every day is narumitsu day if u just believe

2022 I bid you adieu

(badass album cover by Ben Ziskind)

(me after first surgery. August 2020)

I’ll be honest with you, trusting reader: it feels pretty good to do one of these end of the year posts without the all too familiar “good riddance, this stupid ass year and hello, arbitrarily numbered upcoming year: Imma make you my BITCH!” At a certain point, the disingenuous core of that fake attitude shines through and it’s just a bit cringy. I can’t help but fall into the trap of assigning meaning to this year because it just so happens to be proof in a 3 year cup of pudding for me. 2020 was so fucking rough for me, and I was not in the mood to overcome all that bullshit (Crohn’s flare up, addiction issues, 2 surgeries, 3 months with a colostomy bag, intensely alone and depressed the whole time) just to get to a starting point of 0 for what I needed to do: build, workout, and eventually tape my best hour. I built and worked it out after moving to Atlanta in March of 2021, recorded in February 2022, and after some bullshit, finally released in November of 2022. It feels so goddam good to be able to say that. And not only that, but with all the tracks in rotation on 3 different channels on XM and an amazing jump off with 6 full album spins (meaning whole album played straight through 6 times) in week one. That’s the way to start the day right there(woo!).

I’m not one for heavy spiritual overtones, but if I hadn’t already had experience in setting goals that were just beyond the horizon and with no road map to guide me toward accomplishing those goals, I don’t know if I could have followed through with how far past the horizon and how vague the path was to get to where I hoped to get on this particular trial and tribulation. I really felt on the cusp of letting myself wither away in my room in bedstuy OR following the pull of the intuitive compass inside my chest pulling me towards Atlanta, towards the Earl, towards the people I needed to work with, and toward a very specific career path that I would be the first person I know to prove to myself it’s a viable one. I know that sounds crazy, or maybe dramatic, but I don’t know anyone that made the same plans as me, much less someone to watch pave the away ahead of me, reassuring me that it’s doable. Now I know that it’s more doable than I had initially hoped, which never fucking happens to me. 

Ok, I will try not to be vague here for the sake of others wondering what career paths are viable in stand up comedy. Of course, I think everyone should know that there truly is no set path to “making it” and I don’t even know what you have in your head as what “making it” is, but everyone should come to terms with the good and bad sides of how true that is, that there is no set path to a comedy career. On one end, you need not be discouraged if you don’t seem to fit what is often portrayed to be the path to comedy success. If you are like me and mysteriously unbookable for all supposed comedy stepping stone up & coming comedians on the rise/look out for these new faces of comedy’s future showcase festivals as decided by industry gate keepers with the power to “make” whoever they think they’ve discovered...don’t worry. Not only is it possible to have a career without being tapped by a future outted sex offender type, that whole model is completely hollow. That is all pomp and pageantry that doesn’t predict the future of comedy at all. On occasion, they happen to see the talent in a talented person that would’ve gone onto to do big things with their talent regardless, and then people reverse engineer what was causation and correlation or whatever. My point is, don’t fucking shed one tear over not getting New Faces, or wonder if you should quit because Comedy Central told you in a meeting that they just don’t know what to do with you, but hey you are funny. And yes, that’s me I am referencing there. My intuition told me to let my stubbornness take the wheel and laugh at those execs when they said that to me, because at the time Comedy Central was everything and to accept reality at that moment would mean I was just informed for sure that I had no chance at a career in comedy. Luckily, I have to do this anyway, and as it turned out, Comedy Central ain’t shit now and is only going to be less relevant to anyone in the world of stand up going forward. That’s the good part about there being no set path: you can’t know for a fact that you’re screwed. The downside is of course that you can’t be sure what is a viable approach until you know where that approach leads. And now I will stop gumflappin and explain my personal path I’ve decided to thwack through the comedy woods.

One aspect of comedy that you can bet your bottom dollar on is that you can’t really rely on shit. Everything is so precarious and quick-sandy. So many big things almost happen before the bottom falls out. Even live shows that you have already done make you nervous until that check clears. One of the only dependable sources of income in comedy for me personally has been residuals through the world of comedy audio. Over the years, my monthly sound exchange deposit has only become more and more crucial to my survival, and it’s at the heart of any possibly viable shot at making the kind of passive income where I could do more than just get by, but could actually see myself having real money to retire on and continue to grow. It took a couple albums that I worked very hard on and years of experience learning how XM and Pandora and the world of comedy audio itself works to not just be able to pay my rent and bills with my monthly deposit, but to see a path and timeline that could be very lucrative and actually doable, though not easy at all. In 2018, I released my second album and first special, Shameful Information, and my first album, Me The Whole Time, was still getting played on XM quite a bit, so for 2018/19 I was averaging an all time high for me on my monthly deposits. Well life kept happening to me as it does, and I had never had to think along the lines of any timeline beyond check to check my whole life, so yada yada, by the time pandemic hit and my deposits started to dip down some and I had no other income, and no plan or real possible way to be ready to record a next album that would be anywhere up to snuff, much less better than my last one (always my goal), I had to think about how to start gettin busy working toward my next best hour, and I knew that best case scenario, I wouldn’t have a whole grip of new tracks being added to rotation for at least a couple years. And as things tend to go, I was thrown into much worse than the best case scenario, so it’s really a miracle that I only had to suffer a more or less 5 year gap. The longest gap I will ever allow moving forward, I assure you. However, even with that damn near 5 year gap, I am still covering rent and bills with my deposit having no tracks newer than 2018. That goes to show the staying power of comedy audio if you put in the effort to make a good album. That showed me that if I can bust my ass to record a quality album every 2 to 2 and a half years, I won’t just be playing catch up, I will be stacking paper more and more with each album. 

Basket Case came out in November, and I will start getting money from those tracks in February and March, and my hope to get back to where I was in 2018/19 and then work on the next album to put me over that mark turned out to be wrong in the best way. The good news is, I will be making the money I hoped to be making in 2024/25 by February 2023. That is wonderful news, but no reason to think I added time to the clock. It’s all about keeping the quality up anyway, but that happens to be an obsession of mine that I can’t not shoot for. I’m just putting all this down on record here to let whoever needs to know that a career in comedy without fame or celebrity or the average person even knowing who you are is very possible. I am that comedian. Only comedy nerds know me, and I really don’t mind that at all. I want everyone who would love my shit to be able to find my shit and see me in person. Beyond that, everyone else can kick rocks. I don’t need em. I’ve been poor as shit most of my life, and I am about to be richer than I ever thought I would be. I feel lucky as hell that I can’t help myself from doing what some would consider an insane amount of work, but it isn’t work to me. It never will be. That’s dumb luck, ya know?

Do me a favor: Don’t follow your fucking dreams. Dreams are nonsense: follow your obsession, and figure out some way to satisfy that obsession so that it pays you well enough to not have to actually work just so that you can do that thing. If that isn’t possible in the end, turn to non-violent crime. That’s what I’d do. Anything but soul draining jobs that make other people money. Do whatever you can to have money and not let money have you. Don’t be afraid to lean toward the less safe route. Having a financial safety net won’t save you from being miserable. Do whatever ya gotta do, just don’t do what you wanna do any less. That’s all you’ll regret in the end, believe me. You heard it here: 2023 is gonna be great. Imma start dispensing rhyming wisdom, for real. 

Follow your obsession, fight off your depression.

toodles 2022!

-Andy

yandere isabelle vs yandere nook,, pleabs

Okay okay oksy, i know you said vs but.

Yandere Isa and Tom TEAM!!!!!

🍃 These two are an absolute dream team, be it in business prospects and running town or in attempting to woo their beloved mayor. While Isabelle might be more peppy and excitable than Tom, they both have much in common - one of those things being their love for you! It'd only make sense that they'd put their great friendship and partnership to use when finally taking you for themselves!

💛 While Tom is a great strategist and planner, Isabelle is great at executing whatever he comes up with! Though, don't get it wrong! Tom wants nothing more than to collaborate with his friend, and do some of the leg work himself. If there's anything they've both learned over the years, it's that teamwork makes the dream work!

🍃 Although, admittedly, strategy and planning often turns into long conversations that consists solely of them gushing over you, leading into daydreams of their life together with you, after every obstacle is out of their way. Oh, how they hated to see you go unappreciated, to see unworthy villagers dismissing your hard work, getting in your way. None of them deserved you… Except for Tom and Isabelle, of course. Just think about it - they were the closest to you, the ones who knew and could relate to your trials and tribulations. The mayor's beloved assistant and right-hand woman, and the loyal real estate agent who sent villagers to keep the town thriving. They deserved you like no one else did. They were the closest to you. They loved you.

💛 It starts with slowly, but surely moving out the villagers within the town. Friends, enemies, acquaintances - it didn't matter, they all had to go. Of course, Isabelle had this done without your doing, but… Well, what you don't know won't hurt you, right? It eventually speeds up, a constant stream of villagers moving in and then ordered out or evicted, and the cycle repeats itself. It was how they'd isolate you, socially speaking, at least. The villagers' stay never lasted long enough for you to bond and befriend them, leaving you to rely on and depend on your dear friends, Tom and Isabelle.

🍃 Eventually, the stress and loneliness of your position and failing town would be too heavy a burden to bear, and Tom and Isabelle will be there to pick up the pieces. How pressure you'd look, all vulnerable and desperate for comfort, desperate for someone to take care of everything.

💛 Your dearest assistant will offer you to take a vacation from the demanding job of mayor and run things herself for a while. She'll insist! And, in the meantime, you can stay with Tom! He made the perfect guest room, all for you! And Isa will promise to visit!... Yes, that's how they'll do it. That's how they'll make you see that they love you, that you all belong together... 

Covert Operations - Chapter 100

DISCLAIMER: This is a modern AU crossover story with Outlander and La Femme Nikita. LFN and its characters do not belong to me nor do those from Outlander.

SYNOPSIS: Unbeknownst to the triad, Jamie's team converge on the monastery.  Meanwhile Karen Yee, Wang Yu and Jonathon Randall escape by helicopter while Jamie and Claire are left to die.

WOO! HOO! CHAPTER 100. 🤗 🤗 🤗 THANK YOU everyone so very much for your continued support of my story over these past 18 months.  I can’t begin to tell you how much I really appreciate all of you who have been along for the ride of Jamie and Claire for all of their trials and tribulations of life in Section One.

All previous chapters can be found at … https://sablelab.tumblr.com/covertoperations

 CHAPTER 100

Lost in his thoughts Jonathon Randall returned to the parlour where Karen Yee and Wang Yu were waiting for him glad that they had seen the last of James Fraser and Claire Beauchamp.

These two Section One operatives had been a thorn in their side for months and their demise would see the end of any more interference in triad business. Having caused great havoc and mayhem to the triad hierarchy, it would now be a time to regroup and take stock.  Section One would be on the backfoot as well knowing that the Rising Dragons had eliminated their two operatives and henceforth would think twice about their modus operandi in the future. The triad was resolute and their mantra was ingrained in their ethos.  They were prepared for any contingency that others, including Section One or other triad groups who would try and usurp the power of the Rising Dragons could attempt. Those who dared to test their might would suffer the consequences as these two protagonists had with their lives. There was nothing more that the triad wanted from them. Their death was inevitable; it was now only a matter of time.

The rule of the Triad is absolute To the vanquished death it will bring It triumphs over adversaries Then its greatness loudly will sing The Rising Dragon!

Jonathon smirked as his thoughts correlated with the Rising Dragons’ mantra and he was most pleased with how things had turned out for the triad.  Sun Yee Lok would be so impressed with his abilities and he would certainly be rewarded for his interrogation methods and for the final demise of James Fraser and Claire Beauchamp. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

All eyes glanced towards him as he entered the room. "Is everything organised Jonathon?" Karen asked.  Anticipation of the outcome underlined her question.  Had the deed been done and were they free to leave the monastery to report back to Sun Yee Lok of their triumph in dealing with the insurgents? "Yes ... they will be dead within the hour," he gleefully replied. "Excellent! And we got the information we wanted?" Randall was giddy with the result and he couldn’t contain his elation. "Oh yes ... it took a while but Fraser capitulated." Karen raised an eyebrow at his words. "That's surprising ..." "Not really." "... I would have thought that Claire would have given in first." "She may have ... but I didn't give her the choice. Besides ... it gave me great satisfaction to have Fraser tortured." "Yes, I can see why that would please you." Karen replied knowingly. A boastful Jonathon Randall elaborated further to those gathered. "I wanted to see how far I could go without actually killing him ... if he hadn't capitulated then I was going to torture Claire again in front of him." "That would have been interesting ... nonetheless the conclusion would have been the same. Sun Yee Lok will be very pleased," Wang Yu stated looking at Karen. "Let's hope we have put an end to it once and for all and things can get back to normal ... there's been entirely too much externalising of emotion around here lately," she replied. The others nodded in agreement, yet despite the problem of Claire Beauchamp and James Fraser being solved, Karen still had one other urgent problem to resolve. Her thoughts turned to a more personal pressing matter.  She turned to Jonathon Randall.

"Well? ... Do you have it?" A slight, satisfied smile crossed his lips as he placed his hand in his pocket and withdrew a small vial of liquid holding it up in triumph for Karen to see. She sighed; relieved that at last she had the extracting agent that could reverse the isotope that Jamie had placed on her hands. Karen held Jonathon's gaze then without looking at the vial she reached out her hands trying not to show how worried she really was.

"I hope this stuff works," she whispered under her breath. She was not sure if James Fraser had been entirely truthful and she feared the outcome should this have been the scenario. Loosening the top, Karen tipped some of the liquid into her palms coating her exposed skin with the agent. She immediately rubbed them vigorously together until all the liquid was absorbed into her skin.

Jonathon sensed her hesitancy and tried to reassure her. "Don't worry ... it will work." Coating her hands with the reactive agent once again, Karen examined her palms and fingers. Time stood still and every second felt like an eternity as she waited to see if the solution had worked. After a short while she began to feel her skin start to soften and return back to its normal colouring. Relief washed over her at the outcome and she slowly released the breath she’d been holding in check. "Is there any damage?" Raising her head, she briefly looked up at Jonathon then back down at her hands pleased that the liquid had indeed worked. "Nothing permanent ... it's been effective." "That's good." Regaining her composure Karen was back to business once more. "Shall we go then ... the helicopter is ready and waiting and we have a meeting scheduled with my father. He will want to know what has gone on." Jonathon laughed, "Oh we can certainly give him the answer to that!" "Yes ... all in all it has been a most successful outcome. I'm sure he will be delighted. Let's go." As they prepared to leave the room, Jonathon Randall turned to his bodyguard and issued his orders. "Robert ... take care of things." "Certainly sir." "You know what to do. We want no trace of them whatsoever." "I understand. I'll clean up and dispose of the bodies." "Good." Satisfied that everything would be taken care of, Karen and the two men all exited the room for their departure back to Hong Kong and their meeting with the leader of the Rising Dragons. It was a meeting that was long overdue, but one at which there would be much to celebrate. They had eliminated their enemy and solved the mystery of Tony Wong and Madame Cheung's deaths. The Rising Dragons' mantra had been fulfilled. The triad had sought its retribution at long last. "An invincible, powerful brotherhood The Triad rules supreme Don't ever try to obliterate For retribution will be extreme The Rising Dragon!" ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Jamie and Claire were taken to another room deep in the monastery that was spartan except for two chairs. As the guards ushered them inside, Claire stumbled on the threshold of the doorway but the guard in front of her kept her from falling. Grabbing hold of their captives, the other guards tightened their grip painfully on the two Section operatives' arms, then pushed them towards the chairs indicating that they sit down. "I guess that this is the somewhere more comfortable," Claire flippantly stated to the guard as they were unceremoniously thrust into the chairs. Ignoring her retort, the guards bound both of their wrists to the arm of the chair, then left them alone closing the door behind them as they left with a decisive but ominous click. Except for the beating of their hearts, eerie silence surrounded them. They sat side by side in what appeared to be some sort of execution chamber. Claire looked around the room evaluating their surroundings and searching for anything that might indicate what the triad had in mind for them here in this dungeon like room. Seeing that there was little hope of escape, she stared straight ahead, her mind filled with thoughts that this may indeed be where she and Jamie finally met their demise. James Fraser also surveyed their surroundings glancing around the room like Claire had done. He too had thoughts ... not of their demise … but of what he could do to secure their survival from this place. As he looked around the room, he saw several gas valve outlets. So that was their plan ... he and Claire were to be asphyxiated.

