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aerielz · 3 years

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1, 3, 8, 9, 12!!!!! and like. any others because i love talking tww with you! also i assume your really stressed with finals and school and life, so this is a reminder from a friend that you’re going to be okay! it will all be over soon, and you have so much strength and intelligence that you can surely handle this<33 so yeah, here you go- distraction AND reassurance, hope this helps🥰

At some point you're going to make me cry, okay? You’re the best!!!!! I also love talking tww with you, and it really does help. Finals have been killing me, and I really needed this!

On to the answers!

[Under the cut because I really went for it. and I mean... I went for it. check the last answer if you want just the headcanons, everything else for unpopular opinions, lmao]

1: favorite episode(s)

Ohhhhhhooooo boy. There’s an endless list. I think I can name a season’s worth of them, but here’s ones I can pull from the top of my head:

Crackpots and These Women: and here’s some of my rationale behind the choice. but yeah, I could go on and on about this episode.

Nöel: listen, I’m a basic bitch who’s in love with Josh Lyman, okay, is that simple. But. yeah, like, no. here’s the thing, there’s a reason why everyone won Emmys for this one, ok. the writing is freakishly good, and Bradley Whitford can draw nuance from a fucking comma. that episode is absolutely off the charts when it comes to just about any aspect of the filmmaking. it’s what happens when everyone involved decides to live up to their potential. it’s one of those I need to reign myself in, otherwise I'll just go full analysis and there’s no end to that meta lmao

The Steakhouse Filibuster: the way this episode works is... pure fun. I'm a writer and it doesn’t turn off and I will start taking about structure unless I shut up now, so. also, DONNATELLA MOSS, who I'm, also, in love with.

Hartsfield’s Landing: “You're a good father, you don't have to act like it. You're the President, you don't have to act like it. You're a good man, you don't have to act like it. You're not just folks, you're not plain-spoken. Do not - do not - do not act like it!” “I don't want to be killed.” "Then make this election about smart, and not. Make it about engaged, and not. Qualified, and not. Make it about a heavyweight. You're a heavyweight. And you've been holding me up for too many rounds.” This exchange carries a lot of meaning for me. it’s about being who you are in spite of outside opinion, and this idea has been hitting me like a truck, these last couple of months.

Holy Night: [cries in JD shipper language]

Commencement: hands down the best episodes this show has ever produced, season finale notwithstanding. but I'm biased, because they used Angel, and I loved that song. also: DONNATELLA MOSS.

The Supremes: everything Debora Cahn ever wrote for this show deserves more love. This episode is a work of art, and. like. Glenn Close, man. also: DONNATELLA MOSS. are we sensing a theme, perhaps?

No Exit: THIS EPISODE HURTS SO GOOD. And for many reasons, including the fact that we get cj and donna’s scene. I'm queen of unpopular opinions when it comes to this show, tbh, and this is just one of them. It’s one of those really serious episodes that happened post-sorkin that gave the actors a chance to shine through the lens of a more poignant drama. Janel is so good here, I can’t stress that enough.

King Corn: [more cries in JD shipper language. louder]. I love how they stress just how much Donna is growing by paralleling her routine with Josh’s. She’s on his level now, they’re on the same boat. Not just that, but we see the toll the distance takes on both of them. It’s distance makes the heart grow fonder in perfect visual form. writing-wise, it’s impeccable. and since I actually like the direction the show took after Sorkin left, I really like this one.

Freedonia: Eli Attie’s creative is paralleled by none short of Vince Gilligan (of breaking bad fame). After he arrived on the show the political content got to a whole new level, and under his writing we finally got to see josh being the genius political operative we were always promised he was. I mean, the chickens. the damn chickens.

The Cold: the writing and the kiss and the FUCKING BEAUTIFUL SHOTS OF JOSH AND DONNA FRAMED BY LIGHTS and the kiss and the acting and the kiss and [crying] the kiss.

3: favorite ship

There are ships that we love for a few months and then let go. Then there’s ships that stay with you long after you watched the show. Then there’s ships that change your life. Then there’s what JD did to me.

But Andy/CJ killed me and continues to kill me, and you’ve successfully convinced me to ship the shit out of the OT3, too.

8: scene you watch over and over again

To be honest, while watching the show I had the remote on my hands and watched everything that made me laugh or just mildly happy multiple times before even allowing the episode to play through.

I mean, the kiss from the cold... I literally just kept replaying it when I got to it. I watched it like seven times before even continued to watch the rest of episode. not just that, but also the shots of them looking at each other at the end.

Also: cj and the turkey. cj and toby and the dead brother. donna and the chicken. that scene in which toby lays his heart out for will about writing because honestly that just too close to home and the recognition hurts but like in a nice way.

But, for real. This entire show was me pausing every five second to rewatch something.

9: plot you pretend didn’t happen

Bartlet giving the go on killing a foreign leader, because political assassination does not sit well with me (ʘ‿ʘ✿)

12: headcanons

ok now you really want me to stay here the whole week. here’s a small list:

- unpopular opinion: josh was actually in love with Amy for a second, there. which is why he’s learned so much from the debacle that was their relationship.

- remember when sam once said “I never knew how much smarter than me he is” when he has to step in for josh as DCoS? that’s when he realised that Donna can keep up with Josh. Which is why he knew, before everyone else, that Donna would leave Josh eventually.

- I can’t remember if this is cannon, but I'm 100% sure josh never even thought of taking the bar. sam will never be over teasing him about it.

- after so many bad christmases, josh really doesn’t like it. but he starts reevaluating his opinions after they he gets married to donna. getting to see the kids light up at both Hanukah and Christmas year after year... let’s just say family has this way of making things feel better.

- cj regularly gets called to guest lecture at Columbia. she regularly declines. but she does accept once. and it changes everything (YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT ALEENA).

#the west wing #az talks tww #az answers #aleena has a tag

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basiccortez · 4 years

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Defenseless Ch. 1

Synopsis: CJ Jackson, looks like she has it all. Fancy car, fancy house, name brand clothing. Her parents, top boosters to Beverly, with money to make all sorts of situations go away. As well as the Jackson family looks put together, past secrets haunt them. With the new transfer student catching the eye of CJ Jackson, can old friendships be fixed. Or are somethings just meant to stay broken. "I told you, as long as I live, no one would know."

word count: 3.4k

pairing: Jordan Baker x OC (CJ Jackson)

warnings: cursing, talk of death, talk of drug addiction, talk of a juvenile being in trouble, high school boys being high school boys

It was like a heavy cement blocks were tied to her feet. She moved slowly towards the front doors of the place that reminded her of a prison, but with nicely dressed inmates. People passed by her, and just ignored her presence, something she wasn't used to at all. She was used to people flocking to her sides, begging for a party invite, or to be in her next photo shoot, or to be the next guy on her list, or just one dinner with anyone of her brothers. But now, she was blended into the background, like she never existed.

Somehow, she made her way to the front office, just in time for the first bell to ring. It was her first day back, and already half way through the first semester. She had just been released only a week prior to this bright and early Monday morning. Her brown boxbraids were tied back and out of her face. Her makeup was done to perfection, and her clothes; nicely pressed and matched well. She'd rather be dead than look a mess for her first day back.

"Christine Joy Jackson, I'm here to pick up my schedule." She spoke softly to the secretary. The secretary with bright red cat-eye glasses nodded, and pulled out a file, handing a pink piece of paper to CJ.

"You are to meet with Mrs. Riley first, before heading to your classes." The secretary nodded and CJ rolled her eyes, "Welcome back CJ."

"Thank you," CJ sighed and headed down to the office of her favorite person.

CJ made her way down to the east end of the school, where she was too familiar with being in the In-School suspension office. She knocked on the brown wooden door that was covered in papers for recovery centers, planned parenthood, adoption counselors, and local community colleges.

"Come in!" The voice from the other side called out. CJ took a deep breath before opening the door, and seeing Mrs. Riley behind the door. Her dark brown hair was curled and her skin looked flawless. That woman looked like she didn't age a day, but she also meant business, "My favorite parolee, CJ Jackson."

"Mrs. Riley," The teen girl sassed, setting her bag down in the chair next to her, and plopping her body in a chair, "Instructed to see you first."

"Yeah, just some parole stuff," Mrs. Riley said, grabbing a folder out of her desk, and setting in front of CJ. The folder was dauntingly big and felt like it could start a fire at any moment, "As you know, I am your parole officer, lucky for you or not. But know that I don't play around about any of this."

"This ain't my first go around with you."

"Ain't is not a word, now speak like your momma raised you." Mrs. Riley said and CJ rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair, "You are on parole for approximately 90 days, as a term of early release from your juvenile detention program. Terms of your parole include, attendance of school is mandatory, unless an absence notice from a doctor. You must check in with your parole officer everyday at 8 AM sharp, and do not be late. You will pass all administered drug tests, and random drug tests can be done as well. Another term of parole is being involved in not only in community service, but as well as a school activity. Your parents have suggested the dance team."

"Over my dead body." CJ laughed loudly.

"Christine Joy, these are the terms unless you would like to serve out the rest of the 90 days in a juvenile detention center." Mrs. Riley said, giving CJ one of her famous glares. A glare that felt like getting the fear of God put in you.

"No ma'am." CJ answered quickly.

"Good, you have till the end of this week to find a school activity. The community service project will be decided for you. Now you'll sign some stuff and be on your way." Mrs. Riley said smiling and handing CJ some papers for her to sign.

CJ's shoes clicked down the corridor as she made her way to her first class, anatomy. The teacher had already started teaching when, CJ opened the door. Eyes fell to her, and immediately the whispers started. The girl swallowed thickly and handed her note to her teacher. She quickly scanned the classroom for an open seat, and found one next to an unknown face.

"All right, listen up, I want you all to do a search on chromosomal DNA and make a slide on how it connects with last week's work on protein." The teacher said. Everyone automatically opened up their laptops sitting in front of them. CJ grabbed her's out her bag and set it in front of her too. The new kid looked around, uneasy about what he was supposed to do. He didn't have a laptop of his own to use, he usually shared one with his mother and younger brother.

"Spencer, right?" The teacher asked, coming over to him. He lifted his head and looked at the teacher, nodding.

"Yes ma'am."

"It's okay if you don't have a computer. Just pair up with a classmate for now."

"Okay, thank you." Spencer said and CJ looked up at him. Spencer tried looking at the boy next to him, who just moved his computer closer to himself.

"Hey, Todd. Keep watching that Logan Paul feed." CJ said to him.

"Whatever, CJ." Todd said and Spencer looked up at the light-skinned girl.

"Uh. . . you can share with me." CJ said lightly, and Spencer nodded. He moved his stuff over to where she was sitting.

"Thank you," Spencer said.

"I'll warn you, my chromosomal DNA knowledge is non-existent at best. And it's also my first day in this class."

"I might be able to help with that." Spencer laughed lightly and CJ moved her laptop in between the two of them. The two of them worked on their assignment, occasionally having to ask the teacher about what some of it meant, since it was both of their first days in the new class. CJ felt like eyes were watching her, and she turned around and noticed an old friend in class. CJ turned back to her assignment and kept her head down, not wanting to draw anymore attention.

When the bell rang, CJ offered to show Spencer to where the cafeteria is. Spencer was thankful that someone besides his new football coach wanted to show him around. CJ was just thankful to have found someone new at the school who hadn't known of her reputation.

"Salad bar, coffee cart." CJ said pointing at various locations in their center quad, "They used to serve sushi on Fridays, not sure if they still do."

"Sushi on Friday? At Crenshaw, we get sushi on Monday, that's all." Spencer joked and CJ laughed.

"Smart, and funny. I'm impressed." CJ said turning to him. But Spencer paused, and his eyes went to a beautiful tall, light skinned girl. CJ shifted uncomfortably as the girl made her way into the quad. Of course Spencer noticed her, she was beautiful and by far the most popular girl in Beverly. A spot that CJ once claimed.

"Layla Keating, Beverly Hills resident sweetheart." CJ said to Spencer, "Dad's some big-time record producer. And I heard they spend every Thanksgiving with the Obamas. And rumor has it, she even smoked pot with Malia last year."

"You must be Spencer," a familiar voice said from behind them. CJ turned and saw the star football player, Jordan Baker walk over to the pair, "Jordan Baker, QB, team captian."

"Baker?" Spencer asked, "Oh so you must be-"

"Yeah, coach is my dad. I'll take it from here, CJ." Jordan said and CJ nodded walking away from the two football players, "Come on, let me introduce you to the team."

"Hey, thanks for the tour." Spencer said before CJ could get too far away from him. She smiled at the Crenshaw boy, and looked down at her shoes.

"Yeah," She said quietly.

"Sushi on Friday?" Spencer asked, and CJ nodded.

"It's a date!" CJ agreed. Spencer looked the Jackson girl up and down before heading off behind Jordan. CJ cringed at the words that she said, before going off to find a table to herself, away from the stares and rumors about herself. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"No, I saw her. Like with my eyes. CJ Jackson is back at Beverly." Asher Adams said to the group of friends as they ate lunch.

"I thought she had like a whole year left?" Hadley said, as she picked at her salad in her lap.

"Daddy's money can get you out of anything." Lucy said giggling, "Bold of her to come back after the shit show she created with everything."

"She's lucky she didn't get more time. Heard Mrs. Baker showed up at the trial and basically bailed her ass out. She was gonna get at least 15 to life," Asher said, embellishing the story a little bit.

"Now that's excessive." JJ said and Asher rolled his eyes.

"She's basically a murderer!" Asher exclaimed.

"No one even knows what she did exactly, maybe she was supposed to get out this early any way." Layla said, trying to defend her close friend.

"So. . . did she have an ankle bracelet? A tear drop tattoo?" JJ joked causing Asher, Lucy and Hadley to laugh. Layla rolled her eyes and picked at her food, as Jordan walked up to the group with handsome young man she had seen earlier.

"Meet the crew," Jordan said as he pointed out different members of the friend group, "This is Hadley, Layla, and up top, Lucy, JJ and Asher." Each of them shook Spencer's hand and Jordan took a seat next to his girlfriend Hadley. He greeted her with a kiss, and took his backpack off.

"I think you and Asher play the same position." JJ said as Spencer took a seat next to Layla.

"What's up, man?" Asher said trying to seem welcoming.

"Oh, receiver, huh?" Spencer asked him.

"Yeah, broke the school record for receptions last year." He said boasting about the accomplishment.

"Me, too." Spencer said and Asher just nodded his head, not saying a word.

"So, how are you liking Beverly so far?" Layla asked Spencer.

"It's okay, I guess." Spencer said smiling up at the girl. Asher looked between the new receiver and his girl questioningly, not liking how nice she was being to him.

