I want people to tell their children terrifying stories about the things he did for love

Day 1 | Reincarnation for @foundersweek

The Last Semester – Part 25

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Words: 3,205

Warning: Angst, Smut

Whilst you had expected to meet Cillian’s children two weeks ago, just following your miscarriage, it never happened as, once again, Nadine withheld contact until Cillian’s son Charlie ran into trouble at school and the director called Cillian after he got nowhere with Nadine.

This all happened after Nadine went to the press about her relationship with Cillian, telling them lies and alleging an affair between him and their babysitter many years ago, causing their divorce.

In an attempt to prevent Nadine from sending in the alleged tape, Cillian didn’t comment on the rumours when asked by the reporter. The last thing he wanted was to draw this out and have his children exposed to such content on the internet.

During a parent teacher meeting requested by the director, the director advised Cillian that Charlie in particular wasn’t coping with current arrangements between him and Nadine and, according to him, he had requested on many occasions to live with his father.

He had access to media, the internet and a phone which made him more susceptible and aware of the situation and every article that had been published about Cillian had Nadine’s name on it.

The school director was far from impressed and Cillian confirmed that he was dealing with the situation through his lawyer.

Just as he did, Nadine finally agreed for his sons to stay with Cillian for a week after Charlie had been caught with an illicit substance at school just the day after Cillian’s meeting with the school director.

This was too much for her to deal with on her own especially since, according to her, Charlie refused to speak to her after he read an article about his father in a gossip magazine for which she was to blame.

***

‘Here is his phone. He is grounded. You can deal with it. They both need to be picked up at 4 o’clock as they have theatre practice’ Nadine growled as she barged into Cillian’s house and gave you a stern look.

Angrily, she dropped the boys’ bags onto the floor before looking at you again.

‘She better be gone when you pick up the boys’ Nadine then said, causing Cillian to sigh.

‘No, she will be here. It is time for the boys to meet her’ Cillian then said before showing Nadine the door.

‘You think this is a good idea after what Charlie has been through?’ Nadine growled.

‘After what you put him through? Well, I don’t know Nadine, you tell me because, surely, you could have expected that your little stunt would backfire on you and affect the boys’ Cillian said angrily and frustrated with Nadine’s actions.

‘If their welfare was so important to you, perhaps you would still be married to me, their mother, instead of fucking this slut’ Nadine then said somewhat upset.

‘You need to leave now Nadine, before I say something that I might regret’ Cillian growled angrily, biting his tongue as, knowing her, she might be sneaky enough to record their conversation.

‘I was about to’ she then said, walking towards the door.

‘I don’t understand why you would do this and why we cannot deal with each other like civilized adults for the sake of the boys’ Cillian then said just as she left.

***

Later that evening, when Cillian arrived at home with the boys, you greeted them in the kitchen where you had prepared dinner.

Charlie and Hendrix were quick to introduce themselves to you.

‘Want some help, I am good at this shit’ Charlie said as he enjoyed to cook.

‘Language!’ Cillian quickly shouted out, causing Charlie to apologise to you before walking over towards the fridge and grabbing himself a soft drink.

Cillian watched him closely and raised his eyebrow.

‘Fine, I put it back’ Charlie huffed out, knowing that Cillian was limiting their intake of sugary drinks. ‘Can I have my phone back though? I am seeing this girl and can’t text her now’ he was quick to ask and Cillian pulled him aside for a talk while you entertained his younger brother Hendrix with some talk about his favourite football team.

About ten minutes later, both Cillian and Charlie returned to the kitchen and Charlie seemed glad that Cillian returned his phone to him.

Without paying attention to anything else, Charlie sat at the kitchen table, typing away and surfing the internet. The phone made several strange sounds and noises and Charlie was laughing, obviously catching up with his friends.

‘What are you doing?’ Cillian chuckled, amused by Charlie’s facial expressions as he typed and typed and typed.

‘Snap Chat…and apparently there is this new thing on Tik Tok everyone is watching’ Charlie said as he continued on talking to his father about it but losing him halfway through.

‘What Chat?’ Cillian asked, causing you to laugh.

‘Snap Chat’ you said.

‘What is a Snap Chat?’ Cillian asked confused, causing his son to shake his head in disbelieve.

‘Oh, common dad…you know what Tik Tok is though, right?’ Charlie chuckled.

‘Of course’ Cillian said proudly and you were somewhat surprised.

‘You do?’ you giggled, teasing Cillian.

‘No…I have no idea’ he laughed, which is when Charlie and you took the time to explain it to him.

‘I am on Instagram now though’ Cillian then said proudly after he learned about Snap Chat and Tik Tok, causing your eyes to widen and look at your boyfriend with surprise.

‘Congratulations dad, you are just about ten years too late’ Charlie laughed and you asked Cillian to show him his Instagram account.

‘Uhm, that’s great babe’ you giggled as you observed that he followed one person and that was you. He had no profile picture, no description, no photos and no followers.

‘What I don’t understand is that I thought I would get a lot of follow requests, being an actor and all. But apparently not’ Cillian said somewhat disappointed.

‘Well, a profile picture and verifying your account might help with that’ you giggled as you logged on to Instagram on your phone and sent him a follow request and Charlie did the same.

***

Charlie and Hendrix both enjoyed the dinner you cooked and, after you all cleaned up, you sat down together and watched a movie.

You knew that, realistically, you were too young to ever be a mother figure to them. They have a mother and certainly don’t need another one. Nonetheless, you tried your best to get to know them and, after spending several hours with them, you were surprised by just how much they were like Cillian.

Even more so, you were impressed by how Cillian interacted with them, caring for them and listening to them. They clearly looked up to him and he was a fantastic and caring father.

Everything went smoothly and the boys seemed to like you and interact with you as they would with their father’s friends. They respected you but yet they tried to relate to you as you were much younger than their father.

But then, during the movie, an uncomfortable topic came up.

‘Dad, it’s not true right? With Laura?’ Hendrix then asked.

‘Of course it’s not true, dummie. Mum made it up’ Charlie was quick to say, causing Cillian to interfere.

‘No name calling Charlie’ Cillian said firmly before explaining to them both that it was not true. There was not much else he could tell them.

‘Why can’t we just live here with you? I am really sick of this dad. She is constantly saying crap about you’ Charlie huffed out and Cillian reminded him that it doesn’t work like that, causing Charlie to storm off into his room.

Cillian eventually followed him after ensuring that Hendrix was alright and it took him about twenty minutes to make an appearance again.

Eventually, at around 10 o’clock, the boys were getting ready for bed after Cillian nagged them several times to go and have a shower and brush their teeth.

He reminded them that, tomorrow, he would take them to the mall and for lunch which was something they enjoyed and they needed to be rested for it and not stay up and play games.

‘We are leaving at 9 o’clock so don’t stay up, eh’ Cillian said in a deep voice, reminding you of his role in Peaky Blinders.

***

At last, you were alone and it didn’t take you long to seek some intimacy. After all, the two weeks wait was up today and you were very needy.

‘We should really take this to the bedroom in case one of the boys walks in on us’ you giggled as Cillian was teasing you, touching your breasts and nibbling on your neck as you were both curled up on the lounge.

‘Good idea’ Cillian said and, just after he did, he scooped you up into his arms, eliciting a squeal of surprise from you as he propped you up and you wrapped your legs around his waist.

‘Eager are we Mr Murphy?’ you chuckled as he carried you to his bedroom.

‘It’s been two weeks, how could I not be’ Cillian chuckled as he placed you onto the bed and closed the door behind him.

When he returned to the bed, you had already gotten rid of your t-shirt and shorts and Cillian reached behind your back to undo the clasp on your bra after taking off his own t-shirt. At the same time, you undid the button and zipper on his jeans. As they fell from his hips, showing off his manhood, he pulled the bra straps from around your arms, revealing your smooth breasts.

‘Where are your briefs sir?’ you giggled as you noticed that Cillian wasn’t wearing any underwear.

‘I forgot’ he winked and, without losing any time, you pushed him beneath you and took his growing member into your mouth gently before running the length of your tongue over his shaft.

‘Fuck you are so good at this’ Cillian growled as he relaxed into the pillows and you licked up the length of his member from the base to the tip.

‘Am I?’ you smirked as you slowly started to bob your head, causing Cillian to groan.

‘Turn around and let me taste you while you continue’ Cillian then instructed and, you quickly pushed off your panties before complying with his request and swinging one of your legs over his face before dropping your head back down to pleasure Cillian with your tongue.

Cillian was quick to pull your already wet mound onto his lips, causing you to moan loudly against his cock.

In order to stay quiet, you took as much of his length into your mouth as possible. This way, his cock was almost acting like a gag.

At the same time, Cillian’s tongue had found your clit, circling it gently while he pressed your crotch down against your mouth, not allowing you to wiggle away.

‘Oh god’ you moaned against his cock as you sucked and licked it while, occasionally, taking it in all the way while Cillian began at the bottom point of your mound once again, the tip of his tongue leaving a trail as he licked up the dripping fluids that you secreted, going from the meeting point of your folds to the opening.

As he dipped his tongue inside, he felt your body tighten up as you sharply inhaled around his cock. He pulled out with a kiss to your lips, and continued upwards, enveloping your hood again with the entirety of his tongue before rubbing its flat surface sideways against your round tip.

You squealed again over his cock, bobbing your head up and down his long shaft as you did until, suddenly, he took it too far. He drew the tip of his tongue around your clit, diving his entire mouth around it before sliding two fingers into your steaming opening.

‘Oh god, Cillian’ you moaned after shooting up from his, tightening your thighs around Cillian's head.

‘Keep my cock in your mouth, that should keep you quiet’ Cillian instructed as he groaned and began to increase the speed at which his fingers entered your body.

Within time, the long strokes had turned into short upwards strokes as he touched your spot over and over, simultaneously assaulting your hood with his tongue, matching the speed of both to your ever-quickening heartbeat.

‘I can’t, fuck, oh god’ you moaned loudly and, just as you did, Cillian pushed you off and beneath him.

‘Cillian’ you pouted, causing Cillian to grin and kiss you passionately before sinking his fingers back into your aching wet pussy.  

‘Ohhhh god’ you cried out. ‘Oh shit... Cillian, I'm gonna...’ you moaned a little too loudly and, as he continued to fuck you with his fingers, Cillian covered your mouth with his hand to keep you from screaming out.

Cillian began to feel your muscles tighten around his fingers, and sped up, while sucking on your neck until, finally, a high scream came out of your mouth.

By this point, Cillian was grateful that his sons usually slept well and deep as his palm could not quieten you down significantly when you orgasmed.

As usual, when Cillian made you cum by massaging your g-spot, a good amount of fluid spurted out of you and onto the towel beneath you.  

Your body shuddered, tiny squeals coming every few seconds until, finally, Cillian removed his hand from your mouth. ‘Stop...’ you breathed out. ‘Oh god...’ you huffed.

‘So sensitive’ Cillian chuckled, teasing you with light kisses against the soaked flesh between your thighs before pulling the towel away from beneath you and throwing it into the laundry basked near the dresser.  

‘Yes’ you laughed, stroking Cillian’s hair just before he got up from his knees, kissing his way up your body, stopping just short of your lips before kissing you passionately.

You wrapped your arms under his and around his back while Cillian pushed you further back on the bed, climbing up onto his knees and lowering himself so he was almost level with you as you raised your pelvis into the air.

You reached down and gripped his manhood, gently stroking it before lowering it to align with your opening, grinding your drenched lips against his head. When he slid inside, you gasped, squealing as he gently allowed all of his length to enter you.

‘Oh god yes, fuck, I missed this’ you moaned as Cillian ground his hips in a circle before drawing back, delicately stroking in and out as you put one hand on his hip and the other on his chest, digging in and drawing your nails downwards, leaving red lines down his body. He smiled and kissed you, increasing the speed of his advance and thrusting upwards before pulling back, repeating the motion as his kisses stifled your moans.

‘I miss this too…you feel so fucking good’ Cillian groaned as you returned the favor, grinding your hips as he spread you open. You moved your hands to his back, scratching his back as he pulled his face away from you. You bit your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your moans which was a futile effort. Within seconds your lips spread open and you resumed the sounds that brought Cillian to the brink of orgasm as your own high hit you almost unexpectedly and hard.

‘Oh god yes, fuck Cillian’ you moaned as your orgasm washed over you and your legs began to quiver around him.

Cillian pulled his body up off of yours, positioning himself upright and sliding his knees forward. He grabbed your hands in the air, pushing forwards as you pushed against him, using the leverage to slam his erection into you, the sound of his ball slapping underneath drowned out by the lusty groans forcing themselves out from your throat.

Finally, between the warmth and moistness of your passage, the squeals, groans, and moans working their way through your mouth, and the pain from your nails on his back, Cillian couldn't take anymore.

‘Fuck, Y/N’ Cillian groaned as he withdrew from your opening, laying the weight of his member against your mound and you immediately gripped his cock with both hands, stroking almost as fast as he had been thrusting. It wasn't long before the orgasm ripped through his body, his sticky liquid spurting out in a strong burst across your stomach, up to just below your breasts.

He leaned down, kissing you as your body heaved in an effort to catch your breath. He remained stiff, however, and you slid him back inside of you, kissing him as he gently thrust until, finally, he was too flaccid to continue.

‘Y/N, fuck, I don’t think you should have…’ Cillian groaned, knowing that this entirely defeated the purpose of him pulling out. But, before he could finish his sentence, you pulled his mouth onto yours before pushing him beneath you.

‘Hmm’ you moaned while you began to slide up and down on his hard cock. His semen, which coated your stomach and breasts, glistened in the light from the bedside lamp and you placed a finger just above your mound as you rode him, slowly drawing upwards, catching the fluids that began to slowly slide down your body.

When you got the last of it, you placed your finger into your mouth, slowly drawing it out, sucking every drop of it before swallowing it.

‘Jesus Y/N, fuck’ Cillian groaned as he watched you lick his cum of your fingers.

‘I love tasting your cum’ you said seductively as you increased the speed of your movements until, after not too long, your third orgasm hit you and you moaned uncontrollably, causing Cillian to cover your mouth with his hand once again.

Once you came down from your high, you slid off Cillian and quickly disappeared with your head in between his legs.

‘I know there is more for me’ you smirked as you took his length into your mouth and began to suck him.

And, sure enough, there was. After less than ten minutes, you sent Cillian over the edge once again.

‘Fuck’ he groaned as he filled your mouth with rope after rope of his warm and sweet cum and, again, you didn’t waste a single drop, swallowing all of it.

***

The following morning, you woke up to the smell of pancakes and, when you walked into the kitchen, Cillian was preparing breakfast while Hendrix waited hungrily at the kitchen table.

‘Coffee?’ Cillian asked and you yawned and nodded all at the same time.

‘Thank you’ you said as you sat down next to Hendrix, wondering where Charlie was.

Eventually, Charlie also joined you in the kitchen, yawning and asking for a coffee as well.

‘I told you not to stay up gaming, eh?’ Cillian chuckled.

‘I didn’t…I just couldn’t sleep’ Charlie then said as he sat down at the table while Cillian was serving up some pancakes.

‘Why is that?’ Cillian asked.

‘Because you guys are bloody noisy’ Charlie chuckled, shaking his head in disgust and causing you to choke on some of your coffee.

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Title: Shadow & Smoke***

Pablo Schreiber x Reader x Lewis Tan

Warning: Cursing, NSFW, SMUTTTT, DO NOT READ AT WORK

Words: 5k

Summary: Eh.  🤷🏽‍♀️

Note: So this is a mixture of two firsts for me. This was inspired by the song Mr. Man by Alicia Keys. How did I do? 

I hope you guys enjoy this. Thank you so much for reading!   ❤️ 

 If you enjoyed this, please LIKE, COMMENT and REBLOG. ❤️❤️

**Loosely Edited/Proofread**

 The nights were starting to blend together. It wasn’t that you were bored, but there was a routine in place that you’d become—too accustomed to. You were the type of woman who liked routine and normalcy, but you also liked the unpredictability that life sometimes offered. Being the girlfriend of one of the most, if not the most powerful and dangerous man in the city meant that you were always on his arm.

