#I know online shopping exists but I don’t know how I feel about their prices

[crossf1recreat1ons]

So I’ve been seeing meme redraws of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence as of late and I was like “Fuck it, why not draw ponies again.” I had fun drawing them (especially the crystal effects I gave their horns and Cadence’s wings)

I also experimented with my artstyle a bit (trying to go for more of an anglar style and having more simplistic shading). I know it’s subdle, but I like how it turned out (I’m definitely going to experiment more with that)

Haha ugly ass groom go brrrrrrrrrrrrr

[dirtwatchman]

PARTIES: @dirtwatchman and @vanoincidence TIMING: Early March SUMMARY: Van and Caleb are missing their friend and decide to have a day without her. Things get a little tense between the two. CONTENT WARNINGS: No triggers just lots of corpse talk.

Van frowned at her phone screen. “Did Erin tell you that she was going to a coffin convention?” She pocketed the device, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket afterwards to keep them warm. “Who has a coffin convention, anyway? What do you think that looks like?” The Common was practically abandoned, all except for the few individuals who braved the cold. She wasn’t sure how Caleb had convinced her to leave the house today, but after Erin said she would be leaving town for awhile, Van felt the need to keep him company. It wasn’t her job as a twenty year old, but in reality, she felt like he was the closest thing she could get to a brother, even with the twenty-two year age gap. 

“Yea, it was a weird conversation.” What was a coffin convention anyway? “I didn’t even know those things existed.” He had been working with her and her dad for so long and yet he’d never heard a word about them before. But he was on the other side of things most of the time. “Depressing? Or…comfortable? I don’t know, it depends on the coffins, I guess.” Caleb leaned back against the bench they were sitting on, looking around the park and wondering why he had chosen this place. Van had to be freezing. “Do you want my jacket or something? I kind of forgot how cold it was out here.” A feat in itself considering the few people around were crunching through the snow. Speaking of forgetting, though. “Oh, hey, I brought you something though.” He grabbed his cooler from the side of the bench and brought out a few of the spicy pickles they were both fond of, holding them all out to her. “You know, since you’ve sacrificed so many.”

“I didn’t either, but I guess they do.” Van frowned. She knew that Erin would be coming back, but it still felt weird having to say goodbye to her. “Maybe it’s both? Do you think that instead of hotel rooms, they tell them they have to sleep in the coffins? You know, to test them out?” She wasn’t sure why a live person would need to test out coffins, especially because once somebody was dead, they didn’t know the comfortability of where they were laid to rest, but Van liked the idea that maybe there was some care involved when it came to things like that. “I have these.” She reached inside her pockets to display the electric hand warmers she’d bought off of Tik Tok Shop. “I’m testing them out to see if they are like, actually worth anything.” She hadn’t decided quite yet. “Besides, if you give me your jacket, you’ll be cold and then I’ll feel bad.” As he reached to the side, Van leaned over to look, eyes growing wide at the sight of the spicy pickles. “Dude, these had to of cost you a fortune.” Only because she was running up the price at the store she bought them from– something about needing to keep up with demand. She had half a mind to start ordering them online. She took one of the packages and grinned at him. “Erin’s gonna be so upset, missing the spicy pickle parade.” 

For a split second, Van’s question had him envisioning Erin trying out different coffins to see which one she would want to sleep in for the night. He was chuckling at the very idea but he shook his head at the girl. “It’s a convention, not a house of horrors. I could see that happening if the convention was here maybe.” His thoughts went from Erin trying out the coffins to Caleb doing so himself and for some reason his smile slipped. Why was the thought so heartbreaking? Maybe it was because he was never actually going to be in one himself if things didn’t get too messy in his eternal life but he was going to have to watch almost everyone he loved laying in one. He shook the thoughts from his mind, not wanting to envision that for a second longer than he already had. 

“I don’t really get too cold. The Maine weather has seeped into my bones over the years. You know, I’m always outside anyway.” Which was the truth really. His job required a lot of outside time. Not to mention, he liked the outdoors anyway. Caleb tried to play off the price of the pickles with a wave of his hand, not ready to admit that he might have spent the whole portion of his last brain sale to get them for her. “It’s her loss for going to try out coffins, that’s what she gets right?” He flashed her a smile. “But maybe we can save her one.”

“I don’t know– dead people seem like a house of horrors, right?” Maybe that wasn’t appropriate. “Like, think about it– every horror movie starts out with spooky shit like coffins.” She had no reason to believe that that was what Erin was actually doing, but the vision she’d created was better than the alternative– that Erin had decided to leave on her own omission instead of staying put like she’d always promised. Van splayed her fingers through the air, stretching them out to ease the anxiety that was starting to build in her chest. 

“You’re so cool, pretending you’re not cold. It’s 2024, being a macho man isn’t like, a thing anymore. It’s weird, Caleb.” She stared at him for a brief moment, trying to deliberate whether or not he fell within gen-x standards or if he was a millennial. Her go-to insult was identifying those older than her as a boomer– it always seemed to ruffle feathers, no matter what. “Yeah, I guess so.” Van let out a scoff at Caleb’s consideration for Erin. “No way! She left, so she doesn’t get these.” She motioned towards the pickles. “This is totally her loss.” 

Ouch. She couldn't have known how much that comment would sting and yet he bristled slightly when she said it, his mouth moving before he could stop himself. “They’re not horrors.” Frowning at his own words, Caleb couldn't understand at first why he had even snapped at her like that. He was dead, yes, but that didn’t mean she was calling him a horror in any way. Plus, he kind of was a horror, wasn’t he? He’d said this much to himself over the years, thought as much about the other undead sometimes, and yet he took offense as if it were one of her playful jabs that had hit the wrong deadened nerve. It hit a little different when someone he cared about was saying it. He had made himself sensitive by thinking of everyone in coffins and now this, he needed to chill out. “I mean, you’re right, coffins are associated with horrifying things but the dead…they’re just dead. There’s not much else to it.”

The zombie rolled his eyes at her, his lips twitching up once more as he tried his best to move past his little slip up. “I’m not pretending, but fine, go ahead and freeze. But let me ask you, since when have I ever pretended to be a macho man?” He was a nervous ball of lankiness that let fear and anxiety turn him into the biggest doormat. There was no way anyone thought of Caleb as anything remotely resembling macho. The only reason he had any muscle at all was due to the years of digging graves. “Alright, they’re yours, you have the final say. We’ll just have to rub it in her face when she gets back instead.”

Van was a little surprised at the way Caleb snapped at her. She held her hands up in defense. “I was thinking like, horror movies! You know, being followed by dead things, or like– haunted!” She had some respect for the dead. After all, both of her parents had fallen to the tragedy of it all. The moment with the gifted pickles was gone and there was an air of uncertainty and awkwardness that hung over them now. She looked down at her hands, kicking the toe of her shoe against the small platform of concrete that the bench was resting on. “Yeah, I guess so.” The dead were dead, no matter what. But did Caleb know about the things in Wicked’s Rest? Had he seen the horrors? Experienced them the way she had? If he had, would he have tried to correct her the way he did? She wasn’t sure. 

She shrugged, “I think it’s like an trait that all dudes have, you know? Even if you think you unlearned it, it’s still there.” She pointed at herself as she continued, “sometimes I find myself like, getting super jealous of other girls, and I guess that’s my toxic trait.” Mostly because those same girls had bullied her in school, but that wasn’t necessary to bring up. Van relaxed slightly as the conversation dipped back into familiar territory which, ultimately came down to making fun of Erin. She took her phone out of her pocket and sent a quick photo off to the older woman before stuffing it back into her pocket. “I hope she enjoys her coffins with no pickles.” 

The way she was scrambling to ‘fix’ her comments had Caleb closing his eyes briefly. He hadn’t meant to make her feel bad but his response had been too harsh. Yet he couldn’t explain to Van why the comment had hurt him the way it had. In that moment, he realized how much easier life could be if he could tell the people he cared about that he was dead. The few who knew were easier to be around just because he could talk about it freely but with Van and Erin he always felt like he was on some sort of ledge ready to topple over, ruining their view on life with the truth. It was the last thing he wanted for them, to change what they thought about the world…what they thought about him. 

And then he realized why things could have gotten a lot more awkward from there. He swallowed thickly, his mind going to her parents as it dawned on him just how little she had meant about the horrors comment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” He wanted to continue, to say that he knew what it was like to be likened to such a thing, but he stopped there in hopes that it was enough to clear the air between them.

Now he was wondering how many times this toxic masculinity had come out in him. Her words made sense even if Caleb was a coward most of the time and he was only trying to be nice to her. He supposed it leaked through along with his need to please everyone around him. “Okay, I can see your point.” Because he couldn’t argue that he really didn’t need the jacket at all without explaining why. “But why exactly do you get jealous of other girls?” He didn’t feel like there was a need for that but he also wasn’t Van. He couldn’t know what was going through her mind.

Caleb apologized, and Van felt smaller than before. She wasn’t sure if she deserved any kind of apology, or if it was even necessary. She wasn’t sure why she felt that way– maybe because she was always saying things without thinking, and that usually got her into trouble. “I um, I get it, you know? Like, you work… with dead people, I get that you’re sensitive.” A bit of the conversation reminded her of Regan and her chest twisted– an onslaught of unresolved feelings over the woman who would be leaving both her and Jade, just like Erin had. 

Van stammered slightly as she tried to explain herself, “I don’t know, I mean– have you ever looked at somebody else and been like, oh my god I want to be her, or I guess– him– them, I don’t know.” She shrugged, kicking the toe of her shoe against the ground again. “I think it makes sense when you’re like, young, and you were young once, so a part of you should definitely get it, you know?” She flashed him an uncertain grin. 

She didn’t get it though. That was the thing, she couldn’t understand why he was sensitive to the topic. Yes, he worked with the dead and tried his hardest to give them respect but on any given day Caleb was cracking their skulls for his own personal gain. That wasn’t respect, that was the plot of a horror story. Which was exactly why her words had gotten under his skin. 

It was time to let it go though. Dwelling on it wouldn’t do either of them any good. “Hey, it’s all good. Truce?” He looked at her, a hint of amusement in his eye as he raised his pinky finger. He hoped the tension was dissipating with his gesture, he could feel it slipping from his own shoulders as he let it all go. It was over now. Or so he hoped.

He raised an eyebrow at her insinuation that he was old. It wasn’t anything new with Van and it never offended him too much but he did like to mess with her when she did. “You know, you’re going to be my age one day and you’re going to hate when the kids start saying stuff like that to you. I’ll be off to the side laughing the whole time.” A chuckle left him but the smile started to fade as he thought about her reasoning. “I get that. I think we all want to be someone else at least once in our lives. There’s no shame in that. Sometimes there are people who seem to have it easier and it’s okay to want easier.”

Van hesitated for a moment before giving him a firm nod. “Trucies.” She lifted her own pinky, tapping it against Caleb’s before leaning back into the bench. She was used to overstepping, and most of the time, people called her out on it. Sometimes she cared about what they had to say, and other times she didn’t. This was one of the times she did. She didn’t want Caleb to be upset with her. 

“When I’m your age, who’s to say you won’t be like, dead. I mean, it’s good though, right! Dying of old age and not…” Van pondered for a moment, thinking of the least likely scenario. “Scurvy, or something. It’s a good thing you’re not a pirate.” She sighed, shifting around the cooler of pickles so that they now sat at her feet instead of next to her on the bench. “I think that one day I want to be who I am and not somebody else, but other times I look at people who are way cooler and wonder if I could be them one day.” Maybe it was a little too deep. With a huff, Van leaned back into the bench and lifted her gaze to the sky. “Maybe I’ll be cool and old or something.” 

“Oh, ouch.” His tone was light, Caleb keeping himself in check after his outburst earlier, but again his mind went to what life would be like in the future. But he didn’t want to think about the fact that he couldn’t possibly stick around for much longer or people would realize he wasn’t aging or the fact that he was going to miss a lot in the lives of most people he cared about. So he tried to shake it off, keeping the airyness of his tone. “I’m only going to be in my sixties when you’re my age, you really think I’m going to die that young? I’ll just have to make sure I’m taking my vitamin C supplements so I can stick around and bug you about this. I’ll be the old man laughing about how you thought you’d be rid of me by then.”

His hands went to his jacket pockets as Caleb leaned back on the bench with her, his gaze locked on the top of her head. She really didn’t realize how amazing she already was, did she? Van was that person who could make him laugh even on the worst day but then pull on his heartstrings in the same breath. She was a little out there but unapologetic about it. She was the one who would give him a spicy pickle while trying to make it seem like the biggest inconvenience just because she knew he liked them. There wasn’t much she could do to be any better.

“I really hope that one day you can be happy with who you are. But for the record, Van, I already think you’re one of the coolest people I know.” He waited for a moment before he added the next part, not wanting to get too mushy on her. “I know that doesn’t mean much coming from an uncool geezer like me though.” He grinned then, reaching ground to grab their stuff in his hands. “Come on weirdo, you’re going to freeze if we stay out here any longer. Let's go get you a hot chocolate or something.”