"I know it probably feels like lost footage or rich kids from Instagram, but it's not so bad once you give it a chance." Layla said honestly, her browns eyes drifting across the quad to where CJ sat, alone and with a book in her hand.

"I'm sure it'll grow on me." Spencer responded.

"So lay it on me," Asher said breaking up the conversation between them, "Crips or Bloods?"

"Excuse me?" Spencer asked him. Hadley looked questioningly at Jordan and then at Asher, who continued talking, digging himself an even bigger grave.

"I'm dying to check out a Crip walk for real." Asher said putting his arm around Layla, "I've only seen one on YouTube."

"Yo, yo, he's just joking man. Ignore him," Jordan said trying to fix Asher's mistake.

"Asher, you wouldn't know a Crip walk if it bit you in the damn white ass." JJ joked, causing everyone to laugh but Spencer, who was feeling offended by his new teammate.

"Nah, that didn't sound like a joke to me, bro." Spencer said looking at Jordan. The group grew quiet and looked at each other as Asher tried to defend himself.

"Don't be so sensitive."

"Sensitive?" Spencer asked, standing up angrily. All the groups eyes were on Spencer as he grabbed his backpack and pulled it over his shoulder, "Hey, yo, thanks for the welcome." He said as he walked away from the group. His brown eyes scanned the quad, and found a familiar face sitting alone, reading a book. Spencer sat down across from CJ, startling her out of the reading trance that she was in.

"Sorry for scaring you." He said genuinely.

"No, thanks for scaring me. Too entranced into the world of The Field Party series to even notice anything." CJ said, setting her book down. Spencer reached across the table and picked up the book, reading the back of it.

"A small southern town filled with cute boys, pickup trucks, Friday Night football games, and crazy parties to stir up some major drama," Spencer said reading the back of the book out loud, "Can't get enough drama at high school, you need to read about it?"

"It's different to read about it than to live it. Besides, if my parents didn't land here after my dad's retirement, I could've grown up, going to these crazy field parties in so called, Lawton Alabama."

"It makes sense now, Chris Jackson the 3rd, your dad. . ."

"Receiver for the Chiefs, before retiring in 2015, that's the one." CJ said, "And now coach for the LA chargers."

"Wow, that's crazy. I wanted to play under him if he was at Bama, but-"

"Hey!" Layla said, sitting down next to Spencer, "Christine,"

"Layla. I'll see you around, Spencer." CJ said, gathering her stuff and moving tables. Part of her agreement to herself to get better, was not hanging around her old group. CJ still had an hour left for lunch, and went to the only place where she felt welcome in this school.

CJ knocked on the door and waited for the welcome in. The door opened and CJ held up her brown paper lunch sack and had a shy smile on her face, "Can i eat here?" She asked.

"You're always welcome in here, CJ." Mrs. Riley said, and shut the door behind her. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a long pep talk to get CJ to even walk into the girls locker room, and to the dance coach's office. It was an even longer one to get her to open the door and talk to the coach. The coaches and teachers had known about the terms of CJ's parole, and knew that they had to give her a fair chance at trying out for the team.

"Alright, let's see what you can do. You'll learn the dance, and then me, and the other coach, and the captain will give you a mock tryout, and see how you do," The coach, Mrs. Williams said to CJ, "Go get changed, Hadley will give you a uniform."

Hadley stood outside the door, and walked CJ to an open locker. She handed CJ a new uniform and waited for her to change.

"Hey listen,. . ." Hadley started but CJ slammed her locker shut and looked at Hadley, "How are you?"

"How am I?"CJ said looking at the girl who was once her friend, "That's all you have to say to me, after what I went through?"

"CJ, listen, I'm so sorry for what. . ."

"It wasn't your fault, now let me go to practice, since I have to prove to everyone I still deserve to be on a team that I helped build up from literally nothing." CJ said and pushed passed Hadley to the gym. The girl sighed, and could at least tell her friend group that she tried to talk to her.

CJ tied her box braids back, and stretched on the floor with the rest of the team. The girls would stare at her and whisper occasionally, but CJ tried her best to ignore it. Hadley sat down across form where CJ was stretching and faced her. She began stretching too, and CJ just looked at her.

"What are you doing?" CJ asked her.

"Stretching with my captain." She answered and touched her toes with her arms out straight.

"I'm not the captain anymore." CJ shrugged and pulled her legs into the butterfly stretch.

"Well, you and I both know you can out dance Emily Pierce any day."

"She's the captain, oh my god who let that happen?" CJ said and wrinkled her face in disgust.

"Well after your mom stepped down as the head coach, Mrs. Williams took over. Hence why EP is the captain."

"Alright ladies!" Emily Pierce's voice rang out over the gym. CJ groaned and stood up, fixing the black spandex on her body, "We are going to run through Countdown and then learn the new dance. So places!" Everyone moved to their places except CJ, who stood in the back, "Oh CJ, you can um. . . stand next to Hadley."

CJ nodded and stood next to Hadley in the front. When the music started, CJ remembered the dance from the year before. She started moving in the familiar moves that she knew, and obviously caught the eye of the captain who stopped the music almost immediately.

"What are you doing?" Emily asked her.

"My dance, this is my dance."

"Not anymore, this is my dance. I changed things after you up and got yourself arrested. Now stand in the back and follow the group." Emily said and CJ nodded her head and moved to the back.

For the rest of the rehearsal, CJ was quiet and stood in the back, following the moves the Emily was teaching the group, even though she hated every second of it. When practice was dismissed, she was the first in the locker room, taking her uniform off and shoving it into her dance bag. She slammed her locker shut and stormed out of the locker room, running straight into a hard, muscular body.

"Hey, watch-" "I'm so sorry." They both said at the same time. CJ looked up at Jordan Baker, the one person she didn't want to see.

"CJ, you good?" Jordan asked. He could see the red lining of her eyes and nose, as she was about ready to cry.

"Ignore me like you have been the whole day, Baker. I'm fine." CJ said and pushed away from Jordan. She was thankful that her father was waiting at the front of the school. CJ ran down the steps and into her brother who was waiting for her. He engulfed her in a tight hug, and ran his through her hair as she cried. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That night, at the Baker household, Jordan walked up to his mom, who was unloading groceries into the fridge. He hadn't ever asked his mother about why she took CJ's case, even after everything she had done to his family. But now, that CJ was back at Beverly and constantly running into things in his life. Hadley had said that she seemed civil at dance practice, but Jordan didn't trust whatever CJ was trying to do.

"Hey, Mom." Jordan said.

"Yes, hun?" Laura said and closed the fridge.

"Why did you take CJ Jackson's case?" He asked.

Laura paused a minute and sighed, "I can't discus that with you. Why? What's going on? She try and contact you or Olivia again?"

"No, even worse, She's back at Beverly. Rumors are going around that she got released early."

"And they let her back at Beverly, after all the things she had done?" Laura asked surprised, "Guess money really does get you things."

"Mom," Jordan said somewhat defending his ex-friend, "You know that's not true. Hadley said that she's trying to get her spot back on the dance team, and that she seemed to change."

"Listen to me Jordan, girls like that, who strive off of their parents success and money, don't change. I. . . I defended CJ Jackson because her parents asked me too." Laura said honestly, "CJ didn't want a lawyer or attorney. She plead guilty and was ready for her charge. If you ask me, she should've gotten those 15 years. She is and was guilty for that boy's death, there' no doubt in my mind."

Jordan looked down at his shoes and didn't say anymore. He turned on his heel and walked back up to his room. He hated the feeling that was settled in his chest. He so much wanted to fight against what his mother was saying about CJ. Jordan was one of the only friends in his group to believe CJ. He was also the only Baker who believed her too.

#all american #all american cw #all american imagine #jordan baker #jordan baker imagine #spencer james #asher adams #olivia baker #jordan baker x reader

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daily-dose-of-imagines · 4 years

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(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Matchup ♥

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hi hi admins! I hope you both are doing well and taking good care of yourselves~ im kinda new to Tumblr and youre one of the first blogs I followed and I absolutely love the writing from both of you, its so amazinggg. this is also my first time submitting a matchup request and I have no idea if im doing this right at all, so I apologize in advance if I made any mistakes. I go by charlize/cj, and i use a female pronouns so she/her works for me. for the matchup I would prefer to be matched up with male characters. im 5'3 with long brown hair, brown eyes and a tan complexion. im and introverted extrovert so I tend to keep to myself unless im around people im close with, then I can be really loud and an extreme crackhead. I have been told that I have a competitive nature and that I have an intimidating aura, and I can take charge when needed. im very passionate about the things I do and always want to make sure that I am constantly improving, but I have a bad habit of becoming hot-headed at times :/ im an infj-a for the myers briggs personality and also an achiever for the enneagram test. according to my friends I come off as quiet and reserved, but if I am talked to ill be polite and hold a conversation (basically ill only talk if I have to T-T). I also make sarcastic remarks at times, but at other times I can say random stuff like “does lightening McQueen need life insurance or car insurance?” type of thing. my favorite things are dancing, kbbq, listening to music, drawing, trying new boba places, and photography. I have several aesthetics and incorporate a lot of black into them, but my go to aesthetics are street wear/hype beast, grunge/e girl/ alt. im fine if theres nsfw in the matchup (if there are nsfw themes in matchup im not sure, like I said im new to Tumblr I am so sorry T-T) lastly, I would prefer to be kept anonymous.

can I be matched up with (male) characters from mystic messanger, free, and haikyuu please?? thank you so much for reading my long ass match up request, anyways stay hydrated, get enough sleep, and dont stress yourselves out too much!

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Hello and thank you for requesting with us! Thank you for following us and I hope that you like the boys that I paired you up with!

>Admin 𝕋

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𝐼 𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓅 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽...

You and Rin would be such a perfect match for each other! Just solely on the fact that you are competitive, for one thing. Rin is competitive too, and I would feel like if you and Rin were to be together, both of you would be able give each other a push to be better, to thrive to be the best person you can be. Be it from daily life or to a career you want to pursue; just make sure it stays healthy and doesn’t ruin the relationship! He is also a bit extroverted himself, so he will like with how you are an ambivert, someone who can be both. He’ll like how you can go from quiet to rambunctious all in the same breath. He wouldn’t ever get bored!

For appearance, he will definitely like the fact that you are shorter than him, he’ll boast about it constantly. Having brown hair, brown eyes, and a tan complexion is something he will definitely see and like. Let’s be honest here, Rin wouldn’t care much for appearances, but when he sees you with brown hair and brown eyes, and you tan skin, all of a sudden, it’s his favorite look. Now, whenever he sees people like look like you, he is instantly attracted to them. In his mind that is a compliment!

Rin himself is quite a character. He is also pretty intimidating when people first meet him, much like you, but then see he is such a big softie who needs constant hugs, to which you will just have to give him! He will love your crackhead energy, thinking it would be such a bother to have someone who couldn’t match his energy whenever he is excited, or whenever he just wants to be lazy!

He will love your sense of style and definitely will want to try and match it with his own sense of streetwear. He would want to look like a bad ass couple with you, and be your hype man, tell you how awesome you look, and how cool you’d seem to be! His favorite type of colors would be darker colors, so you incorporating black all the time would be better for him, since he can match better with you!

For nsfw stuff, he’d be dominating, and would want to have you submit to him, but like I said before, he is a big softie, so what would really happen is that he would get too embarrassed by the whole ordeal, then you would be the one on top!

He would absolutely hate you puns and jokes though, so if you see him angry, that’s probably why.

I picked Akaashi for you because of his limitless sarcasm, that I think you would appreciate. Also with the fact that with you being an ambivert, you can definitely match his laid back and quiet attitude, and then pick up the slack when you and him around your friends, since you know that he won’t! Another thing, it that he will love how intimidating you seem to be, but you are actually a big softie. He will really love that dynamic you have going on!

Appearance wise. Bruh, that would be at the bottom of his list as to why he loves you. But, the most appealing thing about you physically to him would be your eyes. Only because they hold your soul, and he loves how they glimmer when you smile or laugh. Other than that, he would love you more so because of your personality, and how well you mesh with him.

He will love how passionate you are to your dreams, and how much you want to succeed. And he will be there when you go too hard on yourself, telling you that you need to pace yourself and make sure that you are properly taking care of yourself. He will be quiet and cautious when taking care of you, using more of his actions more than his words, so don’t take it for granted!

He would like your aesthetic, how you have so many different types and how you can pull off all of them! He would also like how many likes you have from dancing to photography. Akaashi would ask if you could take of things he likes, or if you could take selfies of yourself so that he has pictures of you for him to put in his wallet, so that he can have you with him at all times!

For nsfw, he would be very dominate, unless he’s lazy and doesn’t want to do all the work! But for the most part he would want to be the one to give all of the pleasure you deserve, inside and out!

And for your little puns and jokes, he would roll his eyes at them, would hate listening to them, but he sees how you laugh at them, and sometimes they are not as bad as they seem.

Bah, freaking Zen, literally so much like, so perfect for you! He isn’t as intimidating as you are at first glance. If anything, he is the opposite of you, Zen first looks like he wouldn’t harm anybody, but then you will the intimidating parts, such as his anger or his lust. Another thing about Zen, that I think would be perfect for you would be the fact that he is extremely extroverted, but can also become easily drained. And with the fact that you are both, you would be able to help him with his ups and downs, when he is extroverted, but then when he is drained and would rather be more introverted. You would essentially be his battery! Since you are both!

Appearance wise, Zen would be the type to care a little more than the other two, but nonetheless he would still love how you look! He would love how tiny you are, and would love how you are kind of the opposite of him, with your brown hair and brown eyes and tan skin! He would love all of it! Wouldn’t even think about the bad sides of you, if there were any!

Like the other two, he would love the fact that you are so passionate to succeed! But he would be the one to worry most, whenever you overwork yourself! He would tell you to take a breather, make some tea for you, and then force you to relax when you don’t listen to him the first time! He would make you get into a little play fight with him so you can get your mind off of stuff, and he would be really sarcastic with you too! All for you, so you can ease the tenseness in your mind and body!

He will like how you love boba and photography and dancing! Literally all the things he likes! He is a star after all! He would want to learn choreography with you, or get boba with you, or maybe even start photography with you so he can take better selfies with you and for himself! He thinks it is very admirable that have those types of ambitions! For how you dress, ho boy, he would absolutely love the hype beast outfits, literally his favorite thing to see you in!

For nsfw stuff, this boy has a beast of his own and would not let you sleep, he would love your body and would want to touch all of it, constantly wanting! He would not let you go until he was satisfied, or you were completely exhausted!

