Chilling in the common room

Tobi propped his rather large and conspicuously bare feet on the coffee table in the common room, leaning back in a squishy recliner and settling his laptop comfortably on a wood tray, which in turn rested on his legs. He went straight for his message boards, rapidly clicking all of his bookmarks and watching the tabs as they raced to load. After reading a few threads and dismissing a few others, he finally came to a hot topic and began typing furiously, so quickly that the clacking melting into one long rhythmic sound.

After a few solid minutes of this, he stopped, letting his cursor hover over the words on the page. Then he frowned and looked up, talking over his shoulder to get Tavi's attention.


"Hey, sis? Listen to this."Â? He looked back down at his own text and began reading out loud. "'Go back to your counterstrike buddies, you little wannabe pundit. Your completely banal attempts at rabble rousing are embarrassing not only to yourself, but to your entire family. Stop trying to be a troll, buddy; you don't have the skill for it. Considering how little 'skill' it takes to start shit and get under people's skin, that's saying something.'"Â? When he had finished reading, he looked up once more, wrinkling his nose. "What do you think? Too light?"Â? He added, for the sake of clarification: "It's his first offense."Â?

Octavia Emiliano 17 years ago
Tavi looked up from the two magazines she had opened. One was Motor World with an article on the restoration of the Dunlop Monument. Who smashes up a memorial anyway? That's just sick. The other magazine was Elle and Tavi occasionally flipped through its pages to view the fashions that were current...not that she adhered to any of it, at least not in a very strict sense.

She listened to her brother's message with a smirk. He enjoyed getting faceless names worked up to the point of tears or blind fury. Leaning back in her chair, Tavi considered for a moment.


"Could be. Depends on your purpose: shut him down or bait him into a fight. Which were you going for?"Â?
Tobi Emiliano 17 years ago
Tobi rubbed at his lack of beard, pretending to carefully consider Tavi’s question, then dropped his hand and shrugged. “Well I want him to go away, there’s actually a good discussion that he’s being a pest in…but I’d like him to leave angry in the RL.”

He smirked and twisted around to look at Tavi. “But mostly I just want to crush him under my heel. With style, if at all possible.”

Wasn’t that the ultimate goal of a flame? To make people run away mad…or crying…and look like the bigger man doing it? Tobi grinned and gave his sister his best ‘Is that so wrong?’ face…which considering his ability to look like Beaver Cleaver, was pretty convincing.

He had put some content into the post, which was about police corruption in Nachton - the insult was secondary, but after all, if you're going to clean a toilet, make that sucker shine.

Not that that he took that as any sort of personal motto.


“So what do you think?”
Octavia Emiliano 17 years ago
Good discussion, make the jerk leave, angry if possible, but look good doing it. Understood. Or at least the concept. She wasn't sure she had the patience and dedication to flame people as a hobby. For her it would be an all out post, make them cry once and she'd be done. If they came back for more punishment or argument they were not likely to get it. She just couldn't thread camp in order to continue verbally pounding some loser. However, reading her brother's exploits was always amusing.

As hobbies went, Flaming was a good one to have. It kept one mentally sharp, quick and tough skinned. Those posters that did not have those qualities could just hang it up when a real flammer got into the thread. Tobi was the real deal. He could dual wield the emotional and mental knives online with skill that would make their mother proud.

Seeing the puppy dog eyes turned towards her, Tavi rolled her eyes but smiled. She really couldn't help it. He was adorable in his way and he put up with her interests which were,she'd have to admit, far less diverse.

Tavi flipped the magazines closed and tossed them both on the coffee table. Who knew if anyone else would find either of them interesting but at least they were something to look at. Strolling over, she sat down on the edge of the same table and looked at her brother.

This was one he wanted to make leave though, she concidered his words again.


"I think that should do the trick. Is he online? Maybe you'll get some instant gratification. That's always nice."Â?
Tobi Emiliano 17 years ago
Tobi grinned a little doubtfully, but hit submit at Tavi’s affirmation. Even if it was a little weak, he was using one of his many alternate screen names, so it wouldn’t be traced back to the more stately Cypher identity. Then he checked to see if his victim was online.