[ayliamc]

Italia

Day 6 - On the Arno

Steps walked: 18,216

Flights climbed: 12

Vehicles ridden: 1

Points of interest visited: 3

Leonardos spotted: 3, depending on whom you ask

We woke in Venezia this morning to the sound we fell asleep to last night: a canal beginning to stir with the signs of life. Both of us were so tired so getting out of bed was a bit of a chore. But we were the first to breakfast at our hotel and our benevolent host greeted us as joyfully as ever, making us a cup of tea and a double espresso (for me and Dan respectively) while we put together a full and yummy breakfast.

We bid our host adieu and — after some deliberation about whether or not to take a water taxi to the train station, barely faster but more for the novelty of it — ultimately walked to the train station. We tried again at the coffee shop that reportedly had some vegan croissants and were early enough to snag a few for the train before they ran out. It ended up being a delightful midday snack on the train as we approached Firenze, some of the lucky few on the train who didn’t have someone sitting next to them.

‘Twas after lunch and we’d had the croissants (Italian croissants all have filling in them; there’s no such thing as a plain croissant here) to keep us from getting grumpy, but lunch was a priority. On the way we happened upon a cool old church. We took a picture with it and moved on. More on this later.

Here I am, unimpressed.

We had found a vegan restaurant kinda on the way to our Airbnb. (Now we’re in real cities, I will only patronize VEGAN RESTAURANTS!) So we trudged to Nirvana, a vegan restaurant close to the Arno, the river that runs through the heart of Florence. Florence’s Thames or Seine, if you will. I finally got to order the ravioli that I’ve been craving and Dan got a big plate with some kind of plant-based meat and some of the best potatoes I’ve ever had. Simple but so good.

Sated, we walked the rest of the way to our room, which proved to be a picturesque walk along the Arno where I could imagine that what I was seeing had once been seen by Leonardo himself. Many of the buildings certainly look old enough to have been here when he was.

Firenze is similar to Venezia in that feels fake, like a toy town or something from a movie or storybook. But they’re different in that Venezia has a kind of wrongness to it. That sounds more harsh than I mean it. But I don’t exactly know how to explain it. (Side note: i do feel kind of guilty as I imagine my friend Sean reading this and my thoughts about his dream city are that it shouldn’t be real.) But Firenze feels more like I’ve been transported back in time. But so have a LOT of other people. Other people from my time. So we’re all just a bunch of 2023 people walking around the 16th century.

I marveled at a bridge we had to cross in that there were literally apartments built onto the bridge itself, only to shortly thereafter discover that our rented room was one of those apartments! We are literally suspended over the Arno, on the Ponte Vecchio. We can see the Galleria Uffizi from our bedroom window, just down the riverbank. We later tried to identify which window is ours from the Uffizi.

So yeah, great location but it has a price: namely the shower (more on that later) and the wifi (whose connection is so bad they’re forcing my blog posts to come late because there’s literally not enough bandwidth to upload them).

The Galleria totally caught me by surprise, in terms of its existence and the items inside. For some reason I became very anxious and irritating (yeah, you read that right; irritating, not “irritable”) and I feel bad for Dan. Honey if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. Thanks for putting up with me. But we got our tickets around 3:30, got a little lost and ultimately found our way, despite the museums inexplicable lack of paper maps in lieu of digital maps you can only access online, but there’s no wifi. (A docent shared in my exasperation at this. She said, and I quote, “Don’t expect things to make sense in Italy.”) Turns out this gallery holds a lot of awesome stuff. About a million and a half Roman statues, plus the mother-flippin’ Birth of Venus!

Two works from Verrocchio’s workshop that Leonardo had a hand in! (Though they straight up credited Leonardo for one of them in its entirety. They’ll really slap his name on anything now if it helps them.) And one unfinished Leonardo (that I think also had been painted in part by others)!

A Rembrandt and a Michelangelo and Caravaggio’s Medusa and a Melzi. Melzi was likely a sort of apprentice to Leonardo, and a kind of adopted son. I also learned the etymology of the word “hermaphrodite” which as soon as I learned it seemed so obvious I felt stupid.*

Here I am with the Melzi.

After the first floor (which was actually the second floor) Dan announced, “That was fun, wanna go to a cafe?” To which I replied, “That was only the first floor!” But it was indeed the second floor. You can see the confusion. In any case we spent about two hours in the museum before slowly meandering around the Uffizi square and looking at all the sculptures before walking to another vegan restaurant for dinner. Universo Vegano, this time. More good food, and we could see the Duomo down the street. (The Firenze Duomo, not the Milano Duomo.) We also took advantage of the superior wifi here (over what was offered at our apartment) so we looked up a few more points of interest and discovered that the random fancy church we passed earlier houses some tombs of note. We’ll be sure to go visit it properly tomorrow.

After dinner (with stuffed croissants in hand for breakfast) we walked by the Duomo, the one where David was originally meant to be displayed before being declared too magnificent. (We’re seeing that tomorrow.) Cool building to be sure.

A quick stop in a nearby market so we could pick up a few breakfast and snack foods** and then back for an early night over the Arno. We got to relish in the challenges of showering in an old building where the water took 5 minutes to get hot, stayed hot for about four minutes, then got cold again and stayed cold. There was a brief war as we shut out the lights when I heard a mosquito buzzing around. We tried in vain to remove her but alas. ‘Twas a comic failure. I’ve already been bitten a bunch while we’ve been here and don’t relish waking up to more welts.

Our apartment also has a window that opens down onto the Ponte and it doesn’t close — I think it’s for ventilation — so we went to bed to the sounds of a live musical performance at the bar below us and the hourly chimes of a nearby church before the city joined us in sleep.

*Hermes and Aphrodite had a child who was born both male and female. Their name? Hermaphrodite. As in Hermes + Aphrodite. You get it. So do I.

**Dan wanted to buy a bottle of wine or beer, but it was all sealed off in the market because of a soccer game… all sales of alcohol in glass or aluminum containers were forbidden in Firenze’s historical district until 7am the following day. Crazy.

[themaladaptivewriter12]

Title: Welcome to the Underworld

Part 1 of my "16-Bit Heart" series!

Parings: None!

Summary:

Mirai wants to game again, and when his new friend Lilia introduces him to an online game, "Forever True", he meets some new friends.

cw: None!

Reblogs are appreciated, just use my custom tag, #TheMaladaptiveWriter12, if you do!

Cross posted from my Ao3: TheMaladaptiveWriter12

Since coming to Night Raven College Mirai has come to learn so many new things. Things like the existence of magic and magic academy’s, things like signature spells, talking pictures, and things like Overblots. There was so much to do, so much to see, but in the end, Mirai missed playing video games. Mirai was a gamer at heart, and he was bummed out he was without his gaming console that was back at home. So Mirai asked Sam, he always had the most random things in stock, and even if he couldn’t afford the system now, at least he would know how much he would have to save for it. 

Mirai left the shop a little broken-hearted, but a little more determined. They went for the price as most systems go, but with how much he made working two days at Sam’s and how much he spent a week on food and such, he’d have to save for several months. He guessed he’d have to stick with his mobile games for now. 

“Hello, Dear Prefect,” an unfamiliar baritone voice called.

Mirai whipped his head around and was met with an unfamiliar, yet familiar, short Diasomnia student. “Uh, have we met?” Mirai asked wearily.

Mirai had heard many things about the students from Diasomnia, most of which wasn’t good, but Mirai was never quick to judge, especially if it was from the mouth of another person. But from experience, Mirai was always on guard of people who addressed him with familiarity, especially when they didn’t know each other. 

“Yes, but briefly. Does the name Lilia Vanrouge ring a bell?” the short male Mirai now knew as Lilia Vanrouge asked.

After a moment of thought, Mirai remembered Lilia from his first day there at NRC. He had “poofed” himself between Ace and Deuce to introduce himself personally. 

“Ah, I do,” Mirai nodded, “You teleported across the room to our table.”

“Yes I did,” Lilia smiled, “You have a good memory.”

The pair sat there in an awkward silence, well at least to Mirai it was. Lilia just stood there, a wide smile on his cherubic face, but his sharp teeth made it a little unsettling.

“Uh, so, do you need something from me?” Mirai asked, teetering back and forth on his feet, fiddling with his phone in his hands. 

“Oh yeah,” Lilia perked up, “So I couldn’t help overhear your little conversation with Sam, so I thought I’d make a proposition. You take Malleus with you to the Housewarden events, so he is able to attend, and I give you my old gaming PC.”

Mirai briefly lit up before his face fell again, “That doesn’t seem like a fair trade.”

“Oh but it is, my sweet child. You see, Malleus never gets invited to these things, he’s always out of the loop. I can’t help but to feel bad for him. So, you inform him or take him with you so that he can attend with his fellow Housewardens.”

“No, no,” Mirai said steadily, “I’m pretty sure you, having me, inform your Housewarden on events that everyone forgets to invite him to, does not pay the price of a gaming PC.”

“Why not?” Lilia asked curiously, tilting his head to the side, touching his finger to his chin.

“Because it costs money. Wouldn’t you want to get your bucks worth for your things?”

“But I’m not using it anymore. So why not just give it away when it still works just fine?”

“I’d just feel bad for taking it without giving you something for its worth.” 

“Stay for dinner tonight and then I’ll give you the PC,” Lilia said, pulling a piece of candy from his grocery bag, pressing into Mirai's hand. “And come to Diasomnia on Thursdays for tea, we don’t get visitors much.”

Lilia waved with a wide smile and skipped off towards the Hall of Mirrors. 

“O-Okay,” Mirai muttered.

Mirai stayed for dinner that night, his desire to game far too strong to ignore. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. The food was good and so was the company. Malleus and Lilia were happy for his company, Silver was indifferent so to speak. Whereas he didn’t have anything to say about his presence, he was either soft spoken and quiet, or he was trying to stay awake at the table. Sebek Zigvolt didn’t seem to want him there, always grumbling, making his displeasure known. But all in all, they were a nice bunch to hang out with. After dinner, Lilia brought him to his room to get the PC, and Mirai was ecstatic. When Lilia said old, he thought it was gonna be more than five years old, but Lilia had said he had won the better model in a contest and the PC was only a year old, and it was modified. 

“Got any recommendations?” Mirai asked as they toted the system back to Ramshackle. 

“Depends on what you like,” Lilia smiled.

“I like anything, really. RPGs, FPSs, MMORPGs, survival, farming, romantic dating sims.” 

Lilia smirked, eyeing him knowingly.

Mirai paused, catching the last thing he had listed, “Forget you heard that last one.”

Lilia chuckled before perking up, “Oh! I have a recommendation you might like!”

Mirai checked out the game right after classes the next day. Lilia said it was one of the most popular MMORPGs at the moment. You could create your own character, which Mirai spent three hours doing the first night, not even getting to actually play, which he was bummed out about. Mirai could also choose a race of people ranging from Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, Feas, Humans, and more. Mirai made his character a Werecat. Although he didn’t want the character to look exactly like him, Mirai still made it in his likeness. He was blonde like him, but he made his hair long and flowy. Mirai gave the Werecat scars as well, they littered his arms, his face, and back. He gave them tattoos like he had, the images and Cat tribal markings on his back and arms, and Mirai gave him piercings like his, except they were in his cute pointy cat ears. He was very tall and slim, curvy and fair. And lastly, Mirai had to choose a class. There were so many to choose from and in the end, Mirai picked the Bard, but he danced. When he healed he would sing and play an instrument, the song different for each ailment, and to rally an ally, he would dance, each dance different for what he was rallying his team for. And for the hardest part playing these types of games, naming the character, and it took a while. Just like how these types of games go, you can’t have repeat names and such, which led Mirai having to spend thirty minutes trying out name after name. But luckily, the name Apollo worked. 

He was actually quite proud of what he made, the overall look was elegant, yet fierce, kinda like a number of guys Mirai knows around here. But that happy feeling was short-lived, because when Mirai looked at the time, it was three in the morning, which meant no actual gaming tonight, so he saved his preset and went to bed. 

 Mirai was three weeks into playing the game Lilia had suggested, Forever True was the name, and he was hooked. Lilia gave him his friend code and they had been playing together ever since. Mirai liked Lilia’s character, Crimson Muscle. He was really tall and buff, long black hair, pale skin and pointy ears. But he was strong. He could fight from the shadows and suck people’s life sources, perform sneak attacks with a huge broadsword, and summon little monsters that helped in the fight. And did Mirai mention that Lilia’s character could heal himself with the blood of his enemies? And of course Lilia and he had many photo ops everywhere they went. In the little bakery? Yep. How about in the middle of the town plaza? Absolutely. On the bloody pile of their dead enemies? Totally. The contrast between Lilia’s character with his black cloak, and red body armor, and Mirai’s Werecat’s white dancer outfit and gold bangles, they looked good together.