He would be the only one out of the three that would like hearing your dumb jokes and puns, thinking it makes you cuter, trying to hard to make him laugh!

#Matchup #submisisons #matchups #submission #anime matchup #mystic messenger matchup #haikyuu matchup #free! Matchup

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solange-lol · 6 years

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you look like friday night

Summary: The empty apartment that Nico shares with Will seemed to be bigger than normal. With Will home, the place seemed to be the perfect size for them. With Will down in Texas visiting his family, their apartment seemed as big and empty as Nico’s own giant house back in New York. "What’s up?” Will asked, answering his call. “Nothing, I just missed you,” Nico admitted. He was feeling extra lonely today. “I was thinking about the night we first met.” Will laughed. “That literal frat party that we both were dragged to?”

Words: 2,101

Prompt: “Free AU” for Day 4 of Solangelo Week

Note: ty to cj aka buoyantsaturn who is in fact a college student and taught me about college drinking like three months ago when i first started this since i am too young and innocent. youre efforts are appriciated

Read On AO3

Funny how the quiet ringing of an iPhone can echo so loudly around their home. The empty apartment that Nico shares with Will seemed to be bigger than normal. It is on the larger side for two poor college kids, especially if one is a med student. However, right now Nico isn’t fully paying for this apartment, but rather his rich father. He thought they deserved a nice home together, and he was helping them out a bit until the two men had stable enough jobs to pay for it themselves.

With Will home, the place seemed to be the perfect size for them. With Will down in Texas visiting his family, their apartment seemed as big and empty as Nico’s own giant house back in New York.

Thankfully, Will’s face picking the FaceTime was able to make Nico’s heart swell; he nearly forgot about how he had to spend the next three days alone.

“Hey, babe,” Will’s staticky voice came through, causing Nico to smile.

“Hey. Are you good to talk?”

“Yeah, it’s only quarter to 4 here. What’s up?” Will’s voice sounded mildly concerned. They both knew that Nico usually only called when something was bothering him.

“Nothing, I just missed you,” Nico admitted. He was feeling extra lonely today. “I was thinking about the night we first met.”

Will laughed. “That literal frat party that we both were dragged to?”

♪

“We can’t even find a place to park,” Nico complained as Jason drove in circles. “Why did you even drive anyway? You know well enough that none of us are going to be sober enough to drive back.”

“Dude, are you saying you won’t be our driver?” Percy whined in the passenger's seat.

“Hell no, I’ll either be fucked up or had left by the end of the night. Probably both.”

Jason turned around in his seat, giving Nico a very “stern mom” look. “No way are you abandoning us tonight; we brought you here in the first place to have fun with us tonight. No more sulking in your dorm listening to Panic! At the Disco.”

“Brendon Urie is a god, shut up”

♪

Nico laughed too. “Yeah. Percy and Jason dragged me there-”

“And I lost a bet to Lou Ellen and Cecil, and they forced me.” Will finished with a smile.

♪

The walk to the frat house wasn’t long, but it was too long for Will’s liking. Why was he even going to this party anyway? Oh right, because he bet on Lou Ellen being able to get a girl to ask her out before Cecil could. Drunk straight girls were dumb.

“Lighten up, Solace,” Cecil poked him in the shoulder. “We’re just trying to have some fun tonight; the three of us back at it again, just like high school!”

“If this is ‘just the three of us,’ then why aren't we playing a board game or something in my dorm?”

“Will honey, if your idea of fun on a Friday night is a board game, we have some work to do with you,” Lou Ellen said, rolling her eyes.

♪

“I guess I walked in just after you because I went to get a drink and you were already in the kitchen,” Will said, voice already far away.

♪

Will was not going to lie and say he’s never noticed Nico before because he definitely has. (He’s noticed him enough to know his name).

They have a few classes together. Sociology and political science. Will has no idea what Nico is getting his degree in though because he hasn’t had the courage to talk to him. His eyes were dark and glistened like broken glass; he could death stare like no other even if it was directed towards what Will assumed to be his close friends.

However, no amount of intimidation ever stopped Will from staring at the back of this man’s head from across the classroom.

Apparently, this was Will’s chance to make an impression.

He took a sip of his drink before walking over. “Hey. Nico, right?” he asks.

Startled at the sudden conversation, the Italian looks up. “Di Angelo, yeah. How did you know?” he asks.

“We have sociology class together.”

“Oh, can’t believe I’ve never met you before.” (That stung a little bit). “And your name is..?”

“Will. Will Solace, I’m studying for a degree in nursing.”

Nico smiled, and Will’s heart melted a little inside.“Nice to meet you, Will.”

♪

“And then,” Will laughs. “After meeting me for the first time; you asked me the most bizarre questions in the history of First Impression Questions.”

Nico felt his cheeks flush. “Shut up. It was a legit question, and I still stand by it.”

♪

“Do you think they had this vodka in the freezer beforehand?”

Will nearly choked on his drink. “I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Do you think they had the vodka in the freezer? It won’t burn as much then when you drink it,” Nico said raising the cup to his lips. Judging by his expression when he swallowed, Will took a guess and decided that it, unsurprisingly, hadn’t been.

“I don’t think anybody knows about that hack but you,” Will chuckled, sipping the cheap beer from his own cup.

“I can’t be, my friend Reyna taught that trick to me. Though she can handle most pain, so who knows if it really works.”

“Did she come here with you?” Will said, praying silently that it would be a no.

To his relief, it was. “Nope, my to friends, Jason and Percy, forced me along.”

“Oh, me too. I lost a bet, actually.” Will sighed. “Speaking of which, do you want to get out of here? Go on a walk or something?”

♪

“You were so smooth,” Nico rolled his eyes. “Asking me to ‘go on a walk’ with you.”

“Granted, you were the one who cut your knees open. You basically forced me to bring you back to my dorm,” Will said, eyes sparkling when Nico started sputtering defensively.

♪

The night air was brisk and refreshing compared to how stuffy it was inside. Both men had abandoned the house after a few drinks. It left them to walk alongside each other. The narrow sidewalk meant their hand occasionally brushed, though they both pretended not to notice.

Then, disaster struck.

In his tipsy shuffle, Nico scuffed the front of his shoe on a crack in the sidewalk, causing him to trip and fall face first onto the sidewalk. Neither Will nor Nico could process what just happened until Nico muttered “fuck,” shaking out the wrist he had fallen on. The pavement had scraped both of his knees which were already exposed from his ripped jeans.

“Fucking hell,” Nico muttered again. “I don’t remember it hurting this much when I was younger.”

Will chuckled for a second before his eyes caught sight of Nico’s knees; one of which was already dripping blood

“Ah shit,” he muttered, mind quickly spinning through ideas of what he could do. “My dorm is close,” he said, voice regaining a normal volume. (Granted, he wasn’t actually sure of this or not. But it was definitely around here somewhere).

Nico nodded quickly. “Yeah, okay.”

♪

“You did a pretty terrible job fixing me up,” Nico said. “I still have a scar on my knee from that night.”

Now it was Will’s turn to roll his eyes. “That wasn’t even a full three years ago. It’ll fade eventually.”

“Plus I think your scars are hot,” he added at his boyfriend’s pout.

“Shut up,” Nico muttered, cheeks still flushing at that statement even after three years.

♪

To be honest, Nico doesn’t really know who leaned in first. Maybe they both did at the same time. Really, he just knows that one second he was thanking Will for bandaging his cut, and the next second their lips were suddenly connected.

None of it really mattered anyway because whoever this guy was; he was an amazing kisser. He wouldn’t really mind having to kiss Will forever.

Nico is surprised, honestly, that he’s never noticed Will and his cute curly head before. Apparently, he’s been sitting behind him all year. But that doesn’t matter either because Will is running his hands through Nico’s hair and it feels so fucking good. They had somehow stumbled their way, lips still moving with one another, so that Nico was being pressed up against the wall next to Will’s bed. (He was praying that Will’s roommate wasn’t planning on being back anytime soon).

Nico’s breath hitched as Will’s head shifted. He softly ran his own lips down Nico’s cheek, tracing his jawline and dropping to his neck and collarbone. He let out a noise, high pitched and needy as Will pressed his leg in between his thighs, creating delicious pressure.

Nico pushed forward off the wall but kept him and Will connected. They stumbled backward until Will’s legs his the edge of the bed. He fell back on top of it; Nico falling on top of him. It broke them apart for only a few seconds before Will’s lips found his once again.

Will’s hands traveled down to Nico’s waist; fingers slipping under the fabric of his shirt. He was slowly pulling up Nico’s shirt when Nico placed a hand on his chest, pulling back. “Will,” he gasped. “Stop for a second.”

Will immediately pulled back, breathing hard as he fell flat next to Nico. He wasn’t worried. Nico’s voice wasn’t scared or angry; it just sounded like he needed to tell Will something. Or maybe his drunk brain was just ridding his body of any anxiety.

“I want this. I want you, but not like this.” Nico sighed. “I don’t want this to be just another hookup; I want to this for real. I want to get to know you. I want-” he stopped for a second as if carefully choosing what to say next. “I want you.”

♪

“You said, and I quote,” Nico was snorting by this point. “That dating me would be totally tubular.” He could see Will covering his flushed face with his hands, which only made him laugh harder.

“In my defense,” Will whispered through giggles. “I was very drunk. And if I recall, you responded by giving me a thumbs up and a ‘cool beans’.”

It only made them both laugh harder.

♪

Nico woke up in warm arms. His immediate reaction was to jump out of bed and get far away, far from here, but his sleepy senses only wanted to sink into the warmness more. Not to mention a pounding headache he had, no doubt from how much he drank last night.

He was wearing clothes at least, which was a good song. Granted, they weren’t his clothes. He would never own a shirt in this shade of pink, and the sweatpants he was wearing were about 5 sizes too long. They were still clothes, though. He would take that over no clothes any day.

As he began to wake up more, his memories slowly were flowing back. The party. Coming back to this dorm. The confession. And that the person whose arms he was sleeping in was, in fact, Will’s.

“Shit,” he mumbled quietly, trying his best not to wake Will as he reached for his phone. He switched it on to reveal many texts, more from Jason than Percy, but the effort was definitely there.

He could feel Will stirring next to him. “What’s up?” he mumbled sleepily. Nico couldn’t help but smile at him fondly.

“Jason must have sent me 50 texts alone just asking where I was. How do I explain to him that I’m in bed with a cute boy?”

Will smiled and kissed his temple. “That’s the best part. You don’t.”

♪

“As much as I would love to continue this,” Will smiled fondly at Nico, who could spot the sadness lurking in his eye from a mile away. “The mother would like me to go walk the dog with her so we can ‘catch up.’”

“Go,” Nico said. “Catch up while you can. It’s only three more days.”

“Yeah. It’ll be totally tubular to see you again,” Will smirked.

“Cool beans indeed,” Nico said with a harmless roll of his eyes. “I love you, sunshine.”

“I love you too, ghost king,” Will said, so genuine that it nearly made Nico cry. The screen froze, capturing Will’s soft smile, before it was gone, leaving Nico to stare at Will’s contact photo.

He was so in love with that boy. If the next three days didn’t kill Nico, then Will definitely would.

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seoulfulcity · 6 years

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June 26, 2018: Libertas, Justitia, Veritas

안녕하세요,

It's orientation day, which meant that I was finally going to meet my group members and my buddies! The event was scheduled to start at 10:00 AM, so I was up and ready by 9:00 AM. I was in the shower when Sophie texted me to meet with her at the front of Frontier building, so I had just missed her. Nonetheless, I planned to make new friends that day - both during the orientation and at the after party when all of Group 3 meet at the barbeque place we ate at yesterday. It was a beautiful day to make friends!

Well, it was raining - heavily. The shuttle bus stopped at both CJ International and the top of the hill that leads to Frontier House, Anam Dormitory, and Anam Global, so we all had to walk up that steep road in the pouring rain - luckily, nobody slipped.

The shuttle bus dropped us off at the entrance from the dorm to the campus, just behind Inchon Memorial Hall, the location of the orientation. Oddly, the fountains in front of the building were on, even in the pouring rain.

I entered Inchon Memorial Hall and headed to the tables set up in the main hallway of the hall. In the prior years, the students had to line up based on their last names to check in, but this year was different - we just walked in and grabbed the brochures and the envelope with all the papers needed for the orientation. I suppose it's because this orientation was optional, so no check-in was needed.

I sat in the front and center of the big auditorium - seat G22. A crimson banner hung above the stage welcoming the 2018 International Summer Campus students to Korea University. The president updated the students in the auditorium that we would be starting late due to the weather to accommodate those who were running late.

The orientation started with a welcoming greeting from the president himself, introducing the school and the program to an auditorium filled with excited international students.

Then, he continued the welcoming ceremony to show a video of the invited guests who were not able to make it.

Nobody expected to see who was about to give us welcome greetings.

N.Flying, Yubin from Wonder Girls, BtoB, SHINee, iKON, and other K-Pop idols welcomed us.

Oh, my God.

Gasps echoed throughout the auditorium as everybody tried to hold in their excitement.

Choi Minho from SHINee told us to take care of our health in the scorching weather while making good memories in KU ISC while Kim Donghyuk from iKON told us to study hard and to listen to iKON when we're getting tired from our studies.

The videos are linked on the previous paragraph, but wow! I was and still am very impressed with Korea University.

A sexual assault presentation followed the welcoming greetings and then a security presentation. Group 3 still talked about the welcoming greetings even after all the presentations.

We were given a two-hour lunch break with the news that the campus tour with our buddies was cancelled due to the bad weather.

I met with the people from last night, together with their roommates and other Group 3 members. There was a total of about 16 people walking into one of the restaurants within the campus called Mom's Kitchen, just nearby Woodang Hall, drenched from the rain, looking for a table to sit. We managed to combine two tables and gather enough chairs to accommodate all of us, and we spent the whole lunch break getting to know each other. This was when all of us realized that about half of the students in the ISC program was from Singapore, since everybody we met was from Singapore. Even the Singaporeans themselves were wondering why there were so many of them in the campus. After Singaporeans, there seemed to be a huge population of Americans and Australians, followed by the Chinese and Koreans.

After the lunch break, the cheer squad entertained us for the next hour and a half with seven songs and cheers they perform during the Korea-Yonsei games, held every year in October.

Think of the UCLA-USC game, but bigger. Korea and Yonsei are the biggest rival universities in the country, and everybody tunes in every year to watch one school beat the other in five sports.

Side note: you know if someone is from Korea University because they refer to the rivalry as Korea-Yonsei, while Yonsei students refer to it as the other way.

