Don’t come complaining to me when you don’t know where your swim-suit is.”

Mirana looked up from her sketchbook, “What? I got too focused on something.”

Of course, he thought. His screen became his sight again as he said, “Just don’t die in Massachusetts.”

“You’d probably like it more than me really, colder than here in New York City.”

Jackson smiled. “Trust me, I don’t like anything considering the weather.”

***

“It’s been two weeks. More kids died in their apartments. News is saying that people are starting to move. And at the same time, we still have no idea why this is happening in the first place.”

Finn commented, “There haven’t been anything else like this outside of NYC, so it could be worse.”

Jackson snapped back, “But what if it does get worse?” He slammed down his laptop from the kitchen table, walking off to refill his glass of water from minutes prior.

“Jackson?”

He chugged his cup full down with a vitamin D pill quickly, coughing and wiping his mouth with a sigh as he finished. “What,” he gasped.

“You’re getting stressed again. Calm down.”

Jackson huffed. “I don’t understand what’s going on anymore. The press would’ve released something weeks ago explaining, but all I get is shitty blogposts.”

He sat at his table again, arms over his head and kicking his long legs back and forth from the stool. “If we keep this up, we’re all gonna die soon enough.”

Finn stood silently, then sat on another stool on the side. He clapped his hands together while taking a breath. “Okay. Jackson, we aren’t gonna die. Out of anything if we see people die, just turn for it until you’re out of the area completely. Maybe try not to breathe, I don’t know.”

“But we still don’t know the main cause, we’re fucked.”

“Jackson, you have to calm down,” he patted Jackson’s back.

Jackson said blankly, “What’ll happen if my mom gets involved?”

“Jackson!” Hands stuck his arms tightly, turning him to face Finn again, who was stricken with concern in his eyes. “You need to stop worrying about this stuff. You should know out of everybody that it’s not good for you.”

Jackson blinked, then replied slowly, “If we stop doing anything, we’ll get nowhere. If we don’t know anything, we’ll get nowhere… We need this.”

Finn sighed, letting him go steadily. He glared at him softly, “Just don’t stress yourself out like that anymore.”

“Don’t worry. I think I’m fine now, I’ll just take some relax pills.” Jackson stood and turned to the cabinet of pills, grabbing a bottle of valerian root pills. He refilled his cup again to take it in.

He finished the cup silently as Finn attempting to make conversation after their talk.

“Huh, that’s a first.”

Finn cocked a brow. “What?”

Jackson said, “I’ve been having these weird chills lately at random, and over half the time it was when I was drinking water. And for the first time in two weeks,” he raised his cup, “I was able to drink an entire cup without getting any.”

“Wait,” Finn asked, “Is that why you’ve been drinking tons of water and choking?”

Jackson nodded, “Yeah, didn’t really like it but I wanted to see how long it’d last. Besides I stay inside so much that I might as well get a lot of hygiene to compensate.”

“Understandable.” Finn went back to his phone. “So, you said that you were hanging out with Mira tomorrow when she comes back, right?”

“Yeah, down at the Amersford park at 2:30.”

“Do you think I can join a bit after? I’ll be like an hour late since I’m gonna hang out with some of the basketball guys.”

Jackson shrugged, “Yeah sure, she’s pretty much just hanging out with us as a way of getting out of unpacking for a bit so the more the merrier.”

Finn chuckled, “Her room’s gonna be a disaster either way so it’s fine.”

“I’ll text her later. But for right now, you’ll go do my math work for me.”

***

Jackson’s phone buzzed while he looked at pop culture news. He picked it up to see Mirana’s name plastered on the phone.

He clicked the green button and answered, “Are you almost here? It’s almost two.”

“We got here earlier than expected, so do you think you can come over now?”

Jackson looked at himself, dressed in a random t-shirt and a pair of boxers yet again. “I can, but I need some time to get ready first.”

“You’re in your boxers again, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Okay I’m just gonna wait with YouTube. See ya soon.”

She hung up right afterwards.

Jackson groaned from his own lack of sleep and got up regretfully. After taking deep breath, he dashed to his drawer and quickly dressed himself. He immediately brushed his teeth in the bathroom, washed up his face, and fixed up his hair. He snatched his newsie-cap and phone to be completely ready to go in the record-time speed of five minutes.

He quietly said goodbye to his resting mother before going off.

Jackson called her again as he started walking to the park.

“Are you out of your house yet?”

“Yeah, I’m on my way.”

“Good, you’re being productive.”

“Unlike you.”

“Shut up”

“Okay, I’ll see you then.”

“Oh, bye then.”

Jackson hung up the phone as he started to take his ten-minute walk of the week.

***

Just a block away from Amersfort park, and Jackson only struck silence in his ears. He cocked his head to say the least once he noticed.

He walked to the entrance steadily. He found a scent wasn’t of the city’s smoke, which was utmost peculiar causing him to walk quicker.

A thick atmosphere comforted around him as he got closer, and his hand suddenly began to burn but he ignored it during the flashes of monochrome that appeared in his sights, with chills going down his spine continuously.

He got to the entrance, and slowly turned to see what exactly was going on.

His eyes widened to the point where it hurt. His blood ran colder than it had ever been before as his heartbeat sped up faster and faster. His eyes slowly began having forming thick, wet tears that burned against his cold figure.

He couldn’t stop staring at all of messy, bloody bodies that laid before him. The eyes of pain they’d left only made sense with the giant puncture on their bodies.

And what laid across the entrance of the park was dyed-red hair that he could always remember.

Mirana ended up dead in New York City.

Though, as Jackson stood in shock, his eyes caught a black figure standing. It was ginormous, skin wrinkled up to its spine and a black aura surrounding them as well. However, its paws held thick claws that were stained red.

This isn’t real.

The monster turned and saw Jackson.

This isn’t real.

It took a single step towards him.

He could barely think.

He could barely tell reality anymore

However, one single thought formed completely.

Run.

#old writing #writeblr #writblr #writers on tumblr #My writing #bst jackson #think of it as sort of a side story #these guys are actually helpful

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new-blog-new-things-blog · 6 years

Text

Are you kidding me?! Part 3

Bucky x Reader

Word count: 2163

Warnings: Swearing?

Slow burn af

The next day arrived a lot faster than I would have liked it to as I sat up in bed, attempting to run my hand through my hair, struggling with the knots. Shower, that is exactly what I need right now, you can't be stressed in a shower right? I make my way towards what I presume to be my bathroom and turn my light on, hot damn look at that beauty! That looked like a power shower to me, I always wanted one of those! Quickly I stripped off and put my clothes into a pile in the corner of the room. As I turned to enter the shower I see a button, it read 'heated towel rack'. Score. As I pushed it I'm pretty sure I actually squealed! I spun to locate said rack only to find it empty.

Great, just great. That's all I need right now.

I have lost my best friend, family, apartment, I mean I didn't have a job but any potential job opportunities and now I have no towels in my goddamn bathroom.

With a sigh I put my clothes back on, feeling more deflated than ever, where am I even going to find towels in this place? I must have asked the question out loud because a voice coming from nowhere answered me.

"Towels are located on the 2nd floor Miss L/N."

I swear I actually screamed. Like girl about to get axed in a movie screamed.

"What the fuck! Who is there?!"

I frantically scanned my room trying to locate where the voice had come from.

"No need to be alarmed Miss L/N, my name is J.A.R.V.I.S. I am Mr Starks A.I unit and I am here to assist you where needed."

"An A.I unit. Right. Okay. I think I remember the lady last night mentioning you, erm nice to meet you?"

Christ I was genuinely talking to a computer. What has my life come to?

"Nice to meet you too Miss. As I stated to you earlier towels are located on the 2nd floor, would you like me to guide you to them?"

Okay so the computer is friendly. A friendly computer. Christ.

"Are any of the others awake J.A.R.V.I.S? Because I really can't deal with that right now."

"All other occupants are awake Miss."

Fuck. Okay. Let's take a risk here.

"Okay J.A.R.V.I.S do you think you could help me, I presume you know about what I can do right?"

"Of course Miss that's what I am programmed for, I am also updated on your file."

Okay here goes nothing.

"Okay J.A.R.V.I.S I am placing a lot of trust in you right now so I really hope you don't break that trust. I am pretty scared and freaked out, so what I am going to do is turn myself into a cat and you are going to take me to the towels and if we see anyone you can't tell them it's me okay? Promise me you will just say I am some random cat or something?"

It was silent for a minute like it was thinking, can computers think? Is it even a computer?

"Security protocols accepted."

"Wait does that mean you will do it?"

"Yes miss, I have lit up the way towards the towels."

I went to my door and surely enough along the floor of the hallway was a row of lights lit up seemingly showing me to the way.

"Thank you J.A.R.V.I.S you are a legend."

Closing my eyes and getting myself ready to shift again, I decide to change it up this time and become a ginger cat because why not? The ache spread over my body as my form once again shifted. Once it was over I stretched my feline body out, trying to get comfortable in it as I slowly made my way out of room, following the lights. They led me to the elevator and I cautiously get in, the doors shut behind me and took me down 9 stops. Right so I am on the 10th floor, I locked that information away in my head. The door opened with a small ding and more light lit up for me to follow. Finally I reached my destination, right now comes the difficult bit, I reach up and take a towel into my mouth and drag it back to the elevator and the doors close once more.

This trip didn't go as smoothly as the previous. Only 2 floors away from mine the doors open again and I come face to face with a tall, dirty blond man that had muscles for days. He stares at me, confusion lining his face. Crap.

"J.A.R.V.I.S why is there a cat here?"

"Pease ignore the cat Mr Barton."

At least J.A.R.V.I.S is on my side, I stare, unblinking at this man and slowly start recognising him as Hawkeye.

"J.A.R.V.I.S whose cat is this?"

To be honest he looks more confused than suspicious so I may just get away with this.

"It is my cat Mr Barton."

I am so not getting away with this.

Goddamn it J.A.R.V.I.S we were doing so well.

"Right well we'll see about that. Call everyone to the common room please."

With that he comes over and starts stroking me. Wow this is gunna be awkward story. Maybe I can make a run for it when the doors open. As I was just thinking this, Hawkeye scoops me up in his arms.

"You're a pretty little thing aren’t you?" He coo's at me. Yep definitely awkward. The doors open again and he walks out with me, towel forgotten. Wait why had he questioned the cat but not the towel. He leans against the counter not letting me down. Slowly everyone makes their way to the common room, what a great way to meet my new neighbours. As a cat. Most didn't even comment on me in his arms, they just stated waiting for an explanation.

"Clint you cannot keep that. Tony wouldn't let you have your dog here, why would a cat be any different?"

Oh crap, the star spangled man himself. I really hope he hadn't seen that video.

"Oh just wait cap you are going to love this!"

Clint replied with a laugh. Tony and Bruce were the last to arrive.

"What's going on Barton? Is that a cat?"

Tony remarked eyeing me up, this is going to be awful. Clint finally puts me down on the side.

"Tony your A.I has decided to adopt a cat. Why does J.A.R.V.I.S get a pet but I can't have my dog here? That is totally unfair."

Everyone turned to Tony, who looked just as confused as the rest of them, this was such a bad plan.

"J.A.R.V.I.S mind filling us in buddy?"

"The cat is mine sir."

J.A.R.V.I.S replied. Man I guess he really is on my side here. Tony ran a hand through his hair.

"Okay fair enough, what's its name and I will get a collar made for it."

Tony shrugged and went to make his way over to me, I jumped down off the counter just as Clint popped up.

"Why does the A.I get a pet and I can't have my dog?"

"J.A.R.V.I.S is the most dependable of all us, he runs everything and pretty much keeps us alive. If he wants a cat he can have a cat. Will you just get it for me?"