 The game also had a story mode, side quests, and character stories you could complete. There were also daily events, and challenges you could complete for gold or points. And if you weren’t feeling any of that, you could just chat with people and friends, do silly emotes, and chill.

Lilia had walked him through the prologue, and after a while, Mirai found that Lilia would have Mirai rally him, just so that he could see his character dance, not that he was mad or anything, because he liked the animation as well. But there were some days Lilia couldn’t play, or some days when Lilia’s guild needed him. Mirai didn’t mind playing solo, but sometimes it was nice to have a friend to play with. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t play with you yesterday,” Lilia apologized through Mirai’s headset.

“It’s okay, Lilia,” Mirai reassured. 

“I have a suggestion, why don’t you find a guild for yourself, or start one? I’d love to have you join mine, but sadly, I’ve reached my member limit.”

“It’s okay. I don’t, I don’t know if I could handle being guild leader, but joining a guild doesn’t sound that bad.”

And it really didn’t. That way he could make some friends, and play with them when Lilia wasn’t around. That also gave him access to team events, the Guild Store, extra XP, the Guild Hub, and not to mention Guild Wars. 

“Marvelous,” Lilia chirped, “I’ll help.”

Lilia helped Mirai the first day, but they couldn’t find anything that he liked. The next day Lilia couldn’t sign on, so Mirai continued his search on his own. Mirai spent hours looking through the Guild List but nothing stood out to him. Too many of them had either inappropriate guild names or descriptions, too many of the same class, or weren’t serious. Things like “chat and date,” “just for fun,” “I don’t log on for days at a time,” and so much worse. Mirai was a serious gamer, he took all his games seriously, he wanted a guild that had the same mindset as him, and as the night waned on, he still found nothing.

The next night Mirai came across a guild that had posted a wanted order on the Guild notice board.

“Gloomurai here. We’re looking for a new healer for our guild, since our last one quit. At this point, we don’t care what lvl you are, we are willing to train you, as long as you log in, do your dailies, and are able to participate on Friday’s for our dungeon raids. Pls DM me if you are interested. - Gloomurai.”

Mirai got his hopes up a little. He was a healer, he did his dailies, and he needed a guild. Mirai hurriedly clicked on the guild leader’s name and shot them a message, hoping that they were still online to see it. In the meantime, Mirai got up to use the bathroom, taking a detour to the kitchen for a snack, and when he came back he had a little red dot over his inbox. Mirai hoped it was from the guild leader as he hurriedly opened his inbox. It was. 

Gloomurai: Do you have a mic? It’d be easier.

Apollo: I do.

Gloomurai: Cool. Let me add you to a private voice chat. 

A couple of seconds later, Mirai got a voice chat invite. 

“You hear me okay?” a deep lethargic voice asked.

Mirai froze, his heart literally skipping a beat at the deep, almost gravelly sound of the guy's voice. Mirai tried to keep his cool, but he was failing miserably. 

“Y-Yeah,” Mirai answered.

“Kay, cool. Ima cut to the chase. I’m picky with what people join my guild. I didn’t get to be one of the top guilds in the server with a bunch of scrubs and noobs in my guild.”

“I-I understand.”

“So tell me about your character. Class, HP, MP, level, stats, like abilities and stuff,” Gloomurai rambled.

“O-Oh sorry, uh, I chose, I chose the Bard,” Mirai stammered.

“Oh, we don’t have many of those in this server, and we don’t have one in our guild, continue.”

“I’m level fifteen, my HP is twenty-four thousand, six hundred and three, my MP is twenty-three thousand, five hundred and eighty-five, uh, my stats, uh, I choose the subclass of dancer and I heal with music and buff with dancing.”

“What abilities did you pick?”

“I have the Harpestry skill for nullifying poison, paralysis, magic seals, and I’m currently working on one for bleeding, and for the buffs, I can add shields, I can up attack damage, magic damage, and I’m working on critical hit damage.”

“Cool, we can work on sharpening those skills,” Gloomurai said thoughtfully, “Do you log in daily?”

“I mean, I just started, but I do, but I’m in school right now, so I can’t log on until after classes,” Mirai supplied.

“Ditto man. Wish I didn’t have to though.”

Mirai internally rejoiced that him being a student wouldn't be held against him with the Guild Leader being a student as well. But Mirai also couldn’t help but be surprised with how much the guy was able to accomplish with being a full time student. 

“Next question, are you serious about playing? Of course we’re all here to have fun, but I play to win,” Gloomurai asked. 

“I’m a tryhard through and through,” Mirai smirked.

Gloomurai giggled and Mirai hoped that it was a good sign rather than a bad one.

“Friday nights at nine, we start a dungeon raid. These are mandatory. The more we raid the more the guild ranking goes up, the more EXP we get, and the more rewards we get.”

“Uh, I have something to do on Friday evenings, but other than that, nine is normally free for me.”

There was some silence on the other end, all Mirai could hear was the guys breathing and quiet muttering through his headset. Mirai jumped when the guy spoke again.

“You are the only person who's gotten this far in my interview, so Ima do this,” Gloomurai proposed, “Let me see you in action, let me see how you work on the field, under pressure. If you can pass that test, then you’re in.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Mirai accepted.

Gloomurai chuckled again, “Good. Hope you’re ready, because I don’t go easy on newbs.”

A couple of seconds later, Mirai got a guild invite. He accepted it.

“Now that you’re in the guild, you can see all your guild members on the map. Teleport to me,” Gloomurai instructed. 

Mirai opened his map and low and behold, he had a bunch of blue dots on his map. Mirai hovered over them and all of them were loads of levels ahead of him, not one in the double digits like he was. Mirai made his way over to one that had a crown in it, which he assumed was the Guild Leader, and when he hovered over it and Gloomurai’s name lit up. Mirai clicked it and a couple of options popped up, he clicked teleport, and after a brief loading screen, Mirai’s character was teleported into an open field standing next to another player. It was Gloomurai. His character looked so cool, he just had to be a veteran player. His character was tall with pale skin with piercing gold eyes, and the side of his face was bone. His hair was long and white, with an obsidian crown atop his head. He was in a mixture of black robes with gold chain armor on top, and his character seemed to glitter and sparkle, black fog billowing from the bottom of his robes. And on his back was a black bone scythe, dripping with red.

“That Scythe is so cool,” Mirai gushed, walking his character around Gloomurai’s so he could get a better look at it.

Gloomurai chuckled, “Thx. It took me forever to get this weapon. It was a limited edition reward for their anniversary event and I had to farm for six days straight just to meet the requirements, not to mention that it will never break or have to be repaired. Only the top ten got the reward, and I came in first place.”

“Congrats,” Mirai said.

“Thx. You don’t look bad yourself.”

Mirai scoffed, “Oh save your empty praises. We all know the newbs look the worst.”  

“N-No, no, really, you look great.”

Suddenly three more players teleported into the area. One an Elf, another was a Skeleton, and the last some type of giant, maybe an Ogre. 

“Here, join the guild chat,” Gloomurai said, sending him another invite. 

Once Mirai joined the chat, there were so many other voices ringing out in his headset. 

“Oh! Is she our new healer?!” the Ogre with a mid ranged voice asked.

“She’s cute! How old is she?! Is she single?!” the Skeleton with a sultry male voice asked, his character jumping up and down.

“Gloomurai’s cat fetish is showing,” the Elf with a soft voice teased.

The other two laughed.

“Between you and me,” the Ogre started, “Gloomurai here as a cat fetish. Anything related to cats and he goes berserk.”

“I do not,” Gloomurai shouted, offended.

“So why does our guild’s common room have cat cushions?”

“What about the cat rugs?” The Skeleton asked.

“What about the three actual cats in our guild house?” The Elf asked.

“Shut up,” Gloomurai grumbled, “My dorm doesn’t allow pets okay?!”

The three laughed at Gloomurai’ distress. Mirai giggled as well.

“Aw! She even sounds cute,” the Skeleton cooed, “I’m Rocinante! And don’t worry hun, Roci here will treat you real nice.”

“Roci’s being nasty again,” the Elf whined.

“Leave her alone,” the Ogre shouted, “And don’t come crying to us over Keyboard when you’re reported again.”

Gloomurai sighed, “Apollo is a guy, not a girl. No he is not our healer yet. I wanna see if he can keep up with us. And Roci, say something like that again and I’m muting you, you will use nothing but in-game commands.”

Rocinante fell silent.

“Oops, sorry dude,” the Ogre said, “Your cat looked kinda girly so I assumed. I’m Khan by the way.”

“You say that, but everyone thought Leslie was a girl for the longest,” Roci laughed.

“Leslie is a guy's name too,” the Elf shouted.

“Says you,” Rocinante muttered. 

Suddenly the Elf pulled out a lance and began stabbing at the Skeleton.

“H-Hey! Hey,” Rocinante shouted, “He’s stabbing me! Leslie’s stabbing me!”

“Bzt! No purposeful friendly fire,” Gloomurai droned. 

Rocinante’s health was extremely low, his character hunched over, holding his middle as he bled out onto the ground. Mirai clicked his healing ability, and his cat pulled out a harp and with flourish, and Rocinante was back at full health.

“Thank you, my little angel,” Rocinante cried, “At least someone cares for me!”

“Aww. His little dance at the end was so cute,” Khan cooed.

Gloomurai’s chat bubble appeared on the side of the screen, but no words were being said.

“Gloomurai?” Rocinante called, “Gloomurai? You okay there boss?”

“Gloomurai.exe has stopped working,” Leslie laughed. 

The three laughed.

“So, what are we supposed to be doing boss?” Rocinante asked.

“U-Uh, uh, we, we, uh, we’re training! We're training Apollo,” Gloomurai stammered. 

Khan, Leslie, Rocinante, and Mirai laughed.

“We’re gonna go kill some mobs and I wanna see if Apollo can keep his cool under pressure and if he can take commands if need be,” Gloomurai explained. 

“Alright cool,” Khan said.

Gloomurai led the group over to where a horde of Ligers were grazing. There were six of them in total and they were levels way higher than Mirai’s.

“U-Uh,” Mirai stammered, “I don’t think I can take those on. I’m, I’m only level fifteen.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Gloomurai said, “All I want is to see if you can heal. I won’t count it against you if you die, and if you do, I can resurrect you. I’m a reaper afterall.”

“O-Okay.”

“Ready, Apollo?” Leslie asked, wielding his lance with a flourish. 

“Yeah.”

The battle wasn’t even halfway over and Mirai was feeling the heat. Khan, the Ogre was a Tank, subclass Berserker. He wielded a great sword and a huge shield. His HP bar was quite high and he came with a built-in shield as well. His attacks were heavy in damage, but he sacrificed his mobility for his strength. He had this move where he would spin in a circle and carve through a group of enemies, sending them flying, and another where he slammed his shield on the ground, stunning enemies for a short period of time. Mirai knew he could leave him on his own for a bit and he would be fine, but he also made sure to boost his speed with a dance.

The weakest was the Skeleton, Rocinante. He was a Thief, subclass Wraith. He was quick, his attacks from behind doing the most damage because of this, he had the lowest HP of their little group, not including Mirai himself that is. Rocinante would jump, flip, and spin as he threw knives at the Ligers and when he got hit, Mirai was quick to heal him. And when Rocinante went into the shadows, Mirai would boost his attack damage, helping him land fatal attacks. 

Leslie, the lancer Elf’s subclass was knight, and was strong, but his attack speed was kinda slow. When he swung his lance, it left him open for a good amount of time, and if they were going against actual players and not a bunch of mobs, he would probably be a goner, so Mirai made sure he had a shield at all times. Leslie had a move where he would launch himself off his lance before summoning it again, spearing the Liger in the head. Mirai liked that move the most.

Gloomurai was better off than the rest of them. He was level six hundred and eighty six and way stronger than them all. He really didn’t attack anything, since he was way too strong for the Ligers and killed one in one hit. Even though it was just a game, Mirai felt as if he was actually being watched, but all in all, Mirai hoped he was making this guy's expectations. 

When the last Liger dropped to the ground, leaving a bloody corpse behind, Mirai let out a sigh of relief. Mirai never died like he thought he would, and he managed to keep their little team alive as well. 

“Whoo,” Leslie cheered, “That went well, great even!”

“Better than expected, honestly,” Khan said.

“You held yourself pretty well out there, congrats,” Rosinante said. 

“Th-Thanks,” Mirai stuttered, flushing under the attention. 

“So,” Khan pried, “How’d he do boss?”

“He did pretty well, better than what I expected. And he can take commands really well, not only that he didn’t cave in a fight. Although for him to reach his full potential, I need to help max out his healing class, but give him a means to attack so he can also help with our damage output, and defend himself. How about a lance? A javelin? Maybe throwing knives?” Gloomurai rambled. 

“This sounds promising,” Khan sang.