Well, the KU cheer squad showed us songs that included the school spirit songs and "Yonsei Chicken", a song they perform to make fun of the Yonsei students. The cheer is a great example of how huge the school spirit is for the crimson, KU's official color. They even had a song chanting Korea University's motto: Libertas, Justitia, Veritas.

The orientation ended at 3:30 PM and Group 3 would not be meeting for a meal until 5 PM, so we had time to shower and get ready for another night of barbeque and soju.

We met in front of Inchon Memorial Hall and walked to the same barbeque place where the ahjumma (아줌마) was surprised to see me walk in to her restaurant again. The whole group had her restaurant booked - every single tables and chairs were taken.

I sat on the corner on a four-person table with Sophie and two other people I met during lunch - Thao and Thai.

Thai told me before the dinner that he rarely drinks, and being the enabler that I am, I wanted to get him drunk. Minki-hyung (민기형) and Carolina, from the first night's dinner, joined us where we finished five sojus and a bottle of beer (maekju/맥주), playing different Korean drinking games, such as Titanic and the soju cap game.

Titanic is played where a shot glass is placed in a beer mug. Each person takes turns pouring as much soju into the shot glass as possible without sinking the shot glass down the beer mug. The person who eventually sinks the shot glass gets to chug the entire mug.

The soju cap game is very simple and it's done with every soju bottle that's opened. The soju bottle cap has an extra piece of metal, which is twisted and flicked off. Everybody takes a turn trying to flick off the extra piece of metal from the cap and the person who successfully does can choose two people to take a shot of soju.

Needless to say, all the asians in the table went home flushing that night - basically everybody but Carolina (Brazilian) and Sophie (Austrian).

Carolina went to the restroom when we drunkenly took this picture.

I skipped out on the karaoke (noraebang/노래방) with everybody else because of how much I was flushing; so that was the end of my night.

Wednesday, June 27, 2018: I woke up and got a haircut from a nearby hair salon called I'Hair that provided me with free drinks included with the price and headed to Woodang Hall to pick up my Korea University shirt and student ID.

That afternoon was the placement exam for the Korean language classes. Those enrolled in a Korean language course were to meet in the lecture hall in the sixth floor of Woodang Hall and had to write an essay about themselves. Those who did not know hangeul, the Korean writing system, walked out and headed to their assigned rooms for the oral part of the exam. I managed to write two paragraphs and filled the exam paper halfway with my basic Korean skills. Other people wrote the Korean alphabet and lyrics from their favorite BTS songs just so they turn in a paper that was not empty.

I headed to the room assigned for my oral exam, and those who have taken it told me they were asked to read off of a paper. Easy. If they were only testing me with my reading skills, then I would do just fine.

While in line for the oral exam, I met with other Korean language students - Marcela from Mexico and Peter from New York.

It was my turn for the oral exam and I was prepared to read the sentences she had on the table out loud. I handed her my written exam, and started speaking to me in Korean.

It was then I realized that she did not know how to speak English.

"아 좋아해요! 괜찮아요!/Ah! Johahaeyo! Gwaenchanayo!” (Ah! I like it! It's good!) She skimmed through my written exam and decided that I did not need to do the reading test since I already knew hangeul.

She went through the basics in a Korean 101 textbook.

"Where are you from? How is LA? What did you do before coming to Korea? How did you get to Korea? How do you compare LA to Korea? You like the weather in LA more? Why is that? Did your family go with you? Why did they stay? How did your family react when you told them you were studying in Korea? Why did you choose Korea? Did you study the Korean language just for this summer program or something else? How long did you study it for? Did you do it by yourself or through the school?"

It was a long conversation - basically, it was just me spitting out random Korean words with bad grammar hoping she would pick up what I was trying to say.

All I needed to say was "(Unknown Korean word here) 몰라요/mollayo” (I don’t know) to end that part of the conversation. She did not mind when I didn't know the word - she looked through her list and continued to interview me using the vocabulary of the next chapter.

"미안해요/mianhaeyo” (I’m sorry), I constantly apologized every time I told her I did not know what she was asking me.

"아니요! 괜찮아요!/Aniyo! Gwaenchanayo!" (No! It’s alright!) She reassured me that I was not being punished for not knowing the proper grammar structure to answer her questions.

I left the oral exam room feeling dumb. It was not until 2 PM the next day when we find out where we're placed. I applied for Korean Beginner 1-C, so I was hoping I'd be assigned to a class not any lower than that.

In celebration, Sophie and I went to Myeongdong that night where we tried street foods and ran in and out of K-Pop stores. That night was also the South Korea World Cup game against Germany, which South Korea won 2-0, allowing Mexico to advance to compete against Brazil. Unfortunately, South Korea was already eliminated by the time they were playing the game (yeah, I don't understand either). Seoul was loud throughout the entire game and I didn't need to watch it to know when the South Korean team scored.

But the memes of South Korea and Mexico took over online by storm, which was the best thing to come out of the World Cup, in my opinion.

Thursday, June 28, 2018: It was 2 PM and my Blackboard app finally updated. I was assigned to Korean Beginner 1-I with Manuel Lim. Whatever that meant. I guess I was smarter than Beginner 1-C. That night, I met with Valentino, Florence, and Wendelyn to Hongdae and visited a raccoon cafe called Maengkun (맹쿤). Minki-hyung (민기형) took the subway with us and dropped us off at Sindang Station (신당역) where we transferred from Line 6 to Line 2, which took us to Hongdae through Hongik University Station (홍익입구역).

Maengkun (맹쿤) required us to leave all our belongings in a locker and use the slippers provided. There were three options: option A was good for only one drink for ₩8,000; option B included a drink and the entrance fee to pet the raccoons and the dogs for ₩9,000 cash; and option C is the same as option B but with credit for ₩10,000. So, bring cash to save yourself from spending the unnecessary ₩1,000!

We got our teas and watched the raccoons behind a glass, since we could not bring our drinks in. I left my drink on the table and entered - the guys taking care of the animals on the other side of the glass door double checked that we didn't have anything in our pockets and let us in to play with the dogs and raccoons. There were about five raccoons and three dogs - a corgi, a husky, and a bulldog. The raccoons were getting vicious with each other, so one of them had to be dragged out into the cage outside the play area. Some raccoons would attack the dogs sharing the same food as them and they had to be separated.

Lesson of the day: go in the day since the raccoons get tired towards the end of the night.

We left Hongdae and went to a chimaek (치맥) place, where they serve chicken (chikin/치킨) and beer (maekju/맥주) called 썬더치킨 (Sseondeo Chikin) in Anam-dong, just next to the stairs by Frontier House. We started the night with the 3 beers (maekju/맥주) and one soju special, which they mixed in a long beer container - I'm sure there's a name for it, but as I've said before, I'm not much of a beer drinker so I don't know the culture surrounding beers. Valentino even showed me how to properly pour beer into our mugs to prevent excess bubbles.

Minki-hyung (민기형) joined us later in the night and we asked him to invite one of the buddies to join us, Hyunjic (현직). Hyunjic and I were born in the same year, so we established that night that I didn't need to call him hyung (형) and use honorifics with him; although I call him Hyunjic-oppa (현직오빠) instead.

To those who don't know Korean honorifics, a guy refers to another guy older than him as hyung (형), while a girl refers to a guy older than her as oppa (오빠); but in modern Korean culture, oppa (오빠) carries the same sexualized meaning as "daddy" in English; so Valentino and I liberally use oppa (오빠) to any Korean guys we're friends with.

We spent the rest of the night teaching Minki-hyung 민기형) and Hyunjic-oppa (현직오빠) California slangs like "hella" and the differences between "bro" and "bruh".

We took this picture before Hyunjic-oppa (현직오빠) stopped by.

I'm having a great time here in South Korea, although I still haven't found the time (and the weather honestly) to tour around Seoul. Maybe, this week I'd get the chance to. It's been raining all week so I find it useless to visit the temples and palaces when I could not even take pictures in front of them. Until then!

고마워요, Chris 「크리스」

#abroad #international summer campus #isc #korea university #ku #study #seoul #soth korea #summer

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williamlwolf89 · 4 years

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Affiliate Marketing in 2020: FREE Guide for Beginners

In This Guide: What is Affiliate Marketing? | How to Start Affiliate Marketing in 4 Steps | 4 Types of Affiliate Products to Promote | The Bottom Line on Affiliate Marketing

If you’d like to make passive income with affiliate marketing, this post is going to become your go-to guide.

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We’ll start with a (somewhat long-winded) definition:

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the practice of promoting the products or services of another person or company in exchange for a commission on the resulting sale. Affiliate marketers join affiliate programs, find reputable affiliate products to promote, and then share those products with their audiences.

Basically, it’s a modern interpretation of a very old idea — getting a commission on a sale.

If you’ve been listening to us for long, you’ve learned that bloggers make money by building an audience that trusts them, and then offering products or services that will genuinely help that audience.

Affiliate marketing is really just a quick way to offer products and services without having to create your own products and services.

For bloggers, that means you find a product or service that you like, promote it to your readers, and earn part of the profit on each sale that you make.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Affiliate marketing can get pretty technical, even for those well-versed in digital marketing. Fortunately, you don’t need to know all the details to get started.

Download our Affiliate Marketing Guide(a handy, free PDF packed with info)

The actual mechanics run in the background, thanks to the merchant’s affiliate program software.

But here’s a quick look behind the scenes:

When an affiliate joins the merchant’s program, he or she is given a unique ID and a specific URL to use when promoting the company’s product.

The affiliate includes the link in their blog content and/or via their email marketing efforts and invites readers to click it to find out more.

When a potential buyer clicks on the link to visit the affiliate partners’ site, a cookie identifying the affiliate is placed on their computer. The cookie ensures that the publisher is credited with the referral sale even if it occurs days or even weeks later.

Whenever a buyer completes the sale process, the merchant checks the sales record for a cookie identifying the source of the referral.

If the merchant finds a cookie with an affiliate ID, the affiliate is credited with the sale.

The merchant makes reports available so that the affiliate can see their referrals (clicks) and sales.

The merchant pays the affiliate commission at the end of each payment period (i.e. revenue sharing).

Here’s a graphical overview to help you visualize the process:

The flow is pretty straightforward once you understand it, and it works the same no matter what kind of product you’re promoting or how established you are as an affiliate marketer.

So let’s look at the typical progression for a blogger who’s serious about making affiliate marketing a major source of income.

How to Start Affiliate Marketing in 4 Steps

Here’s the key point you need to understand if you want to become an affiliate marketer:

You’re earning a commission in exchange for giving readers valuable insights on products or services they were already thinking about purchasing.

In other words, your readers are already buying things. They are already going to make a purchase whether or not you give them any advice.

The question is, could you help them make a smarter decision than they could alone?

Because that’s where you add value. You earn a commission in exchange for helping people make smarter decisions, and you use your blog and the Internet to systemize that process, providing valuable advice to thousands of people.

Here’s a step-by-step process for doing exactly that:

Step 1: Choose a Product to Promote as an Affiliate

As an ethical blogger, you’ll always be constrained in the products you choose to represent in one of two ways:

Either you’re limited by your experience to products that you’ve used and liked, that have affiliate programs and that are a good fit for your audience, or

You’re constrained by the products you can get access to in order to evaluate them, either by buying them outright or getting a free sample or trial.

No matter which approach you take, expect to have to invest time and money into researching the best products for your audience.

Here are your two main options (with your best option listed first).

OPTION #1: PROMOTE PRODUCTS YOU ALREADY KNOW AND LOVE

This is the most common way to get started with affiliate offers.

You become an affiliate for something that you’ve used yourself, had a good experience with, thoroughly tested and feel good recommending. You should be fairly confident that others will get the same results you did (or better), as long as they do the work.

If you’ve found great success from a course, mastermind, or ebook that your readers could also benefit from, it only makes sense for you to spread the word and share your results.

Do an inventory of the products, services, and courses you already have experience with. You might have a list of a dozen or more.

Which of these would you be thrilled to promote? Cross out any that don’t fit the bill.

Now simply check to see if the merchant has an affiliate program (some won’t but you’ll probably be surprised at how many do).

Using a search engine like Google, search for “affiliate program” + [product name], or simply email the merchant and ask.

Then run your remaining options through this Good Affiliate Product checklist:

You’ve previewed the product so you know its quality (given, in this case).

They have a solid refund policy that you trust they’ll honor.

They provide good customer support (and you’ve tested it).

You have a good story to share about your experience with the product.

The offer fits your audience’s needs and won’t abuse the trust you’ve built with them.

The products that tick all the checkboxes are your best opportunities for affiliate income. As time goes on, add as many of these products to your mix as you like.

You’ve found your first product! Apply using the merchant’s process and start promoting.

If you’re just dipping your toe in the affiliate marketing channels, this first option may be enough to get you started.

However, most bloggers will want to try the next one, too.

(And you’ll have to explore the second option if you don’t have an existing product you love that is also a great match for your audience and offers an affiliate program.)

Option #2: Find Products Via an Affiliate Network

If you don’t have any direct experience with or knowledge of products in your niche that could help your readers, you can often find good affiliate products on affiliate networks (← our detailed guide).

But be careful — this approach requires that you invest time into research and money into purchasing products to try out, more so than the first option.

That’s because there’s less trust and prior knowledge involved from the outset. You have to do your due diligence to protect your reputation and the credibility you’ve built with your readers.

When you work through a network, you typically won’t know the merchant ahead of time and usually won’t build a relationship with them (your business relationship is with the network).

The list of popular and reliable affiliate networks include ClickBank, CJ Affiliate, the eBay Partner Network, ShareaSale, CJ Affiliate (aka Commission Junction), and the Amazon Associates program. Some networks will even assign you an affiliate manager to lend a hand and show you the ropes.

Amazon products, in particular, are an easy way to get started. Many newbies begin by becoming an Amazon affiliate and then scaling to other types of more profitable affiliate offers.

Step 2: Get Yourself Set Up as an Affiliate

Whether you work directly with a merchant or through a network, you’ll have to apply, be approved and provide certain information so that you can be paid.

At a minimum you’ll need to provide:

Your personal/business contact information for tax and reporting purposes.

Your bank account where commissions will be sent.

In turn, the merchant must provide you with:

An affiliate link. Whenever you post about the product, you’ll use this trackable link. It will have a long tag at the end of each link that includes your affiliate ID.

Here’s what some typical affiliate text links look like:

EXAMPLE LINK THAT DIRECTS TO THE MERCHANT’S HOME PAGE

https://merchantsite.com/dap/a/?a=1199

EXAMPLE LINK TO ANOTHER PAGE ON THE MERCHANT’S SITE

https://merchantsite.com/dap/a/?a=1199&p=merchantsite.com/page.html

You’ll also usually get some tips and useful assets for marketing the product (often found in a welcome guide or on the affiliate website).