“Bonus! He is, indeed, signed on. Perhaps he will grace us with a reply.”

Not desperate enough to spam refresh, he hit one of his tabs and snickered.

“Oh, Tavi, you have to check this out.” Grinning, he turned the laptop to let her get a good view of the screen, on which there was a pink splash page with an anime drawing of a tall blonde man. At the bottom, done in elaborate bubble letters, was a logo that read ‘Ari Grrrls.’

“This guy is like the fucking Orlando Bloom of Nachton – I swear there are a dozen more sites like this one.” Shaking his head, he clicked on the gallery link, bringing up a host of pictures of the same blonde. “They’re just –nuts- about him – he’s some kind of heir to a fortune from Norway or some shit like that.” He leaned back and grinned at his sister. “As a man, I, of course, find him repugnant and disgusting, so you’ll have to tell me – is this guy worth all the fuss?”
Octavia Emiliano 17 years ago
Tavi shrugged seeing the look of doubt that her brother gave her. So it might take two posts? It had sounded pretty good to her for his purposes. She laughed in amusement to find the guy was online checking out the boards.

"Woot! A board camper, this could be fun."Â?

Near instant amusement, no waiting....unless said camper was a slow thinker. Eh, she hoped not otherwise she'd end up wandering off before hearing the conclusion of this little forum battle.

She leaned closer to look at the picture.


"Holy fucking pink, Batman! Even I admit to such a thing as too much pink."Â?

Unless, of course, it annoyed someone overly much and then anything, including bows, was possible. She looked at the page now that her brother had gotten past the vivid splash. The Orlando Bloom comment earned her brother a snort and grin; the long blonde hair did have a sort of Legolas look to it.

"At least its not a weave."Â?

Her curiosity satisfied, she leaned back to consider the question he had asked.

"He's....not ugly or anything. Kind of girlie, dresses like a fashion boutique ad and is probably spoiled and boring."Â?

She grinned mischievously and turned her eyes upward in thought.

"However, you said rich. What kind of Rom would turn -that- down? If for nothing more than to get him to part with just a small sum of his fortune?"Â?

Batting her eyelashes at her brother, she turned her face away and pretended to be blushing and shy.

"Do you think I could clean up enough to have a shot? I mean hell thirty odd years of experience has got to provide something of interest to a pampered little teen, right? Even if his money has bought him a few high priced hookers and every possible travel experience in the world.."Â?

They could make this guy a pet project if her brother was interested enough in the idea. It could help them worm their way into the elite youth scene in Nachton.

"Does he have a sister?"Â?

((OOC: Haaahaaahaaa! ))
Tobi Emiliano 17 years ago
Tobi was busily clicking through photos, fact sheets, and the like, all on this Arin Bjorn guy, while Tavi contemplated the local celebrity.

“Eh, good points on all counts, though I have my doubts on the weave. I’m sure you could make life more interesting for the rich pretty boy.” He smiled as he browsed through yet another profile. Blah blah blah, workers rights, blah blah blah, hey, environmental studies…yeah, Tavi had this guy pegged. Rich and boring, through and through.

“Besides,” he said with a sweet smile “high priced hookers have nothing on you, babe.”

Snickering grew into laughter as he continued to scroll down. “Oh my god.” He pointed at the screen, still laughing. “Oh my god, he does have a sister! Oh –wow-, I have to find a pic now! Wow, you sure called that!”

Still feeling quite full of mirth, he opened up another tab to do a search for Megan Bjorn, but detoured on the way to check the thread that had started this entire conversation.

“Oh, he replied….wow, this is long. Let’s see, there’s the ‘you don’t even know me’ argument, the ‘this is an internet board, I’m not like this in real life’, and oh, classic name calling, apparently I’m a ‘jerk’. Oh noes. Oh, here we go, the final brilliant and original parting shot – ‘This will be my last post because I’m better than you’.” Tobi chuckled, genuinely amused. “What a crybaby. I’m surprised he didn’t appeal to the mods actually.” That said, he went to his google tab and tried to hunt down a photo.
Octavia Emiliano 17 years ago
Tavi nodded at her brother when he agreed with her points for why this guy should be a target. Leaning back she smiled.

"So this is a pl... HEY!"Â?