“It’s gonna take a while, but at least we got what we were looking for, not to mention a class we don’t have, and he’s a cat.”

Mirai and the other three snickered.

“So, Apollo, how was that? How do you feel?”

“Uh, uh fine? Good?” Mirai stammered.

“Good. I wanna help you with leveling up your character’s stats, can I do that?” Gloomurai asked.

“Y-Yeah, sure.”

Gloomurai giggled, “So how would you feel about becoming our new Bard?”

“I, uh, yes, if, if you’ll have me that is.”

“Well, then, Apollo,” Gloomurai said, “I hereby announce your acceptance to the guild. Congrats.”

“Yes,” Rocinante cheered.

“Congrats, dude,” Khan said happily.

“Alright,” Leslie hollered.

“Th-Thanks guys,” Mirai flushed.

“And without further adieu” Gloomurai said, his character doing a little cheer, sparkles coming off of him, “Bum bum ba-da bum bum bum bum! Welcome to the Underworld, Apollo.”

[alemad200]

Things to Remember While Renting Luxury Cars in Dubai

Dubai is a city that offers a unique blend of traditional and modern culture, making it an exciting destination for tourists and business travellers alike. With its stunning architecture, world-class shopping, and vibrant nightlife, there’s no shortage of things to do and see. By choosing the right dubai rent a car, you can explore the city in style and comfort, making your trip even more memorable. So, the next time you’re planning a trip to Dubai, don’t forget to rent a car dubai monthly no deposit and experience the city like never before.

Dubai, which is crowned as the land of luxury and extravagant, provides the most fascinating rental car experience. This city boasts of beautiful architecture, a good shopping complex, and ornate nightlife scenes that are considered incomparable. If you desire a luxurious way to get through the city, then it is best to rent a car in Dubai. From sleek sports cars to luxurious sedans, Dubai’s rental car market offers a wide range of vehicles that can cater to any preference.

1. Research and Compare

When looking for car rental services in dubai, it’s wise to run an online search and compare the services offered by various companies, their prices and types and brands of cars that they offer for rent. If you need a deal that will meet all your need and falls within your pocket, the above list will assist you in this. The key factors to consider when selecting a luxury car rental company include; availability or a variety of luxury cars, flexibility when it comes to rental periods and the cost among other factors.

2. Check the Vehicle Condition

When you rent a car Dubai, make sure to inspect the vehicle thoroughly before signing the agreement. Check for any scratches, dents, or damage to the interior and exterior. Take photos and note down any existing issues to avoid being charged for them later.

3. Understand the Rental Agreement

To avoid any misunderstandings or being trapped in a bad agreement be sure to read the rental agreement carefully before signing any document. Always know as much as you can regarding the agreement, for instance, the time period for the rental, the number of miles allowed, and the penalties, if any. i- Make sure to clear any questions regarding rental agreement and policies with the rental company.

4. Insurance Options

One should inquire whether the rental company has insurance packages, and if so, which damages they compensate for. Since some car rental companies have included basic insurance in their rental fee, there are others that offer additional coverage in exchange for a certain amount of money. Determine eventually what is required to be taken under the coverage and select the most appropriate element.

5. Additional Fees

6. Road Rules and Regulations

Learn and understand all that is contained in Dubai roads code of conduct. One must be aware of the speed limits or speed breakers and the various traffic signs to prevent one from ending up paying a fine or penalty for parking or any other offense.

7. Maintenance and Repairs

Learn the rental maintenance and repair policies of the rental company. For anyone planning to rent out a property, make sure to determine who is tasked with handling any repair or maintenance work during the duration of your rental and how you can go about reporting any problem.

8. Review and Rate

Some rental companies also encourage their clients to rate the company and the experience after the rental has been concluded. This also benefits other customers who are willing to make decisions ,it also forces the company to do better in offering its services.

Conclusion

It is always fun and exciting to rent a luxury car and have the luxurious feel and touch of Dubai. With these crucial procedures, you can guarantee an agreeable time that you will treasure while renting a car dubai. Another thing to be mindful of is to always do a research and a comparison, inspect the car, know the renting terms and conditions, as well as the charges that may incur. With these latest tips in mind, you stand a better chance of getting the best luxury car rental services in Dubai.

Final Thoughts

Dubai is a city that offers a unique blend of traditional and modern culture, making it an exciting destination for tourists and business travellers alike. With its stunning architecture, world-class shopping, and vibrant nightlife, there’s no shortage of things to do and see. By choosing the right dubai rent a car, you can explore the city in style and comfort, making your trip even more memorable. So, the next time you’re planning a trip to Dubai, don’t forget to rent a car without deposit near me and experience the city like never before.

[valscollisionrepairsaintpaul]

Autobody Repairs Near Me: Your Ultimate Guide

Ever found yourself frantically searching for  autobody repairs near me after an unexpected fender bender? You're not alone. Finding a reliable autobody shop close to home can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. But don't worry, we’ve got your back. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about finding top-notch autobody repair services in your area, ensuring your car gets back on the road looking as good as new.

Why You Need Local Autobody Repairs

Why should you opt for local autobody repair shops? Here are a few compelling reasons:

Convenience: Local shops are easier to access, making drop-offs and pick-ups hassle-free.

Community Trust: Local businesses often rely on word-of-mouth, so they’re more likely to provide excellent service.

Faster Service: Proximity usually means quicker turnaround times.

Types of Autobody Repairs

1. Paintless Dent Repair (PDR)

Ever noticed a small dent that hasn’t chipped the paint? That’s where Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) shines. It's a cost-effective method that involves:

Specialized Tools: Technicians use tools to massage the dent from the inside out.

Quick Turnaround: Most PDR jobs can be completed in a few hours.

2. Scratch and Paint Repair

Scratches are like paper cuts—small but annoying. Depending on their depth, the repair can range from:

Buffing and Polishing: For surface-level scratches.

Repainting: For deeper scratches that penetrate the paint layers.

3. Collision Repair

Accidents happen. When they do, collision repairs involve:

Frame Straightening: Ensuring the car’s frame is restored to its original condition.

Panel Replacement: Damaged panels are replaced to restore the vehicle's appearance.

Paint Matching: Seamlessly blending new paint with the existing color.

4. Glass Repair and Replacement

Cracked windshields or chipped windows? These can compromise your safety. Solutions include:

Chip Repair: For minor damages.

Full Replacement: When the damage is extensive.

Finding the Best Autobody Repair Shops Near You

Online Reviews and Recommendations

First things first, check out online reviews. Websites like Yelp, Google Reviews, and Angie’s List can provide a wealth of information. Here’s how:

Read the Reviews: Look for patterns in customer feedback.

Ask Around: Personal recommendations can be invaluable.

Certifications and Credentials

A good autobody shop should have the necessary certifications. Look for:

I-CAR Certification: Indicates up-to-date training in collision repair.

ASE Certification: Shows the technicians have passed rigorous testing.

Get Multiple Estimates

Don’t settle for the first quote you get. Instead:

Compare Prices: Getting estimates from multiple shops can help you find the best deal.

Assess Transparency: A reliable shop will provide a detailed breakdown of costs.

Warranty and Guarantee

A reputable autobody shop will offer a warranty on their repairs. This guarantees:

Quality Assurance: They stand by their work.

Peace of Mind: You know you're covered if something goes wrong.

DIY Autobody Repairs: When and When Not to Do It

Considering a DIY approach? While it's tempting to save a few bucks, not all repairs should be tackled at home. Here’s a quick rundown:

Safe DIY Repairs

Minor Scratch Removal: Kits are available for buffing out small scratches.

Simple Dent Removal: Using a plunger or specialized PDR kits.

Leave It to the Pros

Structural Damage: This requires precision and expertise.

Extensive Painting: Achieving a flawless finish is an art form.

Advanced Collision Repair: Involves complex processes best handled with professional equipment.

How Technology is Changing Autobody Repairs

The autobody repair industry is constantly evolving. Here are some cutting-edge trends:

Advanced Materials

Newer cars are made with materials like aluminum and carbon fiber, necessitating specialized repair techniques.

Automation and Robotics

Robots are now assisting in the repair process, providing:

Increased Precision: Robots ensure repairs are performed with exacting accuracy.

Faster Turnaround: Automation speeds up the repair process.

3D Printing

Need a specific part? 3D printing technology is revolutionizing the industry by:

Creating Custom Parts: On-demand manufacturing of parts.

Reducing Costs: Lowering the expense of rare or discontinued parts.

Conclusion

Finding reliable "autobody repairs near me" doesn't have to be a daunting task. By understanding the types of repairs, knowing what to look for in a shop, and staying informed about industry trends, you can ensure your vehicle gets the care it needs. So next time you find yourself with a dent or scratch, you’ll know exactly what to do—locate a trusted local autobody repair shop and get your ride back to its former glory.

[olko71]

New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on https://yaroreviews.info/2023/09/under-siege-wilko-staff-fear-for-jobs

'Under siege' Wilko staff fear for jobs

Getty Images

By Michael Race

Business reporter, BBC News

“We just do not know. We have no idea if we are going to have a job or not. We are completely in the dark.”

Working at Wilko has been tough recently to say the least, with staff anxiously waiting to see if their job will still exist in a few weeks’ time.

There are growing doubts about a potential rescue deal for the whole business, with administrators announcing that 52 stores across the country will close next week, resulting in more than 1,000 people being made redundant.

The company has 12,000 employees and so thousands still remain in limbo. Some jobs and stores could still be saved, but deals put forward so far appear to have stalled.

The BBC has spoken to two Wilko workers whose stores avoided the dreaded shut down list revealed on Wednesday, but remain fearful for the future of their branches, and more importantly, their jobs.

The women agreed to speak to the BBC on the basis of their identity being kept anonymous over concerns of potential repercussions.

One woman who has worked at a Wilko for more than six years said she woke up at three o’clock on Wednesday morning feeling sick with worry over whether her store was one of the 52 to shut.

Having waited anxiously for a phone call that did not come in the end, she learned at around 10:10 that her job was safe for now.

But after an initial feeling of relief, she felt “terrible” thinking of her colleagues at other shops around the country being told they were losing their jobs.

“I felt guilty because if it’s not happening to you, it’s happening to someone else,” she said.

This employee was on her day off when hearing the latest news, but she said work has been “horrendous” since Wilko first issued notice of an intention to enter administration last month.

The company, which was still owned by the Wilkinson family, frantically searched but was unable to find a buyer. Home deliveries were then suspended, supplies halted and administration followed with PwC calling the shots ever since.

Walking into work tearful the day after the collapse of the company, one of the workers said banners were quickly put up at her store along with sale and “everything must go” signs.

Getty Images

But staff were not stood around twiddling their thumbs waiting for more news. Both workers told the BBC their respective stores had been “busier than we have been in months”, with shoppers on the hunt for bargains amidst many empty shelves.

“The very next day people were in,” said one of the workers, describing being constantly asked about items on sale by customers, one of which “effed and jeffed” at her due to his unhappiness at the prices of some items.

“We get a 100 times a day, ‘when are you closing?’ I say, ‘you mean the day I lose my job? I don’t know when that is yet,'” she said.

“Its a bit like being under siege,” she added. “People have no idea what we are going through. I’m shattered at the moment.”

“It’s very sad,” said the second staff member, who has worked at Wilko for 15 years.

“Nearly half the store is empty. We are getting deliveries but it’s only a shelf full,” she said. “It’s just really sad seeing how the store used to be, to how it is now – there is nothing left.”

She explained while 90% of customers have been sympathetic some people have been “getting very nasty because they want a bargain”.

Getty Images

Despite being in administration, staff are still being asked to put holiday requests in and are also being given rota schedules four weeks in advance.

“I cannot tell you how difficult it is. We are all busting a gut, all doing extra hours. It’s testament to all the other Wilko staff that are working,” one of them said.

As well as being rushed off their feet, whispers and rumours about potential takeover deals have not helped things.

While both of them are sitting tight, they said colleagues, mostly less experienced ones, were “putting feelers out” for alternative jobs.

“It is taking its toll,” one of them said. “Not just on me but on every member of staff.”

“I found it very difficult to get a job, I am classed as disabled and as soon as you put that on an application form a lot of people do not want to hire you. I do have loyalty towards them [Wilko] for that,” she added.

A spokesman for administrators at PwC said they were “doing everything we can” to keep staff updated through “regular dialogue with employee representatives as well as calls and updates to the business”.

“We are mindful of the confidential nature of the ongoing discussions with interested parties and given the fluid and fast moving-nature of the situation we also want to ensure that all information provided to employees is both relevant and accurate,” they added.

“We know that this is an unsettling and uncertain time for all Wilko team members and greatly appreciate the dedication and patience they’ve shown since the start of the administration.”

Wilko had been struggling for some time with heavy losses before it collapsed into administration.

The discount chain was founded in 1930 in Leicester and by the 1990s had become one of Britain’s fastest-growing retailers.