These could include:

An affiliate guide as well as instructions on how to use the platform and summary of policies such as payouts.

Online marketing tools like banners and sidebar graphics.

Sample email/webpage swipe copy.

Ongoing communications from the merchant about promotions, new products, etc.

If you use a network like Amazon, you’ll get your own link for each of the specific products you promote.

Be sure to check your specific network’s help or support pages for more information.

Tip: If your audience is global (which many bloggers’ are), you might want to check out geniuslink for tracking overseas sales through Amazon, iTunes, and Microsoft Store.

Step 3: Start Promoting Your Chosen Affiliate Offers

Ultimately, all your hard work finding and evaluating products only pays off if somebody takes your advice and make the purchase, right?

For that to happen, you need to put your recommendation in front of your audience. Even more importantly, you need to make your recommendation trustworthy.

This is where a lot of affiliate marketers slip up. They think slapping some banners up on their blog that link to affiliate products is all they need to do.

But take a look at this:

Does that look trustworthy to you? Nowhere close, right?

Well, here’s a little secret:

The most successful affiliate offers look nothing like that. No PPC or veiled recommendations on social media.

Here’s what to do instead (and what marketing channels to use):

Option #1: Create a Resource Page on Your Blog

Our own resource page is a good example:

It promotes lots of different products, but it also organizes them according to different types of readers and what they might need at the time. It also explains why those products would be helpful to them.

In other words, it’s not just a sales pitch. It’s educational. Because it contains a lot of quality content, plus it’s well optimized for SEO, it also ranks well in Google search results and gets organic traffic. It gets good conversion rates too.

Chances are, you can put together a landing page like this within a few hours. Your readers will also appreciate you putting all of your recommendations in one place for easy reference.

Option #2: Create and Promote Custom Content

This content marketing strategy will be the backbone of your affiliate promotional efforts.

Use as many of the following different techniques as make sense for your blog and audience.

Note: All of these strategies assume that you are already sending traffic to the latest content you’re creating by emailing your list on a regular basis (at least two to four times per month) to let them know what’s new.

A) Write Reviews

You can write detailed reviews of products, courses, books or software products you promote as an affiliate. For example, here’s our review of Siteground:

Your reviews can focus on a single product or compare competing products side-by-side.

The second approach arguably builds more trust, but it also distracts people by giving them a lot of different recommendations.

If you would like to review multiple products, one option is to create a review site where all the content is simply reviews and affiliate offers. It becomes a “one-stop shop” for your niche.

B) Write Definitive Content on a Related Topic

You can write a definitive, comprehensive post on your site to educate your readers and “soft sell” your products and then work to get it ranking in the search engines.

For instance, you could write an ultimate guide to setting up a WordPress blog and include your affiliate links to your favorite hosting providers.

One example here at Smart Blogger is our post on freelance writing jobs. It’s a detailed, definitive guide for freelancers looking to find writing gigs, but it also allows us to feature one of our courses for writers.

Whatever the topic, make sure that it’s evergreen content — information that’s likely to be useful and valuable for years to come.

You can create blog posts, videos, infographics or anything similar — but whatever you do, it should not be a sales page. Focus on building trust and authority.

Finally, you should pay a lot of attention to SEO — make sure to optimize for the right keywords, keep WordPress running fast, and build links to your content to get a constant flow of traffic from Google.

C) Create Valuable Bonus Content

Assuming it’s allowed by your affiliate agreement (sometimes it’s not), you can create bonus content, exclusive to your readers, that helps people get even more value from the affiliate product.

People love bonuses! You can create many types of bonuses fairly quickly and easily while still giving your readers excellent value.

By the way, this is a fantastic way to differentiate yourself from other bloggers representing the same products.

Here are some example bonuses you could offer:

Step-by-step checklists

Quick-start guides

Video overviews or demos

Complementary or discounted services (e.g., coaching calls)

Step 4: Comply with Legal Requirements (and Best Practices)

In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires that you let people know you’ll earn a commission.

But even if it isn’t required by law where you’re located, we recommend it. It’s just good business.

Don’t be afraid to be transparent. People will appreciate your honesty and want to support you to repay you for making their lives better.

So wherever you share an affiliate link, whether it’s in blog posts, web pages, or emails, let your readers know that you stand to earn a small commission if they buy through you — and if they choose not to use your link, no worries.

Assure them that you wouldn’t recommend any products if you hadn’t used them yourself or were confident they could help them.

It’s also a good idea to create an Affiliate Disclaimer page on your website.

Here’s an example of our own disclaimer page at Smart Blogger:

We’re also clear on how those affiliate links might look within blog posts:

Affiliate Marketing Examples: 4 Types of Affiliate Products to Promote

So, we’ve walked through the process of becoming a successful affiliate marketer. Now let’s step through some real-world affiliate marketing program examples, walking through four different types of products you can promote and make a tidy profit.

Usually, most of your affiliate income will come from one or two “ringers” — core products that just about everyone in your audience needs and which also pay a good commission.

As you progress, you can add complementary products to round out your offerings and help your audience in new ways, but identifying your core earners is an essential first step.

Option #1: Digital Downloads

Digital downloads are online resources that your readers can access instantly, without having to wait for a package to come in the mail (as is true for physical products).

They could be audio or video files, PDFs, ebooks or even links to webpages where the content lives online.

Examples:

Books or ebooks — Books that are either self-hosted on your merchant’s website or downloaded from Amazon, iBooks, or other online sellers.

Software — Downloadable programs, games, apps, plugins and cloud services.

Mobile applications — Some of the hundreds of apps that are available through the iTunes Affiliate Program and other mobile app affiliate networks.

Music, movies, TV shows, and more — Media offered through Amazon as well as the iTunes Affiliate Program and others.

Advantages

Digital downloads are an easy way to get started and help your audience with pressing problems.

There are no overhead costs of production, shipping or storage.

Your buyer can access and begin benefiting from their digital product immediately.

Disadvantages

Many ebook, software, or other download products are relatively inexpensive. You’d have to sell a lot of them to make any significant money.

Our Recommendation?

Do it! But expect higher earnings from other options on this list.

Option #2: Online, Hosted, and Professional Services

When it comes to selling services as an affiliate, it’s important to concentrate on those which will be accessible to your entire audience no matter where they’re located (as opposed to service providers who serve local customers only).

In other words, don’t limit your earning potential by geography.

Your best bet is to represent online, hosted, or professional service providers/influencers you’ve worked with in the past and have full confidence in.

Examples of professional services:

Designers (99 Designs, Zazzle, Designmodo)

Media or creative businesses (Media Content Advantage, John Melley Voice Overs & Production, Music Radio Creative)

Content marketing services (Sprout Social, Hootsuite)

Masterminds and membership sites (Serious Bloggers Only, Freelance Writer’s Den, Digital Marketer)

Research or consulting services (Questia, Touchstone Research Store, Snow Consulting)

Accounting, finance, or legal advice (as permitted by law) (Find Legal Forms, Motif Investing, Greatland)

Niche specialties – pop culture, travel, tourism, nightlife, crafts/artisans (Pet Care Supplies, zChocolat, Silvercar)

Examples of online/hosted services:

Website platforms (Wix, Squarespace)

Lead generation services (Thrive, Elementor [affiliate link])

Email service providers (AWeber, Constant Contact, ConvertKit [affiliate link])

Website services (e.g., hosting, anti-spam, security, etc.)

Media (Wistia, Vimeo, Telestream, various WordPress plugins)

Course platforms (Zippy Courses, Ruzuku, Teachable)

Virtual Assistant or customer service support (Zendesk Partners program, VA Affiliates, TempsASAP)

IT support, cloud-based storage, backup, security or other technical services based on monthly subscriptions

Advantages

It’s easy to become a service affiliate, and it helps your audience manage important tasks that require specific expertise.

There’s likely a higher earning potential than from digital downloads because services are usually offered at a higher price point.

Many hosted services will offer a recurring commission – meaning you’ll get paid for as long as the customers you refer continue to use the service.

Disadvantages

Some of your favorite professional service providers (ones you have experience with) might not have affiliate programs in place.

Our Recommendation?

Do it! Especially if you can find an excellent service provider who can potentially help nearly everyone in your audience at one time or another and who can be a strong, steady income generator.

Option #3: Online Courses

Online courses are an important subset of digital products, especially for bloggers, and the market is huge. They’re so popular that they deserve their own category on this list.

Online courses exist on just about any topic you can think of. They range in price from free to thousands of dollars, with higher-priced programs promising big results for students.

Examples:

My Garden School

Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids – How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting

Suze Orman’s Personal Finance Online Course

Advantages

Courses are one of the best ways to help your audience achieve a goal that’s important to them or move past a roadblock that’s been keeping them stuck. You can deliver incredible value with little effort on your part.

Courses are often offered at a higher price point than other digital products, so your earning potential from each affiliate sale is higher.

Courses are popular. It should be easy to find other influencers in your niche whose courses can help your readers.

Disadvantages

You’ll have to spend time working through and reviewing courses to make sure that they deliver on their promises (to protect your reputation).

Our Recommendation?

Do it! Help your readers in a big way, and earn big at the same time.

Option #4: Ecommerce Stores

If you decide to promote physical products on your blog, your best bet is to choose high-quality, distinctive products that that will appeal strongly to your specific audience.

Avoid commodity products that your readers can buy anywhere — the commissions are so small you won’t make worthwhile money unless you can drive tremendous traffic to your site.

Commissions on ecommerce products are usually fairly low because of the overhead of production costs, storage costs, shipping, etc. So unless you are planning to build a large review or shopping site, physical products will probably be a very small portion of your blogging affiliate income.

However, if you have a favorite tool of your trade, a must-have gadget that will make your readers’ lives easier, or a high-quality recommendation that you’re sure people will be thrilled with, go ahead and offer it.

You’ll build goodwill even if you don’t make a lot of money.

Examples:

Niche shopping — Product Review Mom (parenting), Compost Mania (gardening), Roemer’s Workshop (hobbies), Pinch of Yum (food)

Tech or gadgets — Engadget, Gizmodo, Craziest Gadgets

Cool stuff — This Is Why I’m Broke

Advantages

Once you have an established blog, companies may approach you and offer you free product in exchange for a review. (You should always disclose this, as it could be seen as a conflict of interest.)

If you can afford to purchase products on your own in order to test them, you’ll be seen as a truly objective reviewer.

Disadvantages

Commissions from ecommerce stores are usually a lot lower because of the overhead, so you’ll have to sell a whole lot more product to make a decent income.

Buying products so you can review them before promoting them can be expensive.

Our Recommendation?

Offer physical products only under certain circumstances:

They’re directly related to your blog topic and something your audience absolutely needs.

They’re not commodities. Specialized and distinctive products from ecommerce stores reflect better on you, boosting your reputation and credibility.

You should now have plenty of ideas for types of products you can represent.

The Bottom Line on Affiliate Marketing

That dream you’ve had of making passive income isn’t just a silly fantasy.

It’s a completely achievable reality.

Sure, it’s not as easy as pushing a magic button or throwing Google Adsense all over your site, but with a little knowledge and persistence you can definitely do it and even turn it into an online business.

Once you’ve gained a respectable following, affiliate marketing is one of the best business models for making money (and from the comfort of your own home too).

And the best news is that it’s so easy to get started. All the steps for starting an affiliate marketing business are spelled out in this post.

Simply identify the one big thing everyone in your audience needs to reach their goals and start there.

Choose a great digital product from an online business you believe in. Share it. Tell the story of your successes.

Provide lots of valuable content that helps and educates your readers, and take care not to be too salesy.

Be upfront, honest, and transparent. Nurture the trust that readers place in you.

And finally, be patient.

All your efforts will pay you back with that sweet “cha-ching” of affiliate commissions being deposited into your bank account.

The post Affiliate Marketing in 2020: FREE Guide for Beginners appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/affiliate-marketing/

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junker-town · 6 years

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A brief history of C.J. McCollum’s disgust for the Warriors and their superstar signings

McCollum has had enough of Golden State poaching the league’s best talent: “I’m not built like those guys. I was raised differently.”

C.J. McCollum is not a fan of the Golden State Warriors. He’s not a fan of the fact that they signed Kevin Durant after losing in the 2016 NBA Finals, and he’s certainly not a fan of their move to sign DeMarcus Cousins this summer after winning back-to-back NBA championships. He’s probably not a fan of the fact that they’ve eliminated his Trail Blazers from the playoffs multiple times in recent history, either.

Portland’s star is so against Golden State’s recent monopoly over All-Star talent that he’s been on what seems to be a summer-long smear campaign, bashing Durant, Cousins and the Dubs every chance he’s had.

He’s basically saying what many non-Warriors fans have been feeling all this time, and here’s how it all started

“Don’t worry about what goes on at the top of things.”

The CJ-KD beef started when Kevin Durant started roasting McCollum and the Trail Blazers on C.J.’s own podcast. Durant giggled all throughout the show, while shooting down any notion that Portland either had a chance at landing DeMarcus Cousins in free agency or belong in the conversation with the top teams in the Western Conference.

The podcast is a hilarious listen, but if that isn’t possible, it’s transcribed below, with the major punching points in bold:

Kevin Durant straight up laughed at the Blazers getting swept and Boogie signing with Golden State to CJ McCollum on CJ’s own podcast. pic.twitter.com/iKqCBGodgi

— Kris Hanson (@KrisHansonRCF) July 25, 2018

CJ McCollum: You know how I felt, bro, I was hot. I don’t know if I was more mad [when you signed or when DeMarcus Cousins signed].

Kevin Durant: Why are you mad about this stuff?

CJ: What do you mean why am I mad? I’m in the Western Conference. I gotta play you MF-ers all the time as it is, over and over again. We done got eliminated by y’all a couple times in the first round.

KD: I mean, you know you’re not... You know you guys aren’t gonna win a championship. CJ: Bruh, we have the team. We have the capabilities. Anything is possible.

KD: I mean, let’s be honest. Y’all need more. I mean, I like y’all two [McCollum and Damian Lillard]. Y’all are hard to stop. But, I mean, come on. You can’t be upset about this!

CJ: I can be upset because [Cousins] was a free agent, which means he could have — this is why I was also upset — he could have come to Portland. His agent and [Blazers starting center Jusuf Nurkic] have the same agent. So I’m thinking, ‘OK, you ain’t gonna come to us. Whatever.’ Why you gotta go there, Cuz? And I texted him. I was mad, I got on Twitter. And I really texted him.

KD: Yo get out your feelings.