 Pablo liked to bring you along to business deals he needed to close. You thought it was to show you off, but it was really a more tactful reason than that. He did it to sift out who had the potential to be disloyal. His logic was if any of them dared to ogle you while he was there, then they’d have the balls to fuck him over in business.

“There’s a thin line between loyalty and disloyalty, and usually the deciding factor in it all came down to a pretty face.”

 If he wasn’t bringing you to handle business, you were being whisked to surprise shopping trips, extravagant trips, delectable eateries that charged a ridiculous amount of money for their dishes. Usually, every night, you were on his arm at one of his clubs as he showed his face and ate up all the adoration and respect one in his high position brought.

 You’d met him as a liquor sales rep almost four years ago. You walked into one of his clubs with the intent to convince him to purchase some of the alcohol you were peddling. From almost the minute he sat down, you were attracted to him. Who wouldn’t be? The man was almost seven feet tall, built like no one’s business, had haunting hazel eyes, and such a hypnotizing aura around him. He spoke, you listened, he smiled you gawked, he licked his lips, you shifted in your seat.

 By the time you got up to leave the club, he’d bought you out of everything, easily meeting and exceeding your quota for the month. His reason was he had to have you free for him because he hated competition of any sort. That was when you got the first glimpse of the man he was—a force to be reckoned with. An hour after you left, he’d already called you and scheduled himself for dinner that night. One dinner led to lunch the next day, then dinner that night, and a whirlwind weekend trip to France where you found out just how much of a force to be reckoned with he was.

 Flash forward four years later, and your role in his life had only increased, and your understanding of his role in the city among the mayor, governor, senator, and other heavy hitters had fully sunk in. Pablo “Shadow” Schreiber was at the top of the food chain. Everyone was either terrified of him or wanted to be with him.

 “You look incredible tonight, sweetheart.”

 Glancing to your left, you found Pablo’s eyes. Within them, there was a hint of mischief as well as a whole lot of desire. You leaned close to his face leaving barely an inch.

 “You’re welcome to look, daddy,” you replied a little above a whisper.

 At the mention of that word, Pablo’s teeth sunk into his bottom lip as his eyes dropped to yours. Deciding to tease him, you trailed your tongue over your bottom lip, knowing that the long-wear lipstick you wore would stay in place. Pablo’s groan sounded closer to a growl, and with the sound, the heat in his eyes intensified.

 “Be careful, sweetheart.”

 “Boss.”

 Like clockwork, one of his henchmen interrupted. It was always a thing. The two of you would create this bubble of teasing and desire only to have it be popped by someone who needed something from him. You were attention-starved.

 Pablo looked from you and to Leo, his third. When Leo got his attention, he leaned down to whisper business. Rolling your eyes, you looked away and around the club. That was when you saw him. he was across the club leaning against the bar. In one hand, he held a drink and clasped between his pointer and middle finger was something rolled and lit. You couldn’t tell if it was a cigarette, a blunt, or something else.  Something said it was your second guess.

 You watched him raise the crystal glass to his lips. The smoke danced around his face creating an element of mystery that completely intrigued you.  From what you could see, he was checking out the club and the women inside. His eyes danced from one to the other, never resting long. Either none of them was what he liked, or he was searching for something—someone specific.

 When he brought the rolled substance to his lips, you watched as he took a long puff. Before he released it, his eyes moved to your area of the club. Clutching your drink glass, you watched him, unsure if he were looking at you. The stranger turned his body in your direction and slowly blew out the smoke. If he was mysterious before, he was now ten times so. Slowly the smoke cleared, and it was then you got a good look at his face. He was gorgeous.

 It had been a while since a face was able to stop you in your tracks. None had since Pablo’s. You lifted your glass to your lips and slowly drank down the Whiskey. The ice cubes in your glass gently bounced against your lip, giving you a slight chill as the heat of the alcohol deliciously burned you. As the liquid slinked down your throat, your eyes remained locked with the stranger at the bar.

 Time seemed to stop. The air became thick, so thick it was almost difficult for you to get a full breath. When you saw his tongue snake out to wet his lips, your eyes dropped to his mouth. A small smirk spread across his lips, and you could feel the smug coming off of him.

 Almost unconsciously, your tongue peaked out of your mouth and slowly traced the path around the rim of your glass. His teeth sunk into his bottom lip. Dipping your tongue into the glass, you used it to scoop up an ice cube to suck on. Gone was that small smirk. It was now a full-on grin. He was sexy, and though you knew you shouldn't be doing this, especially with Pablo right beside you, you couldn’t help it. He’d left you wanting for too long.

 Once the ice cube had melted, you looked away. His eyes were too hypnotizing, and the longer you looked into them, the more you wanted to risk Pablo’s wrath. Pablo gently rubbed your exposed thigh before he got up and walked off with Leo and Laith. You’d learned early that he was always busy, and his free time was not as plentiful as one would think a boss’s would be. You’d also learned that everything in his life took balance. You must have gotten spoiled when you were his top priority for the first two years.

 He went above and beyond, ensuring that you knew your value to him. He went to great lengths to make sure you felt special, loved, and prized above all else. He did this with small, romantic gestures as well as grand displays and deeply satisfying intimate moments. By year three, he’d incorporated more and more work, more and more business trips. Every month he was on a plane. Depending on the reason for the trip, you’d be right beside him on the private jet, but four out of ten times, you were left under the watchful eye of Levi, his brother.

 Pablo looked back at you as he walked off. The look spoke volumes, and it was loud. Rolling your eyes, you grabbed the glass he left behind and finished it. The music in the club and the patrons were your only entertainment for a while. When you looked back to the bar, the stranger was gone. You were left with an annoyed feeling that mixed with your slight arousal. You made a note to give Pablo an earful once you got home. If he was hell-bent on keeping you around, he’d better start acting like it.

 After twenty or so minutes, you’d had six fingers of Whiskey, and you were feeling better than a little nice. You were still alone at your table under the watchful eye of two of Pablo’s henchmen. Every so often, when a song came on that you liked, you got up and made your way to the VIP dancefloor. This was where the girls of the men Pablo employed hung out. You never mixed with them. You always got the feeling they either didn’t like you, or they wanted to be you--literally. Whatever it was, it always made you uncomfortable.

 “It’s both.”

 You looked back and found Danika, Levi’s long time girlfriend. The figure-hugging white dress she wore clung to her like a second skin. It matched perfectly with her ankle strap silver heels. She winded her hips to the music and smiled widely.

 “When did you get here?”

 “Maybe five minutes ago. Levi couldn’t allow me one night of quiet,” she informed.

 You closed the space to her. The two of you kissed cheeks like bougie wives did, only it wasn’t fake with the two of you. she and Levi had gotten together about the same time you and Pablo got together, and both of you found solace in each other because you both could relate to what the other was going through. When you were left alone because of Pablo’s trips, more times than not, she would be too because Levi would go as well.

 “They don’t like you, and they want to be you. it’s the same with me.”

 The two of you glanced at the group of girls huddled to your right and simultaneously rolled your eyes.

 “They think if we weren’t in the picture that Levi and Pablo would fuck them,” Danika voiced louder then necessary. She was putting them on notice.

 “Not knowing that even if we weren’t in the picture, they’d never look twice at them. There’s filet mignon, and there’s Kobe beef. Why chew on filet mignon when Kobe melts in your mouth?”

 The girls were trying not to look at you, but you knew they heard her. Danika had no chill and always spoke her mind. Pablo always thought that when you were together that you wouldn’t get into too much trouble. Little did he know Danika was not the angel she pretended to be. She’d gotten you into your fair share of trouble—trouble he knew about and trouble he didn’t.

 The two of you danced together when the song changed and played off each other. In no time, it was as if no one else in the club mattered. While you were wrapped up in the song and the buzz you were feeling from the Whiskey, you saw him again from the corner of your eye. This time he was in a shaded part of the club that was cloaked in dark color. The hues of red and purple decorated his skin but illuminated it enough for you to make out some of the detail. He was incredibly handsome.

 Before you knew it, you were dancing with Danika while eye fucking the man. You didn’t know what the hell had come over you. Never in the four years had you behaved like this with anyone else but Pablo. He was the only one who could bring out this wanton side of you—or so you thought. When Danika shrieked out with the change of the song, you looked away from him. You began to wonder if you should make a move.

 Glancing around the club, you clocked each of Pablo’s henchmen. His brother, Levi, his number two, was sitting watching Danika, who was now undressing him with her eyes. You knew any minute she’d go over, and they’d be practically fucking in the club. Danika pulled you close to her and whispered.

 “You have an audience.”

 Glancing at her, she coyly nodded her head over to the stranger. You tried not to smile, but it was useless.

 “Ah, you’ve noticed. He’s cute.”

 “D, stop.”

 “Why? It’s true.”

 You giggled and rolled your eyes but took a quick peek in his direction again. His eyes hadn’t left you.

 “I can distract Levi if you want to--.” She winked.

 “D! Stop it! That’s insane.”

 “Why? You’re not dead. Plus, what Shadow doesn’t know--,” she trailed.

 This was the kind of trouble Danika was good for. She was like the devil on your shoulder. You knew she’d fooled around on Levi and had heard stories of the fooling around Levi occasionally did when he felt that itch. Neither were stupid, but both were crazy, so they kept their misdealings on the low. You, on the other hand, had never fooled around behind Pablo’s back. You never had a reason to.

 As your eyes met the gorgeous stranger’s again, you bit your bottom lip. Until now, you thought. You caught the eye of Pablo walking back to the table. Leo was still beside him, yapping away, but he also had two other men surrounding him. he was still talking shop. Annoyance flared through you with a vengeance. Danika walked to Levi and sat on his lap before her lips met his. You walked back to the table and sat. You felt his eyes on you with every step you took.

You sat beside Pablo and tried to get past the unexpected thoughts you were having. Five minutes passed, but still, the thoughts persisted. When you looked up, the stranger was again in the shadows. Fuck it, you thought before you stood and took a step.

 “Where you going, sweetheart?”

 Painting a sugary smile on you responded. “Bathroom, baby.”

 Pablo nodded, but you felt him watching you. He was a secure man, but he was a possessive one. You walked through the crowd; all the while sneaking peeks at the stranger. You turned the corner and walked down the dark corridor that led to the bathroom. You knew this club like the back of your hand.

 Once inside the bathroom, you stood in front of the mirror and focused on toying with your hair. By the time you got to twelve, the door had opened, and in walked the stranger. You locked eyes from the mirror, and you damn near buckled. He was even more beautiful than you thought. His eyes were so brown and so damn penetrative that you decided to have his face between your thighs then and there.

 As if reading your thoughts, he locked the door and, in the same breath, pushed up behind you. You could feel his hardness pressing into your ass. His hands gripped your body, one at your breast, the other at your hip. The way he held you felt possessive like he owned you. The only one to have ever held you like that was Pablo. This was a man who knew what he wanted and took it. Pablo was that caliber of a man as well. It was intoxicating.

 His lips fastened onto your neck and immediately found your spot. When you felt his teeth graze your skin, you pulled away and glared at him through the mirror. Another smirk spread across his face. In seconds he’d had you turned around so you faced him. When his lips crashed to yours, he wasted no time delving his tongue into your mouth. Almost instantly, he took control of the kiss, and almost instantly, your lacy thong was drenched.  

 As if sensing this, you felt his fingers graze your inner thigh until it connected with your sex. You gasped on his mouth, which permitted him even more access to your mouth. Fuck, you thought. You were losing control of this situation. Pulling your lips from his, you looked at him. The fire in his eyes had heat rushing through you. You watched as he slipped his fingers into his mouth and sucked your juices off. Once his fingers were clean, he moaned.

 “You’re as sweet as you look.”

 Grabbing his shirt, you pulled him to you, but instead of claiming his lips, you began pushing his head lower. He knew what you wanted. In seconds he hoisted you into his arms and began lifting you higher into the air as if you weighed an ounce. One he’d placed you on his shoulders, he used his teeth to pull your thong to the side before he began his feast.

 “Fuck!”

 Slapping your hand across your mouth, you groaned and mumbled another curse into your palm. It was clear from the start he had no intention of going slow. The fast flicks of his tongue had your back arching, and the soft nibbles he dropped in had your free hand tangling in his hair. When you felt your back press onto the cold surface of the bathroom, you moaned again. You didn’t dare remove your hand from your mouth. You didn’t trust yourself. The stranger between your legs used both his hands and pried your thighs apart, so he was holding you against the wall spread like French doors.

 The thick pad of his tongue slowly licked you from opening to clit. When he got to your clit he sucked it into his mouth. He wasn’t gentle, and the increase in suction had you feeling the first stirs of your orgasm.

 “Yes, yes, right there. Fuck! Oh my god!”

 Feeling a scream coming, you plastered both your hands across your mouth to lessen the volume. He dipped his tongue into your core, and you lost your shit right then and there. When you began shaking, he didn’t slow down. He picked up the pace. You couldn’t believe someone could fuck a pussy with their tongue so quickly. After every three or four dips, he sucked your clit into his mouth as if he was a hoover vacuum.

 Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, and you knew you were seconds from coming. Without warning, you gripped his head and hugged it to your sex as you came. He moaned and slurped your flesh, accepting every drop you gave.

 “Shit, shit, Shiiiit!”

 If anyone busted the door down, you would have the hardest time explaining this away. There would be no way. Slowly his lips and tongue slowed their devil work, allowing you to come down. As if to keep you on your toes, he nibbled your clit every so often. The action always had you gasping, gripping his hair tighter and arching back every so slightly to finish with a satisfied moan.

 When he pulled his face back, his jaw was drenched, and there was a glistening layer of your juices outlining his mouth.

 “A man could get drunk off this sweet pussy, sugar lips.”

 Jesus Christ, you thought as new wetness with fresh arousal washed through you. His eyes dipped between your legs, and a grin spread across his face.

 “Wet for me again already?”

 Your gear watched vibrated, indicating you’d gotten a message. Glancing at it, you saw Danika’s message.

 MSG D: You have twenty seconds to get back, or your cover is kaput.

 “Fuck,” you groaned under your breath as you began wriggling in his arms.

 He lowered you to the floor then stepped back, giving you a little space. You fixed yourself as best you could and tried to ignore the wetness between your legs.

 “I take it reciprocity is dead.”

 You looked at him and dropped your eyes to see him holding his crotch. He was mouthwateringly hard. Part of you wanted to see what he was concealing behind those pants, but if you were caught, you knew Pablo would beat him to a pulp or worse.

 “Unfortunately, there’s no time. Thank you though, I really needed that.”

 You walked to the door, and as you passed him, you gently tapped his cheek.

 “Glad I could be of service.”

 You quickly rushed out the bathroom, and down the corridor, you’d walked down back to the main hall of the club. As you rounded the corner, you met three of Pablo’s men.

 “Everything okay?”

 “Perfect,” you answered with a smile before you pushed past them to make your way back over to Pablo, relishing in the decrease of tension in your body. It had been too long, indeed.

 The rest of the night progressed as it usually did. Pablo finished up the business thirty or so minutes before you left. The beautiful stranger with the skillful mouth was nowhere to be found. The two of you then made your way home. While in the car, Pablo’s hand found the space between your thighs.

 “I’m sorry about tonight.”

 “You know if work is the only important thing to you, then maybe we need to have a conversation about where that leaves us.”

 His grip tightened, making you flinch.

 “Y/N, come on,” Pablo began.

 “You haven't touched me in almost two months. If you’re not fucking me, who are you fucking?”

 Your words were laced with hidden poison. He knew it. Instead of speaking again, you both remained silent.

 When the car pulled up to your half a block townhouse, you walked ahead of him as he got updates from his men posted around the property. You were still pretty relaxed from your bathroom tryst, but you were angry with him as well. Once you made it to your shared bedroom, you stripped and got into the shower.

 A little less than halfway through, you felt Pablo’s hands around your midsection. Ignoring him, you continued soaping your body and paid no mind to his growing appendage that was pressing into your back. When you were out of heels, he towered over you like a giant. He kissed your neck and down to your shoulder then brought his lips back to your neck. He knew what he was doing, and he knew you knew as well.

 Pablo’s hand crept down your stomach to where your thighs met.