They both made a bee line towards me and ran to the middle of the room looking for an exit. Well I guess it's now or never, man I hate quick shifts, this is gunna hurt like a bitch. With surprising quickness I shift back into my human form.

"You are not collaring me!"

Okay probably not the best first words I could say. As 2 sets of guns were trained on me and my arms were suddenly grabbed and pinned behind my back and a cold arm went around my neck. Wait what the fuck? Was that metal? Did this guy genuinely have a metal arm?!

"Who are you?"

The words were almost growled in my ear. If I wasn't fearing for my life I would have said it was pretty hot, to be honest I would have said anything at this point but this dickhead was cutting off my air supply.

"Mr Barnes, Miss L/N is struggling to breathe, could you please loosen your grip?"

I am really starting to like J.A.R.V.I.S, but this asshat only let's go enough that I start to cough.

"J.A.R.V.I.S I am presuming that this is the new recruit that got here last night and not some enemy that's here to kill us?"

Steve says slowly making his way towards me and my captor, his arms out in a non-threatening manner. I think it's a bit late for that captain I am already being fucking manhandled.

"Yes Captain Rogers, Miss L/N arrived last night, she is an ally and now part of the Avengers."

You tell them J.A.R.V.I.S.

"Okay Bucky you heard him now let her go, she isn't going to hurt anyone."

Steve's arms were still out, hmm maybe the reassuring vibe wasn't for me at all, but for this Bucky instead. He releases me and I fall to the floor gulping air down, trying to control my breathing.

“Are you okay down there?”

Tony came over and knelt in front of me offering me a hand up, I didn’t take it and got up on my own.

“I think I am good but it seems some people have no chill.”

I gave a pointed look and Bucky, Black Widow and the other man in which I didn’t yet know the name of.

“Sorry about that but you should know not to startle assassins, super soldiers and Sam.”

Tony chuckled, I rolled my eyes at him.

“I will add that to the list of things I should remember thanks. Hi I am Y/N by the way.”

I give a small wave then feel like such an idiot for waving, I clasp my hands behind my back.

Everyone introduced themselves except Bucky who was just avoiding my gaze like he hadn’t just been strangling me. With that thought I tenderly touch my neck, pain shoots to where I touch and I know I am going to have a wicked bruise there.

“I saw your video kid, I think you captured Steve perfectly. You will fit right in here if you carry on like that”

Tony said coming up to me and putting his hand on my shoulder. I snuck a look at Steve, he looked pained and slightly tinged pink, damn he had seen it.

“Yeah sorry about that, nobody was supposed to see that…”

I trailed off not really having the right words to say at that particular moment.

“What video?”

Sam asked with a smirk, he hadn’t seen it?

“It was in email about Y/N? You didn’t read it did you?”

Bruce answered before Tony could chip in with another snide comment.

“No one but you, Tony and Steve read those. I will have to check that out later.”

Sam sent a wink at Steve who looked like he would rather be anywhere but here right now. Same Steve, same.

“Okay quick update then Y/N is- for lack of words a shapeshifter, who also has the ability to talk to animals. Not cleared for missions yet but we will get her training as soon as possible, everyone up to speed?”

Tony look at me for either confirmation or for me to add anything else on but I just nodded my head at him. Natasha, Clint and Bucky were just watching me as if they were assessing my every move, it was very unnerving but I suppose that’s what you get with assassins.

“So can you only turn into cats or what?”

Sam commented with a smirk as if he was playing a game or flirting with me, okay if he wanted to play that game. I took a deep breath and focused on him, the look on his face as I turned myself in to him was perfect.

“I dunno is this a good enough for you pretty boy?”

I winked at him and he looked like he was really holding back a smile. I concentrated again and I was back in my own body, not breaking eye contact with him I clicked my neck and smiled.

“Okay I claim this one, come on I’ll give you a tour around the compound.”

Sam came to my side and held out an arm for me to take, without looking back I let him lead me away from the common room and back to the elevator. Waiting for the doors to open, I felt some ones gaze burning into my back. We walked in and I glanced over my shoulder to meet Bucky’s eyes, I didn’t look away from him until the doors shut behind me.

Part 2 Part 4

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darkdreamyr · 6 years

Text

Training Session

“Hey, did you hear? Tamano’s in a training room beating up on some weird Asian kid.” A man named Travis said as he entered a locker room on the Training and Activities floor of Hunter Central. It technically belonged to the Academy, but the gym and spare rooms could be borrowed by registered Hunters if classes weren’t in session. This often left the evenings and some afternoons open, and for those on the lower end it was a great time to practice. The better you were, the more job completed, you might just get paid more. You might just get an Agent.

Getting an Agent was highly coveted. Someone to be on your side, working to make you better. No warehouse security then, they’d work to get you the good jobs. Bodyguards to celebrities, sport stars and other famous people. High profile jobs from the police, the kind that got your name in the paper. Cushy Recon work. It was prized gossip when an Agent took on a new Hunter. And also when certain agented Hunters decided to grace everyone with their presence. Hunters like Tamano.

Most people knew about Tamano, or at least of him. White haired and of a bad attitude, you didn’t want to be paired with him, or in his way. He hated everyone around him and got rid of anyone unlucky or stupid enough to be partnered with him. Normally this would get someone in deep trouble, either physically if it was on a job, or just with the higher ups if word got back. But Tamano was just that talented. And talent got you everywhere. It was why one of the best agents had taken him on almost immediately upon completing the Academy, and why no matter how much an asshole he was, little ever happened to him.

Tamano was also notoriously reclusive, which probably made sense when you hated everyone. The amount of times he was seen on this floor could be counted on one hand, and it was always in the company of his Agent, Taran Graves. So for Tamano to be here, without his agent, beating someone up in a training room? Some shit was going down.

The other two in the room, Lance and Sunil, quickly finished changing as did Travis and followed him out to take a look. It was a bad idea to enter a training room while it was occupied, but all rooms had cameras. They were hidden to discourage tampering and consistently monitored. Events in the rooms could be saved for academic discussion, but usually were deleted the next day. And if you sucked up enough to the monitor on duty you might get to watch the live feeds. In the case of Tamano being around that wouldn’t be hard.

The three hurried over to the monitor station (that served as a check in after hours) where the feed was on the large front screen and three women were already sitting around watching. One was the monitor, Sarah, and the other two were Hunters seen around. Sushila and Kristyna. They glanced up at the company surprised, but then quickly waved for them to join.

“Who’s the victim?” Travis asked, perching on the counter behind.

“Not a victim. It’s his permanent partner, Nyi Keene.” Sarah explained as they watched Tamano be shoved back a few paces by a thin dark haired figure with golden skin and the longest braid anyone had ever seen. “He volunteered for it like a year ago.” She said the last part as it seemed unthinkable.

Lance leaned forward over Kristyna’s shoulder, squinting. “That’s a guy?”

Kristyna flicked him in the forehead. “Like you can talk, I’ve seen your hair care regimen.”

“He’s very cute.” Sushila said. “And almost as fast as Tamano.”

“And apparently completely insane. Who volunteers to be shacked up with Tamano for a day, let alone forever?” Travis asked.

Sunil crossed his arms. “You’re all forgetting something. This is a year later. They’re still together and Tamano does not look to be suffering.”

On screen, Tamano and Keene were taking a break. Sitting on the floor together side by side they talked casually. Well, Keene was doing most of the talking, animatedly in between bites of several granola bars. But Tamano was listening intently, interjecting every so often. It was possible he even looked amused.

“Who the hell is this Keene?” Travis was the first to say it out loud.

“He seems to be nobody. Only notable thing on his record is he entered the Academy at barely seventeen, and almost didn’t pass the physical. Popular gossip is that he got blackballed for years because of talking back to Agent Nadine.” Sarah explained. Travis and Lance winced in understanding. “Saw him often in the Employment Office, downing coffee or passed out. Never seen him like this though. He’s...happy. Still eats like the same though, a human garbage disposal.”

“Wouldn’t a year ago been when Tamano was going after that headhunter maniac?” Kristyna asked. “I know they had it up in the Employment Office as no one agreed to go with him. He must have signed it.”

“And recently Tamano helped the police take out the Shadow Family. That secret mob group was trying to recruit him. The police wouldn’t have found them otherwise. And Keene survived all that.” Lance added. “Look at him. I could bench press him.”

Break over, Keene and Tamano got back into position. They went through some Aikido poses and it appeared Tamano was teaching Keene the proper movements. It was so normal and strangely intimate. This was a side of Tamano no one ever imagined. He was patient, talking in full sentences, even gave what had to be a smile at several points. It was clear he was enjoying himself. He looked normal, human. Like this was just a bout between good friends. And Keene could hold his own. While he looked as though a strong wind could knock him over, in reality he was agile, flexible and most of all creative. He came up with plans on the fly and didn’t feel the need to stick to any particular fighting style. He also wasn’t afraid to fight dirty as they found out when Tamano had him pinned to the floor.

“That explains some things,” Sarah remarked, eyebrow raised. “Though it’s not something he should try on everyone.”

Sushila sighed. “The cute ones are always taken.”

Kristyna elbowed Lance hard. All three men were in various states of surprise not only from Tamano being kissed, but responding in kind. “Close your mouth, you’re attracting flies.”

“Uh...they do know they’re being filmed, right?” Travis was the first to recover.

“Keene does. He came here to check in. Tamano’s never around so I bet he forgot. If it goes any further I’ll have to go in there, but I doubt it will. Ah yeah, see?” Sarah responded as Keene broke the kiss and grinned up at Tamano. Tamano’s movements as he sat up suggested he was rolling his eyes.

Sunil, quiet all this time, pushed away from the door he leaned against. “Do you think…” he started tentatively, “that he did this on purpose? Tamano never comes to this floor. Keene knows of Tamano’s reputation, knows of the cameras, that the rooms are always monitored. Might know that sometimes people may want to watch the practice of well known Hunters. One of which is far more than partners with.”

Everyone turned to look at him.

“Why would he do that?” Lance asked.

“Staking his claim,” Kristyna shrugged, crossing her arms.

“No one wants to claim Tamano.”

“Tamano’s not boyfriend material. Or whatever.” Travis agreed.

“Maybe...maybe he wants people to think of Tamano differently.” Sushila tentatively offered. “Show a side of him that no one else sees. Change minds.”

Silence reigned as no one else knew what to say to that. At least until two pairs of footsteps were heard in the corridor. On camera the room was suddenly empty. No place to go, nowhere to hide in this small room. With no other choice, they all waited for the inevitable encounter.

Nyi Keene, dressed in his usual loose black pants and sporting a short sleeved, kimono inspired top in emerald green, walked casually into the doorway. Behind him he pulled Kephri Tamano, carrying their single bag. He had returned to hard and wary, black cap smushed down over white hair, faded jeans and dark t-shirt.

Nyi did not seem surprised to see them all there. He gave everyone an assessing glance before looking to Kephri and giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. Kephri had suddenly tensed, probably having realized what was going on. Nyi’s response left him conflicted, self-consciously tugging his cap down farther and looking away from the room. Nyi’s gaze returned to them, flicking up towards the screen. “My, popular today aren’t you Sarah? Was it a good match? We just wanted to let you know we’re done.”

Tone light, carrying no acknowledgement or response to the scene. But his eyes were all knowing. They carried an unspoken warning. Say anything against them and suffer.

“Thank you for letting me know.” Sarah replied.

“Next time--” He was interrupted by a strangled noise of displeasure from Kephri. Nyi squeezed his hand again, before sliding that arm around Kephri’s waist. Kephri returned to looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. “Next time maybe we could rent some weapons? What did we need for that again?”