She made a half hearted kick at the propped up legs and pretended to be insulted. Crossing her arms and pouting, Tavi still sat there while he continued looking things up. The act was forgotten when Tobi found the information that he had been searching for and it turned up in their favor.

"Perfect!"Â?

Clapping her hands together and smiling at him, Tavi waited impatiently for him to find a picture. He flipped back to the other tab and Tavi reflected absently that Firefox was made for people with ADD.

Laughing at the post, Tavi replied.


"Well you -are- a big jerk but he has no right to say that. That's my sole responsibility. The nerve! So are you going to ignore him now and continue with the thread or bait him to come back with witty razor wit that would make his daddy cry?"Â?
Tobi Emiliano 17 years ago
Tobi scrolled through the gallery of images that google was kind enough to provide, all featuring Arin Bjorn’s big sister Megan.

“Yeah, I’d do her.”

An understatement if he ever heard one – she was actually –really- hot. He turned to his sister, grinning.

“This could get interesting.” He gave his sister a wink and returned to the discussion, considering his options. “Eh, I’m kind of bored with him already…let’s see, maybe I’ll follow up on another account.”

He hit refresh on the page and made a soft grunting noise of surprise.

“Huh. Three more replies.”

Reading quickly, he skimmed the second and third to see if they were in the same vein as the first and then broke into a grin.

“I guess maybe I don’t have to – they’re defending my honor. This is priceless, this second guy threw the user agreement at the stupid troll. Maybe I should switch to Cypher – I keep him away from this kind of stuff usually but I could spew something about the community ‘coming together to send a clear message to trolls – we don’t want you here’. And then steer everyone back to the original topic.” He grinned, explaining. “They’re discussing mandatory minimums for drug offenders, it’s pretty interesting.”

“Anyway,” He said, leaning back and pulling his attention away from the computer. He liked the idea of posting as Cypher but didn’t want to do so too soon and anyway he didn’t feel like reconfiguring his utility that would cover his tracks. “How do we meet this guy? –And-, with any luck, his sister?”
Octavia Emiliano 17 years ago
Tavi stood up and tilted her head over her brother's laptop screen in order to get a better look at the guy's sister. Even looking at the woman upside down it was obvious she was pretty. Yeah... he'd do her. If she let him. Course Tobi had charm when he was motivated, far more than she had for certain. So maybe he could find a way into the sack of some wealthy heiress who happened to make Paris Hilton look particularly plain.

Actually without her makeup, Paris Hilton -was- particularly plain. Still the girl wasn't a total dog and there were plenty of men who found her combination of anorexia, bleached hair, skimpy clothes and daddy's money to be more than enough to make her drool worthy.

She leaned back and looked at her brother.


"Yeah, I don't think it would be too much of a personal sacrifice for your pack there, big boy, but you can tell it differently around the campfire later if you like. I'll keep my mouth shut and nod horrified at all the appropriate points.

Sitting back down on the coffee table, Tavi randomly flipped open the Elle. A perfume ad....for men's cologne. She supposed women were just as likely to be buying what they wanted their men to smell like as the men were to be buying it for themselves. Inching a thumbnail under the little fold to reveal the scent, Tavi listened to her brother.

"I think it would be perfect timing for Cypher to be the bigger man and come in remind everyone about the higher good...and be the final nail in the poor shit's coffin by ignoring him completely and bringing to conversation back around to the topic that the thread was originally about."Â?

She put the magazine in her lap and looked up at her brother. In melodramatic tones, Tavi read out loud.

"Silver Black conjures up the dual nature in every man.... what the need for food with the need for sex? A combination of insolence and generosity, sophistication and virility ... some obviously have more of one than the other. Silver Black keeps the mystery going while revealing it at the same time. Cool metallic silver joins forces with powerful black to provoke the kind of refined, sparkling, captivating and masculine seduction that appeals to ever woman."Â?

Finally prizing the tab free, Tavi sniffed the scent inside. Not bad actually. She gave it a soft hmm of approval before leaning over to thrust the magazine in front of her brother's nose.

"Smell this... so are you refined, sparkling, captivating and masculine?"Â?

Oh, he had asked her a question before all that. Tavi considered and then shrugged.