 “Pablo--,” you warned.

 “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know I’ve been neglecting you. I’m sorry.”

Slowly his finger circled your clit, and it didn’t take long for your desire for him to unfurl.

 “Let me make it up to you,” Pablo whispered before he turned you to him. he kissed you with heat, passion, and intensity, all of which you felt tonight in that bathroom. In seconds Pablo had lifted you into his arms to his height and lowered you onto his throbbing cock.

 Both of you sighed, but the moment of savoring was short. Pablo took control of your body, moving you along his length with expert strength. People didn’t fear him for no reason. He was a beast of a man in stature and disposition. What started as slow deep strokes turned to frenzied shallow thrusts. You knew then this was not going to be a tender reacquaintance of your bodies. It was going to be the opposite.

 Pablo pressed you against the tile of the shower and dipped his tongue into your mouth to entangle with yours. His kiss commanded your surrender. You knew when you gave in, you wouldn’t be disappointed, so you did. Pablo groaned once he felt your surrender. It was then he sunk into your heat to the hilt. The scream you let out was loud, and it only fueled him further.

 Pablo pounded into you. Each time your bodies connected, the force of his stroke had your body bouncing up only to drop back onto his searing cock.

 “Fuuuuuck, daddy!”

 A growl escaped him before he turned and walked out of the shower to bring you back to your bed. When he dropped you onto the sheets, he flipped you onto your stomach and slammed back into you.

 “Aaaah!”

 “Mmm. Daddy missed you, sweetheart!”

 His voice was tender, but the way he pummeled your pussy spoke of something else. He was on a mission.

 “Don’t ever say that shit to me again. do you understand?”

 No words. Not liking it, he grabbed the back of your neck and pulled you back so your back had the perfect inward arch.

 “I can’t hear you, sweetheart. Do you—understand?”

 You vigorously nodded. He was so deep you couldn’t muster any words.

 “Words, Y/N.”

 “Yes, daddy. Yes!”

 “Good girl.”

 As if this was a reward for your compliance, he rotated his hips, so you felt every inch of his desire as it marked every crevice inside of you. You doubted anyone had ever made you feel this good.

 Your moans, pants, and groans melded together. The sounds filled your room, and you knew anyone outside could hear you. It turned Pablo on even more to know that everyone could hear how good he was fucking you. You didn’t care who knew how good he made you feel. When he began jackhammering into you, you saw stars and clenched around him as your orgasm violently ripped through you.

 “Fuck me!”

 On command, he did just that to the point where you became hoarse, and you didn’t know what day it was. When you couldn’t take another orgasm, you dropped to the bed, but Pablo kept plowing into you. His stoked became sloppy, and you knew he was close. When he came, he grunted loudly, nearly terrifying you with the loudness of it. He thrust forward as if he were trying to rip you apart. The feel of his love inside of your canal nudged you over the edge to your final release. Pablo dropped kisses along your back before he rolled off of you to lie on his back. That was how the two of you fell asleep. Both too exhausted to even cover yourselves.

 The next day when you woke up, your body hummed with satisfaction. After checking your messages and emails, you took a quick shower and wrapped in one of your robes, then made your way down to breakfast. You were starving. It was a regular sight to see several of Pablo’s men through the house; you never batted an eye to it. Often times, they spoke and nodded their heads in respect as you passed, and you always reciprocated that politeness. There was no need to be a bitch.

 When you made it to the dining room, you saw Pablo already sitting there.  When he saw you, he smiled softly. You walked over to him and bent, placing a sweet kiss on his lips. When you began to back away, he dropped his hand to your ass and held you there to deepen the kiss. You both moaned quickly, getting lost in each other. All was forgiven.

 “Good morning, sweetheart.”

 “Good morning, baby.” Pablo kissed you once more, and as you were moving to the seat beside him, he pulled you to the space in front of him on the table. Your ass had the china clattering loudly.

 “What’re you doing?”

 “I’m hungry.”

 That was all he said before he pushed you back onto the table and spread your thighs.

 “Pablo--,” you began before the rest of your sentence fluttered away once his lips connected with your sex.

 A soft moan escaped you, and any protest faded. You rested on your elbows and enjoyed the feel of him between your thighs.

 “Mmmm, yes, baby. Fuck, that feels so good.”

 Pablo knew just what to do to set you on fire and what to do to tease you. he was in the mood to tease you. After a few minutes of teasing, you wanted more and had no problem letting him know. You gripped his head, held his hair, and began rocking your sex across his mouth. Pablo moaned and allowed you to use his face to your delight. Every few swipes, he slurped your flesh, sending shivers through your body and bringing you closer and closer to your orgasm.

 “Mmm, yes, daddy, right there.” You looked at him, and your eyes met. The man was temptation. His hand crept up to grip your breast as he forcefully sucked your clit into his mouth.

 The action had you remembering the bathroom at the club.

 “Mmm, shit, baby. You’re gonna make me come.”

 You bucked across his mouth and closed your eyes to fully enjoy the pleasure he was giving you. In a matter of seconds, Pablo’s intent shifted from teasing, and seconds later, you were coming. He moaned and lapped up every drop.

 “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

 “Wow, when you said to come over for breakfast, I thought you meant pancakes and eggs, not sugar and spice.”

 Your eyes flew open at the new voice. From upside down, you couldn’t believe your eyes. You closed them and opened again, but the sight was the same.

 “Around here, sugar and spice is the only thing ever on the menu,” Pablo replied.

 He kissed your inner thigh then tapped it. Snapping out of your frozen state, you sat up, fixed yourself, and chanced a look back. As sure as the sun was shining, the stranger from last night was standing at the other end of the table with a satisfied grin on his face.

 “You took your time getting over here,” Pablo said as he walked over to him.

 You watched the two men embrace as manly men did. The whole time you stood there, stunned and speechless. Your boyfriend was chatting up and laughing with the man you’d allowed to bury his face between your thighs.

 “Come here, sweetheart.”

 On shaky legs, you walked to the two men, all the while gripping the collar of your robe.

 “Y/N, meet my best friend, the one man I trust with everything next to Levi,” Pablo informed. With every word, your eyes widened.

 The stranger held his hand out to you with a smile. “Lewis,” he said.

 Fighting the shock, you took his hand and shook it. “Although the pleasure is all yours, I’m glad to finally meet you,” Lewis teased. You knew his words had a double meaning. Instead of speaking of it being nice to meet him too, the only thing in your head was the repetitive thought. 

You’re fucked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lee’s Note: Hopefully this was good, I’m still trying to find my groove again. How was this intro to Lewis and Pablo?  😬

I can’t believe it took me until part 8 to do my favorite boy but

 Here are the pros and cons of dating

Noah

 Cons

Noah is really non confrontational, so he tends to let issues fester. It’s not that he’s trying to let things build up, it’s just that he doesn’t think they’re important enough to bring up. He won’t start a fight about them when they’ve built up, but if MC is angry about something he’ll mention that there’s a bunch of things he’s let go but not have specifics. It ends up coming out like ‘yeah well what about all the other things?!’ ‘what other things!?’ ‘I don’t remember!!’. He’s not actively keeping track of all her mistakes, he genuinely does forgive and forget, but then when tensions come to a boil he needs to point out that there has been conflict that he just ignored. He’s not trying to guilt or gaslight MC, but sometimes it feels like it. If she thinks especially little of his intentions, it feels like he’s just pulling things out of thin air to be mad instead of focusing on the issue. That’s not what he’s doing- he just doesn’t address little things until they feel like big things. But of course he hasn’t done the introspection to truly understand how doing this is hurtful or articulate that he doesn’t mean it to be. 

When he and MC disagree, he lets things go wayyy too easily. This is fine if MC is a really mature, self-reflective person who can see that she’s crossed a line after the fact. But if MC is a little more selfish/immature, like Lottie, this is a huge con because he doesn’t give her accountability that would help her grow. We saw this with Hope- she wasn’t able to recognize how harmful her temper was when she was dating Noah because he never pointed it out, he just rolled over. If there’s a genuine problem- financial, emotional, logistically, he’ll ‘let it go’ until it’s a way bigger problem (and much harder to solve). 

Sorry that most of these cons are about how he fights with people, but that’s what we saw in-game lol. I’d love to know more about how Lucas or Rahim fight with their partners. But when you’re arguing, Noah tends to focus on really little details of what you said instead of listening to the whole thing and getting a sense of the bigger picture. So let’s say the issue is ‘Noah, I need you to tell me when you’re borrowing my car because you took it to the gym and then it went from having enough gas to get me to work in the morning to being on empty. This morning I had to stop for gas and that made me late.” The issue there is actually ‘please tell me when you’re using my car”, but he fixates on the gas part and says “well fine I can fill up your tank”. So he focuses on little details that he can fix instead of acknowledging the actual problem.

He internalizes things so fucking hard. Yes he intellectually knows that when MC gives him feedback on things she’s talking about his BEHAVIOR and not him as a person, but he definitely feels like shit about himself if he makes a mistake and MC calls him on it. He’ll definitely beat himself up about things for weeks after it happens, and his internal dialogue in general is pretty toxic. 

I can see him being a bit of a workaholic. Not in the same sense that Camilo is in Boat Party, but Noah definitely will go into the library on a day he’s scheduled to be off if he has projects to work on or will stay late because he got engrossed in research. Same thing now that the library’s closed because of COVID- it takes him two times as long to put everyone online and work from home, so he’s spending more time working than ever. He views it through the lens of the ‘greater good’- getting that display set up for the patrons is more important that seeing his wife two hours earlier because many members of the community outnumber one person. Plus he just cares so much about his work that he has a hard time seeing it as an inconvenience to other people.

He loves his family so much. Even when MC and he get married and have kids, he struggles to prioritize them over his siblings and parents. So if his little brother Arlo needs money, Noah won’t hesitate to give him a loan even if he and MC are struggling financially. If his aging mom or dad can’t live alone anymore, Noah will invite them to move in with his family, even if their house isn’t big enough to accommodate more people. I can see this being a huge point of contention, especially in that second scenario where MC would have to take on a caretaker role as well. Noah just wants to help people so bad and has a hard time saying no, so that can sometimes impede his partner.

He’s really used to living on low income, and so he has a lot of frugal habits and concessions that he thinks are normal that someone more middle or upper class might find irritating. These are all coming from my experience and things partners have complained about- but think things like only eating out once a month or refusing to turn the heat on until it’s dangerous or making his own laundry detergent. He grew up doing them out of necessity (and still does, student debt on a public librarian’s budget? I couldn’t do it), so he doesn’t realize how strange or frustrating his habits might be to someone who isn’t used to it. He also has a really hard time justifying spending excessive amounts of money, so if MC has lavish taste there’s going to be some conflict.

He doesn’t like initiating anything. Conversations, activities… you know *smirk emoji*. He will, but the ratio of when Noah suggests something to when MC does is like 1:8

My boy is beautiful, and his clothes look lovely, but he has 7 outfits that he rewears all the time. The closest thing to fashion is him putting a different button up shirt underneath his vest. It’s definitely a joke at work that he wears the same sweater, button up, and quarter length shirt just in different colors. You know that vine where the teacher walks into the room wearing the same shirt in different colors, saying the same ‘hello’ for like a million days. Noah’s coworkers remake that with him, because that’s exactly what he does. 

He’s a bit of a homebody, and loves routine. For me, massive plus, I love that. But for someone who wants to party regularly or be spontaneous, I can see constantly changing plans and going out with people being really draining to Noah. He has a small group of close friends, so he’d struggle to remember MC’s friends' names if she has more than five. Don’t get me wrong, Noah will take MC to galleries and dates at least three times a month, but it has to be discussed and scheduled in advance. 

Pros

Honestly, what isn’t a pro about him? Noah is a steadfast, thoughtful, and kind person. His politics are about taking care of people, providing them dignity and respect, and building community. He loves his family and is incredibly patient. He’s incredibly smart but not at all classist or condescending about it. I know this is supposed to be about how the islanders affect the person they’re dating, but oh my god he’s such a good person I love him. Let’s just say the pro for this is his positive aura. 

He’s really good at group dynamics and listening, so he goes out of his way to make everyone feel heard and valued. If someone says something and no one acknowledges it, he’ll specifically engage with them so they’re not left hanging. If someone’s trying to get a word in but can’t, he’ll get everyone’s attention then say ‘so and so had an idea’. He’s not one to boisterously laugh in group settings, but he always makes eye contact and smiles if you make a joke that flops or say something he agrees with. If people are teasing about something, he picks up if it’s gone too far really easily and will gracefully change the subject/tell them to knock it off. 

He’s super conscientious about respecting boundaries and ensuring the people around him are taking care of himself. If MC and him are long distance and texting after 10pm, he’ll be like “I love you, but we’ve both got to sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow”. He’ll always check and make sure people have eaten when meeting up with them, and if they haven’t he’ll insist they get food from somewhere. 100% gives you his jacket, brings you water bottles, in general just wants you to take care of yourself. 

Above all else, Noah just always ensures the people around him feel safe. The last thing he’d want to do is make people uncomfortable, so safe driving, safe spaces, safe sex are all musts. He’s really good in crisis situations because he can calm people down and encourage them to think critically.  

Building off of that, he’s really aware of how much of the housework is being done by who and always tries to ensure he’s doing his part. I bet that was a big thing he ripped on Rahim for- Rahim expects his woman to clean up after him and do the bulk of the domestic work, and Noah knows that’s bullshit. I think Noah likes cleaning, anyways, and will usually take laundry/disinfecting bathrooms/cleaning dishes over cooking or running errands. But the mental load of keeping track of recipes/groceries that need replenishing and keeping up with kids needs, he’s aware of the imbalance and does his part. Obvious plus, because it sounds fucking exhausting to date a man. He fucking hates vaccuming though, and will splurge on a roomba. 

He has a dry sense of humor that’s very based in puns and hyperbole. Sometimes it’s hard to know when he’s joking or not, but he never makes you feel bad for missing a joke or dwells on something for too long. He absolutely subscribes to the Mcelroys’ No Bummers rule, there are some things you don’t joke about and he’s happy to shut down inappropriate comments or ‘jokes’. He definitely prefers physical gaffs and dumb ways of saying things, so his favorite comedians are John Mulaney and Chris Fleming. While humor isn’t an important part of how he relates to other people, Noah enjoys being around funny people and won’t shut down their energy like Rahim, Marisol, or Hope. 

This is just me projecting again but Noah is generoussss. Even though he doesn’t make a lot of money at the library, he still has a ‘mutual aid’ budget each month (and goes over it often). He’s the first one to give money to panhandlers, donate to gofundmes, and give friends/family personal loans. That definitely gets him into sticky situations sometimes, because he has a hard time saying no and can get taken advantage of, but ultimately I think it’s a pro because he’ll never forget where he came from and always prioritize helping other people. 

He has a really pretty, deep singing voice and this is a pro to me because fuck I meltttttt.

The shit he says to his partner or spouse? THE most romantic thing in the world. You think Mr. “you’re made of stardust” doesn’t shower his lover with the most meaningful lines at random times? You think he’s not quoting sappho and jane austen when he’s at a loss for words? You think he’s NOT going to turn over in bed on a lazy Saturday and say ‘this is the most perfect my life will ever be’? It’s not even prompted either, yes he’ll compliment Bobby or MC when they get all dressed up for date night, but more often he’ll profess his adoration in the middle of dinner, then take another forkful of food. 

Fantastic with kids, and this is a huge pro because people who can work with kids and be patient/positive with them make me so fuckim soft. But if/when (hopefully when because if MC didn’t want kids I don’t think it’d last) they had kids, Noah is happy to be on bottle duty, wake up early to the baby, and generally be a really involved parent. He’ll take a big chunk of paternity leave, and generally be there as much as humanly possible. Even when they have multiple little tyrants running around, he always makes time to be alone with MC and make sure she’s not taking on too much.

He’s basically a lesbian, which is definitely a reason I love him so much. Hear me out- loves milfs, loves 80s music, communicates affection through meaningful glances and playing with hair but will die before explicitly saying any of it, crushes on his best friend for the longest time but never makes the first move, puts way too much emotional meaning and personal metaphors into objects and then presents them as gifts, is into fandoms and actively collects pop figures, is attracted to assertive/powerful women, wears beige skinny jeans, wears VESTS….. That’s a lesbian. He’s a bisexual man, but he’s also an honorary lesbian.