“Your current badge and the fee, which is fifty.”

“Thanks. Have a good evening.” Nyi turned, taking a step to leave, Kephri practically leading in his haste. He paused and looked back. “And maybe you could send me a copy of that video. I’d like to study it further myself.”

Sunil waited until after the footsteps faded, peering down the hallway, to say what was on everyone else’s mind. “I never knew there was anyone more terrifying than Kephri Tamano.”

#YinYang #nyi keene #Kephri Tamano

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newstfionline · 4 years

Text

Thursday, October 22, 2020

US spacecraft touches asteroid surface for rare rubble grab (AP) A NASA spacecraft descended to an asteroid Tuesday and, dodging boulders the size of buildings, momentarily touched the surface to collect a handful of cosmic rubble for return to Earth. It was a first for the United States—only Japan has scored asteroid samples. Confirmation came from the Osiris-Rex spacecraft as it made contact with the surface of the asteroid Bennu more than 200 million miles away. But it could be a week before scientists know how much, if much of anything, was grabbed and whether another try will be needed. If successful, Osiris-Rex will return the samples in 2023. Scientists want at least 2 ounces (60 grams) and, ideally, closer to 4 pounds (2 kilograms) of Bennu’s black, crumbly, carbon-rich material—thought to contain the building blocks of our solar system.

New studies show pandemic’s sedentary health impact (Worldcrunch) Are you sitting down for this news? Probably. Yes, there are new studies that show the collateral health effects (beyond the virus itself) of COVID-19 and the rolling lockdowns include serious maladies linked to an increase in the sedentary lifestyle. For millions of people suddenly forced to telework and spend more time sitting down, and far less time outside the home, there are a range of negative effects on our health that can potentially be catastrophic across society as a whole. A research study led by a medical team from the University of California in the U.S. reviewed more than 19 million daily step count measurements registered by smartphones in 187 countries and found that physical activity dropped sharply in several countries after lockdown measures were implemented—some as much as 50%. Sedentary activities such as watching TV, playing video games and browsing on the Internet have progressed from 22.6 hours/week on average before the lockdown to 33.3 hours/week in May and June 2020 for children between 6 and 18 years old, according to another study by Harris Interactive in France.

The real divide in America is between political junkies and everyone else (NYT) Much attention has been paid to the increase in political partisanship in America, but researchers from Stony Brook University have found that the biggest divide is between the 15 to 20% of Americans who follow politics very closely, and the rest of the country, who follow politics casually or not at all. For instance, less politically-inclined Americans of both parties are likely to consider low hourly wages as one of the most important issues in the country, an issue that barely registers with those who follow politics closely. This can affect partisanship because the most partisan are also the loudest, warping perceptions of “the other side.”

Worsening opioid crisis overshadowed in presidential race (AP) The nation’s drug addiction and overdose crisis has barely registered in this year’s presidential campaign, overshadowed by the human and economic toll of the coronavirus outbreak and the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic. Yet drug addiction continues its grim march across the U.S., having contributed to the deaths of more than 470,000 Americans over the past two decades. And it’s only getting worse. After a one-year drop in 2018, U.S. opioid overdose deaths increased again in 2019, topping 50,000 for the first time, according to provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That accounted for the majority of the 71,000 fatal overdoses from all drugs. While national data isn’t available for most of 2020, The Associated Press surveyed individual states that are reporting overdoses and found more drug-related deaths amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Justice Department sues Google, alleging multiple violations of federal antitrust law (Washington Post) The Justice Department on Tuesday sued Google over allegations that its search and advertising empire violated federal antitrust laws, launching what is likely to be a lengthy, bruising legal fight between Washington and Silicon Valley that could have vast implications for the entire tech industry. The federal government’s landmark lawsuit caps off a roughly year-long investigation that concluded Google wielded its digital dominance to the detriment of corporate rivals and consumers. The complaint contends that Google relied on a mix of special agreements and other problematic business practices to secure an insurmountable lead in online search, capturing the market for nearly 90 percent of all queries in the United States. Google gained its “grip on distribution,” the Justice Department said, by paying billions of dollars to become the default search application in Web browsers, on smartphones and across a wide array of other devices and services, including those offered by some of its competitors, such as Apple. This vast, unparalleled reach allowed Google to enrich itself through lucrative ads, maintain its online foothold and render it impossible for other search engines to compete, the federal lawsuit alleges. In bringing its case, the Justice Department did not explicitly ask a judge to break apart Google. Instead, it urged the court to consider “structural relief,” which theoretically could include a requirement that the company sell a portion of its business and cease other practices that federal regulators see as harmful and unlawful. It could take years for the courts to resolve the issue.

New homes on the range: Weary city dwellers escape to Montana (Washington Post) BOZEMAN, Mont.—The four-bedroom contemporary just west of town smelled of fresh paint, flooring, sealant and new beginnings. The Bridger Mountains beckoned against an azure sky off the back deck, and Robert Carder, Montana’s newest transplant, couldn’t contain himself. Their living room didn’t just seem bigger than the photos on Zillow that had led them to make a $559,000 offer after 24 hours in Montana, a place they had never been. The 2,300-square-foot house was twice the size of the two-bedroom condo they sold in Brentwood, Calif., before packing their cars and driving 16 hours northeast, released from the confines of the coronavirus pandemic and the jobs Robert had grown to hate and Valentina had lost. This was the 19th walk-through their broker, Charlotte Durham, had done for out-of-state clients since Montana’s virus shutdown ended in late April and its real estate market flipped into hyperdrive. Buyers fleeing New York, Los Angeles and other densely populated U.S. cities say they want to leave the coronavirus clusters and social justice unrest behind. Even as the state’s fierce winter looms, the transplants are pushing house prices to record levels. Some are offering millions of dollars in cash for houses and land they have seen only on the Internet. Montana has remained a mystery to most Americans, even though it boasts some of the most magnificent scenery in the West. But as the pandemic has taken hold across the United States, what once were rural outposts here have turned into boomtowns.

Harry and Meghan decry ‘crisis of hate’ in social media (Reuters) Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, spoke on Tuesday about their campaign against social media negativity, with Harry warning of a “global crisis of hate” that was affecting people’s mental health. The couple, known officially as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, led an almost two-hour online discussion hosted by Time100 Talks with some of the experts with whom they said they had met this year in their bid to promote more compassion in online forums. “This is a global crisis. A global crisis of hate, a global crisis of misinformation and a global health crisis,” Harry said in opening remarks for the “Engineering a Better World” discussion. Meghan said it was imperative to make online interactions healthier for everyone. “This isn’t solely a mental health or emotional well-being problem. This is a human problem. And what’s happening to all of us online is affecting us deeply offline,” she said on Tuesday.

Former Mexican defense minister ordered held in U.S. jail without bond (Reuters) Mexico’s former defense minister, Salvador Cienfuegos, was ordered held in U.S. custody without bail on Tuesday, pending his trial on drug trafficking charges in a case that could have far-reaching implications for U.S. and Mexican anti-cartel strategy. Magistrate judge Alexander MacKinnon denied a request from Cienfuegos’ attorney for his release on a $750,000 bond, saying that his prominent position and ties to Mexico posed a significant flight risk. There are “no conditions that will reasonably assure the defendant’s appearance at future court proceedings,” the judge said. Cienfuegos was indicted in federal court in New York on four counts of drug trafficking and money laundering. Prosecutors say he took bribes in return for protecting drug cartel members, which included warning them about U.S. investigations.

Nearly 75% of residents in Venezuela's capital eat less than in 2019, survey shows (AP) Some 75% of residents in Venezuela’s capital Caracas eat less food than they did in December 2019, according to a survey released on Wednesday by opposition legislators, signaling that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated an existing hunger problem. The government of President Nicolas Maduro in March created a strict quarantine that shuttered most businesses for months, though authorities have now allowed some economic activities during alternate weeks. The effects of the pandemic and restrictions have been much more pronounced in Venezuela than in other countries due to a lack of government support, said legislator Jose Guerra during a virtual news conference. The survey found that 73.9% of people had reduced consumption of beef and chicken, while 82.3% said their income was insufficient to buy food for their family. “If that happens in the capital, which (the government) has tried to exempt from all the problems... what is left of the rest of the country?” said legislator Leonardo Regnault.

Chile braces for constitutional referendum in the wake of violent clashes (Washington Post) In the wake of mass protests that turned violent over the weekend, Chile is bracing for new turmoil in the run-up to this Sunday’s constitutional referendum, in which voters appear set to scrap the country’s dictatorship-era constitution. Drafted in an undemocratic process and widely blamed for many of Chile’s social and political woes, the document has become a target of wide-scale anti-government protests that began rattling the country a year ago. After new clashes Sunday, concerns are mounting that the process to replace the constitution, if approved, will not go far enough for some activists, and that Chile may be set for more waves of unrest—to cap off a year of compounding anger over inequality. As tens of thousands of people gathered in the Chilean capital of Santiago on Sunday, violent clashes between supporters of rival soccer clubs on the fringes of the Plaza Italia drew attention away from the majority who had congregated peacefully. Farther down from the square, fires were lit at the base of a monument to the Carabineros police force, as masked protesters hacked at the stone column with metal bars, and arsonists attacked two nearby churches. Clashes were also reported in other Chilean cities, and officials said they arrested some 600 people, around half of them in Santiago.

Spanish islands struggle with migration surge (AP) Rescues at sea and arrivals of flimsy boats from Africa on Spain’s Canary Islands, where local authorities are already struggling to cope with the pandemic, have strained emergency services and left hundreds of migrants stuck for days in a makeshift harbor camp. Over 1,000 people, including women and at least three toddlers, woke up Wednesday in a dozen emergency tents set up by the Red Cross on the Gran Canaria island’s Arguineguin dock, where they were joined by some of the 300 people rescued in the early hours of the day. While Mediterranean crossings are down this year, arrivals on the Canary islands across a treacherous part of the Atlantic Ocean are up nearly 700% on the year. It’s the most perilous approach to Europe, having claimed more than 200 lives so far in 2020. The Interior Ministry says more than 8,100 migrants have reached the archipelago, more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of the African coast, in roughly 300 boats so far this year. But the government has blocked nearly all transfers to the Spanish mainland arguing that many international borders are closed for them to be deported or continue on to other European countries.

Ukraine seeks U.N. cultural status for beloved borscht. A culinary spat with Russia could be brewing. (Washington Post) The chef said he didn’t intend to start an Eastern European culinary clash. But that’s what happened after 33-year-old Ievgen Klopotenko fired the equivalent of a gastronomic cannon shot: starting an effort to have borscht recognized as part of Ukraine’s cultural heritage by the United Nations’ cultural agency. To the uninitiated, borscht is a humble, reddish beet soup, often served with a generous dollop of sour cream on top. But in its simplicity is a cultural significance that transcends borders. A pot of borscht, simmering away on the stove during the long winter months, is a mainstay across many parts of Eastern Europe, and a cornerstone of the region’s concept of home and hearth. Many countries claim the dish as central to their culinary tradition. However, what has previously been a debate on low boil now threatens to bubble over. The disagreement over who is steward of borscht heritage has primarily been between Kyiv and Moscow—amplified since 2014 by Ukraine’s battle against Kremlin-supported militants in its East, a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 people over six years. Klopotenko said that his actions were inspired by the commonly held impression outside of Ukraine that borscht is a Russian dish. He doesn’t fear any Russian repercussions for his UNESCO campaign. “They’re already at war with us,” he said. “What’s the worst they can do?”