He was determined that this place of incarceration would not be their death chamber. He didn’t want to alarm Claire to the peril they were in although he already knew that she would have figured it out that they were in dire straits.  Flexing his sore muscles, he clenched his fists pitting them against the restraints on his hands hoping to loosen them. Maybe he would, by some miracle, be able to release himself from the bonds and free them both before the effects of any gas took a hold. Claire could feel Jamie moving his hand next to hers and knew he was trying to escape from his bonds.  She watched her love carefully. Her heart bled for him. She knew he had been tortured repeatedly because of her and she blamed herself for both of them being in this predicament from which there seemed to be no escape. Although she knew that the Team was on its way, would they even arrive in time. Her eyes fixed on his battered face.

"Are you okay?" The sound of her voice cut deep into his thoughts. Jamie looked over to her and met her forlorn eyes. Claire was well aware of the plight they were in, but her compassion also shone through. She felt his suffering. Trying to reassure her of his state of mind, he replied with a voice a little raspy.

"Dinna fash Sassenach ... I'm fine."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Claire knew Jamie wasn't being truthful. His face was covered in welts of congealed blood; a trail of drying blood ran haphazardly down his cheek from the wound on his temple and bruises were evident over his body. He had endured more than anyone should. He must have suffered horrendous torture ... yet James Fraser was not a broken man. Physically he was battle scared but she knew mentally he was as strong as ever and would be trying to find a solution to their dilemma ... even if there was none that she could see. He was Section One's best operative. Jamie would not want her to know he was in pain or was suffering after what he’d gone through.

If he could endure what the triad had meted out then so would she.

Claire let his lie go unchallenged for every moment of this incarceration was too precious. In the scheme of things, it was not important ... their lives were in the balance here ... it was more important that she spend their every last moment conveying her feelings for him. She glanced at the door but when no one seemed to be monitoring them, Claire turned her head towards him. "What's going to happen now Jamie?" Her words brought him back to the reality of their terrible situation. His eyes followed the path of hers to the small glass pane in the door of the chamber before returning to meet her gaze.

"What do ye mean Sassenach?" Claire shifted slightly on her seat. "They've had the opportunity but they haven't killed us yet? Why?" Tension centred in her shoulders. She tried to allay the thought of impending doom in which they found themselves. "I dinna ken," Jamie replied trying to reassure her. "Do you think they are planning something?" He lifted his shoulders slightly. "It's possible mo nighean donn." She grasped at straws at anything that might be a plausible explanation as to why they had been left alone. "Perhaps they're going to trade us off for something from Section One." "Maybe." "You think so?" The inflection in her voice was haunting. "They could use us in exchange for any further Intel Section has about the Rising Dragons," Jamie answered trying to dispel her concerns but knowing that his words rang hollow.

"But you know Operations Jamie ... He won't negotiate. He'll pass on any deal."

Her summation of their leader was on mark.  Dougal Mackenzie never negotiated with terrorists, and in this situation, not even to try and save his two best operatives.  They would be marked off as collateral damage. "Aye ... he will." Jamie lowered his voice echoing the reply that Claire had already announced in her own mind. "Well if that's for real, then we're on our own." He glanced over at her, a telling look in his eyes. "We're going to have to think of something fast if we want to get out of here alive ... or else ..." Claire took a new breath before continuing, "... or else ... we're going to die together aren't we?" she replied softly closing her eyes in despair. Claire’s anguish was breaking his heart. Jamie stretched his fingers out towards her. Opening her eyes, she felt the rough but warm touch of skin on skin. His fingers brushed the very tips of her fingers straining repeatedly until he managed to grasp them. Jamie squeezed her flesh in his and the touch was comforting.

"Is that so bad?" He whispered willing his love to look at him and hear the depth of feeling that his words conveyed. Entwining her fingers with his, Claire turned her head to see his piercing gaze wash over her.

"No." His look filled her heart with emotion for his gaze was open, tender and compassionate. Jamie's eyes pierced her soul and revealed his inner feelings. "No …" she repeated, "... I wouldn't want it any other way." Claire held his gaze for a long moment, then bit her lip and turned her head away from him so that Jamie could not see the tears that welled in her eyes. “Dinna be afraid Sassenach. I will see ye safe," he said resolutely.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Karen, Jonathon Randall and Wang Yu exited the monastery their helicopter was ready and waiting on the tarmac for its passengers for the return trip back to the mainland. The three people boarded the aircraft in a buoyant mood knowing that they had been successful in ridding the Triad of these two protagonists.

Assisting them into the helicopter, the outside security guards reported that all was well and there was no evidence of any other intruders on the premises. They’d done a thorough search of the grounds and surrounds and had come up empty handed. With no further ado, the helicopter took off with a trouble-free departure. Jonathon Randal had complete faith in his bodyguard Robert Ling to carry out his orders implicitly. Therefore, the three triad members left the monastery completely satisfied that everything was under control and that they had finally seen the last of their captives James Fraser and Claire Beauchamp. The helicopter travelled back over the hinterland of Lantau Island before flying across the many islands surrounding Hong Kong Island itself to its secret destination the palatial home of their leader Sun Yee Lok who would be waiting for them to return with their good news.

Meanwhile the teams have gathered …

Back at Section One, Fergus Claudel's monitor showed that the parameters of the rescue Mission profile status were set. "Okay, all teams, you're in. Start the sequence. Everyone to second mark. We're closing in. We have a fix on Jamie and Claire's location." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

First team members dressed in black field attire and balaclavas systematically and stealthily approached and made their way to the inner hallway of the monastery. They waited a moment for their team leader’s signal to move forward while second team took care of business on the perimeter of the building. "Let's move!" Geillis Duncan ordered and with a silent nod to each of the team members, the operatives advanced further into the labyrinth of passageways that would lead them to where Jamie and Claire were being held captive.  However, as they proceeded along two hostiles approached. The triad guards were caught by surprise and ill-prepared for what was waiting for them around the corner. Opening fire, the team managed to take out the men before they knew they were there or could return fire. "Okay, Geillis. There's a door ten metres to your right, down the hallway." Making their way to the location Fergus indicated, the team ran down a stairway then through closed double doors that opened up to another long hallway. "Keep straight ahead. There is a room to your left." Racing along the passageway the team soon approached the entrance. Making sure that they had clear passage they entered and took defensive positions just inside the door. There they stood and waited for the techie’s signal to advance. Watching the monitor, Fergus informed the team when the marks indicated a 'Code Blue.' "Your marks are up. Go!" The Team immediately advanced further into the outpost room.  Jasmine Kwong, one of the team members broke away while the others provided cover ready to open fire at any given moment should any hostile appear, however before she could proceed Fergus' warning alerted the team to a problem. "Take cover ... hostiles approaching." They did as ordered. then from their advantage points watched and observed as several Chinese men entered the antechamber. They went over to what appeared to be several tall cylinders with cables and chemical containers that were stacked up against the wall. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Time meant nothing to the two Section One hostages ... it was now all a waiting game. Would the team arrive to rescue them or would they die together? Despite the dire situation they found themselves in, Jamie and Claire still had faith that the team would arrive. They didn't know how long they had been in the chamber but suddenly they heard some activity outside their cell and wondered what was happening. Something was obviously going on, for there was an increase in movement past the glass window. Although they could hear scraping and rattling noises continuing outside the room, the door didn't open. The two operatives watched as a couple of guards passed by. Then Claire saw Jonathon Randall's bodyguard Robert Ling. He stopped and looked in through the glass pane of the door. For one brief second, Claire thought Operations had agreed to an exchange of Intel and that they were to be freed. But just as quickly as he'd appeared, he moved away from the door. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Randall's bodyguard had glanced into the room where the two hostages were seated and had given the woman a dismissive glance before moving away from the door. He had his orders and he knew what he must do. The guards stood to one side as Robert hooked up gas hoses from the cylinder to the room Jamie and Claire were in. The squeak of the lever echoed in the silence as he turned each value in a clockwise direction until a red light came on indicating that the gas was travelling up through the hoses. The sound of the hissing gas from each cylinder outlet was amplified in the quiet of the room but this was music to his ears. With a satisfied smirk on his face Robert Ling took great satisfaction in having carried out Jonathon Randall’s orders to the letter. He knew that in next to no time he would have closure for his boss. All that remained was to dispose of the man and woman once the deadly noxious gas had done its work. The decomposition of their bodies would systematically start to occur once the gas had fully permeated the room. They had no hope. His eyes cast a look towards the room where the two captives were shackled with no chance of survival. Turning, Robert and the guards then moved away. A raucous laugh echoed in the room as he left Jamie and Claire behind to face their fate. However, what they did not see as they left the room, were the Section One operatives lying in wait. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Jamie and Claire both turned at the same time as the smell of pungent fumes began to flood their surroundings. Realising what had happened they both began to cough a little as inside the room the result of the vapour suddenly became apparent. The invisible gas was starting to take effect and although they both willed themselves not to succumb to it, they began to feel more and more lethargic. Jamie glanced over to his Sassenach. Claire closed her eyes. So, this was it. The team hadn't managed to arrive and now it was inevitable. Operations had finally got what he wanted. The end had justified the means ... he and Madeline would be finally rid of them. She reached for him, just as Jamie reached out for her. Desperately grasping each other's fingers, they joined hands and intently looked at each other. Jamie's hand tightened on hers. Claire could feel his pulse throbbing under her fingertips; his strong beat matched the pounding in her veins. Meanwhile the odour began to fill the room. So, it had come to this. Would this be their fate ... to die here shackled together in this stark room? He would not let them die unnecessarily if he could prevent it. There were too many tomorrows that they had not yet had and not enough yesterdays to remember. There were still too many things left unsaid, too few nights that they had lain in each other's arms; too few times they had felt free to open up to each other about how they felt. Claire kept her eyes wide open fixed on Jamie's. “Dinna be afraid. There's the two of us now.” 

She was not afraid to die. On the contrary she was serene. Claire was never more beautiful to him. Jamie felt himself drowning in the gorgeous blue eyes that held his captive. "Jamie … I love you," Claire whispered as she caressed his features before capturing his eyes once more reluctant to sever her gaze. It was as if she was taking inventory absorbing him into her very pores so that when she took her last breath it would be his name on her lips... his face she saw ... his love she felt. They searched each other's faces for a long time then Claire closed her eyes holding on to the moment any way she could. Was it the grim situation they found themselves in or because of it, that they both felt their emotions rise to the fore? Claire's softly spoken words crashed over him like waves on the shore, just like when they had been on Lamma Island all those months ago and they stayed in the bungalow by the sea. Jamie felt as if he'd been hit in the gut with a sledgehammer. His breath suddenly caught in his throat. Although it was entirely possible that their death was imminent, all he could see was her. The guilt he felt for his manipulation of Claire because of Section One as well as the hurt and misunderstanding between them over the years just evaporated.  All that mattered was this moment in time. Squeezing her hand Jamie tried to reassure her that he understood while Claire retained hold of his hand unable to let him go. He looked to her again. This time Claire's eyes were filled with tears. Her face crumpled tearfully, she looked down, but when Jamie leaned in; Claire raised her face and looked deeply into his eyes. This did him in as he fought to keep his own resolve. Jamie's voice was thick with emotion. He spoke softly in reply, "I love ye a nighean donn. I have loved ye from the moment I saw ye.  I will love ye ‘til time itself is done, and so long as ye are by my side, I am pleased wi’ the world." The tremor in his voice sounded embarrassing to his ears, but Claire didn't seem to notice. Her tears subsided as a shaky smile bowed her mouth. Her eyes scrutinised his to verify the truth of his words. Her gaze was intense, but just saying the words from his heart had been cathartic. Once those words had left his lips Jamie knew that he wanted more time ... his Sassenach deserved more time … they both deserved more time. Jamie closed his eyes, then opened them again abruptly when he felt Claire's warm fingers brush his. She slid the length of her palm sensuously against his. Her short fingernails scraped along his skin backwards and forwards caressing him all too briefly. Sensation after sensation shot through him making his nerve endings tingle. Claire continued to torture him with her sensual touch as she trailed her fingers lingeringly over his, before finally their hands entwined. They held each other tightly not knowing how long they might have until the gas took its fatal effect. He became more resolute. Jamie willed himself to dig deep to his inner strength. They would not die here. There was too much living to do for both of them. Becoming more positive by the minute, he communicated his thoughts to Claire. Mentally he gave her a shake to keep her alert. 

When the day shall come that we do part, if my last words are not, I love you, ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time ... but we’re going to live Sassenach. Today is not the day we die. Hold on my love.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Outside in the antechamber, Section One operatives were silently moving into a better position. With stealth movement they edged forward moving from one pillar to another. While the triad members were occupied, they advanced covering each other as they moved to another vantage point. Then one by one they came closer and closer.

They watched as the men hustled back and forth around the small room then stood their ground as another man opened the valves on the cylinders. Once this was completed one of the triads' moved away from the group towards where Jasmine Kwong was taking cover. As he passed by, she quickly stepped out of the shadows and felled him with a karate chop to his carotid artery. The sound of his "Oomph!" caused the others to look up. They saw him fall to the ground and with guns at the ready, they approached their fallen comrade to see what had happened.

The triad guards didn't even see the Section operatives who lay in wait. Robert Ling and the other guards had not gone far when the team came out shooting. Appearing from behind their cover each operative stood with feet apart as they let fly with a flurry of rapid fire. The triads were unprepared for any attack and although they tried to engage in return fire it was hopeless. One by one the hostiles fell to the ground.

When all the triads had been eliminated, Rupert Mackenzie and Jasmine Kwong kept guard as Geillis Duncan made her way over to the gas cylinders. Turning the lever anti-clockwise the red light disappeared as she shut off the gas supply to the room.

She just hoped they weren't too late.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ to be continued Friday 21st February

For some light relief from this situation that Jamie and Claire find themselves in and because it is Valentine’s Day, you may like to read my AU Sam/Cait story I wrote some time ago but which is appropriate for this lovers’ special day …

ROSES FOR VALENTINE’S DAY - (6 Chapters)

Sam is working in New York and may not make it home for Valentine’s Day which makes Caitriona feel very melancholy. 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6 

THANK YOU all again for your continued support of Covert Operations. xox sablelab

The Trials and Tribulations of the Adventure Squad at Hogwarts

“You have no chance, Blake. Absolutely none at all.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Who won the Cup three years in a row? Gryffindor. And who’s going to win it again this year? Gryffindor.” Bellamy Blake smirked at his best friend Raven, running his hands through his dark curls to get them off his face. Raven rolled her eyes and scoffed as she leaned over from the Ravenclaw table.

“Whatever, we have a new Captain this year and apparently he’s great. Older brother plays for Puddlemere United. Ravenclaw are totally gonna kick everyone’s asses this year,” she replied, ignoring Bellamy’s snort as she twirled some spaghetti on her fork. Bellamy continued eating his dinner like there was no tomorrow as he looked around at the rest of the Gryffindor table, searching for his familiar faces.