A really good confidant. Noah’s an amazing listener and never judges people harshly- his life philosophy is as long as you’re not hurting anymore or yourself, everything else is details. So you can definitely tell him secrets and confess regrets to him and he’ll listen with those soft eyes and gentle nods. Talking to him about mistakes always feels like unburdening yourself. And he’d never tell your secret to anyone. Doesn’t matter if you cheat on him, lie to him, or die, he’s never going to tell anyone your secrets. 

Almost finished! 30 chapters down, a few more to go. Thanks to those of you who wrote awesome notes, and who provide inspiration to us newbies every day with your lovely tales!

Chapter 1 Arrivals

Prologue – September 1943, New York City

25-year-old Killian Jones steps down the ramp off the Algernon straight from Belfast. He has $40 to his name, the clothes on his back. Having lost his brother in an accident, his mother to illness, and abandonment of his father when he was 7, Killian made a choice to leave his homeland and make his way to America. America was currently engaged in World War II, with no family left, he decides that a fresh start in a new land and a new line of work away from the IRA is just what he needs after the arrests and massacres taking place back in Ireland.

Gun running and violence is not a life he wants any longer, nor is a life in prison, or death. He is hopeful that despite his heritage, he will be able to settle into a new life, away from the massacre left behind on the emerald isle. Finding honest work is harder than he expected, even in a city this large.

Waiting in those long lines with all those other expats, hoping to find honest work and nothing. He goes every day for two weeks but quickly realizes that no one wants to hire an Irishman or give him a fair shake. But he believes you make your own destiny and believes in hard work and determination.

He hears the other men talking, that security and lounges, the US Army, and driving taxis are just about the only people hiring anyone right now if you aren’t American.

Killian has no interest in joining Americas crusade, so he finds a gig working the doors and security a little dingy nightclub at first, but slowly descends into the more glamorous nightclubs and lounges.

Word spreads quickly to his newest employer, Louis Lepke, who owns the Riobamba- one of Manhattan’s most posh nightclubs that Killian was once part of the IRA and has a hell of a left hook. Lepke, one of the most dangerous mob bosses in New York at that time sees potential in Killian, thinks that his past IRA ties could be beneficial to their enterprise, and he offers him a better paying job running pickups and drop offs of packages that Killian doesn’t open and doesn’t want to open.

While the money is nothing to turn your nose up at, Killian continues this path, socking away the cash and crafting an entirely new persona for himself while making his own contingency plans to disappear for a quieter life someplace near the sea, perhaps finding peace and burying his demons for good at last.

Killian will never forget the day he was able to move out of the vermin infested room he had been renting in a boarding house on the lower east side, and into a three-room apartment of his own for $80 a month near Washington Square Park. Not cheap by any means, but it’s a second-floor walkup, with a fireplace, and wide windows that overlook the street.

Lepke pays him three hundred a month right now, but he always earns tips from both ends of pickup and delivery, and that extra cash is always appreciated.

He will never forget the first suit he purchases, or his first pair of new shoes in god knows how many years. He knows with his new employment, he needs to look the part, so he only is careful in his wardrobe choices, dark colors that won’t show dirt easily, well-tailored shirts, wingtips in black and white, and two hats that he sees the other men wearing.

He manages to pry a floorboard in the back of his new closet loose, securing the hole with a thin layer of wood, ensuring nothing would fall through or be lost to the ageing building, and he uses this as home for his cash and very little valuables. He has no furniture to speak of, except a mattress on the floor with linens, but he knows soon enough he will have money to furnish his new home.

For now, he is only willing to spend money on rent, and groceries, he saves every dollar that he earns after his necessities are purchased.

What he does not expect is meeting Emma Swan, an enchanting blonde lounge singer at the Riobamba. Frank Sinatra even plays there on occasion, so the joint was always packed. But amongst all those entertainers, is Emma. With the voice of an angel, the body of a bloody goddess, and a fire in her green eyes.

He knows that from the moment he saw her dancing and singing across that smoke filled room, that he was going to have her no matter the cost. Tonight, her golden curls pinned back on one side with a glittering clip, wrapped in a floor length sequin dress cut scandalously low in the front, even for the nightclub scene at that point in time.

She is easily the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and he wonders if she works for Lepke as well, a personal relationship perhaps, and the thought of any man touching her at all has him see red when those thoughts flit through his mind. He always hopes divine intervention is on his side to catch a glimpse of her during her sets, whether picking up or dropping off to his boss.

Occasionally he just sits in the back nursing a rum while he watches her, gliding around the small stage, dressed like sex personified, singing in that angelic voice of hers, enchanting the entire room.

She sings songs of love and happiness, sometimes she covers popular music of other entertainers, but he sees the sadness and demons lingering behind those emerald eyes, the glittering dresses and gorgeous gold curls. He wants to know more, scale those walls he can spot a mile high surrounding her.

On more than one occasion he is thankful for the low lighting of the club and his dark suits to hide the evidence of his rock-hard arousal that she stirs up every damn time he lays eyes on her. Green eyes that sparkle in the low lighting, locking on his blue. She sees him and he sees her, never exchanging words, just eye locks and then he is off.

In a rare occasion that Killian indulges the other members of his crew in playing craps, he casually asks about Emma to one of the kinder men, Bill Starkey, a slightly older married man, who handles the books for the clubs that Lepke owns.

“What of that lounge singer Starkey, she is a sight for sore eyes if I may say so myself”, Killian mentions with a smile. The older man looks him over for a second, and replies “She is a quite a dame, isn’t she? Voice of a siren an everything, but she is not to be trifled with - She keeps to herself, is a bloody fantastic piece of entertainment, draws the crowds in, but she does not mess with our crew. Many of ours have learned that the hard way he says with a laugh, Tough as brass that one is, so don’t bother with her”, and the man went back to the game.

When Starkey bids goodnight, leaving the younger men to their games, another crew member that Killian has somewhat befriended named Victor Whale leans over, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “If its Emma you’ve set your sightings on, you are not as slick as you think ya git, my girl Ruby mentioned that she caught you watching her shows on occasion, but Emma doesn’t date anyone around here, if she does date, it isn’t anyone related to our line of work”.

Bidding goodnight to Killian and the few stragglers still playing, he stands and Killian notices Ruby Lucas in her coat waiting by the door with a smile on her face. Whale takes her hand and pulls them out the door. Killian feels a pang of jealousy at their obvious companionship but pushes the thought away.

Ruby Lucas, the costume coordinator for the club, is a gorgeous specimen of her own right with long chocolate locks, hazel eyes, and legs for days. She has worked in the club a long time, and if anyone knows Emma, its Ruby. Killian decides that perhaps he shall inquire to Ms. Lucas about Swan but tucks the thought away for another time.

He has gained enough information about her for one night, he will have to just be patient. If Ruby has noticed him watching Emma, he would bet the few dollars left in his lightened pocket tonight that she has told Swan about him, and that is something he is not quite sure he knows how to feel about.

He wonders what Ruby would tell Emma, since she was obviously very much with Whale, she must know more about their conducted business, but appears to know when to keep her mouth shut. Maybe, the tides will be in his favor since he tends to keep a low profile in his job. The bosses like him because he is discreet and is known not to be messed with.

Emma sees him alright, black suits, navy wool suits, tuxedoes at parties, custom made shirts, and she would bet her last dollar that those cufflinks he always wears are actual sterling silver.

He has slicked back inky hair, tousled in just the right places, a permanent five o’ clock shadow, and forget me not blue eyes that haunt her for days every single time she catches a glimpse of him staring right back at her. 

She notices the way he carries himself, so confident, dangerous, and definitely a hustler. He must be connected somehow, and Emma does not want that complication in her simple life.

He looks at her sometimes like he would devour her like a man on death row, and she being his last meal. She cannot get mixed up with someone like him, she has survived this long without someone, and the last time she allowed someone into her heart it nearly broke her in two.

Her friend Ruby has casually mentioned him, his name is Killian Jones, he works with her boyfriend Victor, but she does not know exactly what his role is. Ruby giggles as she talks about how handsome Killian is, and notes that he always throws her a generous tip, never ogling her or being disrespectful like some of the other crew who think that any woman in the club is dumb enough to roll in the sack with them.

Ruby has been with her boyfriend for a few years from what she mentions, having been together since before Victor’s job with Lepke’s crew, whatever that may be. Ruby is also one of the few people that makes Emma smile genuinely and lifts her spirits. Emma considers the brunette one of her very few real friends.

One night after her set is done, Emma enters her dressing room, and slips out of her dress, carefully hanging it inside the garment bag, and lights a cigarette, swallowing a sip of her Manhattan. Her roommate Mary Margaret is getting better and better with her sewing skills, her emerald green gown tonight is delicate, covered in sequins and green feathers float around the hem of her dress, she admires the gown once more before zipping the bag.

Standing in her silk stockings and garters, she begins removing her jewelry and realizes suddenly that she is not alone. Sitting in a low chair in the back corner of the dressing room is Killian fucking Jones. She grabs for her silk robe, tying it quickly- trying to regain some of her modesty. Watching her with those blue eyes, fingers crossed under his chin while he leans forward, elbows on his knees.

"Don't stop on my account love, I simply wanted to introduce myself, and I thank the bloody gods that I was granted enough luck to watch your private show just now. He smirked at her, running is tongue over his bottom lip, and she wanted to punch that smirk off his smug face, even if her heart beat faster in her chest and not from anxiety.

“Emma breathe,” she internally chastises herself. Her brain reconnects, she stamps out her cigarette, and she manages to spit out “listen pal, I don't know who the hell you think you are, but I am not that type of woman. Go buy one down the street if you need to get your rocks off but get the hell out.”

He stood up, adjusting his trousers by the belt, which she noticed were fitting awfully tight, the evidence of his arousal clear but now covered as he buttoned his coat up.

He spoke, his voice a lilting Irish accent, “I apologize lass, I simply wanted to introduce myself and give you these in person,” he held out a large bouquet of creamy white roses tipped in pale pink, tied with a black silk ribbon. 

“You are a vision, both on and off the stage Swan, and I simply was hoping to make your acquaintance as we seem to catch each other’s eye from time to time. I thought perhaps my interest was reciprocated, but clearly it is not, and I shan't bother you again”.

Emma did not know what to say, still shocked, her red painted mouth in a grim line. She caught his cologne as he made his exit, carefully avoiding touching her in any way. He smelled of wood and spice, and definitely rum.

Right as he was crossing the threshold to exit, Emma made a rash decision, and grabbed his hand, locked eyes with him and said, “Don't ever do that again, thank you for the flowers, but I am not interested.” 

“They're nothing compared to you Emma, but I do apologize again”, and with that parting line Killian quietly exited, making sure to close the door fully behind him.

Emma locked the handle, ensuring no one else would interrupt her. She cleaned most of her face off and pulled on her burgundy wool dress and matching coat, gathered her things, and her flowers hailing a cab home.

Tagging a few who might be interested! @wefoundloveunderthelight @itsfabianadocarmo @purplehawkcaptain @the-lady-of-misthaven @the-captains-ayebrows @thesschesthair @myfearless-love @kmomof4 @jonesfandomfanatic @hookedpirate @xhookswenchx @let-it-raines @letmedieahooker @captainswanouat @captainswoon @cathloves @laschatzi @timeless-love-story @asluve @ao3feed-cs @ahookerandproud @ineffablecolors @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @kymbersmith-90 @elizabeethan @the-darkdragonfly @tnlph @the-captains-ayebrows @captainswoon @captainswanouat @captain-swan-coffee​ @jrob64​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​​ @captainirishstubble @onceuponadaily​ @resident-of-storybrooke​​ @greenlef777 Let me know if you want to be added or removed! 

Thoughts On The Gods - Ares

Ares is fully supportive of self-defense for everyone and occasionally drops by various types of classes to teach some of the techniques he’s used over the years. 

Every time someone says “Fight me” or “Square up”, Ares sheds a tear of pride. 

Ares can be found in the ferocious battles of war, the well-aimed hit of a boxer, the repetitive strikes on a punching bag, the surge of adrenaline when you’re in danger, and the fierce stares of those who have had to fight to survive. 

Ares cherishes the kids who have have dealt with abuse by growing stronger to defend themselves and others. He watches over the kids on the streets who get by doing any and everything they have to in order to make it through another day. 

Ares is compassionate to those suffering from PTSD, whether they’re soldiers, abuse survivors, or those dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy. He knows full well how the horrors of the battlefield and phantasms of the past can haunt you. 

If you don’t think Ares would totally kick back and watch some kickass shounen anime like Dragon Ball or One Punch Man, you’re sorely mistaken. XD

Ares acknowledges that there are all kinds of battlefields, not just the ones in war. From the playground dealing with bullies to your inner demons to those fighting off life-threatening illnesses in the hospitals, they’re all valid. A battlefield can exist any and everywhere, so he will stand behind you no matter what. 

Violence can be the answer to some things, but even the god of war can acknowledge that pacifism has its uses. 

Athena and Ares aren’t diametrically opposed. You can’t have one without the other: war without reason is just a massacre while strategy without those willing to do what it takes is useless. 

Ares is the type of person who’d pull up to a random person for a drag race, then take them out for a beer, regardless of who won. 

Ares feels a kinship with animals that get a bad rep just for their breed, like pitbulls and rottweilers, since he knows exactly how they feel.

Thinks that ballet dancers are pretty hardcore, given the lengths they go to in order to perfect their craft. Sometimes he hangs around after a performance or two to discuss the show and compare battle scars. 

Hates the fact that veterans end up with the short end of the stick after returning home. It infuriates him to no end to watch the people who sacrificed everything for their country be treated like shit in return. 

 Loves the energy at a heavy metal concert or intense parties. They’re refreshing to him when he wants to get away from things on the divine realm. 

That scene in Marvel’s Thor where Thor and Selvig go out drinking and smash mugs, then sing drunkenly together on the way home (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kAwzX3A4XQ) ? Totally something he and Dionysus would do. 

Has a bike and car that he enjoys maintaining with his own two hands.

Sometimes, he enjoys taking long drives on abandoned stretches of road. Hermes will join him when he has the time, allowing the brothers to enjoy the scenery and sound of engine drowning out the rest of the world. 

Could definitely see him watching and engaging in plenty of MMA fights. 

Visits the sites of war memorials across the globe to pay his respects for those who fought and served with everything they had. 

He has a massive amount of respect for military families, as he realizes how much they have to give up in order for their loved one to serve. 

He rallies beside those who fight for what they believe in, supporting them and inspiring their determination to continue

Watches over military beats, helping protect and uplift them during the separation from their family members on tour

Red, black, and brown are colors associated with him

Enjoys watching Deadpool. The self-awareness and immortality makes him find him relatable

Often plays chess matches and other strategy games with his family, especially against Zeus, Athena, Hermes, and Dionysus

Plays RPGs as a change of pace from the role he typically plays. Prefers to play cleric or mage for this reason

Bloodstone, onyx, obsidian, ruby, garnet, smoky quartz, and tiger's eye are crystals I associate with him

Ensures that POWs are well-treated both while in capture and incessant they've arrived home. Helps expedite the latter process as he understands the stress and trauma being one has on the person

Doesn't condone torture or sexual assault on the battlefield. Soldiers are meant to fight, but not to act inhumanely

Helps Athena, Themis, and Nemesis with making sure that war criminals get their just desserts

Doesn't condemn desertion as not everyone is built for war

Supports the effort to end sexual assault in the military

Finds the virtual reality technology that helps people overcome PTSD fascinating. Helps Apollo, Hephaestus, Hermes, and Athena with advancing it to assist as many as they can

Major history buff. Happy to study the past of countries around the world and isn't choosy about the topic

TØP Weekly Update #57: Thanks, Jay Z (8/9/2018)

Turns out last week was a pretty good one to take off. Very little of major note happened in the Twenty One Pilots sphere while I vacationed in the Canadian wilderness. This week, however... that’s a whole other story. 

New music. New music video. New track list. New merch. Let’s get into it. 