Nigeria protesters break curfew amid gunfire, chaos in Lagos (AP) Nigerian protesters demanding an end to police brutality defied a curfew as gunfire rang out where they were setting up a blockade Wednesday, a day after shots were fired into a crowd of demonstrators singing the country’s national anthem. That disturbing turn drew global outrage. It’s not clear if any protesters were killed in Tuesday night’s shooting at the Lekki toll plaza in the West African country’s sprawling commercial capital. Lagos’ governor said many were injured but no one was killed, but Amnesty International had earlier said there were fatalities and that it had “credible but disturbing evidence” that security forces were responsible. Police also fired tear gas at one point, and smoke could be seen billowing from several areas in the city’s center. Two private TV stations were forced off the air at least temporarily as their offices were burned. Demonstrations and gunfire were also reported in several other Nigerian cities, including the capital city, Abuja. Young people have taken to the streets for more than two weeks after anger over heavy-handed policing flared in response to a video of a man being beaten, apparently by officers with the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, known as SARS. In response to the #EndSARS movement, the government announced it would disband the unit, which Amnesty International says has been responsible for many cases of torture and killings. But that has failed to satisfy demonstrators, who are now demanding more widespread reforms to end human rights abuses committed by security forces of all stripes and pervasive government corruption.

#headlines #news

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purplesurveys · 4 years

Text

674

Do you listen to music while you fill out surveys? I have moods where I can and moods where I can’t. But when I do listen to music while taking surveys, I can only ever listen to lo-fi tracks because they’re super chill and great as background sound. Right now is one of the times I have them on.

In the past week, what song have you listened to the most often? I think I’ve mostly been stressed about updates on the virus, so I actually haven’t been listening to any music all week. This is the first time I’ve sat down and let myself listen to my go-to lo-fi playlist.

What was the last thing you shared with someone else? I shared some of my dinner with my dog, if that counts.

While playing video games, do you prefer being first or second player? Second, because I definitely don’t know how to play most video games all that well haha. I’d rather be the second player just cluelessly/aimlessly following around.

What is the most difficult word for you to pronounce? I cannot pronounce ‘bureaucracy’ for the life of me. ‘Mirror’ can also be a bitch but because i watch too much American media, my Filipino ass just goes right ahead and says it as ‘mirr.’

What did you have to do for the last homework you were assigned? The last homework I turned in before the lockdown happened was the weekly article I had to submit for my business reporting class. I gotta say, as a mostly introverted journalism student, I��m SO GLAD there’s been a way out of having to do interviews and produce articles haha. I see you looking out for me for once, universe.

You’ve planned a roadtrip. Where are you going, and who’s coming too? Tagaytay. It’s always a good destination for a chill roadtrip that’s not too far, doesn’t require a full tank of gas, and not too much of a hassle. I’m bringing my college clique with me – JM, Luisa, Jo, Aya, Kate, Kezhia, Blanch – and Gabie, too.

Do you have an overactive imagination? I have little to zero imagination. I mean I guess I like thinking of scenarios, but beyond that me and creativity just don’t mesh well at all.

What was the last important thing that you thought about? That five minutes ago it was time for me to put eye drops on my left eye once again. That eye been working well in the last few weeks, so I had it checked by an opthalmologist, who said there’s most likely a scar somewhere in my eyeball and proceeded to prescribe drops for me.

Generally, do you call people, or wait for them to call you? I would never call people first other than Gabie. Thankfully mostly everyone I know hates calls as well and would never call first, so no one ever calls me either.

On average, how many texts do you send out each day? On a normal day, maybe 50-100 texts? It’s my main mode of communication with my girlfriend, but it also depends on how busy we are during the day.

If a cop pulled you over for speeding, how would you respond? I don’t think speeding is a traffic violation here because 1) the congestion EVERYWHERE is horrible and the traffic is a crawl all day long, and 2) I’ve seen people drive like maniacs on expressways and they never get pulled over for it. On the hypothetical instance that I do get stopped for speeding, I’d obey and apologize for it, and just hope they aren’t rude as fuck.

Has anyone ever questioned your sanity? I have questioned it MANY, many times in the past, mostly when I was in my early teens and still battling with a lot of anger, depression, and a lot of other emotions like I’m guessing most teens do.

How many people do you depend on? As much as I’m not the closest with my parents I do depend on them for basically everything. For now.

How many people do you think depend on you? I dunno if there’s anyone that does. I rather they don’t - I’m pretty unstable.

What is the worst color combination? I’d imagine red and purple to look so jarring.

Have you ever injured yourself walking around in the dark? I don’t think so.

When you get a papercut, how do you react? I thankfully haven’t gotten one in a while, but in the past I’ve usually never noticed the moment it happens, and I only ever find out when the pain hits like a few hours later. That said, I don’t really have a choice but to sigh and grit my teeth through the pain for the next few days.

Can you type without looking down at the keyboard? Yes. The only time I do is when I have to use the keys that aren’t letters, like |, }, and $.

At what age did you develop an interest in the opposite [or same] sex? Opposite sex: Probably literally never. I did attend soirees in high school and got invited to a senior ball – but these were only because I did what I thought a high school girl was supposed to do. I was never genuinely interested in boys. Same sex: I’d say Grade 6, when I had a feeling that I had a crush on Andi.

Are you or members of your family religious? It’s safe to say my entire family – both sides – is devoutly Catholic. They share Bible verses, go to Church, say a prayer before meals, all that crap. I am definitely not. I’ve seen so many people use the religion stuff to justify their being an asshole/hypocrite/both, so it was very for me to let all the bullshit facade go from a young age.

What is your opinion on religions other than your own? They’re valid, especially if it helps one become a better person. Don’t use it to strip others of their human rights, though.

What’s so scary about clowns, anyway? The make-up makes them humans that do not look like humans, and that has always been unsettling for us I think.

When was the last time you acted like someone you’re not? I don’t really do this; I like wearing my heart on my sleeve.

Have you ever wished that something bad would happen to someone else? LMAO yep from time to time.

When was the last time that you cleaned your room? My room is generally clean. My mom likes keeping the entire house tidy, so I just help her out and do my part for her mild OCD.

How many hats do you own/wear? I have one sun hat but it was an impulse buy. I’ve never worn it out because IT’S JUST SO BIG AND FLOPPY and I hate wearing stuff that’s flamboyant enough to give me attention.

What was the last thing that you printed? The aforementioned business news article I had to submit.

Did the last song you listened to hold any special meaning? I love the song, it’s profound and beautifully written but it’s also a particularly sad one, and it’s not one of the songs I’d want to be attached to because that would just make me sad all the time. The song was Hayley Williams’ Leave It Alone.

Are you experiencing problems within a current relationship? No, not at all.

When you’re upset, who do you turn to? Depends on the problem. For most crises I’d turn to Gabie, but sometimes I’d talk to Angela, and sometimes I’d keep to myself. Does winter weather depress you? I’ve never experienced winter. I always say that I have a feeling I’d like it because I like being cold and hot chocolate and wearing socks and feeling fuzzy, but now that I think about it, given how miserable Christmas already makes me, I feel like winter may probably just be the worst thing ever for me.

Who was the last person that you called? Gab, just before she fell asleep a few hours ago.

What product was being advertised on the last commercial you saw? A website for online shopping. It played before a YouTube video.

Do you ever wonder who sings the catchy commercial jingles? I don’t care for them, tbh. When you think about your last relationship, what song comes to mind? I Forget Where We Were by Ben Howard reminds me of my first stint with Gab. Six years ago when we first got together, she introduced the song to me and was being emotional to me about it, and I remember feeling unsettled right off the bat with her sharing such a somber song. I never really got over that feeling and to this day I still listen to it only when I’m sad.

Are there any lyrics to describe your current crush/relationship? Maybe if I wanted to think about it, but I don’t care to right now. <– Same <- Also same. I hate survey questions that make me think of lyrics on the spot.

Who in your life makes you the most uncomfortable? [continued from like a day and a half ago, lmao] My mom has comments and criticisms for everyone and everything, so I always find myself getting anxious around her.

Do you ever receive comments on your weight? That’s literally the greeting of choice in Filipino culture. No one here ever says “hi!” they all just remark how fat or thin you got from the last time they saw you.

Is there anything that you do just to make other people happy? There isn’t any one thing that I do. I’ve realized the people around me have different needs for them to be happy, so if I’m able to and if I’m mentally stable myself, I do those things for them.

When you need a temporary escape, what do you do? Open Tumblr and take a survey or two. If I don’t feel like it, I go on YouTube and watch Friends recaps.

What was the last lie that you believed in? If I believed in it I wouldn’t know it was a lie, if that makes sense.

How long did your last feelings of heartbreak last? I stopped actively mourning for Nacho (i.e. crying randomly while in school, listening daily to the playlist I curated to deal with his passing) around two months after he passed, but I would be lying if I said the heartbreak isn’t there anymore. I still think of him every day, and it makes me sad every day.

Is there any sport that you would want to learn to play? Volleyball would be cool to learn.

What band would you most like to meet? Paramore, obviously. Or One Direction, if they still count :((

Do you ever have difficulty opening pill-bottle caps? I mean I’ve never really had to, so I wouldn’t know if I’d find it hard.

Do you gain weight around the holidays? My metabolism’s always been pretty fast so even if I do eat a lot during the holidays, it’s barely noticeable.

Are you related to anyone famous, or to any historical figure? I’m related to one of the Filipinas who sewed the first Philippine flag; to a historian whose works are now widely used in history courses; and the diplomat who represented the Philippines in the signing of the Treaty of Paris. As a kid I often thought my love for history was rather odd (because no other kid seemed to like it), but now I have a reason to think it has always run in my blood. Today I’m related to a political clan in my maternal grandfather’s home province, but I wouldn’t use ‘famous’ as the word for them.

If it was an option, would you take a trip into outer space? Oh yeah absolutely. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid.

What was the last thing that you wrote down [with a pen/pencil]? I practiced my high school’s penmanship, both because I really do practice it from time to time so I don’t end up being rusty, and because Andrew is dating Leigh, a friend from high school, in the weirdest crossover episode ever, and he is currently invested into learning our script hahaha.

Has anyone told you that you have a nice smile? Sure.

Are you uncomfortable with being photographed? Yeah ugh I hate it, especially when I have to be photographed or posed all by myself.

How vivid are your memories? Very vivid. I have a number of memories from every age, most of which I can remember pretty much as clear as day, from where I was down to the conversations that took place.

What’s the earliest you’ve woken up in the past week? Like 7:30 AM.

How many people have you talked to today? I’m too lazy to count so I’ll just name them: my mom, dad, sister, Gabie, JM, Apple, Hannah, Rick, Reiven, Ed, Kate, Laurice, and Abby. I’m also in Messenger group chats for each class I’m part of this sem, and all day we’ve been talking about how we’ll move forward now that my school has suspended online classes as well, so long story short I’ve talked to a buuuunch of people.

What was the last reason behind why you went to the hospital? Haven’t been in one since I was admitted myself a decade ago for a low platelet count, which we nearly thought was dengue.

When journaling, are you honest when documenting your feelings? Yes, I get super honest in this blog because this is the only place where I can be that way, and that’s why I’m super hesitant to open this up to anyone.

If you have a journal, do you ever worry others might find it? Gab asks me about it every now and then and it innately makes me anxious haha. Outside of her, I don’t think anyone in my circle would ever check for surveys on Tumblr.

When you go camping, do you sleep in a tent or an RV? I’ve never camped before but I think an RV would be convenient.

What’s one ridiculous thing that you do? Before I eat fried chicken, I will always peel off the breading/skin first so I can save it for last. I don’t like the actual meat, so I’ll only eat some of it and give the rest to my dog. My mom has since called the chicken skin portion my ‘finale,’ so I eventually adopted the term as well haha.