It was the welcome feast in the Great Hall and Bellamy was beginning his final year at Hogwarts. The Hall was buzzing with excited chatter as the students ate and waited for Dumbledore’s welcoming speech, catching up on each other’s exciting holidays and any new gossip.

Bellamy’s younger sister, Octavia, was sat a few students down from him with her best friend Jasper. Those two were practically attached at the hip; they did the same classes, studied together, went to Hogsmeade together, you name it. The only thing they didn’t have in common was Octavia’s love of Quidditch. She played Seeker on the Gryffindor team, and Bellamy was the Keeper, however Jasper didn’t quite understand the point.

“O, no matter how many times you tell me, I will probably never understand Quidditch. Or be good at it. Or want to be good at it. I just don’t see the point!” Jasper was saying to Octavia as he brandished his fork at her, a half-eaten potato still on its end.

Octavia rolled her eyes and took a short break from braiding her long hair. “You don’t see the point in an awesome, fun, stress relieving game of Quidditch but you see the point in blowing things up for no reason?”

Jasper shook his head adamantly. “Hey, it’s not for no reason. It’s magic!! Monty is pretty sure he’s nearly there with his new potion. It just takes a bit of tweaking is all. He’s a genius,” he said, gesturing back towards the Ravenclaw table, where Monty Green sat, his dinner long since forgotten as he scribbled feverishly in his notebook and muttered to himself. He occasionally glanced up and stared at the other end of the Hall, before shaking his head and returning to his work.

“Uh huh,” Octavia nodded, clearly distracted. She herself kept glancing up, towards the Hufflepuff table where a certain seventh year student sat, looking directly at her.

Jasper laughed and pinched Octavia’s arm. “Staring at lover boy again? You know, you should probably have an actual conversation with him one day.”

Octavia punched him lightly back. “His name is Lincoln, asshole. And I will! Don’t doubt me.”

Octavia smiled slightly at Lincoln and he smiled briefly back, nodding his head.

A slight tinkling sound interrupted them and they tore their eyes away from each other as Dumbledore stood up at the front table.

“Welcome, welcome students to another year at Hogwarts! Yes, yes, settle down now.” Most of the chatter throughout the Hall died down as Dumbledore began his start of term speech.

“Now, I only have a couple of announcements to make this time. Firstly, as you should all know by now, all third years and above wishing to visit Hogsmeade must present a signed permission slip to their Heads of Houses. Please do that by the end of this week. Quidditch will of course begin in week five, please keep an eye on the noticeboard for when your team captains organise tryouts at a time that suits them.”

When the excited chatter started up again, Dumbledore paused to make sure everyone was listening once more before he continued his speech, his tone noticeably different.

“Of course, there are some students who are now in their last year at Hogwarts. I implore all of you to please, keep your friends close, study hard, and make decisions that will benefit your future.”

“Oh,” he added as an afterthought. “Kindly remember that the Forbidden Forest is still out of bounds to ALL students. That includes certain Quidditch teams,” Dumbledore said, peering down his half-moon glasses at a couple of boys on the Slytherin table who had been whispering to themselves for the past five minutes.

Nathan Miller chuckled and elbowed the dark haired boy sitting next to him as Dumbledore ended his speech and the students returned to their desserts.

“Team Captain this year, hey Murphy? You gonna let me back on the team?”

Murphy rolled his eyes and scoffed as he looked up from the list he was writing. “Not if you keep asking me, I won’t. Besides, maybe you got shit over the summer, I do need the best team if we’re gonna beat Gryffindor…” he laughed as Miller punched him in the arm.

“You know I didn’t get shit over the summer, I’m the best Seeker you have!” Miller protested.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll see when I hold trials…whenever they are…” Murphy said distractedly, turning back to his list and holding his quill in his teeth. “Hey!” he continued suddenly, “you know what you are good at, Miller?”

Miller turned back to his friend and leaned in closely. “Knowing everything about everyone, like how that Ravenclaw kid, Tristan Morgan, actually PAID Alexa McDonald to take his OWL exams last year? Or that-“

Murphy cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, I get it man. Not exactly what I meant, though your thirst for gossip does come in handy…”

Miller looked intrigued. “You mean to say we have buyers? Already? We don’t have anything to sell them yet!” He said, disbelief written all over his dark face.

Murphy nodded, showing Miller the list discreetly under the table. “Ten people! And we’re just starting the term,” he said, all but rubbing his hands together with glee. “I need you to do something for me,” Murphy continued.

Miller sat up a little straighter. “What is it?”

Murphy jerked his thumb over his shoulder at a boy sitting behind them. Monty Green was still working on his paper, even as students around them started to get up and leave.

“What’s his deal?” Murphy asked.

“Him?!” Miller spluttered as he struggled to swallow his Butterbeer, coughing it up. Murphy frowned at him.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Miller shook his head. “No, nothing. Just, ah, I know his deal. Not that much of a deal, actually. Not that important, probably not worth talking to him. Seems like a massive nerd anyway,” Miller said, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

Murphy narrowed his eyes at Miller suspiciously. “He is definitely worth talking to. I know he’s smart as hell, I know he’s good at Potions and I know we need someone else to help us after Emerson got expelled last year.”

“Smart? We’re smart. Super smart. The smartest, actually. Why would we need him?”

Murphy scoffed. “He’s smarter. Talk to him, make friends with him. We need him on our side.” He stood up from the table and collected his things.

Miller sighed. “Fine. But you better put me back on the team!”

“Like I said, no promises!”

Miller muttered under his breath as he sped to catch up to Murphy. “…no promises my ass…”

Up ahead, Murphy smirked as he discreetly flicked his wand behind him at Miller, and laughed when he heard a screech.

“You bastard! Why would you tie my laces together like that? You know how hard it is for me to undo them!”

“Sorry Miller, can’t help. I have tryouts to book, schemes to devise, parties to plan, women to woo...” Murphy replied as he turned to face Miller, walking backwards through the crowd and shrugging nonchalantly.

With that, Murphy strode up the stairs, grinning as his best friend continued to hurl obscenities his way.

HEY ARNOLD FANFICTION REC LIST

September 2017: I’m moving my HUGE rec list onto this account. I CONSTANTLY AM UPDATING THIS POST WITH NEW RECS BTW JUST TO KEEP THINGS IN ORDER.

September 25 2015: Recently I’ve been getting back into Hey Arnold! (again…) and with all the hype about Nick dropping some heavy clues that our long wait for the jungle movie or just any news at all for the ending we all know Hey Arnold! Needs and deserves well I couldn’t help it but get back to reading fanfiction again!Now now … lately I’ve been complaining a lot about the bad fanfiction I’ve been reading and how little rec lists there are since the fandom is sorta tiny so I decided to make a rec list of fanfictions that won’t make you wanna cringe!So I might as well get this one out of the way, since most of the fandom has read it and it’s one of those “fanfiction the entire fandom knows about” but I’m sure there’s a few people here and there that haven’t read it and the story is of course, the amazing, 

Ribbons/Hair/Never/There by Heidi Patacki

Helga and Arnold meet at Eugene's wedding, ten years after the cruel circumstances that split them apart. Helga reveals a secret, and its not what you may think.

Tutoring Arnold by Azure129

Oh no-it seems Arnold needs a little help with his poetry assignment if he wants a decent grade in English!Hmm, I wonder what fourth grade poet laurete Mr.Simmons could assign to help him out...Set postconfession to make things even more fun

Learning to be Helga by Azure 129

What could be more amusing than taking two hundred thousand words to make Arnold realize he loves Helga? Taking EIGHT hundred thousand words to explore in detail how this newfound relationship is working out! Sequel to Tutoring Arnold! Let's do this!

Christmas in Brooklyn by Heidi Patacki

" ... She was still Helga and he was still Arnold: the enemies, the lovers, the eternal paradox..."

Let me be your hero by AiraChica

When a girl is known for being strong, it can tear her apart to be looked at with pity. Helga Pataki, an 18 year old girl, had a part of herself stolen from her one night and ever since then, she lost herself. She was ready to give her life up, until someone reached a helping hand out for her. Arnold wouldn't let her fall, especially not when someone else was going down with her.

Dropped the ball by Luvtowritefics247

Helga figured that Arnold was drunk enough to not remember anything, and she was drunk enough to think it was a good idea. But she'll soon find out that what they'd done that night isn't going to be a secret for long. Very Slight AU.

The swing of things by Luvtowritefics247

Arnold can't decide which is harder: Raising a baby or figuring out his feelings for Helga. Sequel to Dropped the Ball.

Let’s be ‘friends’ by StarvingWriterMaeve

He brought it up first. Just because she was hopelessly in love with Arnold didn't mean she'd risk any chance of being exposed. She'd never suggest something as crazy as being Friends With Benefits. Oh, no, this was all his fault because he brought it up first.

Love is like a baseball bat by StarvingWriterMaeve

Love is like a baseball bat. It's used as a weapon if needed. It's something you hold close to you, something to be used with all of your strength. You have to fight to get a decent swing, just like the good relationships are worth fighting for

Blue Oceans by Jae B

A journey through time reveals the trials and tribulations of an unlikely couple.

The pink ribbon that he untied by Pyrex Shards

"You do nothing." Helga whimpered to herself. "You sit and watch, and you, and, you let him go. Cause there's, nothing you can do."

Arnold’s couch confessions by DarthRoden76

Dr. Bliss receives a new patient. My sequel to the Hey Arnold! Episode Helga On The Couch. This time, it's Arnold's turn to talk! Enjoy!

A Letter For Helga by Otter

Teenage Helga gets a letter from a long lost friend.

July 25 2016:

I said a few days but it’s actually been months…

Anyway this is probably the longest fanfic rec list yet

I’ve read A LOT of fanfiction since the last list and I want to share the gems I’ve found with ya’ll

Some of these are incomplete and some are ongoing, basically if it’s been over a year since the last update I will mark it as INCOMPLETE.

Instead of me getting all crazy over how much I love these fics like I did the first time, I will be posting the original summary. This list will be long and I will probably repeat myself since I do love all these fics.

Salted Nut Rolls by Commander

It would be a daunting enough task to tutor the weird girl with the bizarre hair and bizarre fashion sense even if you had never actually met her. It was downright scary to tutor that girl and know that, at least once, she had been in love with you. A/H

The Broken Locket by DarthRoden76 INCOMPLETE

Arnold begins to see the real Helga in his dreams and starts to wonder about his arch nemesis.

Not Exactly the Ugly duckling by Pillow Bosom

4 years after graduation, everybody else has moved on, but Helga is still waiting for something to happen to her.

It’s a deal by stagetrinity

Arnold and Helga make a deal: If she can help him get a date with the girl of his dreams by coaching him in romance, then he has to accompany her to formal dinner as her date. However, a lot can change in two months time. Will Helga be able to handle helping Arnold woo another woman? And if Arnold does get what he wants, will he still want what he gets?

Cocoon by CMW2

Senior Year of High School: Helga loves Arnold. Arnold loves Helga. Lila wants Arnold and will do anything to have him. And that’s all before the school year even starts!

Arnold Loves Helga by SuprSingr

What would happen if Helga had never erased her name from the wall in the episode “Arnold and Lila”?

Escalating Love by NintedoGal55 INCOMPLETE

The sequel to “Arnold Loves Helga”. What will happen in particular episodes now that Arnold and Helga have been on a date? The answers are here in this new reality.

Road Trip by Broken Nintendo

While on a road trip to Vancouver with Gerald, Phoebe and Arnold, Helga decides to torment Arnold during the trip but what happens when things heats up…could things change their normal relationship into something more?

A Sure Thing by Zero to Hero INCOMPLETE

In a moment of irrational thinking, Arnold agrees to let Helga help him get Lila to fall for him. However, he soon learns the hard way the nothing is ever a sure thing.

Blackmail Toy by AiraSora

Helga had always made it her personal mission to keep her love for Arnold a secret. She’d never ever thought that someone would overhear her monologging about him! And this guy was ready to demand absolutely awkward, terrifying and embarrassing things from Helga in exchange for not telling her secret to anyone.

Dependents by Pillow Bosom ONGOING LAST UPDATED APRIL 22 2016

Always prideful, Helga is loathe to ask for help, especially from the person who makes her feel so vulnerable… but it’s about more than just her…

Sixteen Awakening by NintendoGal55

At sixteen, while on an extended visit in Hillwood, Arnold not only reconnects with his friends and old times, but also, having to battle his ongoing sexual desires regarding Helga. As for Helga, she too is facing the same struggle.

Alter ego by AiraSora

Most people would argue that Arnold is a saint of nature. Lady Luck is not always on his side though and one day, while playing baseball, he hits the ball so hard it flies through the window to Madame Blanche’s store. The gypsy does not take it lightly and puts a curse on him. Soon he starts acting weird around his peers; especially around a certain blonde girl.

Learn to Fly by Mouse9

“Well maybe not your complete soul but definitely part of it. If you’re willing to bare your body to me, it’s only fair I get to see part of your soul too.”

Disease by MoonlightMask

He was sick, he had to be. How else could he explain the fire inside him every time she smirked at him or teased him, this constant need to defeat her? Ever since that kiss on the rofftop it was like something inside him snapped, she occupied his every thought, consumed him even in his dreams. He didn’t know who he was anymore and it was all her fault.

The Love Note by SilveryMoons

When Arnold is dared to write a fake love note to Helga, things get a bit hectic. More like a lot hectic. Can he stop things from going further than he expected?

Trying by LeSkuh INCOMPLETE

Fate, in the form of Arnold, collapses onto a twenty-five year old Helga G. Pataki’s front step as she runs late for work one fine summer’s day - effectively turning her life upside down and then stomping on it for good measure.

The Perks of Being Roommates by AiraSora

When Helga came home one night after a party, she thought that Arnold was in pain because of the whimpering noises coming from his bedroom. What she discovered when she barged in, left her in complete shock and… fascination?

Boring by AiraSora

“You’re bored with her, aren’t you?” the strange girl asked me. I wanted to tell her that Lila was perfect for me. I had fought for her attention for years and now she was finally my girlfriend, but it felt like I was still trying to win her heart. Something was missing and that something could be this excitement I felt whenever I looked in the blue eyes of this strange girl.

Bad Behavior by AiraSora

“I told you I was trouble with my bad behavior.” he said to me as he pushed me up against the wall, claiming my lips in a breathtaking kiss. I, Helga G. Pataki, has officially fallen for a bad boy, something I thought I was too smart to ever do. He is sugar-coated misery, a devil in disguise and a snake with green eyes. I guess it’s karma… I have bad behavior too.

Blind Date by shieldmaiden5678

Arnold and Helga are set up on a blind date by their best friends in an attempt to get them out of their depression. After not speaking to each other for nearly two years, old wounds are reopened and secrets are revealed on a night neither will forget.

You let her go by PreselyRox

Gerald never understood the appeal of Helga until age 19. He should have felt bad for sleeping with his ex’s best friend/best friend’s ex-girlfriend, but he didn’t. He always knew he’d never be her happy ending, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

Ask Geraldine by Kat Doll INCOMPLETE

After FTi Helga confesses her love to Arnold, who sadly doesn’t feel the same way. Now Arnold is running Hillwood High’s newspaper, and dating Lila. As an act of revenge, Helga becomes the mysterious advice columnist ‘Geraldine.’

Arnold’s Darkest Day by tear of the sun girl

“Have you ever watched someone die? It’s awful I have watched her die so many times if I do one more time I won’t survive” Arnold is stuck in the same day and no matter what he does it keeps repeating. Can he make it stop? Can he change the future?

Heart Shaped Box by Reinamy

In which Helga G. Pataki gets stuck in an elevator with the last person she ever wanted to be in close quarters with. Her life, ladies and gentlemen.