This Week’s TØPics:

“Levitate” and Trench Track List Leak, and Then...

“Levitate” Video and Trench Track List Released

“Jumpsuit” Drops Off the Hot 100 (But Still Gains At Radio...)

Mark Goes Off

AND MORE

Major News and Announcements:

On Tuesday, the streaming service Tidal briefly posted the third promotional track for Trench before realizing their mistake and taking it down. This still provided the Clique with plenty of time to record and post it in so many places across the Interwebs that Warner Music Group’s copyright bots couldn’t hope to catch up. The likelihood that Tyler and Josh leaked it themselves is honestly pretty low extremely high.

The track, entitled “Levitate”, is the most unmistakable hip-hop track in the band’s discography thus far. Running at a tight 2:20, Tyler delivers some truly impressive bars in what is essentially a single extended verse, constantly mixing up his flow against a slick trap drum beat and the eerie synth that was hinted at in the end of “Jumpsuit” (if the entire album flows from song to song like this... automatic 10/10). 

Lyrically, “Levitate” sees Tyler discussing the role of songwriting in his life, a form of expression that allows him to “fire-breathe” and “levitate” beyond his problems. The song is littered with gems (“we are not just graffiti on a passing train”) and jabs against the music industry for trying to rein him in or make him into something he’s not (“this culture is a poacher of overexposure, don’t feed me to the vultures”, “you’re the worst; your structure compensates, but compensation feels a lot like rising up to dominate”). The reference to Tyler getting back “what I once bought back in that slot, I won’t need to replace” is perfect, and I’m still emotional about it.

I do have a few minor quibbles with the song. I think the looped instrumental is a little too minimalistic to justify the length of the outro. “At least they all know what they hear comes from a place” and “you can levitate with just a little help” lack specificity and fall a little flat for me. And I’ve expressed before that I’m not overly interested in songs about the music industry that aren’t directly applicable to most people’s experience (sorry, "Fairly Local” and “Lane Boy”). 

All that said, the production and presentation is so slick. Plus, Tyler grounds the song in enough personal experience and relatable struggles that it succeeds in crossing over that gap of fame and success to actually hit home. Lines like “danger in the fabric of this thing I made,” “I thought I could depend on my weekends on the freezing ground,” and “don’t feed me to the vultures, I am a vulture who feeds on pain” show the same vulnerability and self-aware introspection that attracted me to the band in the first place.

“Levitate” wasn’t all we got from the leak. An updated version without the yellow duct tape over the track list was included as the background, revealing the names of the other eleven songs that we’ll hear sometime between now and October 5th. The track list is as follows:

Didn’t think that I’d struggle with a song title more than “Bandito”, but “Pet Cheetah” and “The Hype” are really gonna have to go the extra mile in ways that no other song from the band has before to justify those artistic choices. (That said, “Neon Gravestones” sounds rad as hell.) We’ll save picking apart the meaning for all of these titles for a later date; we’ve still got another two months before the album is out, and I don’t think we’ll be getting any new songs or videos until late September at the earliest, so we’ve got time.

ln the wake of the leak (much like with “Heathens” two years ago), the song and video for “Levitate” were pushed out the following day, two days earlier than originally planned if the date on Tidal is anything to go buy. The third installment in this Trench trilogy features Tyler and Josh performing the track at the Bandito camp while vultures fly around looking cool. At the video’s conclusion, Tyler is snatched away from a campfire by a bishop and dragged without a struggle back to Dema. One Bandito looks frightened by this, but another just ominously states “Welcome to Trench”.

I must confess that this music video didn’t fully do it for me. While the production value remains stellar, the “Car Radio” call-back with shaving Tyler’s head is great, and I love any opportunity to see the boys perform together, “Levitate” as a song is frankly too short and moves at a too breakneck pace to make a truly compelling video out of the song alone. I’m honestly shocked that there wasn’t a longer extended scene attached to the end of the video to provide a stronger narrative conclusion to the pieces laid in the last two videos, especially considering that “Jumpsuit” opened with such a scene. As it is, the video moves by so quickly and shares so many aesthetic qualities with its two predecessors that it didn’t leave much of an impression on me.

There is, however, one (potentially unintentional) aspect of the “Levitate” video that really resonated with me. Tyler enjoying himself while performing and being with people only to be yanked out of the group once the energy dies down a little is a perfect representation of anxiety and depression, which so often sets in without warning in circumstances where one would think are supposed to feel happy and safe. The fact that this story ends on such a down note reads as an honest reflection on the nature of mental illness, even if it is perhaps narratively unsatisfying. Besides, I highly doubt this will be our last exploration of the Trench universe; we’ll just have to see where else Tyler and Josh take us when the album drops.

With the initial wave of promo singles out of the way, the marketing team has moved ahead with the business of actually selling the album. Trench is now available for pre-order on iTunes. The Twenty One Pilots webstore is now full of various bundle packages for pre-order that include t-shirts, hoodies, a dope bandana, a 10′’ vinyl EP with the three promo tracks, CD and cassette versions of the full album and (if you order before the end of the month) a neat little patch, all at pretty reasonable prices.

Other News and Shenanigans:

There isn’t too awful much to report outside of the mountain of major developments (thank God). Andrew Donoho posted some dope behind the scenes pics starring Clifford the Vulture. Josh is still occasionally tweeting and posting pictures of hanging out with Debby, his brother, and other cool people. Tyler is still quiet as ever, and I’m not sure why that shocks people. It bears repeating that he was rarely on social media pre-hiatus, that this is probably going to be a regular thing, and that stepping back from social media is honestly one of the better decisions one can make for your mental health and overall leisure time.

The only really notable thing that I missed during my vacation was Mark clarifying on Twitter that the Trench music videos have all been in chronological order and that he’s been happy to be giving Andrew Donoho creative control over how the videos have developed. With how cryptic things have been surrounding this album’s release, it’s refreshing to have a voice of reason to tell it like it is. Thanks Mark.

Chart Performance:

While the new song has been at the forefront of everyone’s mind, its predecessors have still been putting in work... but perhaps not as much as might have been expected based on the last album cycle’s success.

In spite of the release of the new music video two weeks back, “Nico and the Niners” slipped off the Hot 100 after its first week and has declined in all metrics. This week, “Jumpsuit” also fell off the Hot 100 and has also been steadily sinking in sales and streaming. There are plenty of reasonable explanations for this: the too-heavy-for-Top-40 rock sound, the constant stream of other TØP content drawing focus away from any one song, the lack of promotional appearances from the band itself on TV and radio.

Many hopeful fans have pointed to the performance of “Stressed Out” as a hopeful sign that “Jumpsuit” may mount a future comeback, but I have my doubts about that comparison. 2015 was a very different time for the band- “Stressed Out”, like “Fairly Local” and “Tear In My Heart”, debuted on the Hot 100 because the Clique was as ravenous then as it is now, but the band still had next-to-no mainstream recognition. Those songs thus debuted low and fell off pretty quickly. It wasn’t until months later that the Clique’s grassroots support and the band’s rising esteem within the industry resulted in “Stressed Out” getting picked up at radio and being shared with new audiences, creating a snowball of promotion that launched Twenty One Pilots into the popular consciousness. When “Heathens” was released, the band’s profile was big enough to ensure it debuted at #14 and remained in the Top 40 for months. Compared to that performance, “Jumpsuit” is flopping commercially, no question.

However, there is still a glimmer of hope for the song’s future. While it is falling off pretty hard in most categories, it is still gaining spins at radio. It took #1 on the Rock Airplay chart for this last week. That means that more casual music listeners are hearing it than ever, which could make for another snowball where these listeners go back and search for the song themselves in the weeks to come. We will have to wait and see how the band and Fueled By Ramen decide to market the song and promote the album as it gets closer to its release date.

One thing is for sure: the band is not in any financial trouble. Even if “Jumpsuit” never returns to the Hot 100, even if “Levitate” is rejected by both lovers and haters of hip-hop and fails to chart, even if Trench somehow fails to match the Week 1 chart-topping sales of Blurryface even after the band picked up millions of new fans over the last three years, two things remain true: Blurryface made them more money than any individual will ever reasonably need, and they’ve already sold tens of thousands of tickets for their next tour. The days of worrying about this band are over for the foreseeable future; for now, we can just enjoy the music.

Power to the local dreamer.

|-/

3.3 Discussion: Creating an Effective Introduction

Getting Started

In their textbook, Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright (2019) say,

Why is the emphasis on strategic training important? Companies are in business to make money, and every business function is under pressure to show how it contributes to a company’s success or face spending cuts and even outsourcing. To contribute to a company’s success, training activities should help the company achieve its business strategy.

There is both a direct and an indirect link between training and business strategy and goals. Training can help employees develop skills needed to perform their jobs, which directly affects the business. Giving employees opportunities to learn and develop creates a positive work environment, which supports the business strategy by attracting talented employees as well as motivating and retaining current employees. (p. 270)

The learning concepts from the Chapter 7 textbook reading include:

How training, informal learning, and knowledge management can contribute to continuous learning and companies’ business strategy

The role of the manager in identifying training needs and supporting training on the job

Conducting a needs assessment

Evaluating employees’ readiness for training

The strengths and weaknesses of presentation, hands-on, and group training methods

The potential advantages of e-learning for training

Designing a training session to maximize learning

Choosing appropriate evaluation design and training outcomes based on the training objectives and evaluation purpose

Designing a cross-cultural preparation program

Developing a program for effectively managing diversity

This research and discussion assignment will further advance learning in the ways to bring humor into the workplace and to create effective introductions for training and development sessions.

Upon successful completion of the course material, you will be able to:

Create an effective introduction for a training and development session.

Resources

Bible: English Standard Version

Textbook: Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage

File: What Is a Scholarly Article?

Media: Training and Development-Presentation A

Webpage: 10 Reasons Why Humor Is a Key to Success at Work

Reference

Teacher Stream, LLC. (2009). Mastering online discussion board facilitation. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/stw/edutopia-onlinelearning-mastering-online-discussion-board-facilitation.pdf

Background Information

What does the Bible have to say about humor? Plenty, as the sampling of Bible verses shown below discloses, all of which were taken from the English Standard Version:

“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22).

“Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them’” (Psalm 126:2).

“He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting” (Job 8:21).

“A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance...” (Ecclesiastes 3:4).

“A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed” (Proverbs 15:13).

“Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” (Psalm 32:11).

“Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief” (Proverbs 14:13).

“Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving” (Psalm 32:11).

For this activity, you will research the topic of humor in the workplace, share perspectives for how humor may or may not be currently utilized in your workplace, and create an effective introduction to a proposed training session titled “Humor in the Workplace.”

Instructions

Review the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.

Read Chapter 7 in the textbook.

Review the media Training and Development–Presentation A.

Navigate to the Discussion page and in your initial discussion post, respond to the following discussion prompts:

Provide a detailed post that demonstrates clear, insightful critical thinking. Your initial posting should be 200–300 words in length.

Organize your initial post by using a heading for each response to match those shown in bold in Step 4.

Your initial posting is to include, at a minimum, three sources properly cited and referenced:

Post your initial discussion by the end of the fourth day of the workshop.

Conduct a critical analysis of postings by two of your classmates by the end of the workshop.

Each discussion response to a classmate should facilitate engaging dialogue and evidence critical thinking when addressing your classmate’s posting. Utilize the following ways to engage in scholarly dialogue and expand learning around the topics in this workshop:

Each response should be 200–300 words in length and include, at a minimum, three sources properly cited and referenced:

For questions on APA Style, review OCLS APA Writing Styles Guides

A Place for Humor – Research support for why there is a place for humor in the workplace. Use the article “10 Reasons Why Humor Is a Key to Success at Work” to begin to conceptualize your research requirement. Provide a summary of your research findings.

Humor in the Workplace – Assess your organization’s use of (or lack of) humor in the workplace.

Training for “Humor in the Workplace.” Assume that management has asked you to serve as a consultant to provide “Humor in the Workplace” training. In support of that training session, provide the following:

Write a one-paragraph summary description of your training session to be included in the training materials and marketing campaign (posters, advertising, training).

For example, you might create a YouTube of yourself telling a joke as part of the creative approach to the introduction of the “Humor in the Workplace” training session to be given by you in your workplace. Have fun! Be creative! Use appropriate humor!

This training session is to be used as a way to help ease people into the culture at this business! In this session, we will review a case study, from my own fraternity life, and tell a joke that might help you relate to my life in my fraternity. We will also review a report from Psychological Reports and review an article in an issue in the Harvard Business Review. They will be used to help us engage in the analysis of the reasoning and logic for using humor in the workplace.

Create an effective introduction for your “Humor in the Workplace” training session using (a) one or more of the following frameworks, and (b) selective use of the means for conveying your introduction (that is, written dialogue or script, PowerPoint presentation, video clip, podcast, artist rendering—especially of your own making, and so forth):

Reviewing objectives

Asking a rhetorical question

Asking a series of questions related to the topic

Using an interesting or famous quotation

Relating the topic to previously covered HR content

Using a case study or other activity

Using a videotape or other media

Making a provocative statement to encourage discussion

Giving a demonstration

Using a game

Storytelling

Telling a joke—supplemented with a connection to the learning

Relating the topic to past, present, or future work experiences

Sharing personal experience

Relating the topic to real-life experience

Case study and telling a joke: 

Attempts at micro-aggressions in my fraternity get turned into a joke to help develop our brotherhood. It is a joke, because it’s benign and shouldn’t be thought of as defining our people... (ex. one brother in the fraternity is nicknamed “Hitler’s Wet Dream”, because he looks so Aryan. Another brother is nicknamed “The Dark White”, because he seems so white, even as a black person!)

This is necessary to bring up, especially because of the relationships we have with people who have higher card numbers than other people who have, either, been in the fraternity for a shorter period of time, and/or don’t end up going active. While people who don’t go active, these days, don’t always get kicked out of the fraternity, they do end up being lower on the totem pole when it comes to leadership roles. People who don’t go active may become the head of a committee, but they can never become a member of the executive council, and end up doing the most menial work to help ensure that the brotherhood keeps surviving into the future. 

The reason I am bringing this issue of superiority up is because of the attitudes that many people, who don’t end up going active, tend to have in the fraternity. Because they end up doing most of the menial chores, they often can end up becoming somewhat salty, and drag the fraternity down. This shows in many people’s sense of humor! It’s understandable, though, that some people aren’t meant to make it through college! Because some people aren’t meant to graduate from college/! Many people end up sticking around, and may even become a person with an honorary card number, and they end up receiving many of the benefits of going active and becoming an alumni! 

Lynn Taylor, workplace expert and author of Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant, believes employees are much more comfortable using humor with colleagues than they are with their bosses. “You face a higher risk factor when joking around with your boss because you just don't know how your lightheartedness may be taken. So, you generally find greater reticence to use humor with senior managers.” (Smith, 2013)

I, at least, what have felt salty if I hadn’t immediately gone active, after rushing. If this would have happened, I would have ended up dragging the fraternity down. Instead, I forged my own path; even if my highest role in the fraternity was as a Secretary, and Pledge Master. I would have become so salty, that I wouldn’t have been able to share in the fun of poking fun at these things that would otherwise be microaggressions, if it weren’t for the fact that people can get beyond these issues and/or problems. I would have likely been deceitful and/or jealous and backstabbing people. Because of who I am at my best, though, I am deceitful nor jealous...

A good test of senses of humor and leadership is the “Humor Styles Questionnaire, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the Subjective Happiness Scale”. It was a study conducted with the help of undergraduate college students at the City University of Hong Kong. The study tested, what were referred to as, adaptive and maladaptive humor styles. “Adaptive humor styles include affiliative and self-enhancing humor. Affiliative humor refers to the tendency to tell jokes or engage in spontaneous witty banter to create amusement, lessen interpersonal tension, and facilitate relationships. Self-enhancing humor is the tendency to find amusement from the incongruities in life. Maladaptive humor styles include aggressive humor and self-defeating humor. Aggressive humor is the tendency to use humor at the expense of others to amuse oneself, such as teasing, ridicule, derision, and disparagement, in order to criticize or manipulate others. Self-defeating humor describes the tendency to amuse others by making fun of oneself or by exposing one's own weaknesses.”  (Psychological Reports. Oct 2014, Vol. 115 Issue 2, p517-525. 9p)

With regard to the relationship between humor styles and self-esteem, previous studies showed that self-esteem is positively correlated with adaptive humor styles but not with aggressive humor [ Hiranandani & Yue, 2014 (aggressive humor: Indian university students β = −.11; Chinese university students β = −.01); Martin, et al ., 2003 (aggressive humor: β = .03); Kuiper, et al ., 2004 (aggressive humor: β = −.13)], and that adaptive humor styles also correlated with self-esteem ( Martin, et al ., 2003 ), while self-defeating humor was negatively associated with self-esteem ( Thorson, et al ., 1997 ; Stieger, et al ., 2011 ).