But the brand, a stalwart of the High Street for decades, has faced strong competition in recent years from rivals including B&M, Poundland and Home Bargains.

The location of the majority of Wilko stores, in those High Streets which are struggling to attract shoppers, has also had an impact, with competition from suburban retail parks offering easier car parking.

‘It’s the hope that kills you’

One of the staff members said looking back now, there were signs that things “were not quite right” at the company.

“It did used to be a really good company to work for,” she says. “We were paid well over the minimum wage.”

Staff also got “perks” she added, including staff discount, a Christmas meal paid for and vouchers, but those days have since passed.

“You used to get a lot of perks just to say thank you for doing your job well, gradually that’s got less and less over the years.”

The staff member said she felt “let down” by Wilko’s owners, and both staff members the BBC spoke with said they do not have much faith in reports of a potential rescue deal.

“It’s just a nightmare,” said one. “It’s the hope that kills you.”

Related Topics

Companies

UK economy

More on this story

B&M buys up to 51 stores from collapsed rival Wilko

1 day ago

More Wilko jobs to go as 52 stores to close

1 day ago

[nim-lock]

Art Career Tips, 2021 Edition

Here’s an edited version of my 2019 answered ask, because... this feels relevant. 

It is a problem of capitalism that folks equate their income as a judgement of their value as people; and let me preface. You are worth so much. You have inherent value in this world. Your income is not a judgement on who you are (plenty of billionaires are actively making the world worse). LARPing self-confidence will go a long way to helping you get paid more for your work, because clients will believe that you know what you are doing, and are a professional. 

& real quick—my own background is that I’ve been living off my art since 2018. I went to art school (Pratt Institute). I work in a publishing/educational materials sphere, and a quarter of my income is my shop. Not all of this information may apply to you, so it is up to you to look through everything with a critical eye, and spot pick what is relevant. 

So there are multiple ways of getting income as an artist; 

Working freelance or full-time on projects

Selling your stuff on a shop

Licensing (charging other companies to use your designs)

This post primarily covers the freelance part; if you’re interested in the other bits there is absolutely info out there on the internet. 

IF you are just starting (skip to next section if not applicable) dream big, draw often (practice helps you get better/more efficient), do your best to take "a bad piece” lightly. You’re gonna RNG this shit. At some point your rate of “good” works will get higher. Watch tutorial videos & read books. A base understanding of “the rules”; anatomy, perspective, composition, color helps you know what the rules are to break them. This adds sophistication to your work. One way you can learn this stuff is by doing “studies”—you’re picking apart things from life, or things other people have done, to see what works, and how it works. 

Trying to turn your interests into a viable career means that you are now a SMALL BUSINESS; it really helps to learn some basic marketing, graphic design, figure out how to write polite customer service emails; etc. You can learn some of this by looking it up, or taking skillshare (not sponsored) classes by qualified folks. Eventually some people may get agents to take care of this for them—however, I do recommend y’all get a basic understanding of what it takes to do it on your own, just so you can know if your agent is doing a good job. 

Making sure your portfolio fits the work you want to get

Here is a beginner portfolio post. 

Research the field you’d like to get into. The amount people work, the time commitment, the process of making the thing, the companies & people who work for them. 

Create work that could fit in to the industry you’re breaking into. For example, if you want to do book cover illustration, you draw a bunch of mockup book covers, that can either be stuff you make up, or redesigns of existing books. If you’re not 100% sure what sort of work is needed for the industry, loop back into the portfolios of artists in a similar line of work as whatever you’re interested in, and analyze the things they have in common. If something looks to be a common project (like a sequence of action images for storyboard artists), then it’s probably something useful for the job. 

CLIENTS HIRE BASED ON HOW WELL THEY THINK YOUR WORK FITS WHAT THEY WANT. If they’re hiring for picture books, they’re gonna want to see picture book art in your portfolio, otherwise they may not want to risk hiring you. Doesn’t have to be 100% the project, but stuff similar enough. If you aren’t hired, it doesn’t mean your work is bad, it just wasn’t the right fit for that specific client. 

If you have many interests, make a different section of your portfolio for each!

Making sure you’re relevant 

Have a social media that’s a little more public-facing, and follow people in the career field you’re interested in. Fellow artists, art directors, editors, social media managers; whoever. Post on your own schedule. 

Interact with their posts every so often, in a non-creepy way. 

If you’ve made any contacts, great! Email these artists, art directors, editors, former professors, etc occasional updates on your work to stay in touch AND make sure that they think about you every so often.

Show up to general art events every once in a while! If you keep showing up to ones in your area (when... not dying from a sneeze is a thing), folks will eventually start to remember you. 

Industry events & conferences can be pricey, so attend/save up for what makes sense for you. Industry meetups are important for networking in person! In addition to meeting people with hiring power, you also connect with your peers in the community. Always bring a portfolio & hand out business cards like candy. 

Active job hunting

Apply to job postings online.

If interested in working with specific people at specific companies, you could send an email “I’d love to work with you, here’s my portfolio/relevant experience”, even if they aren’t actively looking for new hires. Be concise, and include a link to your work AND attached images so the person reading the email can get a quick preview before clicking for more. 

Twitter job postings can be pretty underpaid! Get a copy of the Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines to know your rate. I once had a twitter post job listing email me back saying that other illustrators were charging less, and I quote, “primarily because they’re less experienced and looking for their first commission”. This was not okay! For reference, this was a 64-illustration book. The industry rate of a children’s book (~36 pages) is $10k+, and this company’s budget was apparently $1k. For all of it. 

Congrats you got a job! Now what?

Ask for like, 10% more than they initially offer and see if they say yes. If they do, great! If not, and the price is still OK, great! Often company budgets are slightly higher than they first tell you, and if you get this extra secret money, all the better for you. 

Make sure you sign a contract and the terms aren’t terrible (re: GO GET THE  Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines) 

Be pleasant and easy to work with (Think ‘do no harm but take no shit’)

Communicate with them as much as needed! If something’s going to be late, tell them as soon as you know so they aren’t left wondering or worse, reaching out to ask what’s up. 

And if all goes well, they’ll contact you about more jobs down the line, or refer you to other folks who may need an artist, etc. 

Quick note about online shops/licensing and why they’re so good

It’s work that you do once, that you continuously make money off of. Different products do well in different situations (conventions vs. online, and then further, based on how you market/the specific groups you are marketing to), so products that may not do well initially may get a surge later on. 

Start with things that have low minimum order quantity and are relatively cheap to produce, like prints and stickers. 

If you are not breaking even, go back to some of the earlier portions of this and think about how you could tweak things as a small business. Ease of access is also very important with this; for example, if you only take orders through direct messages, that immediately shuts off all customers who don’t like talking to strangers. 

Quick resource that you could look through; it’s the spreadsheet of project organizing that I made a while back 

Licensing is when people pay you for the right to use your work on stuff they need to make, like textbooks or greeting cards. This is generally work you’ve already made that they are paying the right to use for a specified time or limited run of products. This is great because you’ve already done the work. I am not the expert on this. Go find someone else’s info.

“I am not physically capable of working much”/ “I need to pay the bills”

Guess who got a hand injury Sept 2020 that messed me up that entire month! I had a couple jobs going at the time that I was terrified of losing, but they were quite understanding when I told them I needed to heal. So:  Express your needs as early as you know you need them. Also do lots of stretches and rest your hands whenever you feel anything off; this will save your health later. Like, the potential of a couple months of no income was preferable over losing use of my hands for the rest of my life.

This continues to apply if you have any other life situation. Ask for extra time. Ask for clarification. If you tell people ahead of time, folks are often quite understanding. Know how much you are capable of working and do your best not to overdo it. (I am.. bad at this)

Do what MAKES SENSE for your situation. If doing art currently earns you less money than organizing spreadsheets, then do that for now, and whenever you have the energy, break down some of the tips above into actionable tiny chunks, and slowly work at em. 

The original ask I got in 2019 mentioned ‘knowing you’re not good enough yet’. Most artists experience imposter syndrome & self-doubt—the important thing is to do your best, and if anything, attempt to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. If he can apply to this job/charge hella money for Not Much, then so can you! 

Check out this Art Director tumblr for more advice!

Danichuatico’s Literary Agent guide

Kikidoodle’s Shop Shipping Tutorial

Best of luck!

–

Once again disclaimer this post is just the ramblings of a man procrastinating on other things that need to be done. I’ve Long Posted my own post so that it turns into mush in my brain if I try to read it, but I wrote this so I should know this content. If you got down here, congrats. Here’s a shrimp drawing.

Yee Ha. 

My reference post tag My tip jar

[miyatsumhoe]

Do you get déjà vu?

Déjà vu is the feeling that one has lived through the present situation before. This is a French phrase that translates literally as "already seen".

[Zhongli - Female Reader]

Soulmate AU by @miyatsumhoe

No matter how I look at it, something's not right.

I am a man of Rituals, everything goes by order. In 20 years of my existence, I have done the same things, I wake up early, go to work and go home. I feel great minding my own businesses in order. I say Organization is the key to success.

But when I'm with her... it frustrates me.

Like a cube forcing its way through a round hole.

It’s just not right.

“Ningguang thank you for bringing me here, this is my favorite place to rest. The overlooking is astonishing.”

“But I thought you’ve never been here? Love, As far as I know, this is your first time visiting here from what you told me you can’t travel because you’re short on finances.”

"Oh..."

Like a bright color trying to fit in a dark palette.

Like how the sun shines while the droplets of rain are pouring down.

It doesn’t fit at all.

“Hey! Close your laptop for once and take a break! I cooked a recipe I found online, It’s called Pork and Bamboo shoot soup. You have to try it.”

“You must be tired from wiping all those hilichurl camps, here’s a slow-cooked bamboo shoot soup as a reward! It’s raining so you’ll need it. The pork itself is fresh, it came from Springvale, chef Xiangling recommended this place to me…”

“A friend of mine from Yunnan recommended this Tea… It’s lovely and has many health benefits. Here, try it.”

“Master Zhongli, You are here again. We’re having tea right now, will you care to join us? This is called Pu Erh Tea. It is made from a larger leaf strain of Camellia Sinensis called Dayeh, which are ancient trees with mature leaves that are said to be between 500 and 1000 years old. These trees are usually grown in temperate regions and although they can be harvested year-round, the opportune time to harvest is in mid-spring. Granny Ruoxin and Pop’s Kai taught me how to brew one. The Earthy and mellow tones of the tea reminded me of master Zhongli at some point. It provides an exquisite and mature taste. It’s just so you…”

Why do I get déjà vu when I'm with you?

Why does meeting you taste like a strong black coffee complemented with milk and sugar?

It is bittersweet. I can't help myself to indulge more.

“My Love, I want you to meet my long-time friend from Yunnan! I’ve been so eager for the two of you to meet. Love, Meet Y/n! She runs a tea shop and is opening branches here!”

“Mr. Zhongli you have to meet this person! She makes the best teas in Teyvat at affordable prices!! You won’t have to worry about Mora anymore!”

“Hu Tao I don’t have time for this-”

“Oh! There She is! Mr. Zhongli, meet Tea Sommelier Y/n! She came from Qingce Village and will be opening a tea parlor here! Y/n is a friend of the famous chef Xiangling! Isn’t that great?! We have to try this Pop’s tea. It only cost 200 mora here!...”

“Hi, I am Y/n! I have heard so much about you Zhongli. It’s nice to meet you…”

“Hi, I am Y/n! Hu Tao talks about you a lot. It’s so nice to finally meet you…”

You continued to finish your sentence with closed eyes and a warm smile.

In my dreams, It’s always been Like that.

No matter how messed up everything is in our every lifetime

Whenever I'm with you everything falls in order.

It’s always been like that.

No matter what world, what timeline destiny will put us in.

We will meet again. It’s Fate.

Fate is called as such, for it cannot be changed, nor can it be reversed. It can only be accepted.

It’s always been like that.

Because this Contract with you is the only contract that I will never break.

“I finally met you....Y/n...”

[blackwoolncrown]

The defining feature of conversation is the expectation of a response. It would just be a monologue without one. In person, or on the phone, those responses come astoundingly quickly: After one person has spoken, the other replies in an average of just 200 milliseconds.

In recent decades, written communication has caught up—or at least come as close as it’s likely to get to mimicking the speed of regular conversation (until they implant thought-to-text microchips in our brains). It takes more than 200 milliseconds to compose a text, but it’s not called “instant” messaging for nothing: There is an understanding that any message you send can be replied to more or less immediately.

But there is also an understanding that you don’t have to reply to any message you receive immediately. As much as these communication tools are designed to be instant, they are also easily ignored. And ignore them we do. Texts go unanswered for hours or days, emails sit in inboxes for so long that “Sorry for the delayed response” has gone from earnest apology to punchline.