Do you feel that you must wear make up to be attractive? No dude. I never wear makeup and I’ve always felt confident, looks-wise.

What was the last thing [other than the keyboard] that you touched? My phone, just now.

Ever done anything dangerous while driving with someone else in the car? I’ve texted and taken calls whether I’m alone or driving with someone. If I’m running late I’ll also comb my hair with one hand. I’ve done sexual stuff while I was driving also hahahgdjshgfsf but there’s no need to get into that.

Name someone you wish you could be closer with? The newly-inducted members of our org, and the newest applicants as well! Everybody seems like cool people, and it sucks that the virus has prevented us from getting together.

Have you ever played the license plate game on long car-trips? Sure, but we also have other games to entertain us because car trip games can get boring pretty fast.

Are you a secretive person, or are you open with your thoughts? I have secrets but I’m very open about them if they happen to be raised. Like with me, all you have to do is ask haha.

What is the worst question that someone could ask you? Those dumb ones on surveys that ask if I’d rather kill my mom or best friend lol.

Do you talk to your pets? Every single time I see him.

Do you have a least favorite day of the year? Either Christmas or New Year’s Eve. The loneliness is something I wouldn’t wish on anybody.

What traits do you look for in a potential BF/GF? I’m demisexual, so I never really compiled a list of traits.

Would you date someone that had a different religion from you? Only if they didn’t let it get in the way of my atheism. You do you, but don’t drag me to your thanksgivings, rituals, holy texts, etc.

Right now, what’s in your bookbag/backpack? I honestly have no idea. I haven’t looked inside for so long HAHAHA

What’s unique about your city or town? We have an elevated part that we call ‘higher [city name]’ because it’s the part of the city that’s on a mountain and a base that we, understandably, call ‘lower [city name]’. I live in the lower area, which is busier and nearer to the metro. I don’t know of any other city in the Philippines where one half is situated higher and another lower.

If you could say something to the world, what would you say? Don’t panic, don’t hoard basic necessities, and don’t be fucking racist.

#survey #surveys

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the-end-of-art · 7 years

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You play the game because you love it

Negativity Is Wrecking Your Game by Brian DeMars

Magic is a difficult and complicated game, but that’s probably not why you started playing. I started back in 1995 with my brother and cousin, and I played because the game was fun. When you get caught up in the grind and in results, it’s easy to forget that you play the game because you love it.

Love requires that you care about someone or something in a way that is beyond your control. You cannot control what others do any more than you can control the draws from the top of a deck of cards. All you can do is your best and if you can honestly say you tried your best, you can come away from anything with your head held high.

There’s no easy recipe to learn how to try your best. Everyone is different. No one is perfect. Your best is personal and about how much you are willing to invest. But I can certainly expound upon one area that is not unique or specific where a lot of people (myself included) could use improvement: Negativity.

Negativity is a coping mechanism. It is a way of framing the world in such a way that your problems are not your fault. Negativity displaces the root of one’s problems so that they are someone or something else’s fault. In Magic, the displacement of blame is really, really easy:

I mulliganed. I had bad draws. I was unlucky. Variance.

Losing, especially when you put in a lot of effort, is frustrating.

From the perspective of an individual who has competed for well over a decade, I can relate to the frustration. I can see a lot of my own past behaviors and attitudes reflected in the sentiments of other players. I understand and comprehend negativity and frustration at a high level because I’ve lived it in a profound and real way.

Negativity will never help you achieve your hopes and dreams. Negativity will never add anything useful to your journey. Negativity will never make you feel better.

I’m not talking about bottling up your feelings until they boil over. If a person is down in the dumps or struggling they should absolutely confide in a trusted friend or family member. Be real. Have a real conversation. Get it off your chest and gain a little perspective. It’ll help.

The kind of negativity that shouldn’t be shared is the kind that spreads. I’m having a bad day, and now you are about to be having a bad day too. I feel bad and now you should feel bad too. If I can’t be happy, then no one should be.

In tournament Magic, the frustration floating around in the room is palpable. Half of the people in the room lost their last round and are not all feeling wonderful.

We’ve all heard the bad beat story: My opponent was terrible and played terrible…

We’ve all seen the comments in the Twitch chats: That player is terrible and played terrible…

I’m great at Magic and lost. Others are worse and won. There’s no justice in the universe.

Such behavior is just an adult version of bullying. An individual feels bad or inadequate and acts out by picking on somebody else. The aggressor gets attention, which makes them feel important by putting someone else down. We call these people “trolls,” which is just a codeword for “online bully.”

I used to think the negative attitude and heinous comments were a symptom of Magic being a frustrating game at times. But I’ve come around to understand that the attitudes I observe are a symptom of life in general.

I’ve started listening to a lot of sports talk radio in the past year. I like following my local teams and players. The more I listen, the more I am able to notice parallel behaviors in people talking about sports and people talking about Magic: That player is a bum. That coach is a moron. That GM should be fired.

I don’t think the behavior I’m critiquing is unique to Magic. It has always existed in culture and is an easy port into gaming. After all, gaming and sports are not so dissimilar. Sports are games.

On the one hand, Sports and Magic are entertainment for a lot of people. A person who is at home watching a ballgame is not that different than a person watching Grand Prix coverage.

On the other hand, there is a big difference between a professional athlete and a random person playing in a feature match. It is true that there are professional Magic players, but the pros are typically not the individuals draw the most unfriendly fire. The people who endure the brunt of the hate are the novice players and they receive the negative comments when they make mistakes on camera.

It would be as if the Detroit Tigers brought in a random person from the stands to close a game and fans were angry because he or she wasn’t as good as Mariano Rivera. Expectations. I understand that when people tune in to watch a game, sports or Magic, they want to see competitive play and be entertained. Still, it’s important to have perspective.

One of the phrases that turns my stomach whenever it is uttered is when a sports radio caller says: The player makes millions of dollars and therefore something, something, something… I’m not talking about an argument where somebody says: Player 1 makes X amount of dollars and has X stats. Player 2 makes X amount of dollars and has Y stats. Player 2 is a better value under the salary cap. I’m talking about when people use the fact that somebody gets paid a lot of money as justification for hating them for being successful.

In a sense, criticism comes with the territory of being a professional athlete. There are going to be some barbs and some boos, but players are compensated and it’s all part of the job. In Magic, it’s often the opposite. The professional players get the respect and non-pro players take the abuse. It’s just paying dues, right? Or is it more frustrated individuals trying to make others feel as bad as they do?

I know for a fact that one of the most common things I hear in the feature match from newer players is “I hope I don’t mess up and get made fun of for it,” and that’s a shame. Playing a feature match should be fun and exciting and not something to be dreaded for fear of ridicule. When I was coming up in Magic there wasn’t video coverage like there is today. The coverage was in article form and the player’s mistakes were insulated from the public to some extent.

It is also worth noting that novice female players tend to frequently get feature matches and that is a great thing for Magic. Women should be encouraged to compete in Magic if they choose to. There are not many high profile female pros in the game today, which is something that will hopefully change in the future. Women should be represented in coverage. Female players should be able to see other women play on camera. It helps build a better community where different people feel more welcome and comfortable.

Unfortunately, female players on camera also tend to draw a lot of negativity from the folks at home, especially when and if they make a mistake. Even when female players don’t make a mistake, they risk all sorts of other negative remarks based on their gender or appearance. It’s not trolling—it’s bullying, and it is bad for everyone in the community.

It’s about people, frame of mind, and accountability. Negativity and bullying are bad no matter who they are directed against and for whatever reason.

I’ve given a few examples of ways that negativity can be toxic and bad for the community. I’ve provided some context for why I think people act out these behaviors. The logical place to end is to provide a few strategies for creating a different outcome.

In those moments at a tournament where I take a tough loss and feel aggravated with the situation, I’ve recently begun taking refuge in music. I know that may sound simplistic, but I love music and it makes me feel better without fail. Instead of telling bad beat stories and sharing my negative feelings with anybody who is unfortunate enough to listen to my laundry list of complaints, I slip on my headphones and listen to something that will lift my spirits. Cliff Nobles “The Horse,” John Denver “Rocky Mountain High,” and Magic Numbers “Love Me Like You” form my go-to cheer-me-up-in-between-rounds playlist. I’m always looking for new stuff to listen to and so if you’ve got any spicy between-rounds jams, please share in the comments!

The point is, try to do something where you can channel those negative emotions where they don’t do damage to yourself or others. I’m not suggesting that telling bad beat stories is necessarily abusive or wrong. I’ve just never felt like it helped me and if anything it caused me to be less focused and less centered to continue my event.

Another way that people spread negativity in Magic is in critiquing other people’s play: You punted. That play was awful.

On some level, the tough love comes in the disguise of trying to be helpful and telling it like it is. Be careful when you talk to other people about their plays. Are you really trying to help them, or are you using the opportunity to prop yourself up and assert that you are the superior player? If the latter is your motivation, it’s possible that you are bullying your friends. I’m not saying you should never point out a mistake or a different line of play—just be careful about why you are saying what you say.

As for the way people talk about one another in comments online… I get it. I was 20 once. People can frame it however they like, but it’s mean-spirited bullying. We live in a culture where it has become an accepted and tolerated speed bump of life that people put each other down online in order to prop themselves up. Yet, it is always true that making others feel bad is not a long-term fix to whatever is truly ailing you.

Magic is difficult and complicated, and losing is unpalatable but it is part of the game. Winning is glorified and is the gold standard that everyone is chasing. Even the best players don’t win all the time. I understand that losing isn’t entertaining but I almost wish that coverage would point out examples of good losers as an example for others to follow.

Cory Burkhart is a great example of excellence in sportsmanship. He could be 9-0 or 0-9 and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference if you saw him in between rounds. He’s gracious in victory or defeat. Whether he’s winning or losing, he’s there picking up and supporting his friends and teammates in between rounds.

I’ve known Corey since he was just a kid playing at RIW Hobbies and he’s always been that way, which is to say he didn’t become a good sport after he got good. Choosing to be a positive rather than negative person isn’t something that has anything to do with accolades or success. It’s a choice an individual makes about how they deal with and overcome adversity.

Spreading negativity impacts your perspective and the people around you. Speaking from experience, there’s nothing to be gained from it. Remember that you play Magic because you love it and that you play with your friends. There’s really nothing negative about it. If there is negativity, it comes from you, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Choose to let it go and to find a different way through it. Deal.

#Brian DeMars #mtg #magic #magic the gathering #negativity

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cksmart-world · 4 years

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The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

January 28, 2020

NIXING THE SPELL ON GOP TOADIES

& NPR — DEEP STATE PROPAGANDA ORGAN

Republican senators clearly are under some kind of hex or voodoo spell that makes them believe Donald Trump is Ulysses S. Grant and should not be impeached. There are sure signs of such a spell: their eyes dart wildly, like an eight-year-old lying about cookies and they say stuff that doesn't make any sense, like, “Nobody gives a f--k about Ukraine.” Baffled, the staff here at Smart Bomb reached out to the princess of black magic, Mistress Marie Laveau, who explained how to break an evil spell: The first thing, of course, is to get a bucket of chicken's blood from Mitch McConnell's place in Kentucky. This is a challenge since his chickens have yet to come home to roost. Stir in hair from Mike Lee and a dead cat. The dead cat part will be much easier. In fine-point Sharpie, write Mitt Romney's name on a bay leaf and stir in with the feet of a spotted Natterjack Toad, a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil. Let cool and with a Filbert brush apply the mixture to little dolls of Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander and Lisa Murkowski so they can move their lips to say, “We want witnesses.” Then drip wax from a black candle on pictures of Mitch McConnell, Lyndsey Graham and Rand Paul. Get a copy of “Watergate,” by Daniel Cohen and open it to where Nixon says, “I'm no crook.” On cue, ring a bell, shut the book and blow out the candle. This is not guaranteed to break the spell, but it's a lot more meaningful than watching those poor, lost souls on TV re-enacting a Stalin show trial.