CJ: I texted him, like, ‘Cuz, what’s up? Why did this happen?’

KD: You’re the first person I’ve seen who said that. I was crying on Twitter when I seen that.

CJ: Nah he thought I was playing. I for real texted Cuz. We hashed it out. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know why [he went to the Warriors].

KD: You wanted him to come to Portland?

CJ: Bruh I think that anything is possible. I’m just saying, man, you tryna get me in trouble. I’m happy with Nurk. Nurk’s a great big man for us. Nurk’s playing well.

KD: I mean you did just say on the airwaves that Cousins should have came to Portland. So you ain’t want Nurk?

CJ: Of course I wanted Nurk. We coulda had both of em.

KD: Y’all not getting both.

CJ: Y’all only paid him $5 million. We had $12-15 million.

KD: No way that’s happening. It’s gotta be a nice yin and yang, bro. It’s gonna be too much of one thing with y’all. We’d stop that.

CJ: So what do you suggest?

KD: I suggest you just keep playing, man, and don’t worry about what goes on at the top of things.

CJ: We right there at the top of things. We were the 3rd seed!

KD: Relax.

CJ: We were right there, just slightly below No. 1 an No. 2.

KD: How’d you play?

CJ: Some unfortunate situations happened in the first round?

KD: How’d you play?

CJ: Some unfortunate circumstances happened.

KD: Like a 8th seed.

My God.

“He know that decision was soft.”

Later on the same day as the podcast episode went viral, McCollum responded to a tweet that asked for permission to begin calling Durant “the B word again.” McCollum declined to use that word and said he respected KD’s decision to join the Warriors after they eliminated his Thunder from the 2016 Western Conference Finals despite a 3-1 series deficit, but he also said “he know the decision was soft.”

He also likened it to “getting jumped with your brothers by a gang you should have beat, then joining the gang that jumped u and ur brothers 2 months later & forgetting about your bros.”

I still think the b word is harsh and shouldn’t be used. . He know that decision was soft but I respect it. It’s like getting jumped with ur brothers by a gang you should’ve beat then joining the gang that jumped u and ur brothers 2 months later & forgetting about your bros https://t.co/BFGqQy1lwR

— CJ McCollum (@CJMcCollum) July 26, 2018

Durant disagreed with McCollum’s analogy, then called him a snake with a laughing emoji at the end of his tweet.

So,I would get into a gang fight, lose, plot on my brother for 2 months in our home and then go get the gang we lost to and beat him up? U think that low of me CJ? I just did your fuckin podcast. Snakes in the grass boy I tell ya

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) July 26, 2018

McCollum later said there is no beef between he and Durant.

There is no feud y’all gotta chill. It was simply an analogy. I’m done speaking on KD and the warriors bc it’s childish of me to do so and soft lol (will be taken out of context). I’ve always said what I feel but we all know I’ve never been a . Back to the grind pic.twitter.com/93B39bqKTS

— CJ McCollum (@CJMcCollum) July 26, 2018

“I’m not built like those guys. I was raised differently.”

The next month, while on tour in China, McCollum made an appearance on CCTV, and when asked star players like Durant and Cousins joining the championship Warriors, he kept the same energy he had while KD was a guest on his own podcast.

McCollum even took it a step further, calling the trend “disgusting.”

CJ McCollum went on @CCTV and said that star players joining the Warriors is 'disgusting' and 'I would never do that' : @NBA_Reddit pic.twitter.com/rcno5SMQJA

— Dime on UPROXX (@DimeUPROXX) August 15, 2018

“I would never do anything of that nature,” he said of star players joining the Warriors. “That’s disgusting. I’m not built like those guys. I was raised differently.”

Asked if this trend is the future of the NBA, McCollum said:

“No. I think some players will take that route, but most guys have too much pride, want to win on their own or in their certain organizations that aren’t just gonna jump the bandwagon.”

You can agree or disagree with McCollum’s stance on the Warriors and talent, but he and Durant make for one fun rivalry. The Trail Blazers and Warriors have to play each other four times this season, the first being a Nov. 23 matchup in Oakland.

Both teams are probably looking forward to that matchup.

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zefryajane-blog · 4 years

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It's my mother She has some serious health issues happening I'm not disputing that.But she calls me to vent and disguises it as a discussion where everything I say is wrong. I told her 6 months ago she shouldn't be taking 2000+mg a day of ibprophen. She told me itll be fine and she needs it. I've told her repeatedly her salt intake is to high and she just needs to stop adding it to everything. She said she wont change her diet. I told her these things because shes going to distroy her kidney and I said that to her ...and now she is having problems with her kidneys and she cant imagine why. I've told her to take a few different kinds of supplements a day to help boost her system for pretty much ever. She says she can never remember to take pills conveniently though she can remember to take ibuprofen 3 to 4 times a day...

When she started gaining weight I suggested she start going on walks not even long ones just around the block. That moving would help. She says she just doesnt want to but complains constantly about the weight. Over Christmas break she never stopped snacking she always had chips or pretzels etc...she complained about her weight at every turn though. I said why dont you change your snacks to fruits and vegetables. She said no just flat out no Anything related to diet I'm met with if I change my diet it could and probably would make it worse. I suggested it might be hypothyroidism because I have it and its genetic. She said she didnt think so and she was going to wait for her doctors to tell her something...I was right and have the ability to give her tips on how to help but it's useless to try.

I called and told her lupus nephritis runs in our family and can cause all of her symptoms. I asked if she had been tested for it and if not if she could suggest the test to her doctor to rule it out. I was told that she is just going to wait and see what the dr says he is doing tests and she is sure that hell figure out the problem.

She is sick. She has gained weight and keeps gaining weight. She is in pain. But she wont do anything but complain about it. She has an excuse for everything and/or uses the doctor card. She basically treats me like I'm being a drama queen and that I'm Google doctoring anything I say. But she conveniently forgets i had to do A LOT of studying medical for both Sam and I. Medical is kind of my thing. She calls and asks questions like she wants help but then shuts me down at every turn. I'm seriously about ready to give up all together. She doesnt want to help herself so what am I doing trying to help? I just dont know what to do.

She has this ability to take any problem or question or situation I have and make it about her. For example I'm legit going deaf (im going through testing to see how long I have right now) and she related to it because her ears have been plugged for 3 months...no joke that's the kind of thing she does to switch the conversations over to her its insulting and frustrating.

Yesterday I called because I'm having trouble adjusting to Juan's family's way of well being a family. I needed her help. She spent the entire call saying mmhm...yeah...right?....mmmhm. I think she was watching tv instead of listening. Like I was talking on the phone so that was good enough. When I try to talk to her about any of this she basically calls me drama and tells me to stop overthinking everything. But...but she does it over and over. And to top of all of this frustration while she was here she flat out told my best friend that she gave up on me around 12 or 13 and acted like that was the most normal thing to say. That she just gave up because I was a stubborn wild child and wasnt going to listen...but here is the thing when I was that age is when cj screwed up. So she just assumed I'd turn out the same way and gave up on us both. And when she told Jg it all made sense on why Av is being raised so differently it's because they actually believe in her enough to support her...

I'm getting to the point where I dont want anything to do with either parent. Mom just shifts all blame to my dad (or mt) over anything and takes no responsibility for her actions. Dad is well dad. Were over 18 so were not his problem anymore. Like this all hurts and I dont let people treat me this way. But if I detach myself which I could easily it would distroy both of them. But I cant keep doing what I am doing. It's not healthy for my mental state.

Erm

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auburnfamilynews · 5 years

Link

HUGE game in the Swamp.

Game of the day, y’all. Let’s get into it. Auburn and Florida meet for the first time in six years, and it’s basically a rehash of the showdown 25 years ago when Patrick Nix led the charge and the Tigers knocked off the top-ranked Gators in the Swamp.

#7 Auburn (-3) @ #10 Florida (O/U 48)

For the 6th time in as many games this game will be determined by Auburn. We’re the better team and if we win it’s because we dictate victory. If we fall it’s because we dictate defeat. I have no doubt this will be the toughest challenge Auburn has faced up to this point in the season. While there is plenty to look at with Florida and assume we should come out victorious, this matchup is tricky because of the scheme we face, especially up front along the offensive line. As our dear friend Spencer Hall like to point out, Todd Grantham’s defenses are known for “emotional blitzing”. Grantham is going to blitz early and often, with a skillful defensive line to boot, creating stunts that give me cause for concern with interior of our OL. Now, is this because our OL has shown they haven’t improved from last year? No. But the shadows of last year’s collapses with this group still loom in my mind and they still have something to prove to replace my concern with hope. Now, onto the keys to victory:

Stay a little conservative on 3rd down offensively. I know, I know…everyone here will bemoan this and point to the LSU game in 2017. But my point in this is that I don’t think this Florida offense can have sustained success if they have to go 75-80 yards to hit pay dirt. Don’t lose the momentum by taking a sack on 3rd down. Don’t force a ball down field and risk a turnover. This is a field position game that we are likely to win if we just stay out of our own way. This can be helped by…

Run the football for at least 150 yards. I don’t care how you get there. Get to 150, with fresh legs in the 4th quarter and you’re in a good position to win this game.

Continue to find 1 on 1 situations in the slant route over the middle 8-12 yards down field. Nothing cools the jets of blitzing linebackers in a 3-4 scheme quicker than gaining chunks of yards by delivering the ball to where a linebacker was in the pre-snap.

If CJ Henderson blankets Seth Williams all day, take a shot in the right moment on a 50/50 ball and see if we win it. If Seth is double covered all day, line of Schwartz next to him and send him deep. No one can keep up with him.

Let’s see some tunnel screen action on Saturday. It’s been impressive what Prince Tega does when he has the ability to lay into someone’s blindside, and throwing into a blitz will soften them up.

No turnovers. None. Not 1. Don’t do it. I’M SERIOUS ABOUT IT DO NOT TURN THAT BALL OVER ON THE ROAD.

Defensively, make Kyle Trask uncomfortable by sending some heat from the second level and trust your guys in the secondary. His job on Saturday is going to be infinitely hard.

We are about to be tested in a way that we haven’t seen since the Oregon game. They will find ways to limit our success offensively that is going to frustrate us at times over 4 quarters. If we play a clean game from a turnover perspective and play field position football, they shouldn’t be able to hold up. I think we do just that, and get out of the Swamp with a victory. Auburn 24 Florida 14

-Josh Black

I get to be live and in technicolor for this one with Big Dave and my other brothers (there will be plenty of photos, don’t you dare worry).

The more I look at this game, the more I see an Auburn win. The offense has gotten progressively better each week and now that the receivers are as healthy as they have been all season, things look really good. (Also, the offensive line has looked muuuuch better the past 2 weeks). On the other side of the ball, Florida has got a really impressive secondary and their front 7 have looked stout through the first 5 ballgames. However, its hard not to look stout when taking on Miami, UT-Martin, UT-Knoxville, Kentucky and Towson. This will by far be the biggest test the Gators have faced all season and will be until...next week when they play at night in Baton Rouge. Auburn on the other hand gets an off week before taking on Arkansas. Going back to the game, Auburn’s defense has been battle tested and just got done punishing the SEC’s Leading Rusher Kylin Hill, holding him to just 45 yards for the day. Kyle Trask took over for the injured Felipe Franks and that’s a good thing for Florida. Trask was able to come in and save the Gators perfect record in a comeback effort against Kentucky. However, Trask hasn’t seen a front 7 like he will see Saturday afternoon. The battle I will be watching is if Trask has time to throw the ball and can he complete the necessary passes against an Auburn secondary that has given up 3rd and longs for 1st downs the past few weeks. Also, watch to see if Florida attacks the middle of the field with the passing attack. If Auburn can sure those two items up, it will be a not so happy Homecoming for the Gators. I see Auburn getting the win and covering here and I will go with the under. Auburn 24-17

-Drew Mac

Like last week, but more intense, I’m scared how confident I am in this one. Auburn is battle-tested. Florida is not. Auburn has the better offense and the better defensive line. And yet, it’s on the road at the second toughest venue Auburn will travel to this season. I thought Auburn’s best path to 9 wins this season was to go 2-1 against Oregon, A&M, and Florida and 1-2 against LSU, UGA, and Bama. Two of the first group are down. Let’s BARN HARD FOLKS.

Auburn 23, Florida 17 (Auburn covers, UNDER)

-James Jones

We turn our attention to the third Southeastern Conference opponent of the 2019 campaign. Florida is a physical team that hasn’t really been tested yet. Their schedule leaves a lot to be desired. Don’t read into that though: Florida is good. They are a top 10 team right now, talent wise.

From listening to Florida fans, it sounds like they anticipate Mullen and Co. scheming their offense similar to their Mississippi State game last year – lots of screens, lots of quick routes. Anything to protect their quarterback from an elite defensive line. They punted a lot, played the field position game, and eventually smothered state 13-6.

Auburn is too explosive. It will take more than one touchdown to beat Auburn. Schwartz has been hounded all week by Florida fans who weren’t pleased that the fastest man in America picked Auburn over Florida. Malzahn seems more than comfortable getting him the ball in space and letting his legs do all the work. We’ve also seen some deep balls get thrown his way, finally connecting on one against Mississippi State. If Auburn can manage a few explosive plays early, it can force Florida to abandon this gameplan – allowing Derrick Brown to feast.

This game won’t rely on late game heroics. Auburn will pull away after a slow start. Auburn advances to 6-0 for only the third time in the last 20 years and 17th time in program history

Auburn 35, Florida 24

-Josh Dub

Swing game #2 has arrived. Before A&M I said there would be 3 games that determine whether or not this is a bad, good or great season: @ AM, @ UF, vs UGA. Tigers took care of business in College Station & will look to do the same in Gainesville.

I think Auburn is a better football team than Florida. However, I don’t think the gap is as wide between these programs as some AU fans might believe. You can’t overlook The Swamp playing a factor and there are two specific matchups that give me pause heading into Saturday: AU’s OL vs UF’s DL & AU’s WRs vs UF’s DBs. Those are two matchups where UF could win & be enough to get the W.

Auburn has seen some stout front 4s this season but UF’s is by far the most athletic. While Oregon, Tulane & A&M were built to clog lanes up the middle, this group is built to penetrate & disrupt. That means Tega/Driscoll must have good days handling speed off the edge & Nix has to have outstanding pocket awareness. It also means I think Auburn could have some opportunities running the football between the tackles but that means Harrell/Kim/Horton all playing an outstanding game.