People don’t need fancy technology to ignore each other, of course: It takes just as little effort to avoid responding to a letter, or a voicemail, or not to answer the door when the Girl Scouts come knocking. As Naomi Baron, a linguist at American University who studies language and technology, puts it, “We’ve dissed people in lots of formats before.” But what’s different now, she says, is that “media that are in principle asynchronous increasingly function as if they are synchronous.”

The result is the sense that everyone could get back to you immediately, if they wanted to—and the anxiety that follows when they don’t. But the paradox of this age of communication is that this anxiety is the price of convenience. People are happy to make the trade to gain the ability to respond whenever they feel like it.

While you may know, rationally, that there are plenty of good reasons for someone not to respond to a text or an email—they’re busy, they haven’t seen the message yet, they’re thinking about what they want to say—it doesn’t always feel that way in a society where everyone seems to be on their smartphone all the time. A Pew survey found that 90 percent of cellphone owners “frequently” carry their phone with them, and 76 percent say they turn their phone off “rarely” or “never.” In one small 2015 study, young adults checked their phones an average of 85 times a day. Combine that with the increasing social acceptability of using your smartphone when you’re with other people, and it’s reasonable to expect that it probably doesn’t take that long for a recipient to see any given message.

“You create for people an environment where they feel as though they could be responded to instantaneously, and then people don’t do that. And that just has anxiety all over it,” says Sherry Turkle, the director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It’s anxiety-inducing because written communication is now designed to mimic conversation—but only when it comes to timing. It allows for a fast back-and-forth dialogue, but without any of the additional context of body language, facial expression, and intonation. It’s harder, for example, to tell that someone found your word choice off-putting, and thus to correct it in real-time, or try to explain yourself better. When someone’s in front of you, “you do get to see the shadow of your words across someone else’s face,” Turkle says.

In last month’s viral New Yorker short story “Cat Person,” a young woman embarks on a failed romantic relationship with a man she meets at the movie theater where she works. They only go on one date in the story; they get to know each other primarily over text. When the affair ends messily, it reveals not only how the bubble of romantic expectations can be popped by reality’s needle, but also how weak digital communication is as a scaffolding on which to build an understanding of another person.

In an interview, the story’s author, Kristen Roupenian, said the piece was inspired by “the strange and flimsy evidence we use to judge the contextless people we meet outside our existing social networks, whether online or off.” Indeed, even for the people we already know, we increasingly rely on contextless forms of communication. This puts an unusually large burden on the words themselves (and maybe some emojis) to convey what is meant. And each message, and each pause in between messages, takes on outsize importance.

“Text messages become marks on rocks to be analyzed and sweated over,” Turkle says.

It’s not always easy to figure out what someone meant to convey by using a certain emoji, or by waiting three days to text you back. Different people have different ideas about how long it’s appropriate to wait to respond. As Deborah Tannen, a linguist at Georgetown University, wrote in The Atlantic, the signals that are sent by how people communicate online—the “metamessages” that accompany the literal messages—can easily be misinterpreted:

Human beings are always in the business of making meaning and interpreting meaning. Because there are options to choose from when sending a message, like which platform to use and how to use it, we see meaning in the choice that was made. But because the technologies, and the conventions for using them, are so new and are changing so fast, even close friends and relatives have differing ideas about how they should be used. And because metamessages are implied rather than stated, they can be misinterpreted or missed entirely.

This metamessage opacity spawns thousands of other text messages a year, as people enlist their friends to help interpret exactly what their romantic interest meant by a certain turn of phrase, or whether a week-long radio silence means they’re being ghosted. (The New Yorker parodied this collaborative textual analysis in a video in which a group of women gather, war-room style, to answer the question “Was It a Date?”)

Features intended to add clarity—like read receipts or the little bubble with the ellipses in iMessage that tells you when someone is typing (which is apparently called the “typing awareness indicator”)—often just cause more anxiety, by offering definitive evidence for when someone is ignoring you or started to reply only to put it off longer.

* * *

But just because people know how stressful it can be to wait for a reply to what they thought would be an instant message doesn’t mean they won’t ignore others’ messages in turn.

Sometimes people don’t respond as a way of deliberately signaling they’re annoyed, or that they don’t want to continue a relationship. Turkle says sometimes taking a long time to write back is a way of establishing dominance in a relationship, by making yourself look simply too busy and important to reply.

But oftentimes, people are just trying to manage the quantity of messages and notifications they receive. In 2015, the average American was receiving 88 business emails per day, according to the market research firm Radicati, but only sending 34 business emails per day. Because—who has the time to respond to 88 emails a day? Maybe someone isn’t responding because they’ve realized the interruption of a notification negatively affects their productivity, so they’re ignoring their phone to get some work done.

I find myself ignoring or procrastinating even important messages, and ones I want and intend to respond to. I had to create a bright red “Needs Response” email label to battle my own “delayed response” problem. I regularly read texts, think “I’ll respond to that later,” and then completely forget about it.  Working memory—the brain’s mental to-do list—can only hold so much at once, and when notifications get crammed in with shopping lists and work tasks, sometimes it springs a leak.

“A lot of the time what’s happening is people have five conversations going on, and they just can’t really be intimate and present with five different people,” Turkle says. “So they kind of do a triage, they prioritize, they forget. Your brain is not a perfect instrument for processing texts. But it will be interpreted as though it really was a conversation, and so you can hurt people.”

* * *

Still, even though instant written communication can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, people prefer it. Americans spend more time texting than talking on the phone, and texting is the most frequent form of communication for Americans under 50.

While texting is popular worldwide, Baron, of American University, thinks that a strong preference for communication that can be easily ignored is a particularly American attitude. “Americans have far fewer manners in general in their communication than a lot of other societies,” she says. “The second issue is a real feeling of empowerment. I think we have become a version of power freaks, not just control freaks.”

In a survey Baron conducted in 2007 and 2008 of students in several countries including the United States, the things that people said they liked most about their phones were often related to control. One American woman said her favorite thing was “Constant communication when I want it (can also shut it off when I don’t).”

“What I have seen in this country, and I don’t know if it’s a national trait, is people wait until they think they have the perfect thing to say, as though relationships can be managed by writing the perfect thing,” Turkle says. “And I think that is something we pay a very high cost for.”

In Baron’s survey, people also mentioned feeling controlled by their phones—bemoaning how dependent they were on the devices, and how the constant connectivity made them feel obligated to respond.

But texts and emails don’t create as big of an obligation as phone calls, or a face-to-face conversation. When young adults are interviewed about why they don’t like making phone calls, they cite a distaste for how “invasive” they are, and a reluctance to place that burden on someone else. Written instant messages create a smokescreen of plausible deniability if someone doesn’t feel like responding, which can be relieving for the hider, and frustrating for the seeker.

More than anything, what the age of instant communication has enabled is the ability to deal with conversation on our own terms. We can respond right away, we can put it off for two days, or never get around to it at all. We can manage several different conversations at once. “Sorry, I was out with friends,” we might say, as an excuse for not texting someone back. Or, “Sorry, I just need to text this person back real quick,” we might say while out with friends.

As these things become normal, it creates an environment where we are only comfortable asking for slivers of people’s distracted time, lest they ever obligate us to give them our full and undivided attention.

[vimbry]

most interesting study of online economics and human behaviour I accidentally participated in was playing 2 fan recreations of the same game right after the other and comparing the experiences.

the first went live with very little to do on site. the only ways to make money were limited daily activites or gambling. some activites were a combination of both, meaning there was slim chance of making anything at all that day. the only guaranteed way of getting ahead was spending your Real Time camping out in shops and waiting for the restock of a sought after item that you could sell or trade. items for cosmetic changes, fun stuff like that. of course, since these items were somewhat pricey, you already needed money to Make money. and if you Did manage to scrape the money together, it didn’t really matter, because few other users had enough to purchase your resold stuff anyway, especially if it was a technically rare but less popular item. which meant constantly advertising what you had and desperately hoping to turn a profit/trade up, or just accept your losses and hope you snag something decent next time after you’ve recouped.

and that’s even if you have the time/energy/reflexes to dedicate to sniping little images on screen. there was big discourse over how people very clearly botted and autobought items, for some reason, because I guess there always exists a need to feel powerful in the most mundane things in the world. the rich get richer etc. people were bored, so they fought. they were bitter about price scalping, so they fought. no one really helped each other out because they were too focused on trying to get the best stuff themselves, since everything was so scarce, and those cosmetic changes were really the only goal to work towards, that was the money sink. this all happened within One Day of the site officially opening, by the way. the server was high levels of toxicity it was kinda nuts!

and honestly there’s no doubt that a lot of love and time was put into this ambitious non-profit passion project so I hesitate to criticise it at all really, and I don’t really know how it’s doing these days because I lost interest and left after a few months, but while I was playing it was still exactly like that. it took everything wrong with the original game and somehow made it worse.

the second fansite started off with some basic games that could net you a decent amount of money each day and developed from there. there were some gambling elements but it was very low stakes, meaning losses barely made a dent anyway. pretty quickly people were able to buy good items, grew their accounts. there are many QOL changes rather than faithfully recreating the site, which really improve the experience overall. the creator occasionally rebalances the game if results are veering towards either too difficult or unchallenging, to keep it interesting. features not yet implemented on the other fan game + new ones meant there are many different goals people could work towards and pour their money into, including ones that required all different types of items to be purchased. the server’s atmosphere is so nice and there’s such an abundance of content that people happily swap or donate their superfluous goodies to others. anyway I’m sure there’s something in this.

[angelic-holland]

Halo Effect ‣ demon!Tom

Y/N just wants to save her little sister. What happens when a handsome stranger promises her so much more? 

“I was too busy noticing all of the intricate ways in which the house at 11 Blackthorne Road seemed to collapse in on itself, that I failed to notice the horns peeking through your messy brown curls.”

Word Count: 11.2k

Warnings: mentions of cancer, supernatural elements, demons, hints at a possible mental illness/delusions, talk of death, open ending (take that as you will), psychological horror/thriller (I guess), mild smut

Author’s Note: i deleted this because I adapted it into a play but if people from irl find me here... welcome to my sins! 

October 31st, 2019

Your hands shook as you kneeled in the dirt of the road, digging a hole big enough for the small wooden box in your hands. You double check the contents. A polaroid picture of you and your sister, before she got sick, you were pushing her on a swing, her mouth was wide and mid-laugh and you had the brightest smile on your face. A small mason jar full of dirt from the graveyard. A yarrow root. And the bone from a black cat. It took finding the creepiest small ‘remedy’ shop in Salem, but when you told the woman what you were looking for, she was able to sell it to you for a hefty sum. That price didn’t matter. What you would get from this was priceless.

You look around you, the crossroads incredibly obvious, four roads that all met together, all dirt. The city never bothered to pave them, the only thing down one road was a big farmhouse, a run down bar along the other, the road back into the main town of Salem, and then there was your road. Sort of. The dirt road that led to 11 Blackthorne Road. Your house. It was old, built in the 1800s and you swore the entire foundation moved when more than two people were inside the house, but it was yours. You and your sisters. You smile slightly before you bury the wooden box, standing up. You don’t know how long this would take. Almost everything you read about summonings told you that they appeared in an instant. You check your watch, it was a little past three in the morning, the witching hour, the time at which you were most likely to summon one. The moon was high above you and reflects off the glass of your watch. You look around, feeling a slight breeze that sends a shiver down your spine and goosebumps up your arms.

You jump when you see him, his beauty takes your breath away. That definitely should not be the first thing you notice about him. It should be the way that his eyes seem to glow red before quickly disappearing to reveal a light brown. You notice the freckles and a little divot in his chin, the way his nose was just slightly crooked.

“Are you-, you’re-,” you stutter out, eyes roaming the body of the man standing in front of you. He’s wearing dress pants, a matching dark blue suit jacket, a fitted white shirt, shiny black and blue shoes. His hair is nicely done, dark brown curls brushed back out of his face, and his head is tilted to the side. It’s as if he enjoys watching your reaction to him.

“Who else would I be? Who did you summon?” He takes a step towards you.

You take a step back, stumbling over the pile of dirt you created. He catches you before you can fall, one hand on your back, the other holding your hand as he pulls you back up. You feel heat rise to your cheeks as he steps back again.

“You’re the, you’re a crossroads demon?” you ask, raising an eyebrow. He didn’t look like a crossroads demon. From what you’ve read online and in the books they were terrifying. Glowing red eyes and a hideous demeanor. This man, if you could call someone who looked so young, a man, is almost ethereal.

“The one and only,” he holds his arms out and laughs slightly, shaking his head, “not really the one and only, but the one you summoned.”

“Well how would you- did I choose you? How do you decide who gets to, you know, show up?”

You have so many questions, so many curiosities that you almost forgot the reason you summoned him in the first place.

“So you can grant wishes?” You ask, watching as he chuckles.

“I’m not exactly a genie. But I can give you something you want, it will cost you.”

“How much?”

“Your soul,” he answers with a shrug, this was nonchalant for him, a business deal of sorts.