UTAH: A TWO-PARTY STATE — SORT OF

Here behind the Zion Curtain, we have the Republican Party that dictates our way of life during secret meetings at the State Legislature. And we have another political entity that really isn't a party but a group of people who organize and sign petitions, aimed at undoing stuff like taxing food, nixing Medicaid expansion and denying sick people medical marijuana. If Utah were a two-party state, things would be different, of course. But the Democratic Party is a ghost of times-past on account of many tithe-paying Mormons would never vote for a Democrat — ever. Democrats are evil people who believe in stuff like women's reproductive rights, freedom from gun violence and the right to marry whomever you choose. Last week, citizens — who we shall call the Pissed Off Party — ruined Gov. Gary Herbert's day by forcing him to throw in the towel on that “wonderful” tax package the legislature rammed through in a special session last year. And Speaker of the House Brad Wilson couldn't believe the audacity of the petitioners. They should just stick it.The Pissed Off Party gathered 152,000 signatures on a petition stating that the amazing new tax plan was amazing for all the wrong reasons. Although opponents of sales tax on food can breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy a momentary victory, our elected Republican lawmakers aren't done. They'll be back with another tax overhaul that will be even better. You see, they know what's best and the poor should pay taxes. Ain’t that right, Brad.

NPR — DEEP STATE PROPAGANDA ORGAN

National Public Radio spreads liberal information that is a threat to ignorance. And now they've gone and pissed off Donald Trump, the most truthful president since Lincoln. What caught Trump's ire was a report by NPR correspondent Marie Louise Kelly, where she had the audacity to ask Secretary of State Mike Pompeo why he didn't stand up for Marie Yavonovich, the former ambassador to Ukraine. The veteran diplomat was knee-capped by Rudy Guliani and his merry band of thugs at the behest of his client, Mr. Trump, because Yavonovich was in the way of a scheme to implicate Joe Biden in a made-for-TV scandal. Pompeo insisted he stood up for everyone far and wide and then gave the reporter a tongue-lashing with expletives for being a total shithead and asking him hard questions he didn't want to answer. Who does Marie Louise Kelly think she is anyway? In a statement prepared later, Pompeo called Kelly a vicious liar who, like the rest of her ilk, is unhinged and determined to destroy the president. Awakened by the thunder clap, Mr. Trump, himself, tweeted that the nonprofit NPR is a “big-government, Democrat Party propaganda operation” and hinted at defunding it. After all, why should taxpayers help underwrite the Enemy of the People who don't operate in Trump's reality.

WHERE'S BIGFOOT?

Hold on to your binoculars, Big Foot has been sighted — again. According to the British tabloid, The Sun, a family out for a walk Jan. 5 in the Canadian wilderness caught sight of the mysterious Sasquatch and captured it on video. The clip, uploaded on Youtube is titled: "Remarkable footage shows a huge Bigfoot walking through the Canadian wilderness." And sure enough, there is a shadowy figure of something with a silhouette like Greg Hughes in a mohair suit. One viewer wrote in to affirm the evidence: “You would be ignorant to say there is no Bigfoot.” There's even a Big Foot Lunch Club in Portland, Ore. with a website, bigfootlunchclub.com (We are not making this up.) But Wilson and the guys in the band had to wonder why, after all these years no one has caught old Sasquatch? Is Bigfoot real or just a folk tale, kinda like Trickle Down Economics? In 2018, alone, there were 12 — count 'em, 12 — Bigfoot sightings. And one year ago, Sasquatch was spotted in the foothills near BYU. But none of the witnesses would come forward for fear of running afoul of the school's dreaded Honor Code Office, which frowns on many things, including hallucinogens.

Post Script — What a week. Things have been so crazy that Wilson and the band have exceeded their self-imposed weed allotment and have taken to listening to Norman Greenbaum's “Spirit In The Sky” at full volume. Meanwhile, pundits are complaining bitterly about the Grammys and the Oscars for a host of reasons that all lead back to white men, who control everything. According to critics, they are sexist, power-mongers who care about nothing but money and status. Yes, it does sound a lot like the U.S. Senate — the difference, of course, is that people pay attention to the Grammys and Oscars. All this is happening while the Sundance Film Festival is busting at the seams in Park City. Kerry Washington, Ethan Hawke, Glenn Close, Toni Collette and a whole flock of celebrities are making it THE place to be the last week of January. And if all that star power weren't enough, Hillary Clinton showed up. Yes, that Hillary Clinton. She was on hand to pimp a new, four-part Hulu documentary series all about how everyone has been mean to her. And it's true — the Republicans fed Hillary into their hate machine in 1992 and have yet to hit the pause button. It's gone so far that leading Republicans, including Newt Gingrich, want her hanged for treason because she hid classified emails. The staff here at Smart Bomb has not seen the Hillary doc yet, but we hope former Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz gets his due. As chairman of the House Oversight Committee, he investigated Hillary and Benghazi more times than you can count on the toes of a sleeping sloth. But Jason's political career came to a swift and unexpected end when Donald Trump won the presidency (if not the popular vote). As Oversight chairman, he would be charged with investigating the bon vivant and reality star turned president. Fortunately, Jason had to spend more time with his grown children and couldn't stick around for the job he was elected to do. And so it goes.

OK, Wilson, wake up the band and take us out with a little something for our Republican friends in the U.S. Senate: When logic and proportion / Have fallen sloppy dead / And the White Knight is talking backwards / And the Red Queen's “off with her head”/ Remember what the Dormouse said / Feed your head / Feed your head...

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metropolisproject · 7 years

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Gentrification. Philosophy Department at Southwestern University

"The argument that gentrification represents a kind of urban neocolonialism is hard to miss. Spike Lee made it clear with his viral rant against “Christopher Columbus syndrome” in Brooklyn. Indeed, after decades of “white flight” to the US suburbs, since 2010 American cities have seen increases in white populations. Protests in 2014 targeted Microsoft’s corporate shuttle buses in Seattle; not only did they raise rents, went the argument, they didn’t integrate, adding to social tensions in a city where working-class African-Americans were being pushed out. That same year, a video went viral of (older, whiter) Dropbox employees trying to get rid of mostly Latino young people from a football pitch in San Francisco’s Mission district. (The Latinos protested, and won.)

It is surely the higher-profile, less sensitive invasions that get the headlines, but they speak to a deeper malaise of newly arriving communities with no interest in connecting with the existing populations they are displacing. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” they seem to say.

Inevitably, the rise of anti-gentrification sentiment and action has provoked a counter-attack, either to defend the process or deny it exists. Critics of gentrification romanticise working-class poverty, goes the main line of argument. They hate change, and fetishise urban decrepitude. Don’t you want the area to look nice? Don’t you want poor people to have better lives? Giles Coren characterised anti-gentrifiers last year as “middle-aged, middle-class dinosaurs who are determined to keep London shitty”. Why? A mixture, he said, of aesthetics, nostalgia and condescension: “Snobs [who] like the thought of people less well off than themselves scoffing rubbish [food], so they can keep on looking down at them for it”.

Many people placed in temporary accommodation in outer London are travelling enormous distances to work or school This “shit but real” versus “polished but soulless” dichotomy was borne out in Hackney in London in 2009, when the borough’s mayor, Jules Pipe, condemned opponents of regeneration for wanting to “keep Hackney crap” – prompting a tongue-in-cheek campaign proposing to do exactly that. The sad irony is that local community groups calling for positive state intervention to regenerate a local area – for example, to make a local park safer, improve litter collection or fix transport – will often have to wait for the area to become more affluent and “desirable” before those changes will take place. And in a grim example of the law of unintended consequences, where urban communities do succeed in changing their neighbourhood for the better, the result is often higher rents, more interest from developers, and the gradual displacement of the very people who forced those changes into being.

Another argument used against anti-gentrification campaigns is that they are fighting a force of nature. Gentrification is a process as old as time itself, and you may as well just protest against the changing of the seasons. There is a tendency, as with anything, for older, more experienced commentators to take a puff on their pipe and remark, “Oh you hot-heads, do you think any of this is new?” This kind of response, while containing some truth, is often used to stifle action. “This has all happened before” carries with it an unstated corollary, “ ... and is thus an organic, inevitable and inexorable process – and, presumably, since we are both standing here today having this discussion, with all of our limbs intact, and roofs over our head, not an especially harmful one.”

It is true that the feared mass exodus of poorer residents from inner London since the Conservatives introduced the bedroom tax and benefit caps has not occurred. Anecdotal evidence from charities and food banks suggests many are staying, paying more rent and just getting poorer. But the numbers of those forced out are still increasing substantially. Many people who are placed in temporary accommodation in outer London – and deal with some horrendous conditions, jars of bugs and all – are travelling enormous distances to work or school. Perhaps the most dramatic single visualisation of how gentrification is changing our cities is this map of the displacement of former residents of Elephant & Castle’s substantial social housing project, the Heygate Estate.

As the critic Jonathan Meades wrote in 2006: “Privilege is centripetal. Want is centrifugal … in the future, deprivation, crime and riots will be comfortably confined to outside the ring road.”

The architects of gentrification are extremely careful not to talk about it. Given the word was coined by a Marxist, and is most often used by opponents of the property industry, this is good common sense on their part. When in 2014 I was asked to interview a property developer about gentrification, I worked through seven or eight before I found one willing to return my calls. Though I was careful not to scare them off by uttering the “G” word, their PR departments were too good at obfuscating – until someone at property giant Bouygues Development agreed to speak.

Richard Fagg, deputy managing director, was neither hostile nor evasive, but still chose his words carefully. He denied that their building of expensive new blocks of flats would lead to any displacement. Instead, he suggested that poorer areas would benefit from becoming “blended communities”.

“In the poor parts of London where we’ve been working in the past, they have been – and I use this term politely – but they have been social enclaves,” Fagg said. “No one buys homes there, because your money will probably depreciate. But that’s changing. So hopefully, the likes of where we’re working in Barking, people are taking their hard-earned cash, investing it in a mortgage, buying a property because there you’re getting good capital growth over time in the future. Yes, it’s starting at a low base. But you’re going to get good growth, because the whole area is changing. It’s not gentrification. It’s just becoming a more balanced community.”

Fagg was not factually wrong about the demographic composition of London areas such as Barking, north Peckham or Elephant & Castle. In fact, many are concerned that what’s happening to the Heygate Estate in Elephant & Castle will become an example that is replicated in the years to come. As the 1950s and 1960s tower blocks reach the end of their life – a decline hastened by years of disinvestment and failure to address poverty – one popular development model says they should be demolished and replaced with “mixed use” developments. Social problems are supposedly reduced if you don’t have “enclaves”.

Simon Elmer from Architects for Social Housing points to Andrew Adonis’s report City Villages: More Homes, Better Communities, which is the basis for Conservative housing plans, embodied in the housing bill currently going through parliament. The report recommends recategorising all social housing estates as brownfield land. In greater London, that amounts to 3,500 estates, 360,000 homes and more than one million people. The concern, says Elmer in a paper entitled The London Clearances, is that these ageing estates will be demolished and replaced with the same mix of luxury flats and “affordable” housing that have cropped up in Elephant Park, the new private development being built in place of the Heygate, and in which a two-bedroom flat will set you back £659,000. This past weekend David Cameron gave further shape to this plan when he announced a “blitz” on poverty, suggesting the demolition of “sink estates” in favour of more homes for private rent.