On the other side of the ball, Auburn’s DL is a major mismatch over UF’s OL. The Gators cannot run the ball & I think unlike Jimbo, Dan Mullen won’t even really try. Ya he will attempt some running plays but he isn’t gonna stubbornly slam his running backs into that wall. Instead, he’s going to attack AU’s perimeter using wide splits & quick hitting concepts. Get the ball out of Trask’s hands & into their playmaker’s as quickly as possible. The strength of this UF offense is at WR. Auburn’s defense MUST continue to tackle well in the open field. They will probably see a similar game plan Oregon & Kent State used earlier this season.

I would love for Auburn to come into Gainesville & just thump the Gators but I don’t have a lot of confidence that will happen. Florida is out to prove they are legitimate top 10 team & I expect they play their best game of the season. Turnovers will be critical & if the Tigers don’t take care of the ball this thing could go sideways fast. My guess is UF gets a TD on the board early but Steele adjusts. Nix doesn’t shred their defense through the air like he did to State’s but he connects on a few more than he did in Aggieland. Auburn leans on the Gators D which results in two long 2nd half TD drives. They make us sweat & the result isn’t as dominant as maybe some fans wanna see but Auburn heads into the Bye week 6-0. Tigers 24, Florida 16

-AU Nerd

I‘ll keep this one short and sweet. I’ll be at a wedding this weekend. Auburn athletics is undefeated when I’m at a wedding, 7-0 by my count, with the most recent two coming during Game 1 of the Super Regional against UNC and Kansas game back in March. I’ll be at a wedding during this one, too. In fact, there’s a decent chance the bride and groom are saying their “I Do”-s when the clock strikes 00:00. Bo Nix throws for 250 with a TD and a pick. Boobee and Schwartz both pick one up on the ground. The defensive line eats Kyle Trask alive for four sacks. And, as is tradition, we win the game on special teams. 27-20 Tigers.

-Ryan Sterritt

/andrew WK voice

So let’s start a barning party (Let’s start a barning party!)

Now it’s time to BARN and we’ll be BARNING SO hard (BARNIN hard!)

Let’s get start a BARNING party (Let’s start a barning party!)

When it’s time for barning we will always barn so hard

BARNIN hard!

(BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard)

BARNIN hard!

(BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard, BARNIN hard)

BARNIN hard!

Tigers 35, Gators 21

-Son of Crow

Before I get into what I think about this game, I have to get this off of my chest. It is absolutely criminal of the SEC that this will be Auburn’s first trip to Gainesville in 12 years and the team’s first matchup in 8 years. And the fact we won’t see this again until 2024 is even more ridiculous. Fix this SEC!

Okay, now that I’m off my soapbox, here’s my thoughts about this game. Auburn has been battle tested early and often this season and last week, you saw an offense click on all cylinders. This will be a tougher test for the offensive line but last week was their best game of the year and hopefully as the season goes along, they will continue to gel and improve. Bo Nix will look to replicate his dad’s performance and hopefully we’ll get a Nix to Williams moment or 2 again this week. Auburn actually has more experience at QB as the Gators go with Kyle Trask in his 3rd collegiate game and 1st SEC start. I’ve had a good feeling about this game all week and hopefully that feeling will carry into Saturday.

Auburn 28 Florida 17

-Will McLaughlin

Not scared at all. Haven’t been scared of Florida in nearly 20 years, ain’t gonna stay back now. That said, Mullen had the ability to give Auburn fits during his time in Starkville, so maybe this one is closer than I want it to be. I’m going to be nervous that the Fort Payne native kicker that Auburn didn’t try to sign is going to make us pay. That’s all I’m going to be thinking about if the game is close. Auburn just has to win the turnover battle and they go home with victory.

Tigers 31 - Swamp Lizards 17

-AU Chief

My classic Auburn fandom has threatened to take over this week. I’ve heard nothing but people whispering “Is... is Auburn the best team in the country?” since the win over Mississippi State. We certainly have the best resume in the country, but there are still a ton of folks who won’t give this team its due because oh no, the schedule is too hard, they’ll drop a couple games at least. Normally, I’d be sweating the mojo hard after talk of that nature. But this year? Right now? No, screw that.

One cannot Barn meekly.

I’ve watched a suspicious amount of Florida football this season (it always happened to be on!) and while they’ve been dominant at times — Tennessee, Townson, etc. — they struggled with teams that frankly ain’t all that good. They can’t run the ball. Kyle Trask is actually a more inexperienced quarterback than Bo Nix, and the combo of Gus Malzahn/Kevin Steele has pretty much always had the upper hand against Dan Mullen and Todd Grantham. We’ve already been to a hostile environment. Yes, the Swamp is different, but I don’t have any reason to believe that some denim-clad reptile lovers will have that much more of an effect than 10K more khaki-clad military lovers.

Bo Nix has found his rhythm, the offensive line seems... good... and the defense continues to do what we expected it to do. Towson got to Kyle Trask a few times. Auburn gets there more. Tigers disrupt the Gator offense and we hit one long pass play and one long run play on offense. Add in some constricting and you’ve got a win. Tigers 31-13.

-Jack Condon

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2019/10/4/20898413/staff-picks-7-auburn-10-florida

#IFTTT #Blogger #auburn #auburn fast #wareagle #AuburnFamilyNews #war eagle #sec #football news #aubu

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basiccortez · 4 years

Text

Defenseless Ch. 2

synopsis: CJ Jackson, looks like she has it all. Fancy car, fancy house, name brand clothing. Her parents, top boosters to Beverly, with money to make all sorts of situations go away. As well as the Jackson family looks put together, past secrets haunt them. With the new transfer student catching the eye of CJ Jackson, can old friendships be fixed. Or are somethings just meant to stay broken. "I told you, as long as I live, no one would know."

word count: 5.2k

pairing: Jordan Baker x OC (CJ Jackson)

warnings: talk of drugs, talk of addiction, talk of a juvenile being in trouble, teen drinking, language, high school boys being high school boys.

"Maybe, we shouldn't have kept her in that school."

"Chris, we talked about this. The best way for her to contain a normal life is by staying there."

"You didn't hear her cry today, Pauline." She could hear his heavy sigh, "That baby has lost everything, and you know how teenagers can be. I don't want to lose her anymore than we already have."

"I can email Mrs. Riley, and tell the boys to be on the lookout for her. You know Colton won't let anything slip."

CJ heard her dad's loud laughter from the spot she sat. She sat on the dark staircase behind the kitchen wall listening to her parents talk. After she had come home from her terrible dance rehearsal, she had hid in her room all night doing homework and listening to music.

"Oh I know," Her dad said, "Cobe won't let anything slip either. Carver has some pull with the football boys. Roman will help too."

"What more of an Army does one girl need." Her mother said.

CJ smiled weakly, thinking of all the boys in her life. Cobe, the eldest Jackson boy, was a senior, and a soccer star. He ruled the field much like he ruled the school being the student body preside. And, holds the title like if he were the king. Every booster presentation, he wore his best suit and tie, cleaned his shoes, and had his waves done perfectly. The whole Jackson family thought he would go to Stanford or Yale, his dream colleges, but he caught them all off guard by joining the Army when he turned 18. Their mother was pissed, and didn't talk to him for 2 days. Pauline sat down with her oldest, scolded him for not telling her, but listened to his side, and supported him.

Colton and CJ were twins. Colton being the older one, and not letting CJ live that down, at all. They both had the biggest brown eyes, ones that looked like pools of honey when the sunlight caught them. Colton's main focus was basketball, and everything basketball. There were times that he wished he was named after the great Kobe Bryant. But Cobe always reminded that he should've been born first. Colton was yet to commit anywhere, wanting to wait until after his junior year. He was praying for UCLA or LSU.

Carver was the youngest Jackson sibling, being a sophomore, and an amazing tight-end, getting his dad's football talent. Even as a sophomore, he had offers already, but much like Colton, he was waiting until senior year. Carver, even though as athletic as the other brothers, was also involved in other things. Music was his passion, growing up with old "cook-out" music- as their father would say- lead him to wanting to be a music major. Carver's room was littered with vinyl records, concert posters, and 8-tracks. CJ and Carver could spend hours arguing about the main message behind Tupac's Dear Mama.

Roman was the last boy in CJ's life. He, unlike the other boys, was not related to CJ. Roman was also on the football team, and played defensive end. He was a junior like CJ and Colton. Roman had basically lived in the Jackson house, being best friends with Colton, and dating Carver. Roman and Carver had been dating for almost 2 years now, and no one knew besides the Jackson family.

Carver was out to the school, and everyone couldn't be prouder of him. Carver wasn't afraid to be who he was. The boys on the football team accepted him. But Roman, was fearful of what his parents would do. He grew up in church, and hearing his mother curse about the pride parade every year in Beverly Hills. He was terrified about what his football friends would say. Yeah, they accepted Carver, but that didn't stop the whispers in the locker room when Carver would leave.

"He was totally starring at your junk," "If he tackles you, he might get hard" "Don't catch the ball like a fairy" "I don't wanna be the only one in the showers with him," "We should get rainbow uniforms" "Maybe he would do better on the cheer team"

All the siblings had heard the whispers and rallied around Carver. CJ was Carver's biggest fan, and biggest fighter. She had taken Carver to his first pride parade when he was in 8th grade. It broke Carver when CJ was sent away. He would visit her every weekend, and send letters nonstop. He was thrilled when she came home early. But like everyone else, he had a reputation to uphold. So even he turned his back on her at school today.

"It'll all work out for her, she's too strong to let anything break her." Pauline said coming up to her husband. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his back, "Where are they anyway? It's too quiet."

"CJ is around the corner." Chris said and CJ froze. "You've been sitting on those stairs since you were a little girl. Can't believe there's no ass print in the wood yet."

"Chris!" Pauline said laughing. CJ let out a laugh and stood up from the stairs. She walked into the kitchen in her baggy basketball shorts and a loose t-shirt, that was probably one of her brothers, "Hey baby girl." Pauline kissed CJ's forehead, as she walked over to the oven to get dinner out, "Cauliflower steaks- request from Cobe, with asparagus, zucchini, mushroom sauce. Pasta salad and mac n cheese for a side. Apple pie for dessert, request from-"

"Me! Ain't no more goofy ass fake ass-"

"Finish that sentence, Colton, I dare you." Mom said giving Colton her famous glare. Colton shut his mouth real quick and kissed his mom's cheek as he came and grabbed a water out of the fridge, "Boy! Go shower too! You stank!"

"Smell of success, momma!" Colton said lifting his arms up, and showing off the pit stains on his red t-shirt.

"Ugh! Who the hell let the skunk in?" Cobe said coming down the stairs and smelling Colton.

"You think you got jokes, Pres?" Colton said walking over to his older brother.

"At least he don't smell like an onion." Carver said, Roman tagging along behind him, coming into the kitchen.

"Y'all all smell!" CJ said laughing. All the boys looked at each other, before all running over to CJ.

The girl squealed and took off running from her brothers. She ran towards the opening to the living room, but Cobe ran around the other side and blocked her. She quickly turned towards the dinning room, where Carver was waiting for her. Carver ran towards her, and CJ turned around running towards the kitchen again, where her dad was ready to catch her. She dodged past her dad, and was quickly picked up in strong arms. She fought against them until she was thrown into the pool.

"Ah!" She screamed as she hit the cold water. She came up from the water splashing, and laughed as she saw all 4 men, plus Roman laughing on the pool side, "Y'all think y'all funny?"

"Oh we real funny." Colton said.

"You children!" Pauline laughed coming out of the kitchen. She threw her dish towel over her shoulder and crossed her arms. All 5 males turned towards her and froze, "Y'all done with the games?"

"Yes ma'am." They all answered at the same time.

"Good. Cobe, you're gym bag does not live by the front door, pick it up. Colton, I know I didn't raise you to smell like a garbage can, hit the shower. Carver, see that table in there, set it. Roman, you can help him. Mr. Jackson, that salad ain't gonna make itself." Pauline said, and all the boys went their instructed ways, "And you," She said looking at her daughter who was soaking wet in the pool, "Dry off and get clean."

The next day, The Jackson siblings all arrived together in their shiny white Jeep Wrangler. Colton parked the car next to Roman's black Tahoe. CJ used to joke that Roman looked like security detail for a famous person driving that black SUV around.

"Morning, Jacksons." Roman said to the bunch as they got out of the car. Roman gave a head nod to Carver. Carver rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut.

"You going to Mrs. Riley first?" Colton asked his younger sister.

"Have to every day." CJ answered and Colton sighed, "Go on, I'll be fine."

"Mom said to look-"

"I know what mom said," CJ cut off Cobe, "But I can handle myself."

"You can eat lunch with me and Alana." Cobe offered to his sister, who just scrunched her nose up.

"If there's anyone that I hate more than Emily Pierce, it's Alana Kadee." CJ said and pulled her bag over her loose t-shirt, "I'll be fine. Besides, I have him." CJ smiled seeing Spencer waiting behind her group of brothers, "Bye."

The boys watched as CJ pushed through them and over to Spencer James, who greeted the Jackson girl with a wide smile. The two of them walked into school together, and could fell all eyes on them.

"We trust him?" Colton asked the guys.

"He a good guy, little rough on the team player shit, but he's good." Roman said.

"As long as he don't do pull a Jordan Baker on her, I'm fine with it." Cobe said and the guys agreed. "Ain't no man gonna hurt my sister again."

CJ had battled her way through Anatomy, composition, and physics by the time the lunch bell had rang. Spencer waited outside of the girl's classroom and walked with her to lunch. Spencer talked about practice and a pool party at the Baker household. CJ was quiet and let Spencer vent practice and how it went.

"So how was it hanging out with the steroid set?" CJ asked, as she picked up a piece of her sushi.

"Are you serious?" Spencer asked the girl.

CJ laughed and shook her head, "I'm kidding. I used to mess with them and say that."

Spencer laughed and studied the girl before asking, "What happened between you and them? They know you, but they act like they don't wanna know you."

CJ took a deep breath, she knew this would come up sooner or later, "We used to be close, and then things happened. They became football stars and I became the. . .social pariah of Beverly High school."

"Man, shut up you're cool." Spencer said.

"Okay, yeah, says the new guy." CJ joked, "It's shocking, I know, but no one is eager to hang out with juvie girl, post detention center."

"Juvie? Elaborate."

"I just went down a bad path, things happened out of my control." CJ shrugged, "Parents paid a big time lawyer to help me out, and here I am. 75k and 90 days later. I'm fine now, just 90 days of parole."

"Is it?" Spencer asked, looking into her honey brown eyes.

CJ was about to answer, when a tray was placed loudly down on the table. The Jackson girl looked up and saw Cobe swinging his leg over the lunch table bench. Before CJ could protest him sitting there, Roman pulled up next to her. Carver sat his stuff down on the other side of Spencer, and Colton decided to nestle himself right in between CJ and Spencer. CJ rolled her eyes and leaned forward to still talk to Spencer.