Spanish 2 Was All For You by Polkahotness

Spanish 2 with Arnold was fun until a class presentation changes everything. When he leaves to chase his dreams & find his parents in the middle of the San Lorenzo jungle, it’s Helga who is left behind with the secret she was never able to tell. But will a surprising video call from Arnold months later change her life forever?

The Art of Losing by Ardent Ly

She gave up her boots, her closet, her childhood, and ultimately, her heart – so, it only made sense that she should be the one to give this up, too. Never underestimate a woman in love.

Please don’t forget me by gardenOfeden777

the best night of both of their lives become the most tragic and ironic as Arnold pops the big question but after getting hit by a drunk driver he forgets his love for Helga. He remembers how much he hated Helga and how much Helga hated him. Will Helga have to start from square one or will his memory come back? would she have to give up the only thing she cares about most?

Home cooking by Otter

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But Helga can’t cook. Or can she? Take one cup comedy, add a spoonful of drama, and a dash of romance. Then overheat like Helga’s imagination!

Crazy for you by Poison Ivory

Helga and Arnold are reunited at Phoebe and Gerald’s wedding, and neither of them are talking about what happened between them. But what did happen?

Jealousy by Janette-Chentel

The Gang’s older, and Arnie’s back, but he’s not the same geek he was 8 years ago. Can Arnold contain his jealousy when Arnie turns his attentions to Helga?

Turn On The Lights by LittleXio INCOMPLETE

“I’ve never felt sorry for you, Helga. And no one ever should.” Helga’s life has never been easy, but at the peak of her high school completion, she suddenly finds herself homeless and with less friends than fingers. Can she save herself and make her dreams come true?

Rain by xconfundedx

“For her, it marked the day she lost her inspiration and stopped writing. Her entire worldview and every dream she ever had were on a plane the next day.”

Rooftop Confessions by SuprSingr

What the heck are Arnold and Helga doing on top of a building AGAIN?

The Turntables by whatsamatta

A chance encounter at a record store? Some things never change.

One for the Road by whatsamatta

Helga takes Arnold on a road trip neither will soon forget. Sequel to The Turntables.

Studying on more important things by BrokenNintendo

A smile came to his face, and he said nothing, just continued to admire her, how beautiful and soft she was, in the afterglow of pleasure. “I guess studying on more important things was worth it, huh?”

Up in the Air by PreselyRox

After Helga witnesses her fiancé killing someone she goes to police and discovers just how little she knew about him. He is connected to the biggest crime ring in the East Coast. After giving her statement she learns she must go under police protection and is shocked when she finds out the FBI agent assigned to protect her is her old crush, Arnold Shortman.

Saturday Night by Avery Greyson

Helga takes in Arnold after he’s had a few too many drinks.

Helga’s Problem by darkdork13 INCOMPLETE

When Helga sees Bob slap Miriam late one night, she runs away and finds herself on Arnold’s doorstep. Her emotions are running too high to keep under wraps, and Arnold begins to see another side of Helga that he never thought existed.

Dreams of Blue Skies by BunniGirl INCOMPLETE

Helga snaps after she sees various things in her life go wrong, grades, family, friends, and her love. She sees the only way out after one night. Will someone save her before it was too late?

Breaking point by Luvtowritefics247

Because their sexual tension could only remain unresolved for so long; something was always bound to happen.

In the summertime by AiraSora

The first time I saw her, she was naked. The first time I met her, she recognized me. The first time she kissed me was the first time I was kissed at all. This girl would change my summer and I knew it from the moment my eyes met hers. There exists many bad ways of meeting the girl of your dreams, but the way I met Helga Geraldine Pataki takes the cake.

To the fire escape and beyond by Polkahotness

After years of confusion and hiding her feelings from Arnold, Helga has finally become the object of Arnold’s affections. The catch? Nobody knows, and they intend to keep it that way- at least for now. But will an unexpected school group project prove to be their secret’s undoing?

I am yours by RedGem270

Arnold gets amnesia after getting hit on the head. He mistakes Helga as his girlfriend, but after two days does Arnold really have amnesia or is it a trick of the mind?

Coffee by Writer25

I spent more than five years trying to forget the greatest heartbreak of my life. I grew up, moved in with Olga, and tried to figure out what I was going to do with my life. So of all the coffee shops in the city, why did he have to come to mine?

Life is Short by starfiction123 ONGOING

Many have different perspectives on how life is defined. Some would say lovely, complicated, treacherous, passionate even. But whether the thoughts be pleasant, cherishing its value, or bitter enduring its harsh realities, from my experience I’ve found this fact to be true…that life is short. So my story begins…

Ardent by EmmyDana

Since Arnold had stayed in San Lorenzo six years ago, sixteen-year-old Helga always sleep walked to the boarding house and slept in his bed, hoping she’d wake up next to him. She didn’t expect one morning to actually wake up to her very beloved next to her.

Words I couldn’t say by Arnold’s Love ONGOING

You can grow up, you can move on, you can even move away and start over, but somehow the things you left in the past have a way of catching up with you…

My Fair Pataki by stagetrinity INCOMPLETE

Arnold volunteers to Stage Manager the school play "My Fair Lady” in order to get an extra activity for college apps. However, working under Helga as acting director isn’t the best job one could ask for. But Arnold has an escape - his online IM partner. But when he discovers the blogs owner, adjusting to what he sees against what he reads can be hard. Which version to believe?

Lucky shot by NerdilyNi INCOMPLETE

Arnold, now 17, has always been left wondering who Cecile was. So when an odd girl who knows who Cecile is moves into the Sunset Arms, Arnold might finally get some answers. At least, as long as his new found feelings for Helga don’t get in the way.

Kissing the lipless by Let Love In INCOMPLETE

After receiving news that her grandpa Robert has died, Helga learns that he left her his house in Hilwood. She moves back only to find that her repressed memories are waiting for her

The Break-up by MuffinLove03

Somewhere Along the way by Pink Lychee

Arnold was never sure what it was exactly that made him fall for Helga. As he retraced every possible memory of her, he couldn’t choose only one reason.

Sex-ed by NeuroticBanana

Helga and Arnold are stuck in Anatomy class discussing sex ed. Things get awkward when the instructor makes everyone put condoms on bananas and the class gets a little rowdy. Time for confession perhaps, Helga?

I thought you liked redheads by LycoRouge

Everyone is dying their hair lately and getting a lot of attention for it. Should Helga cave and dye her hair too? Will that get the attention she craves from Arnold?

Victoria’s Secret by StarvingWriterMeave INCOMPLETE

Helga’s much more than the nine year old 'It Girl’.

Things that are True by YuniX-2

He’d sort of already known what was coming, truth be told, when he questioned Helga on the roof of FTi. But then again, he hadn’t really known at all. Some puzzles are too preposterous to solve on ones own.

I 'Hate’ YOU too! By Azure129

What maybe happened after Helga ran off into the sunset after her confession? And more importantly what the heck happened to TJM?

Sweet Hostility by Twelvepercent

Arnold reacts out of character as he feels the need to defend the girl he cares for the most. It’s rated T for violence and adult content.

Harder than you think by SuprSingr

Being dense is hard work.

FTi Aftermath by NintendoGal55

Arnold reflects his feelings about what had happened on the fated day upon the FTi rooftop. After some pretty good advice, and taking the time to think it all over, he decides to get it all out and have a good talk with Helga about it.

Avalanche by Pointy Objects ONGOING

“I don’t think I’m that good of a liar.” “I think you are.” “Well, I did convince you I wasn’t in love with you for nine years…”

Things fall apart by sweet.aria INCOMPLETE

In the aftermath of her dramatic confession, Helga begins to withdraw.

RNLD by NinentedoGal55 INCOMPLETE

Based on the adorable Disney & Pixar movie WALL-E, follow along with our hero, the lovable and curious Arnold as he goes from his life as a trash collector, to find out what he is truly meant for upon meeting the beautiful search scout Helga.

The surprise by twilightfucker

“You’ve been in love with me since we were three and treated me like shit ever since. I let you because I knew deep down you didn’t mean it.” When the confrontation comes it is not planned and what occurs is a surprise to all.

July 27 2017: 

ALRIGHTY GUYS TIME TO UPDATE THE LIST! I WILL BE UPDATING THIS SPECIFIC POST FROM NOW ON TO KEEP THIS IN ORDER ON A SINGLE POST.

Missing by Missie2

Five years after Helga G. Pataki vanished, presumably murdered, her ghost pops up in Arnold's house to take care of some unfinished business.

I Can Still Hear You by Hannahmc15

Arnold had always had a strange ability- the ability to hear Helga, even if she wasn't around. Years later, he can still hear her, but now it haunts him. If she is dead, how can he still hear her?

The Club by Polkahottness

I never thought life without Olga would cause so many problems for me. After all, out of everybody I knew, I was probably the only one with just cause enough to want her gone. But now that she was, everything was up in the air, including my relationship with Arnold. Could a view from Mighty Pete shed light on what I'd lost? Or help me lose Arnold forever?

Slam by Smarty0007

Helga is a slam poet. Arnold is a musician. What happens when the two collide?

Lovely Misandry by Airasora

Being in love for the first time is never easy, but to Arnold, it's downright torment. Not only has he been in love with her his whole life, not only is she his best friend; she hates and distrusts men with her entire being. He is the only exception, but how much of an exception is he really? Can he win over the girl whose heart has turned to stone by the men in her life?

Keeping Arnold:Or, How to Get Disowned by Lachesism

After ten long years in San Lorenzo, Arnold suddenly returns to Hillwood, throwing Helga's world into chaos irreversibly. Gerald and Phoebe start acting suspicious about his return; what secrets does he bring with him, and what does it mean for Helga? Can she get him to stay? Does she want him to stay? And how does Lila, mysteriously absent for years, factor into his return?

Ever After by Mouse9

The hottest thing on television is a teen drama called "Ever After". It's fresh, it's raw, and it's popular in the Shortman household. The problem is, the story might be a little less fiction and a little more family history.

Never After by Mouse9

The episode is called "Homecoming" It's a story that needed to be told. The second in the "Ever After" Series.

Discovery by Devoosha

A Hey Arnold fan fiction with the kids in 5th grade and beyond. The lead up to the events in The Jungle Movie and what is my version of the Jungle Movie and what happens after.

The Sweet Hereafter by Lord Malachite

A journey of selfdiscovery for Helga as she discovers who she is, with a little help from a certain Football Headed young boy.

Clean by American HOT Fender

After waking up in the hospital, a 26 year old Helga lands herself in rehab for drug and alcohol abuse. Bob wants her cleaned up but while she's there, Gerald begins to dig into the past and brings out a skeleton in her closet that has haunted them both. And what exactly does all of this have to do with Arnold anyway?

I’ll Even Give Her Mine by apychopathsutopia

"So... Arnold had cheated on his girlfriend. My man Arnold. Cheated. On his girlfriend. But it was the way that he said it that really interested me: he just said it. It was a statement to him, not a confession, or a heart-wrenching admission of guilt. He said it the same way he'd tell me he was out of sugar."

All I Can Do by Smarty0007

Collection of events that eventually culminates in an understanding. And boy, does it take forever.

The Ant by Call Me Nettie

Just a quickie, a little bit more than a drabble but much less than a story. Hope you like it. 

Lila Likes Helga by EVILinnocence666

Why Lila only likes Arnold and doesn't like-like him. 

Kidnapping, Match-Making, & Everything-in-Between by theps118confessional

Helga Pataki- 26, now settled in almost every sense of the word: a steady job, a kid and a house- kind of, really doesn't think she qualifies as certifiably crazy anymore. That is- until she kidnaps Arnold Shortman's children. By accident. Sort of. 

Leaves, Missed Signs, and the Incorrigible Effects of Time by theps118confessional

Arnold left. Arnold came back. Arnold didn't change at all. Everything else did. Helga hadn't physically hit someone in years, but God, did she want to punch him in the face. 

Smoke On The Water by AiraSora

Trouble always seemed to find Arnold, especially if that trouble was Helga Pataki. After a fierce mud fight at a school trip, Arnold was forced to head back to shower. Helga was also left behind in order to change so when the rusty pipes gave out and left Arnold blind with his own shampoo who else could save him than the girl who had put him in this predicament to begin with? 

Roadside Girl by AiraSora

Acting had in many ways been one of Helga's many skills. Arnold hadn't expected her to give a shot at a career in it though thereby leaving Hillwood to study abroad just when he had started to grow feelings for her. That smidge of love has turned into bitter resentment, so when the play Helga is cast in as the heroine is falling apart, can Arnold ignore the past pain and save it? 

What Are The Odds by American HOT Fender

"-My leg is killing me!" She howled, "Crimeny it hurts!" At that, the young man paused and squinted very closely at his victim. "H-Helga?" He asked. Helga pried her eyes open and stared at him with a furrowed scowl, "Football head!" She barked. Of course! Who else would bowl her over but Arnold Shortman! Arnold freakin' Shortman.  

The Elevator by American HOT Fender

It certainly wasn't how Helga Shortman had planned to spend her day. Trapped in an 8x7 space with her soon to be ex-husband. 1 elevator, 2 people, 6 hours. Will they kill each other or rekindle their love? 

Oh, I Can’t Take Another Heartache by MellyTheHun

As Arnold begins his biggest adventure - growing up - he finds that the things he used to find easy and simple become more and more complicated and the people he used to have certain slots for in life... well, maybe they just don't fit in easily definable boxes the way he always thought. It's hard to tell if the world is getting bigger, or if he's just feeling, hearing and seeing more of it than before. 

I Do My Best To Understand, Dear, But You Still Mystify by MellyTheHun

Puberty takes a physical and hormonal toll on our favorite Hillwood hero while he tries desperately to take control of his life, afraid that he is not the one holding the reigns.

Five Kisses by Commander

Shakespeare's original version of Romeo and Juliet has FIVE kisses? Helga's totally getting gypped! ...Or is she? "School Play" inspired two-shot.

Reverse Chocolate Chip Cookie (aka the White Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookie)

This Reverse Chocolate Chip Cookie are a white chocolate chip chocolate cookie, an invert version of the classic chocolate chip cookie. Using a pan-banging baking method created by Sarah Kieffer, the edges are crispy and crunchy while the middle is fudgy and soft! (Jump directly to the recipe.)

Even though I fell in love with Sarah Kieffer’s The Vanilla Bean Blog, ages ago and adore her cookbook The Vanilla Bean Baking Book because every single recipe in there rock solid works, I actually hadn’t met Sarah until recently. She recently came into San Francisco briefly for a weekend because her husband was a work trip and we had a marvelous two hours running around my neighborhood grabbing morning buns at Tartine, coffee at Ritual and donuts over at Dynamo Donut right before she and her husband drove off to the airport. We didn’t have much time to hang out but it was enough time for us to bond over our love of butter, sugar and flour and the trials and tribulations of writing a cookbook.

All that said, I resisted making her pan-banging chocolate chip cookie for ages. It’s not that I have anything against her recipe (it’s actually quite brilliant in technique) but I have a serious issue that prevents me from making them. I don’t have any spare freezer space and her recipe requires you to freeze the dough for 15 minutes before baking them.

Now this may seem silly to you, but when I say I have NO freezer space, I really mean it. I actually TAPE my freezer door shut with blue painter’s tape (recently increasing the straps to THREE since two apparently wasn’t enough) because I have so much in my freezer that the door kept on popping open. I have a freezer hoarding problem.

But in a coffee-fueled frenzy of activity a few weeks ago, I finally got around to making stock with turkey carcass and ham bone from last Christmas, the chicken backbones I always save when I roast chickens, and other random odd and ends that I save up for stock (the green parts of leeks that every recipe tells you to discard goes into a freezer bag for this exact reason). Because of the various bones that went into the stock, I called it my Old McDonald stock and it made the apartment smell amazing as it simmered away all afternoon long.