A protester smashes the front window of the Foxtons estate agency in Brixton. Photograph: Pierre Alozie/Demotix/Corbis The property industry, meanwhile, has become markedly more sophisticated in how it readies the ground for demographic transformation, by engineering the change in atmosphere that will draw in young creatives to a “new” area. (Again, the colonial language is always bubbling just under the surface.) Sometimes this is called place-making, and amounts to extravagant marketing exercises that seek to brand (or rebrand) an area, to follow in the footsteps of the advertising industry and sell not just a product, the bricks and mortar, but an entire aspirational lifestyle.

“We don’t think it’s good enough to build a lovely flat, anyone can build a lovely flat anywhere,” Fagg told me. From the very first moment, even before seeking planning permission, “marketing is at the heart of your strategy. What are you offering over and above every London borough, every other developer? Particularly in London, when everyone is competing for your hard-earned capital to invest in their new location?” In some cases, place-making has meant going to extraordinary lengths: in poor parts of Harlem, estate agents bought up vacant street-front commercial properties and opened four trendy coffee shops, in an unabashed attempt to instigate gentrification themselves.

It isn’t the most flashy cultural manifestations of gentrification, the cereal cafes and the hipster baristas, who are the most influential actors in this process. Indeed, they are a distraction from where the most important decisions are taken. It is often the less glamorous and headline-grabbing developments, such as the granting of planning permission, the cynical redefining of “affordable housing” to mean 80% of market rate (it used to be more like 50%), the payment of cash to struggling councils by developers wishing to avoid their legal section 106 requirement to build affordable housing, or the eviction of poor families with no access to the media, that go under the radar, and where the real pain of gentrification resides.

Saying that, the cultural manifestations of gentrification do matter. It is partly about symbolism, about a change in atmosphere that tells poorer residents that, soon, they will no longer belong. Or, in areas with an explosion of attractive bars and clubs, it is about the behaviour of the new arrivals; where that sense of belonging is indirectly seized from poorer families by revellers, students and nightlife tourists who drunkenly smash their beer bottles on the pavement.

A new independent boutique coffee shop may be benign in itself, but does it help usher in a new clientele to the area, even as a bridge-and-tunnel, just-visiting crowd? Will other hipster businesses follow suit? Will this surge lead to a “buzz”, to press coverage in newspapers aimed at middle-classes with the money to buy property, or help to entice buy-to-let landlords, property developer interest, and estate agents’ revaluation? Does this then entice bigger chain shops and cafes, lead to small businesses closing and rents rising? As the hugely telling “place-making” videos make abundantly clear, for the money-men, a proliferation of art galleries, hipsters and small independent businesses are a great sign. Indeed, for the sharper investors, by the time Starbucks arrives, you’re already too late."

#architecture #gentrification #art

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years

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Remembering Advice Animals, one of the internet's first viral memes

It’s Viral Market Crash week on Mashable. Join us as we take stock of the viral economy and investigate how the internet morphed from a fun free-for-all to a bleak hellscape we just can’t quit.

Today's internet is an endless buffet of memes. Bountiful GIFs, viral videos, and an innumerable amount of tweets are bestowed upon us on a daily basis. But before that wide and glorious selection was available to us, there was really only one entree on the table: Advice Animals.

Remember Advice Animals? Those early internet memes like Scumbag Steve and the Overly Attached Girlfriend, that consisted of a picture and two lines of text delivering a rudimentary joke. In 2006, these guys started spreading snarky jokes, embarrassing stories, and musings. They positively dominated sites like Reddit, Tumblr, and 4Chan in the late aughts.

SEE ALSO: The Origins of the Word 'Meme'

Now, however, Advice Animals have largely fallen out of favor. It's not really surprising, given the short shelf life of a meme in the wild world of the internet these days. What's more shocking is how long Advice Animals lasted — and how they met their demise.

A brief history of Advice Animal memes

Advice Animals are a category of memes originally derived from the Advice Dog meme — hence the name, though they aren't just limited to animals.

The Advice Dog meme first appeared in 2006, according to Know Your Meme, an online database dedicated to cataloguing all internet phenomena. Advice Dog's construction is simple: a goofy dog's face was placed in the center of a bright rainbow pinwheel, and (typically) terrible advice was superimposed on the top and bottom of the image. The use of the image macro format — a general term for a captioned image — made the meme fairly easy to replicate and expand on.

Soon after Advice Dog's popularity grew, so did its spin-offs, dubbed Advice Animals.

Some of the most popular Advice Animals: Business Cat, a cat sporting a tie and offering advice fit for feline co-workers; Socially Awkward Penguin, a penguin lacking in self esteem and social graces; Scumbag Steve, a youth known for his sideways cap and flair for getting into precarious situations; and Bad Luck Brian, a braces-clad teen wearing a vest who suffers from perpetual bad luck.

(Know Your Meme has an extensive Periodic Table of Advice Animals if you want to dive deep).

In 2009, Memegenerator.net became one of the first websites to allow users to create memes with their own desired text, according to Know Your Meme, with copycat sites like Memebase and Quickmeme following.

By 2010, Reddit had become a hotspot for sharing Advice Animal memes with the addition of the r/AdviceAnimals subreddit. In 2014, the subreddit had 4.2 million subscribers and was featured prominently on Reddit’s front page, according to the Daily Dot.

And then ... people slowly lost interest.

Did Reddit kill Advice Animals?

On May 7, 2014, the r/AdviceAnimals subreddit was removed from the front page. The platform issued a statement explaining that its old defaults were determined by popularity and that the company wanted to shake things up a bit with some new subs.

Amanda Brennan, a Know Your Meme alumna and current Tumblr employee who has been dubbed the "librarian of the internet," told Mashable that Advice Animals' removal from Reddit's front page could have definitely contributed to a decline in the subreddit's reach and the memes' appeal.

"Having something removed from the Reddit front page, you lose that audience that you would get from someone who is logging into Reddit, or who may just come casually," Brennan explained.

Instead, people would have to intentionally seek out the group in order to see it.

The subreddit brought in 83.7 million page views and 8.3 million uniques one month prior to its removal from the front page. The following year those numbers went down to 29.8 million page views and 3.5 million uniques, according to a 2014 report from Kernel.

Google Trends also point to a decline in "advice animals" searches after May 2014, when r/AdviceAnimals was removed as a default subreddit.

There are a handful of things that could have encouraged Reddit to remove the Advice Animals sub from its front page.

The Quickmeme Scandal

In 2013, Advice Animals faced one of its biggest scandals — the infiltration of Quickmeme.

Quickmeme, a popular meme-generating site, was launched by brothers Wayne and Stephen Miltz in 2010, generating about $1.6 million a month, according to the Daily Dot. Quickmeme links were frequently submitted to r/AdviceAnimals, though other generator sites like memegenerator.net were submitted somewhat regularly.

By June 2011 r/AdviceAnimals began looking for a new moderator to help run the growing subreddit, and Redditor gtw08 was voted into the position. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until 2012, when fellow r/AdviceAnimals moderator ManWithoutModem started to notice that gtw08 was deleting links from Livememe.

Livememe, which debuted in 2012, was one of Quickmeme's largest competitors due to its ability to support GIFs. It struck ManWithoutModem as odd that only Quickmemes were getting upvoted while Livememe's were being deleted.

ManWithoutModem's concerns were dismissed by the other mods, but after talking to suspicious members of the subreddit in a private chat they decided to go some digging. In 2013, it was discovered that gtw08 was actually Quickmeme owner Wayne Miltz, clearly gaming the Reddit system. The Miltz brothers and Quickmeme ended up being placed on a site-wide ban.

Brennan believes that the perceived manipulation of the Reddit subculture could have created a sense of distance.

"Seeing someone try to manipulate it [the subreddit community] and being called out for manipulating it gives that hive mind a, 'Oh, I don't want to get involved with someone that's trying to manipulate our culture for their own personal gain,'" Brennan said.

Advice Animals saw an influx of bigoted content

Like many internet communities, Advice Animals fell victim to racist and bigoted comments and memes.

According to a recent r/TheoryOfReddit thread dissecting why Advice Animals have become less popular, racism was cited as a big contributing factor.

"Years ago around when the Racist Unpopular Opinion Puffin was starting to take over the sub and they were starting to build a certain reputation, Reddit expanded the default subs from 25 to 50 and dropped AA as a default," wrote u/diiejso. "It's possible that at this point new users weren't automatically seeing the sub and it started a gradual decline then."

Racist Advice Animal memes are still found on the subreddit, though the community now has strict rules against using Advice Animals (specifically the Unpopular Opinion Puffin) to make bigoted statements or remarks. The new rules were instated by its moderators July 14, 2015 and have been pinned to the top of r/AdviceAnimals for newcomers and old subscribers to see.

"We're here to have a laugh; hate speech, bigotry, and personal attacks are not allowed," state r/AdviceAnimals' rules in bold.

But with millions of subscribers it's not easy for unpaid mods to catch every crude meme or remark.

Reddit has had a longstanding struggle dealing with hate speech and controversial communities. So, it's not a surprise that a subreddit as popular as r/AdviceAnimals got tangled up with the bad side of Reddit.

Brennan explained that often times people will use use popular joke structures (like those of the Advice Animals) and language online to make racist statements to see if others agree with their ideology.

"As Advice Animals get more mainstream, more people are shown that structure of language and it's like, 'Oh people are joking about this stuff, maybe let me just test the waters and see if my ideology lands with people and then I can find my racist friends,'" Brennan said.

This can create a kind of snowball effect, gathering more and more people through the use of mainstream language and mainstream attention, according to Brennan.

We can't blame it all on Reddit

Now in 2018, the still active Advice Animals subreddit has risen to 5 million subscribers, so it seems strange and a little bizarre to hold Reddit solely accountable for the decline of Advice Animal memes.

Though, even with such a high number of subscribers the interest in Advice Animals just isn't there like it once was. Memes evolve on a daily basis, reaction GIFs became a form of communication, and Advice Animals became tired, and almost juvenile.

Now, memes tend to avoid the goofiness of their predecessors. Instead they're digestible bites of complex and surreal content, think Change My Mind meme, or the Gym Kardashian memes. They're in conversation with pop culture, current events, and nuanced human emotions in ways Advice Animals never were. The crude and sophomoric language of Advice Animals just can't compete with the offbeat and irreverent memes of today.

"It is full of low effort content that just isn't enjoyable," said namer98, in a r/TheoryOfReddit thread, a year ago.

Advice Animal memes are played out and unoriginal: the pumpkin spice latte of memes.

Brennan offers an explanation for the subreddit's continued userbase: "I think that it still has subscribers out of nostalgia, people who are maybe a little older, who really participated in the 'memey-ness' of it [the subreddit] in its heyday and don't want to unsubscribe because they still find them funny."

The likelihood of Advice Animals seeing a full resurgence is slim, according to Brennan, in large part because the technology we use to view and absorb memes has changed drastically.

"If you think back to 2012 or 2011 and the way that we spoke online and the power our phones had, it was easier to download a photo than it was to download a GIF," Brennan explained. "And now WiFi is everywhere. Our phones are faster, we can make more videos with our phones. Cameras are getting better."

Still, there's a little bit of Advice Animals to be found in all present day memes, says Brennan: "There's always iterations of Advice Animals that you can find. Like, you can find some evolved version of it [Advice Animals] no matter where you look in meme culture, because all the archetypes are there. It's all about fleshing out what you understand about these ideas of people through whatever the structure of the language is."

As far as the future of memes goes, it's unclear. But Brennan says that she knows one thing to be true: people will always use memes and their language to connect to others, in addition to connecting with themselves.