“My soul?” You take a sharp inhale, logically, you knew that was what it would cost. Everyone said it. Everyone that agreed to their deal lost their soul after a specified amount of time. That was how this worked, to get something you had to give them something in return. But none of what you read really had much proof. They could very well have been ramblings of crazy people, much like so many centuries ago people accused ordinary women of being witches in your very own hometown.

“Your soul, not now, no, you can enjoy your soul for, how about one year?”

“Only one?” you nibble on your bottom lip, thinking about how little time one year seemed to you. That is, until you remember that one year for your sister was a lifetime, it was a shot in the dark, something that seemed impossible. Until now. Until a demon was standing in front of you, agreeing to give you anything you could possibly want for something that seemed incredibly trivial in return. You were never quite sure what a soul was. There were lots of conflicting philosophies regarding souls, consciousness, the afterlife. You felt that a soul was only a small part of what made you who you were. Surely your brain and heart were much more important than something without a physical representation within your body.

“I mean, I could just go,” the man begins to turn and you throw your hands out.

“Wait, no, one year, I’ll take it, please don’t go,” you sound desperate, but that was because you were, there was no hiding that. It was 3 in the morning, and you stood, shivering under the pale moonlight, begging someone that shouldn’t exist to take your soul in exchange for something. And it wasn’t just anything. It wasn’t something selfish like so many deals you read about. People sold their souls for money, for power, for fame. Apparently five of the United States presidents only won because they sold their soul for the pleasure of working at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Saving your sister in exchange for you soul wasn’t selfish, right? You aren’t saving her for you, not completely. You want to give her years and years of a life she never got to live.

He pauses, tucking his bottom lip between his teeth, raising an eyebrow before nodding, “Now, I’ve got your soul, in a years time, what is it that you want?”

“My sister, she has Ewing sarcoma, a type of cancer and she’s dying. All the chemotherapy, the radiation, it stopped helping since the cancer spread to her lungs and brain. There’s no-,” you suck in a sharp breath, hope. There’s absolutely no hope, except for him. He was the last ditch option that you thought was a scary story kids told each other. That is, until he showed up and promised to give you something in exchange for your soul.

You don’t notice the way his brain seems to go elsewhere as if he’s looking for something while you ramble. You don’t notice the way his eyebrows turn in and his lips turn down ever so slightly as you continue to talk.

“So we stopped treatment, she relaxes at home now. But she’s in pain, I know she is. She keeps telling me that it’s okay, that she’d rather spend her last few days reading at the little blue cushioned window seat but I know she’d rather have a lifetime of doing that. She deserves a lifetime of that. I want to give her a lifetime of that.”

“So that’s what you want? You want your sister to be healed? No more cancer?” He asks, watching the way you tap your fingers against your thigh, partially hidden by your thick wool sweater sleeves. You are tapping out a tune, a song you would sing to your sister while she was going through chemotherapy years ago.

“Yes, she’s dying. I want you to save her.”

“And what do you need?”

“My sister! I told you! She’s dying. That’s what I need. I need you to save her.”

“You want that. And I will save her. She’s a done deal. But that’s what you want. What do you need?”

“I don’t understand,” you shake your head. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe you were dreaming and he was actually an angel, a sign telling you that everything would work itself out. That you didn’t need to sell your soul to a demon to make sure your sister was okay. Maybe a new treatment would come out tomorrow and this deal would be for nothing.

“There has to be something you’ve always needed, maybe you were too busy giving everything to your sister to take anything for yourself.”

“I mean,” you pause, shaking your head, “no, this is stupid, I don’t need that.”

“What is it?” the man implores. You don’t step back when he takes a step towards you.

“Love. I mean, I’ve never gotten the chance to do much since my sister got sick at such a young age. It’s dumb right? To want a boyfriend, or something, while my sister is sick? I’m so fucking selfish,” you sigh, rubbing the back of your neck self-consciously.

“Quite the contrary, you’ve taken care of her for so long, you never got the chance to take care of yourself.”

He smiles but his eyes are sad, deep bags under them, he looks exhausted. You wonder if demons slept.

“I guess so.”

“So that’s what you need?” the man asks.

You nod, glancing back up at him, “what’s your name? How does this contract work?”

You have too many questions. You want to invite the man back to your house for coffee and stay up until morning finding out everything you could about him. It is as if you were on a first date.

“I’m Tom,” the man says, holding a hand out, you stare at it for a moment.

“Is that how you seal the deal?” You ask.

Tom laughs, shaking his head, “no, not at all.”

“Then how do you-,”

“A kiss.”

“A kiss?” You raise an eyebrow as he puts his hand back in his pocket.

“Or I could go,” Tom begins to take a step back. You follow him.

“No! Let’s kiss, and then it’s done? My sister won’t be sick and I’ll-,”

“You’ll find love, that’s correct.”

“Okay,” you’re only an inch away from Tom now. He cups your chin, bringing your lips to his. Your eyes flutter shut before you can see the way his eyes glow red and his other hand rests against your hip. It’s warm above your wool sweater and there’s a pain that sparks up your side, seemingly wrapping around your ribs, gently scraping against them.

“Ah,” you cry out as Tom’s lips leave yours.

“It’s the contract, etched into your ribs, an unbreakable bond,” he holds you as the pain begins to subside in one side before sparking up the other.

And then he kisses you again. It distracts you from the hollow feeling inside each of your newly carved ribs. It distracts you from the fact that you just sold your soul to him. Your hands find the back of his head, one holding his lips against yours, the other running through his curls.

“It’s done,” he breathes out as he pulls away.

“Did you want to meet my sister?”

He nods, his fingers slipping easily into the space between your own, “lead the way.”

“You know, I still don’t think you’re real,” you flush as the sleeve of your sweater brushes against his watch.

“You just kissed me, didn’t you?”

“I’ve kissed people in my dreams before.”

“This isn’t a dream.”

“How can I be sure?” you quicken your pace down the dirt road, passing trees with dark red and orange leaves, they seem to turn in on themselves as you walked past. You can only focus on the way the moonlight reflected off of To’s shoes. You pass your mailbox, running your fingers along the chipped paint, over the wooden curves, over the indented ‘11’ of 11 Blackthorne Road.

“Tomorrow morning, you’ll know. Your sister, she’s going to wake up and she won’t feel any pain. She won’t lie about it either, she’ll have the brightest smile on her face.”

“How can I trust you?” you ask, he doesn’t need to know that you already trust him. That he has already given you so much in that one instant with his lips on your own than you could ever give him in return. You forget for a moment that you gave him something priceless as well. You handed over one of the most important parts of yourself without thinking twice about the implications of what you’ve done. A year was a long time. You have 365 days with Lexi that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

“When you realize your sister is okay, that she can do things you wouldn’t have ever dreamed she would be able to do before, that’s when you know you can trust me.”

You walk up the four steps to your porch, your hand digging into your pocket to grab the key that would unlock your door. You know Lexi is asleep, so you tell Tom to be quiet. You freeze in your spot when you noticed that the doorknob was on the left. It was odd because the door always swung open to the left, the doorknob has always been on the right. You squeeze your eyes shut for a moment, maybe the man who appeared out of nowhere at the crossroads was a sign that you were dreaming. Why else would the door change like that?

When you open them, the doorknob is on the right, and the door swings open to the left. The foundation doesn’t move when you and Tom walk inside.

All is well at 11 Blackthorne Road.

You and Tom sit at your kitchen table, two mismatched seats on opposite ends of this old rickety table that was at the house when you moved in. His chair is a light blue metal one, yours a dark brown wooden one, three of the five back slats missing. You watch as he wraps his hands around the warm mug, he waits for you to speak as your foot taps against the white tile.

Eventually the silence is too much for him. No matter how many centuries he spent in hell, deafening silence as he was tortured, learning how to make deals, drowning out the quiet with his own tormented screams, this is somehow worse.

You have so many thoughts, so many things you want to say, to ask, but you can’t seem to think of a single one at the moment. You can’t form the questions on your lips.

“How long has your sister been sick?”

The question takes you by surprise, the genuine curiosity in the way his voice raised at the end of the statement. You figured demons were all knowing beings. They could grant wishes that otherwise weren’t physically possible. They could perform better miracles than the Catholic church. But Tom sits here and looks genuinely interested in learning more about you.

“She’s had cancer for a little over eight years. At first it was just Ewing Sarcoma, she noticed it one time, we were on the playground, she was 8, I was pushing her on the swingset and asked a mom who was playing with her little boy to take a picture of us. I just told Lexi a joke, I can’t remember what it was now, but she was laughing so hard when the mom took the photo of us. On the bad days, when she’s in so much pain she can hardly get out of bed, I try to imagine her like that. A little kid, happy, laughing, without a care in the world. But after the woman handed me the polaroid camera, Lexi stood up. She felt this horrible, horrible pain shoot up her leg. I took her right to the hospital. Our parents met us there. The next day she was diagnosed. They started her on chemotherapy, radiation, a whole medicine cabinet worth of drugs. She was in and out of the hospital for so long. One day she looked at me, the cancer spread to her lungs, her brain, she said ‘y/n, I don’t want to live out the rest of my life in a hospital bed. Take me home, let me enjoy the little time I have left.’ So I did, and we’ve been here ever since.”

You watch Tom’s eyes wander along the wall behind you, watching as the moon slowly crept along the horribly ugly wallpaper. It illuminates different parts of it, like a never ending tapestry, it appears to tell a story. When it shone on the curve of the darkened yellow, it is a bulging throat, full of unspoken words dying to get out. As the night progresses the moon shines on the part where the dark yellow drew in. The words came easier and easier and the throat is cleared.

As the sun replaces the moon you hear Lexi’s footsteps come padding down the stairs. Her cup of peppermint tea waiting for her in between you and Tom. You count the steps as she comes down. Thirteen.

“Lexi! There’s someone I’d like you to meet!” You call out to her.

She isn’t out of breath as she enters the kitchen like she normally is.

“Good morning,” she smiles brightly, raising an eyebrow at the unexpected guest sitting opposite of you.

“This is Tom, he’s a friend of mine.”

“Well hi Tom, friend of y/n,” Lexi smiles, picking up her mug.

“How do you feel?” You sit up, glancing at Tom excitedly.

“Great actually, I don’t have a headache, my leg doesn’t hurt. I think I’m going to open the window and listen to the robins sing while I read,” she smiles as she walks past you and you ruffle her hair.

She slips out of the kitchen and makes her way to the living room. You turn back to Tom, a wide smile on your face as a tear slips down your cheek.

“She’s really okay?”

He nods, his gaze still caught on the wallpaper an inch above and to the left of your head.

“And so are you,” he responds.

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

He shakes his head and chuckles, it bounces off the walls and echoes around his empty mug, he taps his ribcage. You’re reminded that he isn’t a doctor or a miracle worker. He isn’t an angel or a god. He is a demon and you sold him your soul for this. You would’ve gladly done it all over again.

You hear Lexi quietly reading her book, humming along to the song the robins sang.

You tell Tom you have to head into work later, at the Salem witch museum, the job you’ve had since high school.

“Is it alright if I head into town with you? Maybe pick up some clothes?”

“You want to stay?” You ask, face lifting up into a smile as Tom nods.

“If you’ll have me.”

“Sure, there’s this great thrift shop next to my work that has all types of clothes, you’d probably fit in best around here if you wore something other than that fancy outfit.”

“Business deals require business casual,” Tom stands up. And you remember that this was business as usual for him. Maybe he is just going to stay the night, to make sure you didn’t try to turn back on your deal. Maybe he’d be gone before the moonlight could force more words out of the ugly yellow and bloated throats that rise and fall on the wallpaper.

“Right, I uh, I’ll show you where the store is, and Lexi can let you in since you’ll be back before I’m out of work. I’ve only got one key.”

You change and Tom sits on the thirteenth step, feet tapping against the floor until he hears you coming down the stairs.

“Bye Lexi! I’ll be back by dinner time!” You call out to your sister and she calls back, she tells you she loves you and you call out a quick love you before locking the door behind you and Tom.

Your hand slips easily into Tom’s. It was as if your fingers were hand carved and crafted to fit between the space of his own. You point out different parts of town as you walk towards it. Even as the wind and cold bite your skin, he keeps you warm. Just his gentle hand in your own keep a fire burning low in your stomach. When you get to Main Street you point out the thrift shop, Tom squeezes your hand once before slipping inside. You smile, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear before opening the door to the museum.

“Hi Sally,” you wave at your boss who’s sitting at the information desk. You’re about to walk towards the employee room when she stops you.

“Y/N, I didn’t expect you to be here today. You can take the next few weeks off, I uh, I should’ve called you, I’m sorry. Why don’t you see about coming back on November 15th?”

“I’m here though, I can work, I uh, I’m okay to work.”

“It’s okay honey, really, go home, rest.”

“Okay? I guess I’ll see you on November 15th.”