Specifically, previous research examined how adaptive humor styles mediate the relation between positive self-evaluative standards and self-esteem ( Kuiper & McHale, 2009 ) and the relations between self-esteem and gelotophobia, the fear of being made fun of ( Hiranandani & Yue, 2014 )

Hypothesis 1 . Self-esteem and subjective happiness would be positively associated with affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor but negatively associated with aggressive humor and self-defeating humor. 

Hypothesis 2 . The effect of self-esteem on subjective happiness would be mediated by the adaptive humor styles.

The results of the study, in Table 1, “shows the correlation results between humor styles, subjective happiness, and self-esteem. Affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor were positively correlated with self-esteem and subjective happiness, respectively. No significant results were found between aggressive humor and self-defeating humor styles and self-esteem and subjective happiness. Results showed that self-esteem was also positively correlated with subjective happiness.” (Psychological Reports. Oct 2014, Vol. 115 Issue 2, p517-525. 9p)      

The result of the study, in Table 2, shows “the results of the regression analyses between humor styles, self-esteem, and subjective happiness. Humor styles were found to be significantly associated with self-esteem ( R2 = .24) and subjective happiness ( R2 = .24). Self-esteem was positively associated with affiliative humor (β = 0.16), self-enhancing humor (β = 0.29), and self-defeating humor (β = –0.25). Subjective happiness was positively associated with affiliative humor (β = 0.20) and self-enhancing humor (β = 0.39). No statistically significant association was found between aggressive humor and self-esteem and subjective happiness. Taken together, these findings offered partial support for the hypotheses, that is, the two adaptive humor styles were stronger correlates of self-esteem and happiness than the two maladaptive humor styles.”(Psychological Reports. Oct 2014, Vol. 115 Issue 2, p517-525. 9p)     

I do wonder if the study would have had different results in the United States, where people are much more individualistic, and slightly more traditional and conservative. It does seem like people are still reactive to adaptive and maladaptive humor styles. And, at least, in my fraternity, what would otherwise be considered maladaptive humor can become adaptive humor, whether it is affiliative and/or self-enhancing humor. Keep in mind, that “Affiliative humor refers to the tendency to tell jokes or engage in spontaneous witty banter to create amusement, lessen interpersonal tension, and facilitate relationships,” and “Self-enhancing humor is the tendency to find amusement from the incongruities in life.” Also, consider that “maladaptive humor styles include aggressive humor and self-defeating humor; and that, “aggressive humor is the tendency to use humor at the expense of others to amuse oneself, such as teasing, ridicule, derision, and disparagement, in order to criticize or manipulate others,” and “Self-defeating humor describes the tendency to amuse others by making fun of oneself or by exposing one's own weaknesses.”  (Psychological Reports. Oct 2014, Vol. 115 Issue 2, p517-525. 9p)

It is clear, though, that humor is not at the top of people’s lists when it comes to leadership potential. Like is stated in a Harvard Business Review issue,  “ We tend to view humor as an ancillary leadership behavior.” This same issue says that “ Research by us and others has shown that humor can influence and reinforce status hierarchies in groups, build interpersonal trust and high-quality work relationships, and fundamentally shape the way people perceive one another's confidence, competence, warmth, and clarity of communication. It also influences critical behaviors and attitudes that matter to leadership effectiveness, including employee job performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, citizenship behaviors, creativity, psychological safety in groups, and desire to interact again in the future.“ (Harvard Business Review, July and August, 2020)

This Harvard study goes even farther when it comes to connections between power dynamics and humor. It has been found that humor can be a double-edged sword if not used appropriately. Here is how humor can be used appropriately:

For instance, “individuals who make funny and appropriate jokes are more likely to be nominated for leadership positions by their peers. In the same research project, we ran an experiment in which we asked people to recall moments when a colleague was funny. We found the link between humor and status to be so powerful that merely prompting individuals to recall a humorous exchange with a coworker shifted their perceptions of the coworker's status.” It was even found that “humor not only helps individuals ascend to positions of authority but also helps them lead more effectively once they are there.” It was even found that “when leaders used humor as an interpersonal tool, their employees were happier, which fostered better communication and resulted in an uptick in citizenship behaviors -- voluntary actions that facilitate organizational effectiveness.”  (Harvard Business Review, July and August, 2020)

Like mentioned earlier in this paragraph, humor can be a double-edged sword if not used appropriately! Here is a taste of how humor can be seen as used inappropriately:

For instance, “the violating nature of humor is also what makes it risky. Jokes that go too far over the line of appropriateness have the opposite effect -- an "eeeek" reaction. Rather than thinking that the joke teller is intelligent and competent, observers think, What an idiot or I can't believe he just said that. Although tellers of inappropriate jokes are still seen as confident, the low competence signaled by unsuccessful attempts at humor can lead to a loss of status. In fact, our research confirms that failed humor is quite costly for leaders, making them even worse off than serious, humorless leaders who don't attempt jokes at all. Finding the balance between a benign violation and an extreme violation can be tricky -- even professional comedians routinely face criticism for overstepping -- and it takes skill to get it right.” (Harvard Business Review, July and August, 2020)

References

Harvard Business Review. Jul/Aug2020, Vol. 98 Issue 4, p96-103. 8p. 2 Color Photographs. 

Psychological Reports. Oct 2014, Vol. 115 Issue 2, p517-525. 9p.  -- https://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=df24b975-b514-441a-ae15-7f5205a9b533%40sessionmgr101 

Smith, Jacquelyn, (2013, May 3, at 02:09pm EDT) “10 Reasons Why Humor Is A Key To Success At Work”. Forbes.com

The Human Resource Management textbook.

Two academic journal articles obtained through OCLS.

For an explanation of what constitutes an academic source, review the "What Is a Scholarly Article?" file linked within the Resources section of this page.

Extension: Expand the discussion.

Relevancy: Relate the topic to a current event.

Exploratory: Probe facts and basic knowledge.

Challenge: Interrogate assumptions, conclusions, or interpretations.

Relational: Make comparisons or contrasts of themes, ideas, or issues.

Diagnostic: Probe motives or causes.

Action: Identify an application or an action in personal or work life.

Cause and Effect: Cite causal relationships between ideas, actions, or events.

Hypothetical: Pose a change in the facts or issues.

Priority: Seek to identify the most important issues.

Summary: Elicit synthesis. (Teacher Stream, LLC, 2009, p. 5)

The Human Resource Management textbook.

Two academic journal articles that are at least three pages in length and published within the last five years.

At least one academic source is to be different from the two academic sources provided by your classmate.

For an explanation of what constitutes an academic source, review the "What Is a Scholarly Article?" file linked within the Resources section of this page.

I Wanna Do Bad Things With You

Hey folks! After seeing a rather titillating meme on one of my favourite Facebook Destiel fanpages, I decided to make the meme a reality. That’s right folks, I fic’d that shit. Okay, first time writing Destiel so don’t be too harsh. I am a HUGE Dom!Cas fan, but holy hell, Dom!Deanmon is fucking hot. This is a oneshot. Dual point of view. Enjoy dolls. Xo.

Word Count: 1.9k

Dean Winchester x Castiel

Warnings: Oral, anal, Grace!Kink, slight BDSM, angst, hints at fluff but mostly angst (angsty fluff?), smutty as fuck.

Castiel attempts to convince Dean that he needs to become human again. Dean has a plan to silence the angel.

(gif not mine)

“Dean, this is wrong,” Castiel said, blocking Dean’s exit, hand on the wall.

Dean huffed, “Why? Because I’m finally free of consequences? Free of the responsibility of being a father to my grown-ass brother? Free of you?”

Castiel averted his gaze from Dean’s. Ouch. Even Cas had to admit that that was a little hurtful. Why did Dean want to be free of him? He thought that he and Dean meant something. Of course he never said it, but there was a sort of vibe that they shared. Human relations never really made sense to him, but there had to be a reason why his Father sent Castiel to raise Dean from hell. Maybe they were supposed to be…

“Sam cares about you too much to let you go,” Castiel said, glaring back up at Dean. Castiel had to admit that Dean’s enhanced strength was a little intimidating. He wasn’t a normal demon anyway. He’d shot right on through to Knight of Hell status. Hence another reason why they had to change him back. A demon and an angel could never be together. Sure, Castiel had been overly fond of Meg, but Dean was different. He would kill every angel in heaven to ensure Dean’s safety, and every demon in hell too for that matter.

Dean flashed an annoyed and slightly exasperated smile at the angel. He nodded with arms folded over his chest, “Oh, Sam’s the only one who cares about me, huh?”

“Yes,” Castiel said, puffing up his chest as he tried to look more threatening.

Dean narrowed his eyes, “Right. Well, if you excuse me then, I’ll be out of your pretentious hair.”

Dean pushed past the angel and headed for the door of the bunker. Castiel couldn’t hold back and he needed to subdue the Dean-mon. Cas raised his hand to knock the elder Winchester out but was surprised when Dean caught his wrist. Dean’s eyes flicked black and he pushed the angel up against the wall, wrist pressed against the concrete above his head in Dean’s vice-grip. Castiel went for him with his free hand but Dean pinned it to the wall beside him. Eyes still pitch and a wicked smile on his lips, Castiel wasn’t sure of what was coursing through his vessel’s body…but it wasn’t fear. Castiel gaped and didn’t struggle, staring up at Dean and trying to hide the hunger in his eyes.

Dean leaned in to whisper in the angel’s ear, voice low and husky with a rather obvious desire. “Wanna try that again, angel?”

“Dean, what are you doing?” Castiel asked, voice lower than normal. Dean’s hot breath tickling Cas’s neck sent shivers through his body.

Dean pulled away, “Something I didn’t have the balls to do as a human.”

Dean closed the space between them, his eyes stitched shut as he delivered a rather aggressive kiss. Castiel’s eyes went wide with shock. Dean slid his knee between Castiel’s legs and his grip on the angel’s wrists tightened. Castiel’s hesitation lasted only a few moments and when he returned Dean’s action, it was intense. In a swift motion, Dean flipped the angel and pinned his arms behind his back while pushing him into the cold concrete of the bunker’s wall. Dean threaded his fingers in Cas’s jet hair and gave a tug, yanking the angel’s head back with a jerk. Castiel couldn’t contain the throaty moan that slipped from his lips and Dean grinned darkly.

Now, normally, if Castiel was in a threatening restraining position with anyone else, he would be fighting like hell to escape. But this? He’d been waiting for this and he submitted instantly to Dean. “Whaddya say, feathers? Still wanna change me back?”

“Not at this present moment,” Castiel was surprised by his honest answer.

Dean smiled as he sunk his teeth into Cas’s neck. Cas moaned against the wall, absolutely loving the slight pain that shot down to his core. “Good boy.”

A whimper of pleasure at the demon’s praise left Castiel’s mouth and he waited patiently for Dean to continue. Castiel continued to wait, Dean hovering behind him. Cas grunted, “Dean.”

“Yes, pet?” Dean chuckled.

“I’m not your—”

Dean pressed his body into the angel’s, digging his fingers into Cas’s arms that were still behind his back. Dean growled roughly, “Oh, yes you are. You’re mine.”

Castiel moaned at the contact, “Dean—”

“Say it, pet.”

“Say what?” Castiel groaned as Dean’s thigh spread his legs apart.

“Say who you belong to,” Dean said, biting down on Cas’s earlobe.

Cas whined into the wall, “Ah, Dean. I belong to Dean.”

“And don’t forget it,” Dean spat. The pressure on Cas’s body was removed and he turned around to see Dean a little disgruntled and sweaty. His greed-filled green eyes trained on the disheveled angel. “On your knees.”

Castiel squinted at Dean with parted lips as he felt an inkling of defiance flutter through his vessel. He kept the demon’s eye contact with immense difficulty and was becoming more and more aroused under it. Dean cocked an eyebrow, waiting, as if to remind him who owned him. Keeping Dean’s heavy gaze, Castiel lowered his weight onto his knees. Castiel’s Grace was thudding through his vessel; pounding into every nerve ending in his body. His breathing was rapid and his cock was pulsating.

Dean undid his belt and slid it out of his pants. He wrapped it around Cas’s throat and tightened it; enough to apply pressure but not enough to cut off air supply. A deep hum rumbled through Cas’s chest and Dean smirked at the angel’s response. Dean motioned to his pants and Cas didn’t hesitate. He undid the button and zipper and pulled his pants down until they were around his ankles. Cas held onto Dean’s thighs, waiting hungrily to get at him. Dean looked down at the kneeling angel possessively, head tilted to the side as he studied him. Cas dragged his nails down Dean’s legs which elicited a curt grunt from the demon. Cas’s thumbs played with the leg holes of Dean’s boxer briefs, desperately wanting to invade them, but he waited for the go-ahead.

“What do you want, angel?” Dean asked, carding the hand that wasn’t holding onto the belt through Cas’s raven locks and tilting his head back.

Castiel met Dean’s burning gaze once more. He spoke through gritted teeth, “You.”

“Oh?” Dean quipped, flashing his ironically demonic smile.

“I’ve always wanted you,” Castiel snarled at Dean. Dean felt satisfaction stir deep within the empty chasm of his tainted soul. He’d been waiting ages to hear Castiel say that. Dean felt his intensity start to falter, but he was determined to keep the upper hand. He wanted to keep the all-powerful celestial being in a submissive role as long as possible. He hadn’t been fully aware of how much he’d wanted to dominate Cas, and shit did it feel amazing. He needed to savour this. Castiel at his mercy. What a sight.

Dean pulled at the waistline of his boxers to indicate to Cas what he wanted. Castiel promptly complied, slipping his fingers inside Dean’s underwear and pulling them down to his ankles too. Cas’s breathing was thoroughly erratic now and his Grace was wreaking havoc inside of him. Dean yanked at the make-shift collar around Cas’s throat, pulling the angel’s mouth closer to his cock. “Prove it then, feathers.”

Castiel’s nose was centimetres from Dean’s cock and the scent of his flesh was driving him mad. Cas so badly wanted to taste him, but waited obediently for Dean’s command. “Prove what?”

“Show me how much you want me,” Dean cooed, scratching at Cas’s scalp gingerly. Castiel looked up at the demon. He stayed quiet, hoping Dean would speak again. The sound of his voice made the hairs on the back of Cas’s neck stand on end and he fucking loved it. Castiel played dumb for the demon which caused Dean’s lips to curl up slightly. “Open your mouth.”

A visible shiver passed through Castiel as he obeyed Dean’s order. Dean tugged again on the leather leash, urging Cas to move forward. Cas’s grip on Dean’s thighs tightened and he ran his tongue up Dean’s length. Dean drew in a sharp breath as Cas brushed his lips repeatedly against Dean’s cock. Cas painted long strokes up Dean’s cock with his tongue, every now and then venturing down to his balls and sucking on them gently. Dean watched the angel work. Castiel was an artist and Dean fucking loved being the canvas. Where the hell did he learn how to do this? Don’t question it, Dean. Just enjoy it. Fuck.

Dean was determined to keep his mouth shut, but Cas was giving him one hell of a work-up. That was when something caressed Dean’s entrance. Dean’s eyes went a little wide at the sensation. It wasn’t corporeal per se, no, but it was quite tangible somehow. What the hell is that? It was a heavy mixture of icy cold and scalding hot and it entered his hole with an intense thrust. Dean leaned forwards, using his free hand to hold onto the wall for support. Not only was its temperature overwhelming, but it was vibrating at such a high speed that Dean thought he was going to cum right then and there.