WATCH: Drake's 'In My Feelings' challenge has gotten completely out of hand

#_uuid:ac5b19bb-0be4-3cc9-99ed-d525a58d3c22 #_author:Amanda Luz Henning Santiago #_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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theworstbob · 7 years

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yellin’ at songs, week forty-four

reviewing the billboard debuts from 11.08.1997 11.10.2007 11.11.2017

11.8.1997

32) "Spice up Your Life," by Spice Girls

There was a Spice Girls movie made. We don't talk about this enough, but at one point, someone looked at Spice Girls and came up with an idea for a feature-length film. We don't do this with modern pop stars, but I'm sitting here listening to this song I never wanted to listen to, and now I'm wondering, what would a Lil Uzi Vert movie look like? I may find him uninterestingly dark, but I at least find something in him worth remarking on. I think that's enough for a feature-length film based on his works. It'd be the black Donnie Darko. That might be worthwhile, certainly more worth exploring than any of his songs, or this Spice Girls song you already knew was bad.

60) "Breaking All the Rules," by She Moves

This is the shallow bouncy pop music I signed up for. I never wanted 21 Savage. I just wanted subtly sexual pop songs I'd forget about seconds after listening to them. I wanted songs by artists for whom the dance moves mattered as much as the vocal work. Not Imagine Dragons, never Imagine Dragons. This. Solid stupid fun. I'm going to write my Congressman a link to this YouTube video and urge him to do something.

73) "At the Beginning," by Richard Marx & Donna Lewis

I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I didn't realize, months ago, when I started whatever this was, that I would have to opine on the fucking love theme from the seventh-best Don Bluth movie. I wasn't prepared to think about Anastasia in any way, form, or fashion, ever, for any reason, in my life. Anastasia was a VHS buried deep within the linen closet. I'm pretty sure it was an Easter basket filling. Did anyone else's family do Easter presents? We got chocolate, yeah, of course we got chocolate, just because my parents didn't love each other doesn't mean they were heartless, but my parents said, "I mean... We can't just give them chocolate. They should also get a present. But the present can’t be more than like $15. Hey it's a cartoon about a girl, have fun girl children." This was an afterthought, and now it's a duringthought for me. I don't. It's fine? It's the love theme from a Don Bluth movie, which means it's less well-written and has slightly worse singers and is a degree cheesier than the love theme from a Disney movie, and in the live-action reboot it’ll be covered by the seventh-place finisher from season seven of The Voice and either Nico or Vinz.

76) "I Don't Ever Wanna See You Again," by Uncle Sam

you have no idea how happy it makes me that this is a 1997 joint and not a 2017 joint because a song with this title with this credit would be sooooooooooooooooo much worse. it's bad? but it's not politically bad, it's just bad because an R&B man got a letter. so many '90s r&B songs begin with someone receiving a letter. the dude is now vocalizing over an orchestral swell, if anyone's wondering in what specific way this song is bad.

88) "All of My Days," by Changing Faces ft./Jay-Z

this is cool in the way a lot of '90s r&b is cool. like, there's the over-emotional uncle sam r&b, but then there's the hyper-chill stuff like this, music to which you can kick it, just settle into a groove and listen to again and again. stuff like this is so dope. like, it's chill, but it's compelling enough that you wanna stick with it.

92) "Baby You Know," by The O'Jays

this is the most disappointing thing i've ever heard. you see the artist name, you think, hey, this is gonna be a throwback jam. you don't think that this is going to sound like '90s r&b slo jamz because why would you think that, no one would want to think that because it would be a bad thing. but. that's what this ended up being. this song is what they did instead of buying a leather jacket and a motorcycle.

95) "Kiss the Rain," by Billie Meyers

I needed this after The O'Jays. I'm just gonna try my best to articulate something about the actual music, because gosh the drums on this track do some work. From the start, it's a really cool drum part, but the transition to the guitar solo and then the drumming under "As you fall over me, think of me, only me" are absolutely insane, really sell the climactic moment. Obviously, Billie Meyers is a phenomenal singer, she has as much to do with the moment as the drums, but I just really like drum parts. Apparently the drummer on this track also did the drums for one of the two Avril songs I like. I wish there were more dedicated Wikipedia editors who'd make full discographies for studio musicians, because I'm now curious how many pop songs I enjoy feature Kenny Aronoff's work.

96) "Da Joint," by EPMD

This was OK! I would like to take this time to note EPMD's discography. That is... certainly a thematic throughline. Do you think they got the idea to follow up Strictly Business with Unfinished Business and then felt they were kinda shoehorned in to putting the word Business in every album title? I feel that's what happened. Like, there's no going back after naming album three Business as Usual, and by the way, Business as Usual? HORRIBLE album title. Way to tell fans, "Yeah, this is the same shit as the first two albums. Y'all know the drill." I suppose it's a better title than None of Your Business, but I'd go with something like New Business or Business Is Boomin' or, if they wanted to do a collab with Jeezy, No Business Like Snow Business.

11.10.2007

89) "Watching Airplanes," Gary Allan

just another pop/country song with the word 'truck' in the first line

91) "Low," Flo Rida ft./T-Pain

There are people out there who don't like this song and those people are living the worst lives. What a joyless, horrible existence, feeling anything about this song other than "this is a hot party jam." Like, even when I was a pretentious 18-year-old trying to convince himself and others he liked Bright Eyes, I knew this was an undeniable banger. This is a perfect pop song. It's loud and dumb in all the best ways, disposable without being forgettable, and that hook. That's the sort of hook where, once you come up with it, you have to know you've got something great on your hands.

94) "Winner at a Losing Game," Rascal Flatts

What's the shelf life on a song like this? I'm not trying to make fun of country music here, I'm trying to make fun of any mid-tempo ballad. How much mileage can you derive from some slow song about a break-up? You can find ten or eleven of these on the chart at any given moment, and you can definitely reach a few hundred people who're going through a break-up at the exact time this song comes on, but time passes, and you think about the ex less, then think about the song less, and this isn't the sort of song people are gonna dredge up at karaoke or something ten years later unless they're REALLY not over it, nor are any country stations gonna throw it into any sort of classics bloc because there are, going by Billboard, 21 songs from 2007 alone more notable and the classics bloc only gets an hour, so what life did this song have after 2007? Is this the first time anyone has talked about this song in any way in the last ten years? Again: "Low" was disposable, but it was disposable like a Kodak, you throw it away but keep the memories. This is a wet wipe. It does one thing for three seconds and is flung into a pile where it rests forever.

96) "I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me & You)," Fall Out Boy

I love that funk-tinged guitar in the verses, that's a dimension of musicality heretofore unheard from Fall Out Boy, and that line "I only keep myself this sick in the head 'cuz I know how the words get you off" is kind of tragic. There's a lot more to this song than being the first Fall Out Boy song to sound like a love song (even if it's not quite that), but I'll save the deep dive for the other, dumber blog I've fallen behind on updating.

97) "Empty Walls," Serj Tankian

Something you realize while watching a music video with very, very subtle references to the Iraq War: there haven't been any political songs in 2017, despite the fact Trump is a significantly worse president than Bush. No one's making protest music. And that's fine, I guess, maybe we don't need pop stars at the vanguard of political change, and we have seen strong performances from Kendrick and Kesha who maybe aren't making protest music but nonetheless are expressing strong beliefs in their music, but there's not a "none of this is OK" song like this. It's kind of a bummer.

99) "Dreaming with a Broken Heart," John Mayer

imagine having to tell yourself that this is a song you are proud of having written and a song you want attached to your name and a song you want people to associate with you from now until the end of your cultural relevance. imagine wanting to be known for making this song. if you're not sure whether or not you're a psychopath, i would recommend closing your eyes and picture yourself receiving a royalty check for this song. what emotion did you feel? if you felt pride, seek therapy.

100) "Another Side of You," Joe Nichols

at least this pop/country song doesn't have the word 'truck' in it. it even says that the girl traded in her sports car for a minivan, and this acknowledgement of a woman's ability to drive makes this maybe the most feminist country song there's ever been by a male artist.

11.11.2017

13) "Gorgeous," by Tay Tay

"There's nothing I hate more than what I can’t have/I guess I’ll just stumble on home to my cats.” Fuck off, dude. I’m glad there’s a Tay Tay single in 2017 that's mostly good, but that line just throws it completely off track. "I'm just a regular girl who's intimidated by hot boys! At least my kitties understand me!" That schtick doesn't work when there's reason to believe you haven't felt an honest human emotion in five years.

50) "Patek Water," by Future & Young Thug ft./Offset 62) "No Cap," by Future & Young Thug 68) "Feed Me Dope," by Future 77) "All Da Smoke," by Future & Young Thug 92) "4 Da Gang," by Future 100) "Three," by Future & Young Thug

I was kinda excited for Super Slimey, but having listened to the album I realize it is wrong to ever be hopeful. The problem with this collaboration is that the two personalities are dissimilar in ways that don't feel complimentary. Future isn't the most unconventional artist; he has a sound of his own, but it's a sound with a clear place in hip-hop's evolution, part of a direct line, whereas Young Thug is just his own thing. Future's great because he's direct and blunt, you never leave a Future song unsure of what the song was, and Young Thug is great because he's completely out there and doing his own thing, and these are not complementary traits.

61) "Meant to Be," by Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line

i wished so hard and so long for a duet, i must have made a thousand wishes on a thousand monkeys' paws, and the ONE TIME i forgot to make sure the paw wasn't cursed is the time the wish came true

84) "Candy Paint," by Post Malone

"God damn, I love paper, I'm like Michael Scott" "Baby I'm the boss, like I'm Tony Danza" Someone get Post Malone more current pop culture references. I also find "You don't know me, homie, you don't want war" to be a toothless threat given that Post Malone's songs to this point have all been about how he loves to smoke weed and feel bad about himself. Like, I don't doubt that Post Malone could take me in a fight, I'm weak and my leg sometimes hurts for no reason, but I do doubt his willingness to actually fight me. You could poke Post Malone in the arm for at least 20 minutes before he half-heartedly tried to swat your hand away, then he’d immediately resume napping because there’s nothing in this world he cares about except getting enough sleep.

88) "Wolves," by Selena Gomez x Marshmello

"I've been running through the jungle/I've been running with the wolves/To get to you." ...Um? Hey. Guys? Look. I know, we're all just trying to have fun, this is pop music, we're trying to keep it light, trying to keep it breezy, these are just sounds we're hoping will please as many people as possible, could you PLEASE not say wolves live in the jungle. Could you not do that. Could you find a better animal for this line in the song.

98) "Bedroom Floor," by Liam Payne

I liked this. It's not like the best song in the world, but it's breezy, it has a nice line in the chorus, and Liam Payne makes a telephone noise multiple times and I think that's delightful. Not everything can be a titanic, world-changing pop music event. Sometimes, you just want a hot boy to make telephone noises. This song hits that incredibly specific spot in my heart.

Who won the week?

Not 2017 because the best song was the “hot boy makes telephone noises” song. Um... I hate to be uncreative here, but I think 1997 had the best total offering. I’d be willing to hear an argument for “Low” deserving much more consideration than I’m giving it, but you also have to argue that everything 2007 offered is better than everything 1997 had to offer, and if you gave me a choice between Spice Girls and the three 2007 country songs, I am cursing whatever put me in this position and going with Spice Girls. 1997: best overall song this week, least bad support.

Current standings: 1997: 18 2007: 12 2017: 14 With five wins in the last six weeks and eight weeks left in this incredibly essential project, 1997′s starting to pull away. But there’s hope for the other years yet, as 1997 offers no classics, whereas 2007 has one song I remember! 2017 has very 2017 things. 2017 is gonna 2017 it up, no doubt.

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