"Perhaps the computer wiz could find some events that they are scheduled to go see? Otherwise we'll have to look up their interests and hope to find stuff that match. You know concerts or shows they are likely to go to or something. Maybe there's a club or restaurant listed in the info."Â?
Tobi Emiliano 17 years ago
Tobi gave a little shrug at Tavi’s remark and spoke in damn near holy tones.

“My love is pure.” Purely self interested, anyway. “–I- for one am far too mature to go bragging about my conquests around the campfire like some adolescent jackass who thinks getting a hand job in the woods gives him license to claim he got laid.” Okay, just because he had –been- that adolescent jackass didn’t mean he couldn’t make fun of that sort of behavior now.

He started typing up a response with Cypher, switching over to research the Bjorn siblings when he got stuck on a turn of phrase, but then Tavi stuck a perfume sample in his face and he had to stop everything to make a show of disgust.


“Gah! No, I’m –normal-. How the hell can you be ‘sparkling’ and ‘masculine’ at the same time anyway?”

To humor her, he leaned in again and took another sniff. Okay, it actually wasn’t –that- bad.

“Think I could get more chicks with that?”

He personally was skeptical but it never hurt to get a chick’s opinion, even if his sister was kinda weird for a girl. Weird as in ‘actually pretty cool.’

At Tavi’s encouragement he clicked on a link entitled ‘Ari Sightings’ on the first site he’d visited and browsed through crappy cell phone pictures of different places in the city.


“Meh. This is starting to sound like work.” He browsed through the pictures and pointed at one in amusement. “That’s not even him! Look, that dude is shorter and I think his hair is darker too.” Deciding this wasn’t the place to get information, he went back to searching, flipping back to his reply with Cypher every so often.

“Huh. Not seeing anything for Megan but there’s rumors Arin Bjorn’s going to be at some thing happening on Halloween. Might be wishful thinking though.” He looked up, grinning. “So you want to go to a strip club on the off chance we meet your guy there?”

He wasn’t sure of how they would get into an exclusive party like that but figured it wouldn’t be much of a problem considering who they were. Might cause some problems for Dad if they were spotted though. Eh, it’d be a blip on the radar at the most, no biggie.
Octavia Emiliano 17 years ago
Tavi raised her eyebrows at her brother's speech be declined to comment. He was full of shit and they both knew it but at least he was smarter than to brag about his conquests around the campfire...at least in front of the afore mentioned thoroughly explored and claimed territory.

Chuckling at her brother's initial reaction to the cologne to his nose, Tavi shrugged.


"You're the guy. You tell me."Â?

Once he had given it an actual sniff, she was satisfied enough to return to her seat on the coffee table. Considering the scent, Tavi nodded.

"Its pretty good and if you don't bathe in it then yeah, I think it would help to get you noticed. You have the."Â? She snorted. "good fortune of looking like a teenager and we all know that most teen aged boys tend to smell...and not in a good way."Â?

Tavi smirked at him.

"Not that I'm saying you smell, just that's what's expected. So rise above the norm in some area and people will take notice...that and the innocent look and you could rule the world."Â?

It was a good thing ruling the world would be too much like work for Tobi to ever seriously consider it. Now an online world...perhaps that would motivate him.

She looked dubiously at her brother and leaned closer, cocking her head to one side as if hearing him better would help in understanding.


"Okay let me get this straight. They think an eighteen year old tycoon will be at some Halloween strip club event? Why? Would he even be allowed in? Because if it is 21 and over they'd have a hard time letting him in without getting their license revoked, no matter how rich he was."Â?

Tavi shrugged.

"Of course, he could have a fake id like we do but why advertise that he's going to be there when they know his real age?"Â?

Of course the question was whether they wanted to go on the off chance of the guy actually being there. It wouldn't hurt and if he wasn't, oh well they'd still manage to find some fun to get into.

"We can crash the party if you want. Can check around and see if we can scrounge us up a few invitations."Â?

The R'asa could get anything. That's what they did best. If there were invitations to this thing to be had out there then the pack could get them. Some semi important person wanting to make some extra cash by selling his tickets on ebay...who knows and who cares so long as they got what they needed.
Tobi Emiliano 17 years ago
Tobi shrugged at Tavi’s take on the cologne and filed the idea away for later, at some distant point in which he cared about impressing a chick.