Dean’s knuckles turned white as his grasp on Cas’s leash tightened immensely. Dean screwed his eyes shut and panted as the strange force rutted into him. “Is that your…?”

“My Grace, yes,” Castiel said against Dean’s cock.

“Holy shit,” Dean moaned, unable to hold back his cries of pleasure. Castiel smirked as he swirled his tongue around Dean’s tip, lapping up the pre-cum that spilled from his slit. Dean hammered against the wall fiercely as he called out, voice echoing off the walls of the bunker. The wall of the bunker slowly started to crack from Dean’s assault. Castiel wrapped his mouth around Dean’s cock and swallowed him down. He hollowed out his cheeks and flattened his tongue to allow Dean deeper access to the angel’s throat.

Dean abandoned the leash and just grabbed onto Cas’s head, holding him in place. Cas stayed put as Dean’s tip touched the back of the angel’s throat. Castiel moaned around Dean which caused the demon to break and start thrusting into Castiel’s warm and willing mouth. Between Cas swallowing him down so damn eagerly and the angel’s Grace fucking his ass at an alarming rate, Dean was having difficulty holding onto his dominance, let alone reality.

“Castiel. Fuck. Cas. Son. Of. A. Bitch.” Dean currently didn’t have any coherent words in his vocabulary. Castiel smiled internally at how much Dean was losing it. He thrust his Grace deeper and deeper and sucked on his cock like his life depended on it. Dean’s demonic growl boomed through the bunker as his cock twitched in Castiel’s mouth. Dean shot hot spurts of cum into Castiel’s mouth and Cas felt his own orgasm rock through him. Cas squeezed his eyes shut and moaned around Dean, barely noticing the lights flickering in response.

Cas retracted his Grace and popped off Dean’s cock. Dean was heaving in as much air as possible, and trying desperately not to shake. The ex-hunter was riddled with goosebumps and he finally opened his eyes and looked down at Castiel.

Dean had to regain some kind of composure. “Show me.”

Castiel opened his mouth to reveal Dean’s cum. The demon almost whimpered at the sight. Cas waited.

“Swallow,” Dean nodded the order, voice cracking only just. Castiel obeyed, instantly swallowing Dean’s pleasure. Watching the action almost made Dean’s cock harden again. Man, that was hot. Cas licked his lips and grinned a little at Dean. Dean scoffed at him, “What?”

“I belong to Dean Winchester,” Castiel stated, his smile sending shockwaves of unrequited pleasure through the Knight of Hell.

“Damn right,” Dean confirmed, eyes flicking pitch once again.

Kenyon Gibson is the author of Awkar al-sharr (Nest of Evil), which is an Arabic translation of his book Common Sense: A Study of the Bushes, the CIA, and the Suspicions Regarding 9/11. He is also coauthor of Hemp for Victory. [Woody Harrelson is a co-author]. Gibson has worked undercover for years, as an investigative reporter and in intelligence for the US Navy. By Ken Gibson The phone rang and I knew who it was even before I looked at the screen, which flashed the words IZMO MARINE; Mark Epstein’s former company. Earlier in the day, he had lost his only brother: Jeffrey. For weeks, I had been predicting Jeffrey’s demise. Mark, I reasoned, would be safe as long as Jeffrey lived. Certain people wanted Jeffrey cold in earth, and they wanted this done quietly. Getting rid of Mark would only make noise, making it harder to eliminate their main target: prisoner #76318-054 in the Manhattan Correctional Center. Mark Epstein is said to be concerned he might wind up dead like his brother, Jeffrey. According to Ken Gibson, Mark does not think his brother committed suicide but believes his brother is definitely deceased. [Photo Jan Benda.] Once that was accomplished, the secrets that Jeffrey had expressed a willingness to divulge in return for leniency, would be left to very few. His younger sibling, for instance. Those who secured Jeffrey’s omerta would have no qualms about ensuring their own liberty while creating a little business for undertakers. Mark claims to be an honest businessman; on the phone, he insisted that he had not spoken to his brother in 10 years. Mark Epstein claimed he had not spoken to brother Jeffrey in 10 years. Not only are there questions about that statement, but also questions about Mark’s financial empire. Questions which could lead Mark to occupy the same facility his brother did. He, too, could be faced with decisions about turning state’s evidence. These questions had been in my mind since the Spring of 2012. That was when we met, and at first, it looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. He would listen to my stories of infiltrating neo-Nazis in London and New York, allowing me into his Vandam Street apartment. For years I kept a file on him, updating it on occasion, as when he hosted a teacher from Horace Mann school who had sexually abused his students. This he did at an event at Cooper Union, his Alma-mater. Cooper Union is a school in lower Manhattan, known for its free tuition. Both brothers attended, benefiting from this policy, which Mark, as a director, tried to do away with. The students saw fit to do away with him; he is no longer a director. Tuition remains free. While Mark did not pay for his education, he thought it right that others pay for theirs. The same might be said of his housing. In 1992, he acquired, from Leslie Wexner, a close associate of Jeffrey’s, a large residential building at 301 East 66th Street. While some of the 220 apartments are privately owned, the majority are his. Documents relating to the transfer of the property show the amount paid: $0.00. Somehow Mark Epstein acquired property from Leslie Wexner – just like his brother Jeffrey did. What is the connection between Wexner and Mark Epstein? Mark Epstein owns most of the apartments at 301 East 66th Street It is not the only building he owns. 515 Greenwich Street belongs to him, where I rented an art studio he had listed in the Village Voice. As payment, he wanted the sum of $666 a month, which I amended to $667 – for obvious reasons. I stayed but seven weeks, as that is how long it took for me to make the mistake of letting him know that, in addition to investigating racist groups, I also worked on cases involving politicians and child sex abusers. The moment I did, I sensed a strange look on his face and a lull in the conversation. I tried not to let him see me looking at the playpens in his apartment, which had always seemed a bit out of place with the grand pianos in the home of a bachelor. That night, I heard a loud bang on the door. Mark was on the other side, yelling at me that I had to leave at that moment. He is not above performing an illegal eviction, for which a previous tenant challenged him in court and won substantial damages. Not wishing to spend long hours in a courtroom, I agreed to leave in a fortnight. We parted company at the end of April 2012. Until the day of Jeffrey’s death, I had not spoken to Mark. I resolved, however, to know just what Mark was up to, as I was not quite sure that his wealth was really generated from the silkscreen business. I took that story to be a smokescreen. It is oft-repeated on the internet, the name Izmo appearing in articles about him, but I have yet to see any credible record of it generating serious revenues. Did Mark Epstein really amass a fortune from the silkscreen business? Press Has Tread Lightly on Mark Epstein – Maybe That Will Change The press has been kind to Mark over the years; few questions of his source of income ever get into print. I contacted people at the New York Times whom I knew, having been a source of information to the Gray Lady for over a decade, but to no avail. James Stewart, its head financial reporter, heard me out but did nothing with the information I provided. Stewart had been privy to Jeffrey’s lifestyle, going so far as to visit him at his East 71st Street townhouse. Another of the NYT’s financial reporters, Landon Thomas Jr., had actually taken a $30,000 donation from Jeffrey. Then there is the inconvenient fact that the president of the NYT, Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, is in Jeffrey’s ‘black book’, the list of contacts that ended up published on the internet. And yet another, perhaps more inconvenient fact, is that Joicho Ito, who sat on the board at the Gray Lady, accepted $1.7 million from the felon. Joicho Ito is a Japanese activist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is the former director of the MIT Media Lab, and a former professor of the practice of media arts and sciences at MIT. Ito has received recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. Ito is a strategic advisor to Sony Corporation and general partner of Neoteny Labs. Ito resigned from his roles at MIT, Harvard, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation, PureTech Health and The New York Times Company on September 7, 2019, following allegations of financial ties to sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. My hopes of getting the press to take the story on Mark Epstein were slim. The Wall Street Journal seemed rabidly enthusiastic, calling me from their London offices and begging for an exclusive. Which I tried to grant, but on the condition that freelance writer Davis Richardson be involved. My contact at the WSJ sent me long texts and emails disapproving of his involvement. When they did do a story on him, I was not impressed. Freelance journalist Davis Richardson has written for the Observer, Vice, The Daily Beast, The Daily Caller and Wired. Gibson wanted him to help with the Mark Epstein story. But I was impressed with Richardson, a young journalist up from the Beltway area, who was then working for the Observer and contributing to both Daily Beast and Daily Caller. I took him with me to talk to people who knew the Epsteins, including Stuart Pivar, a founder of the New York Academy of Art. He, along with Andy Warhol, started that in 1982. Pivar talked at length about them to Richardson and me, stating: “I’ve seen Jeffrey do lots of bad things to lots of people.” I told Pivar that Jeffrey was not long for this world and that Mark would be a target as well. Pivar took it in stride, while his entourage looked happy to end the conversation. Richardson and I went to Mark’s downtown buildings and took notes, finding Mark’s car with Pennsylvania plates. A week later, Richardson called me, telling me to show up at the East 66th Street location [Epstein’s building], to which he was being granted inside access. We came, we saw, and we were overwhelmed. Mark Epstein’s apartments were fit for kings, with a doorman and a spacious entrance hall adorned with murals. From the roof, a view of the East Side commanded respect and demanded we take pictures. The residences were well worth the king’s ransom that neither of us could afford. Richardson continued to dig. In early August, he called me to ask me what I knew about the Humpty Dumpty Institute. “The what”?, I replied. The Humpty Dumpty Institute [HDI], with offices located on West 46th Street, was founded in 1988 by Constance Milstein, heiress to the Emigrant Savings Bank fortune and a major Clinton donor. On their website, Mark is listed as a director. The HDI Congressional Advisory Board lists some 30 or more Congress members. Affiliates had ties to Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey’s partner-in-deeds, and to her now-defunct charity, Terra Mar. On 5 August, I started to call some of the congressmen named on the ‘Humpty Dumpty’ list, telling their aides that I would like to pose some questions. Each time, I was given an email to follow up with, and I did so. I resumed this task on 9 August, but found that I was getting hostile receptions, and having to answer lots of questions from the aides about why I was asking questions. They seemed very sensitive to questions. I told them I was preparing a report for the Senate, which they did not like to hear. US Rep. Barbara Lee’s aide refused to give her name or that of anyone in Lee’s office. US Rep. Gregory Meeks’ staff asked lots of questions but gave no answers. Unbeknownst to me, Davis Richardson had published an article about the Humpty Dumpty Institute on the Daily Caller site. It went up on 7 August, and I was getting the fallout. To make matters worse, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was calling for an investigation about Mark. However, when I called her office and left my contact details, I got no response. I did get excellent response from both her challenger, Miguel Hernandez in New York’s 14th congressional district, and a candidate in the 13th, Henry Grullon. Their support lifted my spirits, made low after hours of performing this unpleasant task with dozens of lawmakers’ staff. I expected that at least a few would answer the three simple questions: When did they join Humpty Dumpty’s advisory board, who introduced them, and how well did they know Mark Epstein? None did answer any of the questions. But the press seemed to be waking up. From England, I got a call from Tony Gosling, a controversial journalist with a weekly radio show. When he asked about what ‘Humpty Dumpty’ might be up to, I bluntly replied that it might be a front for child rapists going to Third World countries to find victims. Gosling touched on the suspicions that Jeffrey might have been an intel agent, possibly for Mossad, and I gave a dissenting opinion, pointing out that while the logic of associating a Jew with the Mossad was to a degree logical, it was illogical to conclude that he was an Israeli spy when it was found that most of the people he would be presumed to have spied on were Jews and Israelis. I did bring up a new angle to it all when I mentioned that I had information that China might be behind it. Could China Be Involved? Years ago, shortly before I met Mark, I had been introduced to a Chinese agent – or former agent, as he had fallen out with his handlers in Beijing over his relationship with an Uyghur woman. He had told me many things that I did not understand at the time about Chinese involvement in US politics, and their ability to use patsies to carry out their projects, thus hiding their hand. Spy uses spy. The great game can be quite deceptive. And it can be dangerous. In fact, I had been stabbed while arresting a drug dealer in 1994. I too could have been cold in earth, and this reality was not lost on me. Quite recently, a contact at the Department of Homeland Security reminded me to watch my back. The former Marine with this concern for my safety was also my confidante, privy to my infiltration of neo-Nazis for over a decade. While most in this neo-Nazi crowd do not have a lot going for them, some do, including a character recently named in the press as ‘X’. Based in London, ‘X’ had recently gotten in contact with Jason Jorjani, an Iranian dissident based in New York. Jorjani was told that he would be assisted in making changes in Iran if he joined forces with Michael Bagley, then head of Jellyfish. The two met a number of times, and Jorjani was told that Bagley had presented Donald Trump with a plan to make a revolution in Iran. Not only was Trump supposed to be involved, but so was Michael Flynn. Jorjani may have doubted the veracity of all this or realized that he was in over his head. He went to the press with his stories of Bagley, Flynn, and ‘X’, saying that there may have also been a ‘Y’ and a ‘Z’. It is possible that he was alluding to me in the latter references, as Jorjani had been put in touch with me by ‘X’, who wanted me to get Richard Spencer a place in the Trump victory party. Richard Bertrand Spencer is an American neo-Nazi and white supremacist. He is president of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist think tank, as well as Washington Summit Publishers. Gibson went undercover to investigate and report on neo-Nazis. The Trump people wanted nothing to do with Spencer, and neither did I in reality. Far from being the right-wing, quasi-criminal that they took me for, I was feeding information on all of them to the press and to government agencies. And I did the latter as a precaution so that any misunderstandings that could result from my interactions with foreign governments and the flow of classified information that found its way into my hands might be quickly resolved with a phone call to people with top security clearances who knew what I was up to. ‘X’ had introduced me to a lot of people over the years – Rui Gabirro, Gary Krupp, and a former US Navy nuke with top security clearance who was working on a classified deal to give Egypt nuclear power: Robert Abtey. I was getting involved with government actors, and there were sometimes questions as to which government they might be acting for. People are not always who they say they are. Which could be the case in the press, where I met with strange resistance. One NYT reporter was initially enthusiastic about all the emails I had from Operations Intelligence and Jellyfish regarding Bagley, but then suddenly backed off. It was left to UK radio host Gosling to out some of my secret information, which he did a few days before the 2016 US election, hosting me on the air in the United Kingdom. I made public information about ‘X’ – aka Jonothon Boulter – and Bagley. At that time, Bagley was involved in Syria, having been granted secret US State Department waivers (which he showed to me a year earlier) to arm rebels and set up refugee camps, that he said would be used as cover. Enter Hillary Clinton The Hillary Clinton State Department had no objections. No surprise, I was also able to tell the listener, as she was well liked by the Iranians, whose agents I had access to in London. I got close to enough to them to be on Iran TV and Press TV with Yvonne Ridley, before the powers that be shut down their operations. Hillary was their woman in the US in 2012, backed by agents from Tehran, who hoped she would win the party nomination for president. Obama took that hope away from them, but she ended up as Secretary of State, and they were happy. With her there, and later with Kerry in as her replacement, Bagley’s escapades were kept under the radar. Boulter developed a plan to make more money from the camps, for which he expected to have UN backing. Hillary Clinton seems to have been favored by certain parties in Iran. Wars are good business, and Bagley went on tour with his ideas, going on the radio in NYC at one point. Bagley, rather than come off as a spook, looked more like a Wall Street executive and Jellyfish was presented more as a PR firm than an outfit with black ops in the Congo and Mexico. What I did not understand were the ties to Clinton and her democrats. I assumed, given the fact that Boulter worked with the New Right (aka the London Forum), that they would support the right-wing, and Trump along with it. Had I known more about Bagley’s background as an aide to senator Patty Murray, I would have known better. Not until Boulter told me that he was not concerned about Trump, and that he had Clinton support for his deals, did I revise my perception. Bagley, after my tip to the officer at the DHS, came under investigation. Shortly before Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest, Bagley was taken in by undercover FBI men for money laundering. Caught red-handed with the greenbacks, he was deemed a flight risk by prosecutors. Of concern to them was the allegation that he had told undercover agents: “I wanna let you know that I’m also moving for [Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada] in Mexico City as well, with his number one guy.” El Mayo is El Chapo’s replacement. It is not the first time that Bagley did not know who he was really talking to. He may have learned by now that people are not always who they say they are. Which brings me to some people who have been mentioned a number of times: The Clintons. Who are they really? Lawyers, governor and first lady, president and first lady… or spies? Drug dealers? Sexual predators? Murderers? I would say yes to all four and more. Not only would I suspect that Bill’s act of giving American technology to China in his White House days was espionage, or that he was a drug dealer in Arkansas or a sexual predator with many more flights on the Lolita Express than he or the Clinton friendly press want to admit, but that he personally gave the order to murder Jeffrey. Somehow, I doubt that Mrs. Clinton is unaware of his activities, making her in my mind an accomplice. Ghislaine Maxwell attends the wedding of Chelsea Clinton. Several weeks ago, Mr. Clinton had lunch at Nello’s on Madison Avenue. Joining him at this uptown eatery was one of the guests at his daughter’s wedding – Ghislaine Maxwell. Not with them was their mutual friend, Jeffrey. He was dining that day downtown, at the MCC. So just what did Clinton and Maxwell discuss? That was the last record of a sighting of Maxwell in the Big Apple, and quite possibly the last sighting of her in public since. Reports of her in Paris, London, Tribeca and Los Angeles all seem to be deliberately planted red herrings, the latter of which was debunked by the Frank Report and the Daily Mail. Both publications tied the Los Angeles pictures to Maxwell’s friend Leah Saffian, an American born lawyer who plies her trade in England, Wales and California. Frank Report broke the story that Leah Saffian may have been responsible for leaking the photoshopped pictures of Ghislaine Maxwell at the In-N-Out fast food restaurant in Los Angeles in August Saffian’s association with Maxwell may have begun in England, when working for the law firm Peters & Peters, which represented one of Maxwell’s brothers in a serious fraud case relating to the embezzlement of the pension funds that occurred when their father, Robert owned the Daily Mirror. Robert was never brought to trial, as he was found dead in the water before the crown prosecution services could make their case. His daughter might be on the run from process servers; one female plaintiff alleges that she acted like a ‘Nazi guard’ in her zeal to serve Jeffrey, and the entire #MeToo movement is on the lookout for her. But despite her zeal in her service to Jeffrey, her loyalty may well be more with Clinton, especially after it was reported that Jeffrey, in a bid to make a deal, was willing to name names. She also might not want her next meal to be in prison, where bad things happen to lots of people. Was Jeffrey Epstein really suicidal? Or was he looking to make a deal that would limit his prison time in return for a candid and robust disclosure of his co-conspirators? So, just who made a bad thing happen to her man? In naming a suspect, motive and opportunity must be examined. Motive here is strong. Suffice it to say that William and Hillary would rather lunch at Nello’s than lunch in the Big House. But the Clintons are not alone as suspects. An examination of opportunity narrows it down to a much shorter list, which still does not exclude a number of other parties, but does place them at the top. Robert Maxwell had an untimely death. Opportunity would only present itself to someone with friends in low places. The New York City prison and justice systems could well be described as low places, and one might say that they are not without people friendly to the Clintons. Given the history of corruption in New York, both city and state, it is not surprising that a prisoner might not make it to the courtroom. Curious Justice System in New York On top of which are the circumstances that surround Jeffrey’s demise; which, being so well known, are not necessary to repeat in this discourse. It might be more of interest to look at the wickedness in high places that supports the thesis that a Clinton might be able to get certain dirty jobs done, perhaps at a dirt-cheap rate. Starting at the top, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, was himself recently under investigation, which led to the arrest and conviction of eight of his friends; and then stopped short. Andrew Cuomo, New York governor. This governor had nine lives – and eight of them were used up by the arrest of his eight top cronies. Somehow, the investigation stopped short of him. A previous governor, Elliot Spitzer, who was once Attorney General, had to resign in disgrace over his proclivities with prostitutes. Some say he liked to wear a dog collar, crawl on all fours and be whipped by his charges. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office might be expected to be stand above that, were it not for the ties between Cyrus Vance Jr., the DA, and one of Jeffrey’s business associates: Harvey Weinstein, whose prosecution seems to lag. Could it have something to do with the fact that one of the prosecutors on the case, Jennifer Gaffney, resigned her post from the sexual crimes division, taking a job in the private sector, as the Weinstein case made its way to her office? Taken by itself, this is not so suspicious; but taken along with the fact that Gaffney also consented, in 2016, to convicted sex offender Robert Hadden registering as a level 1 sex offender without having to serve any jail time; and that in 2011, she was willing to have another sex offender reduce his offender level from a level 3, the highest, to a level 1, the lowest. Who just happened to be Jeffrey. At the time, the judge, Justice Ruth Pickholz, denied Gaffney’s request and expressed bewilderment at such a motion. Jeffrey, although registered as a top-level sex offender under obligation to check in with the police regularly, never did so, and the DA’s office did not enforce the stipulations even when reminded of them by the police. The justice system here may be full of play-for-pay con artists posing as public servants, waiting to get kickbacks, either in the form of donations or as jobs in the private sector. Viewed from that perspective, it is not hard to see how a rich and powerful person could get a man dead. A counter-argument to that might be that the facility in which Jeffrey was held is under federal jurisdiction; the Justice Department. But that argument holds little weight, and, in fact, could add to the perception that the Clintons could have meddled in the case. It does not in the least ease suspicion, but rather exacerbates it, when it is remembered that the Justice Department once granted a sweetheart deal for a felon with the largest stash of child pornography and bestiality in American history which allowed him to stay out of jail. The prosecutors in New York are not the only ones with a soft spot for serious sex offenders. The one involving child pornography, which occurred in Los Angeles in 1998, was signed off on by Robert Mueller. For unknown reasons, Robert Mueller helped arrange the sweetest plea deal imaginable for David Asimov – son of the late author Isaac Asimov. David Asimov was the lucky perpetrator. But no surprise, as this same Justice Department kept four innocent men in jail for decades for crimes that Whitey Bulger was responsible for. One of these innocents was a WWII hero. Did Bill Clinton Order the Murder of Jeffrey Epstein? Having named the Clintons as suspects, the next step is to apply pressure, or, to use a better word, tension, to get this case cracked. This is not so easy to do with a slack press. But maybe I ought not to expect any support, given the historical record. Did the NYT put any pressure on Hitler back in the day when presented with reports of concentration camps? Did it put any on Stalin when reports of Ukrainians being starved emerged? Did it put any on the State Department when I gave them the inside scoop on Bagley? No, no, and no. In fact, the reporter that denied the Ukrainian starvation reports got a Pulitzer Prize. More recently, the Ed Buck case, which finally made it to the front page – was ignored for years as this wealthy donor to the Democrats was allowed to party on as young black men ended up dead at his house. Edward Bernard Peter Buck is an American businessman, LGBTQ political activist, and Democratic political fundraiser. Two African American men have been discovered dead in Buck’s West Hollywood home since 2017 due to drug overdoses. On September 17, 2019, Buck was arrested and charged with three counts of battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house. Buck is awaiting trial. Outraged, one young man’s mother publicly lobbied the Democrat Los Angeles DA to have him arrested but was rudely ignored. A similar case in the 1980s is even more harrowing: that of John Wayne Gacy. Then the parents of a victim made 100 attempts to get the police to investigate. They did so only when the stench of his victims seeped out from under the floorboards, by which time, he had tortured dozens to death. He laughed about it, wearing a clown costume that he used for fundraising. He, too, was a donor to the Democrat party, a candidate for the same, and a ward leader in Illinois. By saying all this, and naming the Clintons as suspects in Jeffrey’s death, it might seem that I am taking aim at that party. I am not, I am in no political party, and am not paid by any party. I would hope that Democrats join me, though I am sure that party loyalists will refuse, just as they did with Buck and Gacy. I would hope that ALL Americans would join me. I would hope that ALL Democrats see through Clinton and his allies, and investigate the Humpty Dumpty congressmen. It is not that I have concern for either of the Epsteins, but that what is going on is of national concern. Everyone needs not just to take a look at it, but to apply real pressure – again – tension is a better word. That word was once used as the title of a film made in 1949, in which Barry Sullivan played Police Lieutenant Collier Bonnabel, who explains that he only knows one way to solve a case: by applying pressure to all the suspects, playing on their strengths and weaknesses, until one of them snaps under the tension. Quite recently, this tactic was proven a success when Frank Parlato exposed Keith Raniere and his NXIVM sex cult. Not surprisingly, its members were donors to Hillary Clinton. It was not easy to get the investigation to go forward. Parlato ended up writing thousands of articles and contacting both major press and government agencies. Tension worked, and now Raniere is in prison and Allison Mack and others are headed there soon. And soon to join them, I hope, will be the Clintons, Mark Epstein, and the Humpty Dumpty congress members.