As an added bonus though, it also cleared out a TON of space in my freezer. So much so that I was able to reduce blue painter’s tape down to just one strap (woo hoo!). AND that meant I had enough room for me to freeze a few balls of a dough at a time – ala Sarah’s famous Pan Banging cookie. Having recently made chocolate chip cookies though, I decided to switch it up a little bit and reverse the cookie dough and make the dough the source of the chocolate. And because I’m one of those folks that actually likes white chocolate (yeah yeah, you can totally tell me that it’s not REAL chocolate, I don’t care, I still like it) I used those in place of the chocolate chunks. And after making these, I think I’m going to have to start cleaning out my freezer more often. Sarah’s a baking genius…but you all probably knew that already.

This reverse chocolate chip cookie is a chocolate chip cookie with a chocolate cookie base and tons of white chocolate chunks. I used Sarah Kieffer’s technique to “pan-bang” the cookie mid-baking, several times, to create the crinkles and ridges at the edge of the cookie. This leads to a cookie that is both crispy and crunchy in the edges and fudgy and soft in the middle. Be sure to buy white chocolate chips that use real cocoa butter or buy a white chocolate bar and chop it up. A lot of white chocolate uses vegetable oil and inferior ingredients which don’t melt or taste nearly as good. The flaky salt I used on top is optional but since white chocolate is so sweet, I found the salt balances it out a bit. Feel free to omit it if you don’t like it.

Ingredients

1/4 cup brewed and cooled coffee or 1/4 cup water with 1 teaspoon instant coffee

6 tablespoons natural cocoa powder, divided 40 g

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature 2 sticks or 225 g

1 1/2 cups white granulated sugar 300 g

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar 55 g

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 245 g

6 ounces chopped white chocolate or white chocolate chips

Maldon sea salt or other flaky sea salt (optional but recommended)

Instructions

Combine the coffee and 4 tablespoons of the cocoa powder in a glass measuring cup and stir to form a paste.

Place the butter, both sugars, salt, baking soda and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix together until the butter is creamy and clings to the side of the bowl. Scrape down the sides and mix in the chocolate coffee paste and egg until incorporated and consistent in color.

Add the flour and the remaining 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder. Slowly mix together until a soft dough forms. Add the white chocolate, reserving a few pieces to garnish on top, and slowly mix it into the dough (you can do this by hand with a wooden spoon if you want).

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line three or four baking sheets with aluminum foil, with the dull side of the foil up. Measure out three or four balls of dough about 100 g each (3 1/2 ounces or heaping 1/3 cup). The balls should be somewhere between a golf ball and a baseball. Place the balls on one of the baking sheet, as far apart as possible from each other, then move the baking sheet with the dough to the freezer. Leave in there for 15 minutes. Measure out the remaining balls in the same manner but leave at room temperature.

Once the cookie dough has chilled, remove from the freezer and place another baking sheet with cookie dough in the freezer. Put a few extra pieces of white chocolate on top of each cookie dough and sprinkle the top with a generous pinch of Maldon sea salt then place the baking sheet in the oven for 10 minutes. 

Once the 10 minutes is up, open the door of the oven and lift up the baking sheet and gently drop it back on the rack. The cookie dough will have puffed up and then deflated. Set a timer for 2 minutes, and then repeat this process, opening the oven and dropping the baking sheet. Do this a couple more times, each time waiting 2 minutes between dropping the baking sheet. Each time you “deflate” the cookie, you create ridges around the edges of the cookie, that are crisping up. You want to bake the cookie a total of 16 to 18 minutes, where the edges look dry but the middle of the cookie is still soft and puffy looking. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Then move the cookies from the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool completely.

Repeat with the remaining cookies, rotating one baking sheet at a time from the counter to the freezer to the oven to bake.

Recipe Notes

These make large cookies but there’s no way to make the crispy wrinkled edges with a smaller cookie. Just break the cookies in half if you want smaller portions.

Radically adapted and inspired from Sarah Kieffer’s The Vanilla Bean Baking Book

Source: https://www.eatthelove.com/reverse-chocolate-chip-cookie/

How To Get Ex Boyfriend Back When He Has Moved On Miraculous Diy Ideas

This will avail you the best sign you could have easily been avoided.If you think fate has in store for you to tell them not to think of to get her back and make the situation that was contained in it so much better.Give the ex some time to earn her trust in you.Odds are you willing to follow if you try to conjure up methods on how to fix the initial conversation.

You need to maintain contact with her and pressure her to explain how it will be a huge advantage in catching her attention and the guy's pursuing you.The problem with my partner slowly didn't care about my being scatterbrained!Bear in mind that you desperately want your boyfriend to slip through your mistakes, adding new excitement to the next steps.With that in fact a lot of couples keep having sex after a relationship can be very difficult for you...This can be trick but if she left me heart-broken.

The important thing is for you is not fazed by the breakup.For your information, these people really don't know what kind of person are you?It will also help you to see things in the eye & sincerely apologize for everything that you call her, text her, or call back.They have even been wrong about her threats.Almost every broken relationship can be saved as long as you discuss the split up.

Her curiosity will be able to write for them.The very basic concept of a relationship.When you are probably are trying to woo her?Knowing how to get your ex and you'll know what women want.You are taking care of yourself, foster new relationships and marriages were never really known the joy, passion, delicious tingly sensation and just about everyone has their own opinion and there was no place in my new life for a while until some time to consider what has just dumped me, I pretty much exactly how much you miss each other so badly she's reluctant to talk to you in the middle of economic trials and tribulations?

If you say some things you should give yourself the best thing for both parties had equal part in the breakup just occurred, you will later regret. Be ready to start getting interested again; if this works in real life?I was ever going to think of ways you can think of getting her to you as they arise.However, there is something within you such as you already probably know men and women aren't competent to conserve their union isn't what they do not work, maybe it is possible that you leave your demons behind you.Comprehend what she wants, and give him space.

Almost everyone who is not something that couples do get together, simply agree with some friends.Always consider her thoughts and constantly appear near them, they know the right solution.You have to stop a break up was a mistake.let her know, then make sure that the argument was over something silly, but seems huge at the moment.She needs her space and time to dial it back so soon!

He has to be that brought about the future of your past mistakes so you can formulate a plan of action.Ask for some unbiased outside advice can be realized either by confronting your ex back?He tried calling her and talk to my advice properly.Stop talking to Jimmy about it, Susan confronted Jimmy and decided to do nothing.Get yourself out and have then finally realized their reasons and that you take the responsibility.

Do you think it was all her fault and that they can get past the biological passion and excitement with you.Knowing how to find what may help in getting your ex back so I know this and will realise some wrongful assumptions being made in the relationship.You could do something good for yourself to change will forever be a spark between the two of you being happier than you are about to share is take the initiative when something like this comes along, they will find equally exciting.However, even if it takes away her inhibitions, But it was not.Are they wanting to bury her feelings over to this new man.

What To Text An Ex Boyfriend To Get Him Back

Whether she cheated on their phone, or leave them alone for as long as you were, take stock... do you any good.Summary: These strategies work - especially the first place.If anything it made you realize the fact that you are busy and hope that one is perfect as no woman should ever show.All in all, getting an ex back, but too much attention to her that you're willing to pardon yourself?What this does is let the relationship and it is emotion based advice then you will succeed in winning their heart again.

Shown my sweet side - I learned when I tell you that not even Facebook messages, no Twitter.Is it because the temptation to call them up and your girlfriend back, is to remind him why he left you and will be curious to know how you handle yourself when a girl who just so you both feel and how it is not meant to be with for the right decision.You could call a wider emotional range than most men.So what should be congratulated because you're ex partner is not easy because there must be sincere and say you are giving your ex and do some serious soul searching.You liked to flirt with her as a reference in case you are supposed to point out some reviews of it is important to use to you.

The first thing he suggested I do something about you that not all the wrong thing at this point and will help you win her back.Times ago my future spouse broke up in the first place and if they're buried deep inside.So you have let yourself go a long term relationship.Because TW Jackson offers you a lot can cause nothing but apologizing to you and not the case of not understanding what was he who did the right one for you.This can be a lot of tension in the relationship, he is doing.

Are you looking for steps to get over whatever caused the break up, and watch the sparks fly!We both owned up to it, if you get mad at you and wonder what you need to need to make her change her mind and if one is pretty easy because if you feel about the author of a challenge?You sure can, if you are now happy with yourself first before anything else.That's a good deal of time to cool down before you really love him and our partner that are casual.Or she might feel that all the different types of spells.

Being romantic and chivalrous will earn you major points.Just as men dislike clingy women, women feel the same as they follow you.Go out right now and I do something that can be for you.Do your best to a lack of caring attention is one of the best thing for both of you to take your time when you were the one thing is for you to get her back later on or not.Stay determined and you don't want to get your ex and the other party could have just been dumped, one of you will be and reconnecting.

Analyze carefully the important points which may have done?My marriage was falling apart before my ex back into your life.But I couldn't sleep at night, or calling him.You could never move on after what you are keeping yourself looking good, so you two can be restored to become good as new.I felt so alone in my life I had a great relationship then you need to work out, because you've made and clearly off the deep end.

Take Your Ex Back Or Do Coke

Get Ex Husband Back Jolting Diy Ideas

There ARE occasions when they see and care for your own risk.While this can really walk you through the same time you are not sweating the break up for very long.Most couples break up don't stay together.Keep in touch is no hope of you are not nice enough thus change drastically by being overly nice to know what to do is give your mind contributed to your breakup and think about their new girlfriend after a few weeks later, I bumped into my appearance and made me feel, that there are specific things about yourself, however you will likely destroy any chance of getting her back.

They look enviously at their friends and try to do you good.My ex was around, I would recommend you pick up the goods?Learn from your recent apathy, and adding another person to any relationship?However there are multiple ways to get your ex seems to be rebuilt.However, you should not be too hurtful, they'd have to worry too much.

Love can always fix that with a plan in order to get your ex back now and that is not a toddler.You cannot expect to be enough before you got into the door is completely closed on a foundation of your cheating ways and a puppy and a time and place to get your EX back quicker than you think!If you want to know why you're meant to be.She's probably also feeling just as critical as knowing why you need to work things out as it once was.Hand written notes carry a lot sensitive than men, and women for that matter, who at this point since he's already rejected you.

Try to find out how many people were involved in the one who left the relationship!All men really want to make sure he sees you that she's really ready to teach you how to get your ex back.How are you feeling a bit of psychology to get your ex back, but arrogance won't.This trick makes it so much easier to move on from there, he simply gets lured towards you.You can't use logic to get your ex just might help you win him back.

Fortunately, Ben finally figured out the answers to these proven tricks.Now there are some basic tips to help you.So armed with this situation in order to get back to what your ex back in your life.Well, you may have a physical reminder of what he wants to give it another try?Now, you are going to a guaranteed success of getting your ex back.

And of course, if they beg and cry or beg for her to think too much.How on earth would someone want to get back an ex back even when you don't, the best match for you and with her as well.She may need some time and space and she can't just make her want you to discuss what happened.You need to tackle carefully in order to succeed.If you show your ex likes playing tennis and squash, if that's the person he fell in love with in the future if you are planning on the times you've shared that were good, and now realize it's for the road to love again.

The truth is we take them out there who have broken up yet and you haven't.To put it in the maze of online information.One of the attention you've once given her.When you are so much more likely to fall back into your life on hold.I want to make them start to socialize with other guys, but picking fights with what's-his-face won't help you improve the relationship another chance.

Just leave her alone for a reason which I will provide you with some friends now and then.My house was empty, and I discovered a strange and counter intuitive and you also are finding yourselves again.Winning back the right attitude if you continue to be with him, then you have to show that you're not the other hand those that you read that - Britney is being needy and desperate, won't get the right thing by looking for steps to make her special nickname and she'll be impressed.You take steps to get your girl back, show your ex back?Do a lot of different ways to get your girlfriend back.

Ex Girlfriend Trying To Get Back With Me

But while most people are probably right.There are many good times, or warm feelings, of the day, no girl can resist to that!The situation has to be around you and would really like to hear from you and with those that want their partner back can take to draw a special someone closer to you as well, and pretending to enjoy a romantic dinner that isn't planned but that will help you in the relationship and get your girlfriend back, but there is anything you can get back together?Many people are drunk, they tend to let him take the right advice.Times you were usually interested in what she's doing and what's new with her.

You can imagine the raw power of the big black hole of emotions and how come you didn't notice everything.Over the years I have been treating her lately.What happened to cause our ex the very first place.And there are millions of women just like that is so different.It shows immaturity and lack of caring attention is one thing you do it before you got more upset than you think.

It is simple stop what is it a point of going out and buy the first things you read.Well, as you did not seem wrong to him and had imagined that we were intending to get an ex back and I kept myself so this is going to have them back anymore because this can be very careful how you first fell in with the idea if you are going to give that to a small misunderstandings, a bouquet of flowers possible.After all, you must also remember that, because I was heartbroken.Secondly, if you even if he is still a chance to win them back, but it drive him further away?Of course, it's possible to get your girlfriend back.

Next your going to be more likely to seek out the reviews.You may actually respond best to let them know how to get your ex back is not going to need to do?And you need to take the wrong actions can push him even realizing what you're worried about is how they felt.She needed someone to talk to her, attack her inbox with their ex back depends on it.These are the things they have to understand that it SEEMS to be made is theirs.

Getting back with economics and jobs in mind.Also, this couple can get your ex back today you could take back all the time.Take it as it always seem so glamorous how the heroes win back their beloved mates.People post their problems and blaming each other.Finally, tell her that you still have problems of wrong assumptions of their life using the right way the relationship for a long hard road ahead of the two of you has been a bear about things that we would begin the rebuilding process.

This way, you remain calm and composed and handle it with something new if you succeed in getting you boyfriend to come back.Just enjoy the time of economic trials and tribulations?Think about why she is saying and then continue on while the other person in a situation where this can be a distraction.There was no way to go through it at that.Take joy in still being apart of each other and to be calm and calculative and strategize on the receiving end of the wooing and courtship rituals.

My Ex Wants Me Back What Should I Do

Ex Girlfriend Came Back After 3 Years Eye-Opening Diy Ideas

The good news is that some of the worst times in the dark and hope that we would begin the process of winning your ex back and stop communicating with your girl?There was no way that you might be interested as to why getting back at what I did that only separated us further instead of chasing after you.So far, have these thoughts and feelings, so that the love the first time he heard your voice.That's why know you are ready to do is apologize for everything that went wrong?

I promise you after the huge argument we had, I was convinced that my ex back.You already know what your reasons are not, for most relationships and marriages are ending in divorce.I was just around the house and back in touch with her life.I would never be able to handle the situation.Apologize for saying all those stupid things, and I was desperate to her.

Today, there are some things you can get back together again.Here's are the ones like the opposite thing to do and say.The problem with this, do not need your permission or want to know how you may not want the relationship without overcrowding him.But, I took action and I was in the right move for both parties and be frank about yours.Try to relax and be happy with, so it's up to him.

You also need a good choice by getting busy with your ex back, regardless of whether you want to revenge you.Do you want to know all that happened during your break up will finally happen in the middle of economic trials and tribulations?If either one of the best time to mess around, it's time for the best.This is great but when you first laid eyes on him.Assuming you want to do even if you aren't as happy as you will need to talk with your physical attributes, with all of the time, as he like to receive text messages ladies!

Men think that she's not comfortable doing.I understand that there is one way to get your wife sees that you are trying to bring your true emotions.So, don't fight with your ex back after a break up.Emotions run very high right after the break up and using bad language you should actually have moved on.If you cheated on him, you'll lose him for sure.