"Spencer, meet the other, uglier versions of me. Cobe, Colton, Carver, and Roman- the adopted brother." CJ said introducing the boys.

"Nice to meet you," Spencer said politely, greeting all of the boys.

"Welcome to Beverly, I'm Colton, older twin, basketball star, black belt."

"He's lying." "I'm not lying." The twins said at the same time. CJ glared at her twin brother, as a familiar female voice started speaking.

"Spencer?" The voice asked, "Oh hey Jackson brothers, and Roman."

"Hey Layla," Carver answered the light-skinned girl.

"I'm throwing a party at my place tonight. It's just a small team thing, to celebrate the start of the season, and I was hoping you could make it." Layla spoke. CJ looked down at her food and picked at it as she was talking. Cobe could feel the tension rolling off of his younger sister's body, and wanted to yell at Layla for even approaching them.

"Yeah, for sure. We'll try to come by for a bit." Roman answered for the boys. Layla smiled at him and looked at CJ.

"Great," Layla said to the table, "Bye CJ." CJ looked up at Layla as she walked away and didn't say anything. The boys all looked at CJ who just rolled her eyes. Colton watched Spencer, as his head followed Layla as she walked away, and gave him a look.

"What?" Spencer asked.

"A, she's taken. That's Asher's girlfriend, okay?" Colton said.

"And B, those parties, I'd stay clear." CJ spoke up.

Spencer agreed, but there was a look in his eye that gave away his true intentions. The lunch bell rang, dismissing the teens back to class. CJ said goodbye to the boys before heading to Mrs. Riley's room for a check in and get her community service project. Her project was based out of Crenshaw Community Center. She'd be tutoring elementary and middle school children in Science.

When dance practice rolled around, CJ was determined to take her spot back. CJ was the first one dressed and in the gym for practice. It gave her enough time to turn her phone on and go over the Countdown dance, like it was supposed to be done.

Jordan could hear the music from down the hall as he walked Hadley to the locker room, "Are you late?" He asked his girlfriend.

"No. . . it must be Emily practicing. No matter how hard she tries, she will never be CJ good. That girl is amazing, the way she can move. Looks just like her mom when she's dancing." Hadley spoke.

"Yeah. I remember all those dance awards on her walls." Jordan smiled remembering going to her competitions, "I should get going," Jordan kissed Hadley goodbye before walking down the hallway towards the music coming from the gym.

Jordan stood in the doorway in awe, watching the way CJ flawlessly moved around the space. She was completely lost in the tempo of the song playing. Her body was telling a story, and so was the song she chose. Jordan could see the pain that was coming across in her movements. The way it looked like she couldn't catch the beat, but she was perfectly on time.

"Just don't give up, I am working it out. Please don't give in, I won't let you down. It messed me up, need a second to breathe. Just keep coming around. Hey, whataya want from me. Whataya want from me?"

Jordan couldn't help but feel guilt listening to the words. The song was picked for a reason, and CJ knew it. He watched as she flawlessly leaped into the air, and land it perfectly. Her turns were executed without any hesitation and with full control. When the music finished, she ended on her knees, her chest moving up and down rapidly as her eyes were closed, trying to slow her heart rate.

Jordan didn't know if he should clap or say something, before he could move he heard clapping from the other side of the gym. CJ opened her eyes and briefly glanced at Jordan before looking to where the sound was coming. Spencer James walked into the gym, a wide smile on his face, and CJ stood up from the ground. Jordan left as Spencer started talking to the girl. He headed down to the football locker room, trying even harder to forget about CJ Jackson.

"That was. . . amazing." Spencer spoke to the light skin girl.

"Thanks. I listened to a lot of music in juvie, and this was one of my favorite songs. It spoke to me." CJ said and her eyes drifted over to where Jordan was standing.

"Well it was amazing." Spencer said.

"It was," The pair was cut off by a familiar annoying voice breaking into the gym, "Excuse me, Spencer is it? You need to leave, closed practice. And CJ, next time you want extra ''practice'' run it by the captain first." Emily said to the two.

"Show more later?" Spencer asked CJ and the girl smiled, watching Spencer walk off.

"I don't know what you're trying to do, but you will never hold the captain spot again. You might have been the best dancer in the conference, but not anymore." Emily sneered to CJ. CJ took one step getting in Emily's face, and could feel the girl uncomfortable by the sudden conforntation.

"The only person who won't be holding a captain spot anymore is you. And trust me sis, it's not me who needs the extra practice. The mess you call a dance, is a shit show and you know it. It's a Beyonce song, and you ain't it sweetie. You are more like. . ." CJ paused looking the ginger girl up and down, "Chanel West Coast, and I'm Nicki Minaj. No competition at all."

CJ pushed past Emily, and grabbed her water bottle as the rest of the dance team started filling in the gym. Emily walked over to a group of girls and yelled at them to start stretching. Mrs. Williams came into the gym and set down her clipboard and called all the girls together.

"We are learning a new dance today, and CJ will be teaching it." Mrs. Williams said. CJ smirked as she felt Emily's glare on her back, "So let's get ready. Spread out."

"Chrisy?" Her mother spoke, knocking on her bedroom door. CJ sat up from the blankets she was buried under and paused the Twilight movie she was watching, "No plans tonight? It's a Friday night."

"These are my plans." CJ said pointing to a half naked Taylor Lautner on her TV screen.

"Half naked werewolf boys aren't a plan." Pauline laughed and walked over to sit on her daughter's bed, "I know that there is a team party at Layla's tonight."

"I know. I knew I probably couldn't go anyway."

"Your curfew is midnight, on the dot, no later. Colton will drive you and Dad will pick you up."

"Mom, are you say. . ."

"You have been through enough. Your Dad, Mrs. Riley, and I talked, we agreed that going to a team party with your brothers was okay. As long as you promise you can pass a drug test tomorrow morning."

CJ jumped up from her bed and hugged her mother tightly. Pauline smiled and hugged her daughter back. It was the first time in months that the two have hugged each other like this, in a happy moment.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" CJ squealed.

"You're welcome. Now get dress, child, you look a mess. And no Jackson child of mine will be looking a mess." Pauline said smiling at her daughter. CJ smiled at her mother and then jumped up towards her closet. CJ invited her mother to stay and help her get ready for the party.

Pauline, her mother, was a retired Dallas Cowgirl dancer, and now an editor for Vogue. Pauline had met Chris Jackson after the Chiefs had played the Cowboys, and it was love at first sight. She had grown up in east Oakland, and had come from nothing. She danced to put herself through college, which she ended up getting her degree in Dance. She worked hard for what she wanted, and wanted people to know that. She expected the best out of her kids, and wanted them to always put their best foot forward.

CJ let her mom fix her box braids, pulling them half up, half down. She wore a baggy black Aliyah t-shirt with a stripped long sleeve underneath it. Her jeans were loose with more hole then there were jean. She pulled on her crisp white air forces and smiled at herself.

"Beautiful." Pauline smiled and kissed her daughter's forehead, "Remember, midnight. Colton's downstairs waiting for you."

CJ nodded and headed downstairs where her twin was waiting. CJ and Colton made their way to the lime green 1972 camaro, which was Colton's baby. He only brought it out for important events such as parties, homecoming, dates, and prom.

"Scratch the paint, and you're dead." He told his twin as she opened the door to the car.

The party was in full swing when they arrived. The door to the Keating household was wide open, and you could hear the music from down the street. Teens were on couches doing bong hits, shots, making out. Red solo cups were in almost every teen hand. Splashes could be seen as the glass doors to the outside were pulled back.

"Hey Colt!" A half naked JJ said as he came up to the twins, "CJ, my girl." JJ tried to hug the twins but they both pushed him back seeing as he was soaking wet.

"Leave it to JJ to make me feel somewhat welcome." CJ said to her brother. He smirked and threw his arm over her shoulder.

"You are welcome, you always have been. If they don't accept you, you don't need them. Now come on, I guarantee there is a Sprite tropic berry with your name on it."

At some point during the party, the siblings had broken away from each other. Colton was probably in some room with one of the many girls at the party. And CJ sat alone, her feet swinging over the side of the deck, as looked at the California hills. It was peaceful for her, she hadn't seen the lights of the city like this in a long time. The view of Layla's house had been one of the many things she liked about it.

"You lost?" Jordan Baker said standing behind her. CJ sighed and didn't say anything, but swing her legs back to the side of the deck, and stand up. She brushed herself off and started walking away from Jordan, "Where are you going?"

"Away. I know when I'm not wanted somewhere." She said to the QB. Jordan sighed and grabbed her arm stopping her in her tracks. CJ tore her arm away from his grasp and looked at him, "You dumb or had one too many concussions?"

"CJ. . ."

"Your parents made it pretty damn clear what they expect from you and Olivia. And that's to stay away from me. So why don't you do that." CJ sneered.

"CJ, Jesus Christ, would you just stop!" Jordan said trying to stop her again, "I wanted to say sorry, and just talk to you."

"Sorry? You wanted to say 'sorry'? Sorry isn't going to suffice. What would've been the epic sorry would've been telling the truth that day, but you couldn't do that."

"CJ I-"

"It's fine, Jordan. Now leave me alone." CJ said and turned on her heel, and trying to get as far away from that party as possible. She knew she shouldn't have been there, but she thought, maybe if they were all drunk they'd forget about the mistakes that were made last year.

CJ woke up with the worst possible headache that she could have. And she hadn't even been drinking. Her parents had woken her up bright in early to go to the scrimmage game. The boosters were invited, meaning her parents. So CJ sat on the cold bleachers with her green cardigan on, shivering in the cool morning. She watched her mother hand Carver and Roman each a water bottle and a snack. Cobe was busy introducing the boosters to the football coaches and showing them the additions to the football stadium.

"Why am I here?" CJ asked her mother.

"Learning how to be a football wife." Pauline joked, causing the young girl to laugh, "I will never understand why women spend so much on botox and fake boobs." Pauline glanced over at JJ's mother, who had just gotten her 2nd boob job done.

"Cause black don't crack, but white sure do." CJ said and Pauline shoved her shoulder laughing, "Let's go Carvy!" CJ cheered watching her younger brother run on to the field.

"That number 11 looks rough." Her dad pointed out, coming to sit by his wife and daughter, "Thought that was supposed to be wonder boy, looks like under boy to me."

CJ looked at Spencer, who was getting the snot beat out of him. He looked awful, and completely out of it. CJ wondered what had happened when she left the party last night. Every play that was made to Spencer, he messed it up in some way. Each time the offense would walk off the field, he looked beat and tired. At the end of the scrimmage, Spencer walked off the field looking defeated. Carver had made his way over to were his parents and sister were standing.

"Nice work, young man." Chris said patting his son on the shoulders, "Almost as good as me."

"I am as good as you."

"What's up with that James kid?" Pauline asked her youngest.

"No clue, but dude reeks like a party bus. Him and JJ must've had a competition last night." Carver said looking over at where Spencer was now talking to Jordan and Asher, "Or those two did something."

The Jackson family turned and watched a heated argument breakout. Spencer threw his helmet down and lunged towards Asher. CJ gasped and took a step forward, but Chris put his arm out in front of her, stopping her movement. The family watched Billy Baker came and controlled Spencer, and the assistant coach take Jordan and Asher away from the spectacle. CJ looked at the rest of the boosters who were also looking at the show in front of them. Cobe was quick to catch CJ's pleading glance to get them out of here, and somewhere else.

"Alright, let's go see where the best team, my team, the soccer team is practicing." Cobe said and the boosters followed him out of the football stadium.

"Billy was pulling for this kid and I have no reason why." Chris said watching Billy talk to his son.

"Maybe the Bakers should worry about they're own kids, seems like they can't control them." Pauline said and Chris nodded in agreement, "Let's go, the boys should be about done."

"I'll meet you guys at the car." CJ said and her parents agreed. CJ waited a moment and then walked over to where Jordan was. He was the only football player left on the field, "You do that to every new player?"

Jordan looked over at the Jackson girl and shrugged, "You don't get it."

"Oh I don't?" CJ questioned and walked over to Jordan, "Cause it looks like. . . you're being a huge dick."

Jordan sighed and set his helmet down on the bench, "You don't see the way he looks at Spencer. Like. . .he's the son he's always wanted."

"J, you know that's not true." CJ said using the nickname she had given him. Jordan couldn't help the butterflies that arose in his stomach when she said that, "Look where you are at, right now. Beverly Hills High School. Where do you live? In the Hills. What car do you drive? A 2019 camaro convertible. What does Spencer have?"

"I know. . ." Jordan says hanging his head in shame, "You're right."

"Your dad is trying to give a kid a chance. Your dad was much like Spencer, growing up in Crenshaw and someone gave him a chance. He is doing that to Spencer. You don't get it, because you have always had that chance."

"When did you get like this?" Jordan said looking at the girl.

"Like what?" CJ asked.

"Reasonable." Jordan simply said.

"I spent 90 days in a detention center. I was lucky, someone gave me a chance. If someone who's dad wasn't a retired football player and who's mother wasn't a editor for vogue who couldn't hire the best attorney in their county did the same thing I did. . . they would've gotten jail time instead of 90 days in juvie." CJ answered.

"Why didn't you take the plea? Why didn't you want a defense?" Jordan asked her but CJ just turned her head, "Why did you even take the blame anyway?"

CJ sighed and looked in Jordan's brown eyes, "You know why."

"But do I really? CJ, you wouldn't have been sent to-"

"Jordan." The two teens looked over to where the call came from. Laura Baker stood off the side, her arms folded in front of her. CJ took a step back from Jordan and looked down at her feet. She could feel the hate radiating off of Laura Baker. If looks could kill, CJ would be dead by now, "Why don't you go hit the showers. Now."

Jordan nodded and grabbed his helmet before walking off the field. CJ watched him leave and turned on her heel to head to her parents' car. Laura stepped in front of CJ, cutting off her path and looked down at the teen.

"What are you doing here? Do you needed reminded about the terms of your parole, Miss Jackson?" Laura asked the teen.

Before CJ spoke her mother spoke for her, "No, she doesn't, Laura. The best thing you can do is stop talking to my daughter before we have another issue on your hands."

Laura looked at the Jacksons before moving out of the way. Pauline led her daughter to the waiting black range rover, and where her husband stood. Chris opened the door for CJ and his wife. CJ looked at Laura one last time before her dad pulled out of the parking lot.

#all american #all american cw #all american imagine #jordan baker #jordan baker imagine #jordan baker x reader #spencer james #olivia baker #asher adams

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