“Ah, so suave and sophisticated is in, young and smelly rough trade is out?”

He snorted at the idea of ruling the world. “Think I’ll stick to making anon comments from the sidelines, more my style.”

Tavi smelled bullshit as far as Arin showing up to the strip club and Tobi had to admit she made sense. “I guess this chick’s argument is the old ‘who’s going to say anything’ routine. She sounds pretty confident but yeah, people are arguing with her on the forums. Some people think he’ll hang out at the club across the street.” He scrolled down a little further. “Oh, now the thread is totally derailed into what music you should play when doing a striptease for Arin Bjorn, which apparently half the chicks on this forum would do give the chance.

He leaned back, grinning. “Anyway, no offense, but I’m not going to a strip club with my sister. That’s weird and wrong. The club might be cool though.”
Octavia Emiliano 17 years ago
Tavi grinned at her brother. He was proof that men could be taught; bathing good...smelly bad. She had to admit that au naturale did not bother her quite so much as a wolf which was odd considering her sense of smell was enhanced in that form. In truth natural human musk was not so horrible; it was the smell of unhealthy toxins that oozed from their skin and horrible diets that caused them stink. If they lived closer to nature they would not smell so foul.... at least to those with more animal sensibilities.

To humans ode to nature was not nearly as appealing as Silver Black with its sparkling mysterious masculine scent.

She snapped her fingers and tsked at Tobi's answer about ruling the world.


"Damn and I was hoping for fringe benefits as sister to the supreme power... or a pretty diamond tiara at the very least."Â?

Snorting at the idea of arguing over what music to strip to for some rich young punk, Tavi rolled her eyes. Smiling sweetly at Tobi, she asked.

"Are you afraid you will be embarrassed? Fine, we can go to the other place first...maybe we'll hear if this guy is in the other one from people in the regular club."Â?
Tobi Emiliano 17 years ago
Tobi shrugged in response to Tavi’s teasing, not seeing any reason in denying her accusation. Umm, -yeah- it’d be embarrassing to take his sister to a strip club!

“I doubt it, but should be fun anyway. Guess we’ll have to figure out what to go as.”

With that he fell quiet, both because he was thinking over costumes and because he wanted to finish his post. Once he was finished with that he started up the utility that would bounce his post through a few IPs and looked up.

“Want to go through our stuff and see what we can come up with for a mask?”

Tobi had more junk than he knew what to do with and Tavi had a good sense of how to put resources together – between the two of them they should be able to come up with something cool.

Getting up off the couch, he led the way to his room.

Meanwhile in a community that only existed in bits and bytes, lines of code on a server somewhere in Texas, a man whose face no one had ever seen, a man that went by the name of Cypher, had posted a message for the world to see.

‘I usually don’t post in these threads, but I believe what has happened here today is both commendable and a sign of a healthy community. While we may not agree on much else on this board, it is encouraging to see that we can all stand together against forum trolls to send a clear message – you are not wanted here.

It gives me hope.

It would, however, give me more hope if we could manage to get back to our topic after this rude disruption, so without further ado…

I believe the difficulty in coming to any sort of conclusion regarding mandatory minimums lies not in one party’s racism (while this may not be true in the wider sense, I have enough respect for –this- community to take a lack of intentional racism for granted. Don’t disappoint me), nor in ignorance of the true issues, as in the past few pages I believe we have all become better educated on the matter (thank you especially to Diddlemous for her tireless research). Our struggles in this matter stem from a difference in how we approach criminal justice. Punishment vs. rehabilitation. Which is it, and which should it be?

Lest Marie_Antionette accuse me of setting up a false dichotomy (and don’t think I don’t know that you just like to use that word *wink*), I personally think the answer lies in some middle ground, but these issues are by their nature divisive. Hopefully more civil discussions like these will lead us somewhere in this debate.


Now, if you'll all forgive me for my 'meta' moment, I'd really like Charlotte to come in and clarify her point from a few posts ago, as she was trying to do before she was rudely interupted.

~Cypher


Edit - /ooc both out