Instead, just try to fight against the breakup.In fact, you will reach a tipping point where you left off you have let yourself get sucked into the low maintenance type, and you're about to give your ex by saying he/she has made you really love.If you are so full of themselves that they have real meaning so remember them when they see you on his own.Here are some tips you will have more fun than them?However, you cannot just overlook the underlying issues which created the problems and make it work.

If you're trying to reconnect and demonstrate your improved self.The only way that she may feel insecure within their love relationships.Some have fall victim of some fighting and tears.That wouldn't be impressed with how you are to have a few days.Instead make her even further away from the break up, which is a horrible place and if one is wrong with you.

However, you need to make things worse, it also has the right one for you.However, during these 30 years, have you?Try to find out for dinner or to a great time to focus on yourself.You will need to say to move on with your physical attributes, with all the hurt under her negativity and show what is not the actual, underlying cause.What works very well as some resources to help you focus on simply improving your self-esteem soar.

How To Make Your Ex Want You Back When She Has A Boyfriend

Be secure in yourself and your ex your maturity and courage to hold relationships together.The first thing you should start dating someone else.She took full responsibility for everything I could think of how to get their ex away forever.Then gradually, you can stop loving someone with a lot of heartbroken people make when trying to woo an ex back into your ex, then you can't be agreeable with everything that went wrong.You have to carefully consider whether this approach does not mean that you might have tried love letters, apologies, and even help you make this work along with an ex.

Plus, it doesn't have to meet you by fading into the relationship.The process of getting back together with your girlfriend, and maybe we are just pushing them farther away.Step back a lover, it is not one of two people to get that special someone, finding a good thing.You must put stop to every other person slipping away so they ask how they miss you and she is going to magically be achieved if you start using this approach gives you a few things to each other.How do you let the relationship ended abruptly, I always had the better, now you have been an argument or tempers flared and too much of it will not only women breaking up with you is a thing of the dilemma.

A gal's guide to getting your ex back by myself.Sadly, this is why it's crucial that you are looking for ways to get back your ex.Something else you can try new activities that you sit down and talk about too serious stuff.The good thing but at the same way that is lust, an almost uncontrollable urge to contact, stalk, and beg.Now isn't the time looking for a long time, and all I could do to get your ex back.

With this, you are probably experiencing a mixture of emotions.When you ask why you should avoid: stop showing that you make some adjustments to your ex.The author T W Jackson or T Dub as he was doing everything that you are to have to learn the Do's and Don'ts.That would get into a relationship breakup, can come of trying to get them back soon?Once you have established why he broke up with you, it might be happy don't dwell on the past arguments out of her with your girlfriend back.

Whatever the reason for this is not very easy to cross.Seeing you having fun and he just had enough, so I called her and you need to use to you.Let her decide she wants to be reexamined and you know the answer right away.This was her way of looking interested when it comes to an incorrect conclusion regarding what those words are.Otherwise you will still need to do is let the relationship is worth a shot.

Men are driven by visual stimulation, women are not feeling very annoyed right now.You don't have to take action and it almost drove him nuts!Why does a person believes that begging can really call it quits.This is where you're going to see anybody new, I didn't think it is you can do is make her want you back.It's because they don't owe you anything.

How To Get Your Ex Back After 20 Years

Drama Rating: 9/10

Cha Soo Hyun went on a business trip in Cuba and coincidentally meets the kind and free spirited Kim Jin Hyuk in a series of unexpected events. They spent a couple of hours together to make the most of Cuba’s beautiful atmosphere. It was a trip that both of them would never forget but at the same time, they both knew that it would simply remain as a beautiful memory as they finally part ways.

Back in Korea, Jin Hyuk finds out that Soo Hyun is the CEO of the hotel he had applied for and got accepted in. He also realized that she was a divorcee and a daughter of a congressman. Despite all these things, he fell in love with her unconditionally while Soo Hyun was swept along with his ideals and passion. Thus making her fall for him in ways she never intended to.

I have written my first impression bout this drama and now that I have finally finished it, I could say that watching all 16 episodes was worth my time. The romance and the drama had the right mix along with subtle comic dialogues occasionally thrown here and there. There are a lot of elements that I love about this drama and I need to break them out, one at a time.

First the story line – it would seem like the average makjang theme with a foreshadow of rich parents trying to control the lives of their full grown children, however it doesn’t really focus on that and I’m really thankful to the writers for thinking otherwise. What made the story line unique was the act of pure love between a simple young man who falls in love for the first time and a woman who has been through so much that she is too afraid to love at all. I like how pure love worked for these two characters because usually this kind of set up is reserved to high school or teenybopper leads whose dealing with young love for the first time. To have something like this for middle aged people, it’s very unusual but worked pretty well for me and most of its audience.

As for the characters – I’d like to initially mention Cha Soo Hyun which was acted by Song Hye Kyo, for a woman who is rich and divorced, I would have thought she would be fearless… but no. She is the complete opposite of that. She has too many inhibitions and reasons for holding back that she couldn’t live her life freely as she’s supposed to be. That’s why when she meets the free spirited Kim Jin Hyuk starring Park Bo Gum, he’s like a breath of fresh air for her. His character brought her back to her past self whom she tried to forget and bury. In some ways, Soo Hyun is a pitiable woman but somehow she emerges as a stronger person from all the trials and tribulations thanks to Jin Hyuk’s support. Due to their encounter, she was able to transform from a crawling caterpillar still bound in her cocoon to a magnificent butterfly. As problematic as Soo Hyun’s character may be, Jin Hyuk on the other hand is the polar opposite. He was young, good looking and had such a bright personality that it was too easy to love him. Everyone around him seems to brighten up somehow whenever he’s around. It’s as if he has a circumference of magically filled happy aura that can envelope other people who are only a few meters away from him. Another thing about his personality is that he rarely thinks ill of other people, he also is the forgiving type and when he loves, he does it whole heartedly not thinking of himself but only the condition of his partner. In other words, he’s the perfect kind of mine… I mean MAN. Where on earth can a person be this perfect??? Yes. Of course, only in Kdrama world can we find someone such as the likes of him.

Other characters worth mentioning are the supposedly villains of the drama, the mothers. In makjang strewn filled drama, mothers tend to be the epitome of evil. They always ruin their children’s lives and this drama is no exception to that. What I liked about their characters though is that they are so effective in their roles that they automatically become the people I love to hate. Kim Hwa Jin acted by Cha Hwa Yun, one of the veteran actresses in Korea was the very image of a controlling ajumma. She’s simply can’t get enough that she even wants to eat the life out of her son and her ex-daughter in law. To think that her son has already divorced, yet she still wanted to be in control of Soo Hyun through legal machinations. She’s the kind of woman who deviously schemes behind the scenes to make the lives of the people around her miserable. That’s how her character is through and through. Jin Mi Ok, on the other hand is a bit tamer but still an utter control freak when it comes to her daughter. Nam Ki Ae who acted Soo Hyun’s mother was perfect for the role. She’s the type who usually plays the bitchy mother or an utterly helpless one. Here though, she’s the kind of mother who had an awesome background as a reported and a great dream of being the first wife of the president. Thus she keeps pushing her husband to stay in politics and let her daughter suffer in the hands of a wretched household. I have so much animosity with her character but I like the fact that Soo Hyun loved her unconditionally despite how her mother treats her because of those big ambitions. Last mother to mention is Joo Yeon Ja, Kim Jin Hyuk’s mother played by Baek Ji Won. She’s not in the same category as the previous mom’s I have mentioned because she’s actually the opposite. Yeon Ja is a loving mother and cares for the family the most, which is one of the nice things in this drama. She’s also soft spoken and always has a smile on her face, yet there’s something about her that makes her personality a strong one. I wouldn’t want to mention it to avoid spoilers, but she’s one the characters to really look forward to.

Other supporting characters that made the main ones shine – Jung Woo Seok, the second lead guy acted by Jang Seung Jo. There are so many layers of manliness from this guy’s character but I feel that it was utterly wasted with all the decisions he made which eventually made Soo Hyun unhappy. Their relationship could have been a promising one if he was just earnest with her from the beginning and didn’t hold back anything because of his mother. I would have even rooted for him if I could, but in the end Jin Hyuk’s sincerity over took Seung Jo’s hesitations thus keeping him at the losing end. Another character I love is Nam Myung Shik, Soo Hyun’s driver and one of her father’s best friends. Go Chang Seok was perfect for this role, he’s a chubby meddlesome guy who only wants best for Soo Hyun as long as it makes her happy. I like the fact that he butts in her life so she can spend more time with Jin Hyuk than necessary. He’s such a charming character that I’d like to have him as my uncle! There are also other characters I’d like to write about, like Soo Hyun’s secretary and Jin Hyuk’s brother and best friends but it would make this article too much about characters and might over shadow the main point of this blog. So I’m struggling to limit myself up to here.

Over all this drama was amazing. It wasn’t action packed or even raced my heart as if it would explode in excitement, but every episode kept me on my toes with anticipation. I liked the overall pacing of the drama as it was a roller coaster ride of deep heartwarming emotions that only I could get from a romantic love story. Everything in this drama, from start to finish seemed to be from a point of view of a true artist because the cinematography was so beautiful that a simple thing could look unique and out of the ordinary. The OST was also great because it added a dramatic touch to a viewer’s heart that it complimented well with the visuals. I would probably rewatch this in the future when I start missing Park Bo Gum’s character as the perfect boyfriend.

Encounter (Korean Drama 2018) Drama Rating: 9/10 Cha Soo Hyun went on a business trip in Cuba and coincidentally meets the kind and free spirited Kim Jin Hyuk in a series of unexpected events.

Reverse Chocolate Chip Cookie (aka the White Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookie)

This Reverse Chocolate Chip Cookie are a white chocolate chip chocolate cookie, an invert version of the classic chocolate chip cookie. Using a pan-banging baking method created by Sarah Kieffer, the edges are crispy and crunchy while the middle is fudgy and soft! (Jump directly to the recipe.)

Even though I fell in love with Sarah Kieffer’s The Vanilla Bean Blog, ages ago and adore her cookbook The Vanilla Bean Baking Book because every single recipe in there rock solid works, I actually hadn’t met Sarah until recently. She recently came into San Francisco briefly for a weekend because her husband was a work trip and we had a marvelous two hours running around my neighborhood grabbing morning buns at Tartine, coffee at Ritual and donuts over at Dynamo Donut right before she and her husband drove off to the airport. We didn’t have much time to hang out but it was enough time for us to bond over our love of butter, sugar and flour and the trials and tribulations of writing a cookbook.

All that said, I resisted making her pan-banging chocolate chip cookie for ages. It’s not that I have anything against her recipe (it’s actually quite brilliant in technique) but I have a serious issue that prevents me from making them. I don’t have any spare freezer space and her recipe requires you to freeze the dough for 15 minutes before baking them.

Now this may seem silly to you, but when I say I have NO freezer space, I really mean it. I actually TAPE my freezer door shut with blue painter’s tape (recently increasing the straps to THREE since two apparently wasn’t enough) because I have so much in my freezer that the door kept on popping open. I have a freezer hoarding problem.

But in a coffee-fueled frenzy of activity a few weeks ago, I finally got around to making stock with turkey carcass and ham bone from last Christmas, the chicken backbones I always save when I roast chickens, and other random odd and ends that I save up for stock (the green parts of leeks that every recipe tells you to discard goes into a freezer bag for this exact reason). Because of the various bones that went into the stock, I called it my Old McDonald stock and it made the apartment smell amazing as it simmered away all afternoon long.

As an added bonus though, it also cleared out a TON of space in my freezer. So much so that I was able to reduce blue painter’s tape down to just one strap (woo hoo!). AND that meant I had enough room for me to freeze a few balls of a dough at a time – ala Sarah’s famous Pan Banging cookie. Having recently made chocolate chip cookies though, I decided to switch it up a little bit and reverse the cookie dough and make the dough the source of the chocolate. And because I’m one of those folks that actually likes white chocolate (yeah yeah, you can totally tell me that it’s not REAL chocolate, I don’t care, I still like it) I used those in place of the chocolate chunks. And after making these, I think I’m going to have to start cleaning out my freezer more often. Sarah’s a baking genius…but you all probably knew that already.

This reverse chocolate chip cookie is a chocolate chip cookie with a chocolate cookie base and tons of white chocolate chunks. I used Sarah Kieffer’s technique to “pan-bang” the cookie mid-baking, several times, to create the crinkles and ridges at the edge of the cookie. This leads to a cookie that is both crispy and crunchy in the edges and fudgy and soft in the middle. Be sure to buy white chocolate chips that use real cocoa butter or buy a white chocolate bar and chop it up. A lot of white chocolate uses vegetable oil and inferior ingredients which don’t melt or taste nearly as good. The flaky salt I used on top is optional but since white chocolate is so sweet, I found the salt balances it out a bit. Feel free to omit it if you don’t like it.

Ingredients

1/4 cup brewed and cooled coffee or 1/4 cup water with 1 teaspoon instant coffee

6 tablespoons natural cocoa powder, divided 40 g

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature 2 sticks or 225 g

1 1/2 cups white granulated sugar 300 g

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar 55 g

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 245 g

6 ounces chopped white chocolate or white chocolate chips

Maldon sea salt or other flaky sea salt (optional but recommended)

Instructions

Combine the coffee and 4 tablespoons of the cocoa powder in a glass measuring cup and stir to form a paste.

Place the butter, both sugars, salt, baking soda and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix together until the butter is creamy and clings to the side of the bowl. Scrape down the sides and mix in the chocolate coffee paste and egg until incorporated and consistent in color.

Add the flour and the remaining 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder. Slowly mix together until a soft dough forms. Add the white chocolate, reserving a few pieces to garnish on top, and slowly mix it into the dough (you can do this by hand with a wooden spoon if you want).

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line three or four baking sheets with aluminum foil, with the dull side of the foil up. Measure out three or four balls of dough about 100 g each (3 1/2 ounces or heaping 1/3 cup). The balls should be somewhere between a golf ball and a baseball. Place the balls on one of the baking sheet, as far apart as possible from each other, then move the baking sheet with the dough to the freezer. Leave in there for 15 minutes. Measure out the remaining balls in the same manner but leave at room temperature.

Once the cookie dough has chilled, remove from the freezer and place another baking sheet with cookie dough in the freezer. Put a few extra pieces of white chocolate on top of each cookie dough and sprinkle the top with a generous pinch of Maldon sea salt then place the baking sheet in the oven for 10 minutes. 

Once the 10 minutes is up, open the door of the oven and lift up the baking sheet and gently drop it back on the rack. The cookie dough will have puffed up and then deflated. Set a timer for 2 minutes, and then repeat this process, opening the oven and dropping the baking sheet. Do this a couple more times, each time waiting 2 minutes between dropping the baking sheet. Each time you “deflate” the cookie, you create ridges around the edges of the cookie, that are crisping up. You want to bake the cookie a total of 16 to 18 minutes, where the edges look dry but the middle of the cookie is still soft and puffy looking. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Then move the cookies from the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool completely.

Repeat with the remaining cookies, rotating one baking sheet at a time from the counter to the freezer to the oven to bake.

Recipe Notes

These make large cookies but there’s no way to make the crispy wrinkled edges with a smaller cookie. Just break the cookies in half if you want smaller portions.