The makers of Stree were elated when box office collections crossed Rs 120 crore on September 28. Why wouldn’t they be? The Hindi horror-comedy movie was bringing in the moolah even a month after its August 31 release. Made with Rs 25 crore, it managed this without the backing of A-list celebrity actors or big-banner production houses. However, the moviemakers had an ace up their sleeve: a trailer that clearly piqued the interest of the public to come to the cinemas to watch Stree.“It takes a specialised skill to make the trailer in a way that connects with you and makes you anxious enough to watch the film to know more. The trailer-makers of Stree were successful in keeping that mystery intact,” says showbiz analyst Atul Mohan.While the producers were laughing all the way to the bank, Amit Chandrra gave himself a pat on his back. He was not involved in making the movie, but he had played a crucial role in ensuring its success. It was Chandrra’s agency, Trigger Happy, that had created the trailer campaign. It has had 43 million views on YouTube. Trigger Happy intentionally kept the most gripping scenes out of the 3-minute preview. “With genres like these, the lesser you reveal in the trailer, the more people enjoy the actual film,” says the 41-year-old CMD of the visual promotions company. 66009927 A trailer, above anything else, is the single biggest determinant of how well a movie will be received during the opening weekend. This is especially true of movies that do not hang on the shoulders of top actors. Sometimes the fate of moviemakers is also dependent on the trailers. “If a trailer goes wrong, two years of a producer’s life spent on making the movie can go to waste in two minutes,” says Binni Padda, cofounder of Pentacle Creationz, who has been making trailers for 18 years. 66009786 An entire industry revolves around what is called cutting trailers — as it involves cutting scenes from raw footage and putting them together to ensure the interest of the audience is kindled. The stakes are high. Trade analysts are called five days before the trailer launch to watch the 2-3-minute video in the producer’s office. The preview is then shared through social media channels. “We gauge the buzz it creates, do our own survey, speak to distributors, and assess how much the movie will make on its opening weekend and through its entire run,” says Mohan. The industry estimated Stree to make Rs 4-5 crore in collections on the opening Friday. It ended up netting Rs 6.82 crore. 66009859 For moviemakers, opening-day collections can set the tone of the film’s collections. Generating interest through trailers is an integral part of this strategy.Trailer-making agencies charge between Rs 12 lakh and Rs 35 lakh for a campaign. If a movie flops, they are often given part of the blame. In some cases, therefore, agencies also ask for a performance-based bonus if the opening collection meets their minimum guarantee and exceeds market estimates. Besides cutting a trailer, these agencies also create teasers and song-&-dialogue promos.Then come the media agencies, who help promote these trailers across various platforms. More than one teaser or trailer goes live every day. In the ’80s and ’90s, movie trailers used to be a mishmash of song-and-dance sequences created only to be played in cinemas during the interval. It was another reason that lured people to movie halls. “Theatre owners used to pay producers Rs 3,000 or thereabouts to acquire rights to play trailers,” says Chinni Nihalani, creative head of visual promotion agency Promoshop. Those who edited the film would also be asked to cut a trailer out. But the tables have turned dramatically over the last two decades. 66009838 Today, a producer pays theatre owners to run his movie trailers in prime slots at cinemas. Moviemakers spend anything from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 crore to market a trailer and promote the movie to the right audience. Stree, some sources say, spent a third of its Rs 25 crore budget on marketing and promotion alone. Trailers are now made for cinemas, TV, radio, You-Tube and social media platforms. Videos of varying lengths and aspect ratios are made according to the requirement of a platform.The different variables within a trailer campaign have ensured a prime role for specialised visual promotion agencies. Manish More, cofounder of Just Right Studioz, says: “Filmmakers know they’re good at telling their story in 2.5 hours but we can abridge it in under 2 minutes to get the audience interested in their film.” 66009886 Apart from creating a buzz, some production houses also make money out of trailers. Dharma Productions has uploaded old trailers from their vast movie library on their YouTube channel. Yash Raj Films did the same with their old catalogue. “Not only did the platform help us reach a wider audience, but it also allowed us to earn money while marketing our films, through views and ad revenue,” says Apoorva Mehta, CEO of Dharma Productions.Regional film industries, especially in Punjab, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, are also waking up to the merits of a trailer. In 2016, Trigger Happy cut the trailer for the sequel to Dabangg’s Telugu remake Sardaar Gabbar Singh. They highlighted actor Pawan Kalyan’s antics in the Telugu trailer and the movie’s slick action scenes for its Hindi version. “South Indian filmmakers are wary of revealing anything about the movie in a trailer,” says Chandrra. That pattern is slowly changing.Punjabi movie trailers still bank on humour over everything else, says Bunty Nagi, cofounder of Just Right Studioz. More and Nagi cut the trailer of Marathi movie Sairat. As the songs were released earlier, they left them out of the 3-minute trailer and worked only with musician siblings Ajay-Atul’s background score.The video has seen 7 million YouTube views so far. “To cut a trailer, first you work on the sound, then come to visuals. Movie editing is the exact opposite,” says More.Creative LibertyProducers mostly don’t interfere in the creative process of these agencies. But getting a successful trailer out is a collaborative process, says Promoshop’s Nihalani. In the case of Veere Di Wedding, for instance, he had initially cut a clean, family-friendly trailer. But producers Ekta and Rhea Kapoor suggested he could take some liberties and make it “ballsy”. The trailer, with 39 million views and counting, gained popularity for people’s polarising views on women swearing and casually discussing their sexual urges. Consequently, the all-women-starrer became one of the top five openers of 2018, clocking Rs 10.7 crore on day one.Collaboration also means sometimes agencies are roped in while the film is still being shot or edited. Often in these cases, the trailer ends up having visuals that don’t make it to the final film. This happens in Hollywood, too. Just Right’s More points out one such scene from Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War trailer where it looks like all the superheroes are marching towards the bad guys to start an epic battle. “It never appears in the movie. In fact, Mark Ruffalo is shown as Hulk in that scene whereas he doesn’t transform during the entirety of the film.” 66009946 Movie trailers are a large and established business in the west. In India, there are six or seven prominent visual promotion agencies. The industry is worth Rs 80 crore, say some agency estimates. Agency heads have had long-term relations with producers and that often determines who gets which project.Binny Padda of Pentacle Creationz was practically dragged out of his wedding pandal by actor and producer Arbaaz Khan to sign the contract for Dabanng’s trailer campaign. It is these relationships nurtured by brother Ravi Padda and him that have made them a favourite of several big-banner production houses.Pentacle Creationz was among the first agencies to handle trailers for two big-budget big-star cast movies — “Raees” and “Kaabil” — that were set to release on the same date in 2017.But payments can a problem, sometimes even for established names. “Big production houses value the agencies. But there are many mid-level and individual producers who often default on payments,” says Nagi. Last year, Just Right Studioz had six defaulting clients. 66009981 Payment issues can affect the top line and also the creative process of visual promotion agencies. To maintain a sustainable business model, the likes of Trigger Happy and Pentacle Creationz are branching out into other verticals of content and film promotion.The flipside of cutting trailers is that trailer-makers might not be able to enjoy a movie with your family. Chandrra says his wife holds him responsible if they go for a movie that is not as good as its trailer. Nagi often gets trolled by his friends for making a good trailer for a bad movie. Yet, every time a great project comes their way, their excitement is palpable. "We've been telling our version of the story of a movie for ages now. This is our life," Nagi adds. from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2DEhyyM