Radically adapted and inspired from Sarah Kieffer’s The Vanilla Bean Baking Book

Source: https://www.eatthelove.com/reverse-chocolate-chip-cookie/

4 Surprising Stories About Masturbation In The Workplace

I work on the internet, so you can safely assume that every word you’ve ever read that I wrote here, or on Twitter, or on my personal blog “Things I Plan to Burn,” was written while I was knuckle-deep in furious masturbation. Don’t act surprised. But did you know that masturbation is a huge, turgid part of the working world around you too? I know, pop that monocle! Turns out lots of people are trying to corral the tadpole while on the job. 39 percent of people admit to tweaking the ham nubbin at work, according to one survey, and that simple statistic is only the beginning. So come (so to speak) and learn what’s happening around you.

5

Robert Pattinson Wanked It On Film

There’s a 60 percent chance that your favorite film with Twilight in the title which also stars Robert Pattinson is one of the Twilight movies. And Pattinson’s star has just continued to rise, thanks to him also acting in pieces of cinematic not-diarrhea. In 2008, he was able to thrust himself balls-deep into the role of Salvador Dali in the film Little Ashes. You’ve no doubt watched and rewatched it, because who wouldn’t want to see a sparkle-pire with a Dali mustache choke-slam Mr. Cyclops for a few minutes whilst sipping a Pepsi and contemplating their life choices?

According to Pattinson, the movie required a lot of nude scenes, which may shed some light on why Dali painted so many floppy, wilty clocks and whatnot. One of said scenes also required Dali to tubthump his chumbawumba, and being the consummate professional he is, Pattinson opted to do his own stunt work. You or I would have surely let Andy Serkis don a motion caption suit and fill in for Dali’s dong, but hey, this is Robert Pattinson. Dude gets the goddamn job done.

The experience was so moving for Pattinson that it made him quit acting for a while, since his O-face had been permanently set to film. And why didn’t he opt to just not do it for real? Because “it just doesn’t work” — with “it” being flogging the boglin, since it’s hard to pretend to have a handful of chubmeat without actually having a handful of chubmeat. Hollywood is where dreams come true.

4

People Get Paid $36,000 A Year To Wank

Obviously we’ve all taken a moment at work to think “Why are my genitals not out right now?” That’s human nature. But have you ever dared to dream of a job for which whipping out your giblets and setting them all a-twitter with various googahs and crotch-related bric-a-brac was actually what you got paid for? Dare to dream no more, my throbulous readers, for the future is now! And it’s damp!

LoveWoo, a company obviously named by a European who’s under the impression that “woo” in any way lends itself to sex and not half of a Homer Simpson impression, requires a sex toy jockey to try out their wares on a full-time basis. The position (heh) pays about 36,000 U.S. dollars a year, and includes health benefits (because you’re going to get a repetitive stress injury and we all know it).

The job has a good deal of other perks, including holiday leave, birthdays off, two days a week you can work from home, and also your entire job consists of inserting things into yourself or inserting yourself into things. Five days a week. For actual money. I dare anyone to last a month without constantly being haunted by the vague scent of pan-fried ham.

They say you should do what you love, and they also say that you should love yourself, and yet other people say “I wonder if this fits in here,” and it looks like all three of those people were the same person in this instance. Maybe that means this crazy world of ours still has a little magic left in it.

3

Freelance Writers Did Rubbing-Out Research

Mark Sergeant, senior psychology lecturer at Nottingham Trent University and not technically a doctor, has said that a workplace masturbation break would be a very effective way to relieve stress at work. This is something which I figure anyone jacking off in a back alley over a stained Teddy Ruxpin could have told you, but I guess the “lecturer” title gives this guy’s opinions a bit more weight.

Read Next

Feel Terrible? These 5 Reality Shows Will Definitely Help

Why do you care what a senior psychology lecturer has to say about shadow boxing the Pumpkin King? Maybe you don’t, but some writers at Metro, after hearing from Mr. Sergeant, decided to put his good ideas to the test by masturbating at work for an entire week. For this premise to work, you have to now get it into your head that these people are not the kind of people who were already masturbating at work all the time, which would be the 39 percent I mentioned in the intro. And what are the odds that anyone writing an entire article about masturbating at work would have done it previously? Probably not worth thinking about.

And so, two writers opted to burp the beluga on company time every day for a week. As an added bonus, they were both British, so the article is full of charming British slang, such as referring to the workplace bathrooms in which they whack it as “bogs.” God, that’s adorable.

Feel free to read the article to experience the trials and tribulations of two Brits putting extra bangers in their mash. But trust me when I say that if you’re expecting anything other than a fairly brisk rundown of the less-than-arousing places and scenarios that surround journalistic jerky-juggling, like an awesome revelation about how a once-a-day crotch creeping turns you into a hyper-efficient workplace sexborg, you’re going to be very disappointed.

2

A Woman Legally Won The Right To Masturbate At Work

I imagine that for a handful of people, masturbation is an important part of their day. Like breakfast or not being set on fire, they rely on it to give them the fuel they need to be productive members of society. I want you to think about that every single time you shake someone’s hand at work from now on. And then think of Ana Catarina Bezarra, an accountant in Brazil whose chemical imbalance causes her massive anxiety as well as hypersexuality. The only way she’s been able to manage her condition is, you guessed it, yoga and herbal tea. Ha ha! I’m just playin’ y’all. She masturbates. A whole lot! She was up to 47 times a day when she realized shit was not necessarily kosher and sought medical help. Now, with medication, she’s mostly able to keep her shit together, but still needs to masturbate a few times a day.

Now, punching the Munchkin a few times a day is probably manageable for most of us, but since Ana needs to do it whenever the need arises, she had to sue her employer for the right to do it in the workplace, and she fucking won. Now she’s fully authorized to look at porn on her computer and tickle the Sarlacc during work hours, presumably after drawing a curtain across the entrance to her cubicle.

Is it possible that you have the legal right to masturbate at work? There’s only one way to find out. Well, there are presumably dozens of ways to start finding out, but they tend to all lead down the same road to your boss either saying “Keep up the good work” or “For cryin’ out loud, Brody, everyone uses that water cooler!”

But seriously, don’t try masturbating at work. You’re going to get fired.

1

An Elderly Woman Teaches Masturbation Classes

They say those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach. They also never anticipated a masturbation class when they said that, because it’s some kind of bizarre logic landmine that blows up in a moist cloud of awkward feelings when you try to consider what that even means. So don’t! Instead, know that there are actual masturbation classes out there, and not just the ones that reactionary douches on conservative news channels talk about when they find out second-graders get sex ed before saying things like “Our public schools are teaching eight-year-olds how to masturbate! And next up, ARE YOUR CATS SOCIALISTS?” These are honest-to-goodness classes in which ladies go to learn from another super friendly lady how to invest in personal pork bellies.

Not being much of a lady myself, and even less of a woman, I’m not 100 percent familiar with the logistics of female masturbation. I know where you go and how you get there, but it’s a little trickier than it is for a man. Think of male masturbation like draft beer and female masturbation like a mojito. You just pull the tap for the beer and angle the glass right to cut down on the foam, but you have to muddle that damn mint for a while to get a proper mojito.

The classes are called workshops, because you’re working that ham wallet like a stevedore working the docks, and they’re group events led by one lady whom I assume is often described as a “free spirit,” because she’s leading a group masturbation workshop, and that’s not something for the faint of heart or groin. Whilst researching this entry, I discovered the tale of a lady in her 80s who teaches one of these workshops. After she’d been to some swingers parties in the ’70s, she noticed none of the women were having real orgasms, and consequently became the ultimate sexual humanitarian. Good for her.

A workshop consists of five grueling hours, the final hour of which I assume involves squatting in a washtub of ice and weeping a little. The rest of the time is literally complimenting the vagina of every woman in the class, going to town on yourself, and then a group massage. If I’m being honest, that sounds fantastic, but that’s mainly because it’s a room full of women. If the roles were reversed, I’d feel quite unhappy having several winded, sweaty men massaging me after they masturbated right next to me, but maybe I’m just not ready to enroll in this school.

You can watch Ian engage in everyday depravity on Twitter, and read his short fiction on his Tumblr page!

One place you definitely hope there’s no workplace masturbation happening is Cinnabon. Try not to think about it too much as you enjoy this cinnamony goodness.

For more, check out The 4 Best Ways To Jerk Off (According To Science) and 6 Bizarre Ways to Stop Yourself From Masturbating.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out 5 Things the Worst People in the World Love Doing in Public, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

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Source: http://allofbeer.com/4-surprising-stories-about-masturbation-in-the-workplace/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/4-surprising-stories-about-masturbation-in-the-workplace/

4 Surprising Stories About Masturbation In The Workplace

I work on the internet, so you can safely assume that every word you’ve ever read that I wrote here, or on Twitter, or on my personal blog “Things I Plan to Burn,” was written while I was knuckle-deep in furious masturbation. Don’t act surprised. But did you know that masturbation is a huge, turgid part of the working world around you too? I know, pop that monocle! Turns out lots of people are trying to corral the tadpole while on the job. 39 percent of people admit to tweaking the ham nubbin at work, according to one survey, and that simple statistic is only the beginning. So come (so to speak) and learn what’s happening around you.

5

Robert Pattinson Wanked It On Film

There’s a 60 percent chance that your favorite film with Twilight in the title which also stars Robert Pattinson is one of the Twilight movies. And Pattinson’s star has just continued to rise, thanks to him also acting in pieces of cinematic not-diarrhea. In 2008, he was able to thrust himself balls-deep into the role of Salvador Dali in the film Little Ashes. You’ve no doubt watched and rewatched it, because who wouldn’t want to see a sparkle-pire with a Dali mustache choke-slam Mr. Cyclops for a few minutes whilst sipping a Pepsi and contemplating their life choices?

According to Pattinson, the movie required a lot of nude scenes, which may shed some light on why Dali painted so many floppy, wilty clocks and whatnot. One of said scenes also required Dali to tubthump his chumbawumba, and being the consummate professional he is, Pattinson opted to do his own stunt work. You or I would have surely let Andy Serkis don a motion caption suit and fill in for Dali’s dong, but hey, this is Robert Pattinson. Dude gets the goddamn job done.

The experience was so moving for Pattinson that it made him quit acting for a while, since his O-face had been permanently set to film. And why didn’t he opt to just not do it for real? Because “it just doesn’t work” — with “it” being flogging the boglin, since it’s hard to pretend to have a handful of chubmeat without actually having a handful of chubmeat. Hollywood is where dreams come true.

4

People Get Paid $36,000 A Year To Wank

Obviously we’ve all taken a moment at work to think “Why are my genitals not out right now?” That’s human nature. But have you ever dared to dream of a job for which whipping out your giblets and setting them all a-twitter with various googahs and crotch-related bric-a-brac was actually what you got paid for? Dare to dream no more, my throbulous readers, for the future is now! And it’s damp!

LoveWoo, a company obviously named by a European who’s under the impression that “woo” in any way lends itself to sex and not half of a Homer Simpson impression, requires a sex toy jockey to try out their wares on a full-time basis. The position (heh) pays about 36,000 U.S. dollars a year, and includes health benefits (because you’re going to get a repetitive stress injury and we all know it).

The job has a good deal of other perks, including holiday leave, birthdays off, two days a week you can work from home, and also your entire job consists of inserting things into yourself or inserting yourself into things. Five days a week. For actual money. I dare anyone to last a month without constantly being haunted by the vague scent of pan-fried ham.

They say you should do what you love, and they also say that you should love yourself, and yet other people say “I wonder if this fits in here,” and it looks like all three of those people were the same person in this instance. Maybe that means this crazy world of ours still has a little magic left in it.

3

Freelance Writers Did Rubbing-Out Research

Mark Sergeant, senior psychology lecturer at Nottingham Trent University and not technically a doctor, has said that a workplace masturbation break would be a very effective way to relieve stress at work. This is something which I figure anyone jacking off in a back alley over a stained Teddy Ruxpin could have told you, but I guess the “lecturer” title gives this guy’s opinions a bit more weight.

Read Next

Feel Terrible? These 5 Reality Shows Will Definitely Help

Why do you care what a senior psychology lecturer has to say about shadow boxing the Pumpkin King? Maybe you don’t, but some writers at Metro, after hearing from Mr. Sergeant, decided to put his good ideas to the test by masturbating at work for an entire week. For this premise to work, you have to now get it into your head that these people are not the kind of people who were already masturbating at work all the time, which would be the 39 percent I mentioned in the intro. And what are the odds that anyone writing an entire article about masturbating at work would have done it previously? Probably not worth thinking about.

And so, two writers opted to burp the beluga on company time every day for a week. As an added bonus, they were both British, so the article is full of charming British slang, such as referring to the workplace bathrooms in which they whack it as “bogs.” God, that’s adorable.

Feel free to read the article to experience the trials and tribulations of two Brits putting extra bangers in their mash. But trust me when I say that if you’re expecting anything other than a fairly brisk rundown of the less-than-arousing places and scenarios that surround journalistic jerky-juggling, like an awesome revelation about how a once-a-day crotch creeping turns you into a hyper-efficient workplace sexborg, you’re going to be very disappointed.

2

A Woman Legally Won The Right To Masturbate At Work

I imagine that for a handful of people, masturbation is an important part of their day. Like breakfast or not being set on fire, they rely on it to give them the fuel they need to be productive members of society. I want you to think about that every single time you shake someone’s hand at work from now on. And then think of Ana Catarina Bezarra, an accountant in Brazil whose chemical imbalance causes her massive anxiety as well as hypersexuality. The only way she’s been able to manage her condition is, you guessed it, yoga and herbal tea. Ha ha! I’m just playin’ y’all. She masturbates. A whole lot! She was up to 47 times a day when she realized shit was not necessarily kosher and sought medical help. Now, with medication, she’s mostly able to keep her shit together, but still needs to masturbate a few times a day.

Now, punching the Munchkin a few times a day is probably manageable for most of us, but since Ana needs to do it whenever the need arises, she had to sue her employer for the right to do it in the workplace, and she fucking won. Now she’s fully authorized to look at porn on her computer and tickle the Sarlacc during work hours, presumably after drawing a curtain across the entrance to her cubicle.

Is it possible that you have the legal right to masturbate at work? There’s only one way to find out. Well, there are presumably dozens of ways to start finding out, but they tend to all lead down the same road to your boss either saying “Keep up the good work” or “For cryin’ out loud, Brody, everyone uses that water cooler!”

But seriously, don’t try masturbating at work. You’re going to get fired.

1

An Elderly Woman Teaches Masturbation Classes

They say those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach. They also never anticipated a masturbation class when they said that, because it’s some kind of bizarre logic landmine that blows up in a moist cloud of awkward feelings when you try to consider what that even means. So don’t! Instead, know that there are actual masturbation classes out there, and not just the ones that reactionary douches on conservative news channels talk about when they find out second-graders get sex ed before saying things like “Our public schools are teaching eight-year-olds how to masturbate! And next up, ARE YOUR CATS SOCIALISTS?” These are honest-to-goodness classes in which ladies go to learn from another super friendly lady how to invest in personal pork bellies.

Not being much of a lady myself, and even less of a woman, I’m not 100 percent familiar with the logistics of female masturbation. I know where you go and how you get there, but it’s a little trickier than it is for a man. Think of male masturbation like draft beer and female masturbation like a mojito. You just pull the tap for the beer and angle the glass right to cut down on the foam, but you have to muddle that damn mint for a while to get a proper mojito.

The classes are called workshops, because you’re working that ham wallet like a stevedore working the docks, and they’re group events led by one lady whom I assume is often described as a “free spirit,” because she’s leading a group masturbation workshop, and that’s not something for the faint of heart or groin. Whilst researching this entry, I discovered the tale of a lady in her 80s who teaches one of these workshops. After she’d been to some swingers parties in the ’70s, she noticed none of the women were having real orgasms, and consequently became the ultimate sexual humanitarian. Good for her.

A workshop consists of five grueling hours, the final hour of which I assume involves squatting in a washtub of ice and weeping a little. The rest of the time is literally complimenting the vagina of every woman in the class, going to town on yourself, and then a group massage. If I’m being honest, that sounds fantastic, but that’s mainly because it’s a room full of women. If the roles were reversed, I’d feel quite unhappy having several winded, sweaty men massaging me after they masturbated right next to me, but maybe I’m just not ready to enroll in this school.

You can watch Ian engage in everyday depravity on Twitter, and read his short fiction on his Tumblr page!

One place you definitely hope there’s no workplace masturbation happening is Cinnabon. Try not to think about it too much as you enjoy this cinnamony goodness.

For more, check out The 4 Best Ways To Jerk Off (According To Science) and 6 Bizarre Ways to Stop Yourself From Masturbating.

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/4-surprising-stories-about-masturbation-in-the-workplace/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/179405325132

JUSTIN. The day my daughter was born my life changed entirely. I had been so uncertain of everything I ever did before her but when I held Isabella Justice for the first time I knew that despite all the trials and tribulations, everything happened for the sole purpose of bringing her into my life. The moment was bittersweet because unbeknownst to myself and my wife at the time, my youngest sister whom my parents adopted when she was six years old, had taken her own life at only fourteen. Jordan and I had gotten pretty close because my parents also adopted me, so when the news came through I felt my heart drop to the floor. My sister Gabriela who was only sixteen at the time, was in charge of watching her. My other sister Megan lived with her fiancée and my brother was married and had his own children to look after, twins only a year old. My parents were at the hospital with me when they got the phone call about Jordan. The atmosphere changed for the worse. I remember holding Isabella while her mother, Lindsay was sleeping. I cried. While I had tried so hard to not show this to my infant daughter, it happened and I felt like she understood. She held my finger in her tiny hand and kept squeezing as her dark eyes stared into mine. She had my eyes. This tiny creature that I held, that I was now responsible for protecting, I had played a part in creating her. As I held her close, stifling my tears I couldn’t stop thinking of Jordan. With the timing I wondered if perhaps a piece of her spirit was still with me now. The last time I had lost someone so important to me I was in the service. I was on basic training when my sister Megan called me to tell me that Remi was missing. The first time I had met Remi was when she slept over our house, she was a friend of Megan’s. They were both twelve which was two years younger than I was but she was unlike any girl I’d ever met. I remember the first words she said to me. “You have the most hypnotic eyes.” She said this point blank to my face and I remember Megan joked she was going to puke but Remi was fearlessly honest. In truth, she was the one who hypnotized me. They ran to her room giggling and I didn’t hear from them the rest of the night. We would start talking in the halls, getting to know each other in tiny blips of time, and maybe to doesn’t sound like a fairytale but moments with her were always the highlights of my day. One night when she was fourteen she slept over, it would turn out to be the last time her parents would allow it, I found her crying outside. “Remi, what are you doing out here?” I hadn’t noticed she was in tears until she turned away, saying something about needing some air. Like an idiot I asked if she was okay when clearly she was not. “I can’t talk about it Justin. I just...I can’t.” Then she broke down. I held her close and told her it would be okay. Then I lifted her chin and our eyes met. “You still have the most enchanting eyes I’ve ever seen...so much warmth. Like I’ve known you all my life...” I kissed her. I was nervous because I had only ever done it once before. She melted in my arms, more tears suddenly streaming down her face. “What happened, I’m sorry...did I do something wrong?” I held her close as she shivered, and she just cried herself to sleep. We were nearly inseparable since that moment. I wasn’t able to get her to talk to me, she wouldn’t let me kiss her either. I could hold her, she always said I made her feel safe, but she just couldn’t be with me, she couldn’t be with anyone. She didn’t give me a reason until I was about to ship off to basic training. I was almost nineteen and she was a junior in high school. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you Justin,” she confessed. “Find another sucker to woo, I imagine.” “You act like you’re a love sick puppy, you have the freedom, it’s not my fault you broke up with your girlfriend.” “Yeah I know, but nothing beats your best friend. You are irreplaceable, Remi.” “You don’t want to date me though. That would be different, things would change...you wouldn’t like it...” “What why?” I had always fantasized about dating her but it never came up again until now. “You just wouldn’t like the things you’d learn...I can’t be with anyone, I told you. I’m...dirty.” “What? Remi, what...what are you saving?” She was in tears as she kissed me, asked me not to ever forget about her, then she ran away. I never saw her again. When Megan told me she went missing I was devastated. When I came back from training I tried to talk to her brother, her parents, the police. No one had any leads. I was heartbroken. When I turned 24 I had my first deployment. The tragedy of 9/11 had just happened and we were going to war to stop terrorism. I was terrified I had never been overseas or even in the line of action yet. That’s when I met Sargent Bram De Vries. He was in charge of our unit. He kept me safe. He had taken a liking to me, he felt I was too sensitive to be in the service even if I did physically fit the bill. He had a great sense of humor but he was moody, there was something dark within him. He never scared me though, and he was the bravest man I’d ever met. There were a number of times he put his neck on the line for me. Countless actions that made me admire him even more as a person. Beyond that, he was an adoring husband. He told me the story of he and his wife meeting in the service, she was a medic. He told me about how he was orphaned by his parents during some tragic accident that he can barely remember, he grew up in and out of foster care but mostly in the orphanage itself. He felt lucky enough that a family came for him when he was seventeen and he went to a public school where he met recruiters and that’s where he joined the army. He had a lot of stories to tell, you could easily see he’d lived a long hard life and he was only in his mid twenties. We saw a lot of horrors during the war, it changed a lot of people for the worse. Civilians didn’t believe we were helping them so they weren’t kind to us, not in the beginning. This caused a lot of the soldiers to be needlessly aggressive back, we saw children with bombs on their chests, men hiding in bushes waiting to blow up anyone who walked by, women and their young ones running or hiding, it was so hard to tell who was dangerous and who was a victim. I will admit I was scared, I tried my hardest to do my duty and serve my country, because I was proud of it, that’s part of why I joined the army to begin with. However, it was hard work. I respect a lot of my platoon, especially the higher ups, because they were in this for life. It was their job and they had so much pride for their work. I knew when my time was up there’s no way I was going back. I would take my time served and value the lessons I learned, but I was going to take the benefits and get a college education. I always loved theater and film, and I would try my hand at that during off time in the service. I had some small time success on some daytime soap operas but figured a good education in theater would go a long way. I decided as well to double major in history. It was always my strongest subject in school, and I felt it was never boring. There’s always so much to learn from history. When I left the service I kept in touch with Bram. We wrote letters to each other every week and we would talk on the phone maybe once a month, sometimes even video chat. Our relationship grew deeper and I learned a lot that he’d never opened up about when we were over seas. Over time I learned how he and his wife lost six children and finally I got a letter stating some bittersweet news, the seventh child conceived was born. It was a miracle she survived because she had a condition that left her nearly defenseless to the world but in the process of delivery he’d lost his wife too. Now his daughter, Benni was all he had left in the world. Bram confessed he had to leave his daughter when she was first born because he was still part of the army, but was told this could be his last deployment, and that his daughter was in the hospital receiving special treatment until he could return home and learn how to properly care for her. When he returned he could retire from the army altogether. I had always planned to visit him and meet Benni but it simply never happened. Time kept getting away from me. I kept getting small roles on television, enough to keep me busy and afloat at least. And of course then I had Isabella only a few years after Benni had been born. Which brings us close to full circle. As I’ve already made clear, my daughter was a huge turning point in my life. Somehow having Isabella made me think about Remi. I started dwelling on her a lot and decided something didn’t sit right with me. I needed to find out what happened. I returned to my hometown and knocked on her parents door. Her brother answered, though he seemed less than thrilled to see me. “I wanted to talk about your sister, Remi.” “I know who she is,” he snapped as he pushed by me. Apparently he was on his way out with a handful of bags. “Where are you going?” “Away, leave me alone. My sister is gone, she has been for nearly five years. So just fuck off.” “Can’t I just talk to you about what happened?” He turned quickly, “I don’t know what happened. She just disappeared. I’m going to college, I’m moving on with my life and I’m getting the fuck away from here. If you keep me any longer I’ll miss my flight. It cost nearly all my savings so back off.” Dallas wasn’t quite like I remembered him, he’d always been a funny kid. Good looking, charming and always pleasant. This was an entirely different person. Something wasn’t right, but I dismissed the feeling and returned home to my family, defeated. Now let me tell you, being a parent wasn’t easy, especially married to a woman that, although I loved and admired her, she had changed so much and no longer loved me as she once had. Needless to say we got a divorce. I was distraught. I felt like a failure. I wrote Bram about it. It was the first letter I’d written him in a few months. He had taken more time to respond to letters now too. We were falling out of each other’s lives. Funny how distance can do that. Surprisingly he responded very quickly. Now Bram wasn’t always the most literate person, he was more street wise then anything. However, this letter sent red flags up all around. His thoughts were very scattered, and although some of the messages were clear it was evident that something was very wrong. Some of what he wrote sounded almost paranoid. He spoke a lot about Benni and even included a picture of her. She was about eleven at this point, had this cute boy cut and a baggy t shirt with overalls. She had her fathers eyes, this grayish blue with a dark ring around the outside. But there was no return address. I tried to write him back with the address I had originally, thanking him for the advice but also asking if I could come over for that long over visit we had once both been excited for. He never responded to that letter. I was laying in bed at night, my mind reeling over the events in my life, specifically the ones that left me in question. Remi and Bram both disappeared out of my life. I impulsively hired a private investigator and found out that Dallas too had gone missing. My sister suggested contacting Cory, since the boys had been best friends but that was a dead end. He had no idea what happened to Dallas, like he magically didn’t exist anymore. For over five years so far I’ve searched for answers and have come up stale. My original PI gave up on me after four years of no leads or simply dead ends. The second one I hired worked with a team and in nearly two years we haven’t found much. But I made a promise to Remi that I wouldn’t forget her. And I owed it to Bram to find out what was happening, to save him for a change. So I knew I would never stop trying. I decided in addition to these cases I would give the team another job, I wanted to speak with my birth parents. I wanted to know my story. I was beginning to feel abandoned, which is common for most adopted children but had never truly been something I’d struggled with having had such a loving family. But the weight of loss was too much and I needed some answers, of any kind.

MALCOLM HOLLAND. college junior; nineteen. odiseas georgiadis. TAKEN.

and, as marc once said:

"One of these days, I'm gonna show you little people."

BEFORE THE PARTY;

Oh, to be great from birth. Malcolm can tell you all about it. There are the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, and then there are the Hollands. What rural Massachusetts was to the second of the three was Rosewood to the Holland family, who bred within themselves a blood so blue that truly no one could raise themselves up to their level — not even the members of their own clan. Malcolm can also tell you about that.

He was a hard fought kid, the only child his parents would ever have — there were no spares to cover his ass. So, from day one, his parents planned. How he would come into himself, what he would become, and who he would need to get there. His childhood was policed in hierarchies; his friends were hand-picked, and his schooling was of the highest quality.

When he was young, Malcolm thought his parents plastic; they always spoke in circles, focusing on the same issues, the same tribulations. They were perpetually concerned with what it meant to be rich, and to be powerful. There was nothing else for them to talk about. They came to life like characters in horror movies, which Malcolm watched in secret; they weren't becoming of a child like him, and so he snuck them. He found such similarities between those villains and the ones who towered above him in real life. And, more than anything, he loved those movies for their stellar soundtracks.

While his parents planned, Malcolm listened — to anything but them. He covered his ears with headphones and immersed himself in a world other than his own. Music was his rock; it kept him grounded in the chaos that was his life, something that was entirely constructed for him without his consent. Everything was purified, watered down for him. They kept him in a bubble, away from anyone they considered lesser, a potential nick in his fabric. The more insular his life became, the more terrifying the prospect of sinking into it was. He wasn't cut out to be a Holland, and he knew it.

When the time came for him to start high school, he knew he was headed for St. Agnes, that dungeon across the way from Rosewood Academy — where Malcolm knew he at least would have some semblance of a social life. He begged and pleaded to have his way to no avail. He was going to that Catholic school, wearing a hideous uniform, and playing the part. But they couldn't stop him from his extracurricular activities — namely, zooming straight to TRAX after his first day of school and pleading for a job. It was respectable, he argued when his parents balked; he had to learn how to work if he was meant to do anything worthwhile.

But there was no way in hell he wanted in at TRAX to learn how to work. No, he wanted to taste some semblance of a life — and all of the other kids working there were living one. Cassandra, sure, was stuck up, but she still had her own ambitions that weren't chosen for her. Genevieve ate life for breakfast, there was no denying it. Adrian was resilient. Leland was going to own the whole damn place someday. And then there was Malcolm, who took to them like a sponge. As the youngest member of the group — only by a few months, but still — he felt like he needed their guidance. They were all rebellious and true to themselves. They all had a particular way of smoking weed; Malcolm coughed up a storm for the first (two) handful(s) of attempts, truth be told. They all loved music for different reasons, though Malcolm was almost sure he loved it the most. They were real, lived in individuals. They weren't his parents.

Then, he supposed the inevitable happened.

The Holland emancipation trial was tabloid fodder for Rosewood if there ever was any. The rumors said that they were completely blindsided by Malcolm's petition, and then furious. Malcolm didn't care much; after all, he was convinced that his parents didn't care much about him. He was a vessel, not a person — someone who would have an arranged marriage, and then an arranged job, and then an entirely arranged identity. He could have been anyone. Sure, he would probably have to live on the North Side with how little he made at TRAX, but being rich never suited him. So long as he had enough money for bills, rent, weed, and a record or two, there wasn't much else he wanted. Besides, he didn't even like girls, didn't have anyone to woo. He didn't like guys. He didn't like anyone outside of all that. He didn't like much of anyone. There was only himself to look after.

And then everything disappated, because if there was anything worse than betrayal for the Hollands, it was embarrassment. Malcolm got his emancipation, and then his trust fund — his parents had no use for it. They looked him in the eyes after they signed it all away, their own beady and lifeless, and spoke something into existence: "You're going to waste away without us."

Sometimes, he still wonders if he will. He goes to Rosewood like a normal kid now, hangs with his friends, and spends all his free time at TRAX. His apartment is nearly barren, furnished with only the necessities. He smokes weed; he listens to music. He does next to nothing. Sometimes, he looks over at his friends, and sees them laughing at a joke he's not quite in on. Even with Dove, the new girl, he remains the youngest, the pet — and the years have shown that the role doesn't hold up as well against the light.

DURING THE PARTY;

Malcolm's apartment always felt simultaneously huge and empty, save for his cat milling about, which he supposed was his plight considering he'd never put in the effort to decorate it. He thought of paint colors, patterns, vibes as he smoked all by his lonesome — maybe it was finally time to change that.

There was a party tonight, he knew, but no one texted him with plans, so he supposed everyone was busy — and he wasn't going without his crew. Solitude had grown through him like weeds, and it was certainly familiar. So he swallowed it down, and he smoked.

That was, until Dove came to his door, not even bothering to knock — it wasn't like he locked it. And there they were, seemingly miserable together, because, well, Dove always seemed miserable.

He was in the middle of waxing poetic about his loneliness, finally letting it off his chest, and then — Dove beat him. And beat him by miles. He felt stupid, mortified. What a dumb thing for him to complain about in the wake of Dove's very real, very tangible issues.

Then Leland came in, clearly having his own problems. Malcolm examined Dove's duffel bag, Leland's despondent mood. Roommates. Hm. Maybe that could work out.

Their phones buzzed. Adrian was having a shit night too.

Malcolm concluded that everyone was destined to leave him in the dust. Even when it came to horrible luck.

alternate faceclaims and prompts.