“And if you need more time that’s okay as well,” Sally rests her hand on your shoulder but it feels cold. You nod, walking backwards out of the door and meet Tom inside the thrift shop.

“I thought you were working?” He asks, a bundle of winter clothes in his arms.

“I forgot I took some vacation time off the next two weeks,” you shrug, “I have such a scatterbrain sometimes when I’m running around trying to take care of Lexi.”

The weeks passed and the other shoe never dropped. Lexi’s left leg no longer ached, her migraines that used to keep her in bed all day were gone. You go back to work on November 15th like you told Sally you would. She greets you with a warm hug and Jeremy, the boy who you went to high school with, smiles when you sit down at the information desk with him.

“How are you?” He asks.

“I’m good, how was your Halloween?” You strike up casual conversation, never quite finding it easy to talk to Jeremy during the dull time in between visitors.

“Pretty good, how was yours? I mean, nevermind,” Jeremy shakes his head, looking disappointed in himself for asking. Before you can ask what he means, a family walks in.

You greet them, they ask you different questions about the Salem Witch Trials. They are visiting from Wisconsin and are really into the haunted history of your town. You walk with them throughout the exhibits, falling into the easy routine of telling the history of the trials, pointing out different artistic depictions of the time period. It felt easy, you’ve been giving the same speeches for over seven years now.

When you get home that night you fix up Lexi’s favorite sandwich, turkey and cheese on wheat bread. You set it down next to her, she hums and thanks you. She hasn’t quite gotten her appetite back. You figure it was only a matter of time before she did though. She’d beg you for apple cider donuts and you’d have to fight the box away from her before she ate them all and made herself sick.

And Tom stays. You didn’t think he would. But he did. He didn’t quite explain himself, but you didn’t mind. You want him to be here. He likes to ask you questions. While Lexi was too busy buried in her book, sitting up against the frosted glass window, Tom talks to you at the kitchen table. He sits in the blue metal chair. You sit in the wooden one. Just the other day it was missing 3 slats. You stand up and looked at the chair, counting the slats and the holes where the slats should have rested.

One.

Two.

Three.

There are only three slats total, two missing. You sit down again, maybe you aren’t looking at it right, you feel one slat against your back so you close your eyes and sit so your back doesn’t touch the wood. Your thigh almost falls off the chair, it has to have been smaller than the last time you sat in it.

“I said have you always lived in Salem?” Tom asks, distracting you from the way you felt like the edges of the table were closer together than they were when you sat down.

“Yeah, I uh, yes, we have,” you nod. Your fingers tap against the wood of the table. It feels hollow.

***

Tom doesn’t sleep. You figure as much when he would keep you up very late asking you all sorts of questions. You’d lay on your side of the bed, the homey indent felt safe. He found a spot next to you, and slowly, as slowly as the frost hardened the grass and snow began to fall from the sky, his side of the bed became indented as well.

The next morning you wake up, your head finds his chest and his hand finds your shoulder. He presses a burning kiss to your forehead, you appreciate the gesture at 11 Blackthorne Road, for it has no heating and as December is drawing to a close, you are getting colder and colder.

“You don’t sleep do you?”

“Hmmm?” Tom asks as you sit up, swinging your feet off the edge of the bed and standing up. You pause as you listen to the fifth floorboard creak underneath you.

“Do you sleep?”

Tom stands up. The floorboard under him doesn’t make a sound.

“No,” he begins to get dressed for the day, you didn’t care for an explanation. It all seems routine now, he would change in the bathroom, you would change in the bedroom. Then you’d knock and join him to brush your teeth. The bathroom is always twelve steps to the left of your bedroom. Today you only took eight. When you see Tom smiling widely at you, toothpaste and all, you convince yourself you just took bigger steps to get to him quicker.

He kisses your cheek, leaving a toothpaste stain which you wipe off with a grimace. You playfully scold him until he wraps his hands around your waist and sets his chin on your shoulder.

“You look really pretty when you frown darling,” he kisses your cheek again.

“I feel like I look better when I’m smiling,” you begin to brush your teeth as Tom smiles against the skin of your neck.

“You always look great,” he shrugs. You can’t help but wonder if the mirror in front of you is smaller than when you walked in.

***

You’ve never had a better Christmas than this one. Honestly, the last good Christmas you can recall was when you were 15 years old. It was the last Christmas before Lexi was diagnosed. It was the last Christmas you spent with your mom, your dad, and her in your small apartment above the laundromat on Main Street. Every Christmas since then was spent in a hospital room or here, alone, with Lexi too sick to get out of bed. She is in somewhat of a bad mood, but you convince yourself that with a cup of peppermint tea she will be feeling better.

Tom laughs and pokes your side as you pour a glass of eggnog for you and him, “maybe she’s finally going through the angsty teen rebellion era now that she’s better.”

That shouldn’t make you smile as big as it does, you couldn’t help but break out into laughter as you bring the glasses down the hallway towards the living room. You laugh so loud you almost don’t count the 28 steps it should take you to get there. You freeze at the door, it only took 20 steps.

You shake it off when you hear Lexi’s gentle hum from the windowsill.

“Could I get some more tea?” she asks, sticking out her empty mug.

You look at it, bright yellow bumblebees painted along the old white ceramic.

“Sure let me grab you a new mug and I can wash this one later-,”

“No!” Lexi snaps at you as you take the mug from her hand.

“What is it?” You ask, raising an eyebrow at your sister. She crosses her arms over her chest and huffs out a sigh.

“I don’t want a different mug.”

“You can use mine, the one with black cats on it, I’ll wash this after we open presents and-,”

Then Lexi does something you’ve never seen her do. She stands up and she gets angry.

She’s been angry plenty of times before. Angry at the world for giving her cancer, angry at a God she didn’t know if she believed in, angry at the snow that fell that one December five years ago, obscuring your parent’s vision on their drive to the hospital and taking them away. But she’s never been angry at you.

“I don’t want another mug! I can’t have another mug!” She screams, eyebrows knitted together as she almost dares you to do anything but decide to walk the 28 steps to the kitchen and wash her mug.

“Why don’t you and Tom relax while I go clean this then? Tell him about the different ornaments on the tree,” your voice shakes as Lexi rolls her eyes but sits down on one side of the tree.

Tom gives you a gentle smile before sitting down next to Lexi. You smile back, watching as he asks her about the witch sitting atop the tree in lieu of an angel.

You count only 17 steps to the kitchen. You walk to the sink as tears blur your vision. You know this is Lexi acting out, acting like the teenager she never previously got the chance to be. It still stung that she is as cold as the winter. It sends an uneasy shiver down your spine, you clean her mug, smiling at the bumblebees, three of them painted in light yellow and a strikingly contrast black.

When you get back to the living room she smiles when you hand her the mug. But then she is upset when you try to give her a present, it’s just a book. An old copy of The Awakening that you found at the thrift store a few days ago.

“I don’t want the Awakening! I like reading Frankenstein! Can’t I just read Frankenstein?”

“Of course! You can read Frankenstein! You can read whatever you want, I was just giving you something you might like.”

“Well I don’t want it.”

“Okay,” you set the book down by your side, she doesn’t even touch it.

You were never one for getting gifts, she doesn’t get you anything. She doesn’t have to. She gives you her time, she gives you warm smiles and humming by the window even though it is all too cold. She gives you a purpose in life. What use would a silly Christmas gift be?

Tom gives you a beautiful satin black nightgown. You almost cry when you take it out of the bag and run your hands across the material.

“It’s beautiful,” you smile through teary eyes. You don’t expect the reaction from Lexi that you get.

“So now all of a sudden you want presents?” She crosses her arms over her chest.

You take a deep breath before looking out the window. You notice that no matter how wide and expansive it once was, it was now no bigger than a normal size window. You see the snow falling on the ground. You wish you and Lexi could make snow angels. A gentle squeeze on your hip from Tom and a snide comment from Lexi brings you back to reality.

“What does he give you that’s so special? Do you love him more than me?” She stands up and you drop the nightgown, standing to chase after her.

“No! Enjoy Christmas with Tom, he clearly means more to you,” Lexi storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her. There is only six floorboards where there should be nine.

You don’t drink any eggnog and Lexi’s peppermint tea gets cold.

Tom carries you up the stairs, your head tucked into his neck, the nightgown clutched in your hands.

Because you aren’t walking up the steps, you don’t notice that there are only twelve instead of thirteen stairs.

That night you don’t do anything routine. He doesn’t change in the bathroom, you don’t kiss his cheek with a toothpaste smile.

Instead you cry while he helps you change. And he calls you beautiful even while you have tears running down your cheeks and the moon reflects the redness in your eyes. He feels that they almost glow red like his own. There is something deeply intimate in the gentle touch of his hands on your skin, taking your sweater off, unzipping and pulling down your pants. He is a gentleman, keeping his eyes on your face the entire time, kissing your forehead as he stands back up. He helps you hold your hands up and pull the nightgown on, kissing the palm of your hand to your inner elbow. Every touch sets your skin on fire. It distracts you from the aching in your ribs.

“I’m scared Tom,” you whisper.

“Why darling?” He asks as he pulls the covers over the two of you, letting you rest your head on his shoulder and a leg over his own. It isn’t needed, he keeps you so warm there is a fire that burns incredibly deep inside of you, you can’t help but feel terrified that maybe it is filling your lungs with smoke. But even so, you would gladly let him.

You cry into Tom’s shoulder, “I think something’s wrong with Lexi.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Because, I feel like she’s changed.”

“Changed how?”

“Her personality. Like she’s harsher and she gets very angry easily. I don’t know, she’s different.”

You can’t help but notice the change that blanketed over 11 Blackthorne Road and its occupants. The way that there isn’t the right number of floorboards or the way Lexi snaps at you, the way the mirror is smaller than when you first moved in or the way you allow yourself to cry for the first time in years, and the way the window seems to draw smaller and smaller each day or the way the newest occupant never seems to move the foundation of the house.

“I know you think she’s different, but she’s 16 right?” Tom asks and you nod.

“Darling, like I said earlier, maybe she’s just being a moody teenager, I wouldn’t think anything of it.”

Tom presses a burning kiss to your forehead and you fall asleep in his arms in your new nightgown. You almost don’t notice the way that you have to huddle close to Tom because the bed is getting smaller and smaller.

***

As the snow melts and the trees begin to perk up with beautiful green leaves, Lexi seems to be happier. At the very least she is eating. She insists on making her own meals, she always ate at the window before you wake up or when you are at work, but you notice the dishes from her food piled in the sink. She even makes grocery lists for you. You ask her if she wants to go with you one day. It is April, it’s been about two weeks since it last snowed.

You are standing at the sink, making small talk about an upcoming exhibit with Tom. You’re washing the dishes, he is drying them.

“Why?” Lexi crosses her arms over her chest and even though you aren’t looking, you know she is rolling her eyes.

“Just thought it would be nice for you to get out of the house, but if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Are you feeling okay?” You turn, nervous now. Maybe she is starting to feel sick again. Maybe she would feel another pain in her leg and you’d go to the hospital and the doctors would sit you both down and say ‘I know you thought you were cancer free Lexi, but cancer has a funny way of showing up at the most inconvenient of times’. You glance at Tom wearily, he rests the dish towel on his shoulder and moves a gentle hand to your waist.

“I don’t feel up to it today,” Lexi shrugs.

“Okay, anything else to add to the list?” You dry your hands on the dish towel, setting it back on Tom’s shoulder.

“Could you pick up those apples? Not the green ones, the like almost yellow ones?”

“Of course,” you nod and are taken aback when she hugs you, arms wrapped tight around you. You smile until you feel how cold and skinny she is, you pull back, “Why don’t you put on a sweater and close the window before you go back? You’re freezing.”

You hurry Tom along at the grocery store, afraid if you take too long and if you leave Lexi alone at 11 Blackthorne Road for much longer that she will sink into the blue window seat and never be seen again.

***

It is July and you take Tom to see the fireworks down at Salem Willows. You ask Lexi to come with you, but she shakes her head and says the noise would give her a headache. She blows up on you.

“Can you stop trying to get me to do things?” Lexi crosses her arms over her chest.

“I just miss all the fun things we used to do together Lex, don’t you? If you’re better now, why can’t you come with us?” You feel tears in your eyes.

“Just let me go when I’m ready! It’s not up to you if I feel up to going places! Why don’t you just forget about me and run off with Tom? You hardly pay attention to me anymore anyways.”

Lexi has to know that that wasn’t true. That you spend every single day waiting for the other shoe to drop, that you are terrified of this change that has crept inside of Lexi’s heart and makes her cold.

But you don’t want to argue with her. You will gladly let her yell at you now if it means that at some point in the future she would get the courage to go outside. See the fireworks, walk around town, visit you at work, go apple picking.

Tom guides you out of the house, you only count three stairs down the front porch. He keeps walking too quickly for you to stop and count them again.

Tom holds your hand as you walk through town, thumb rubbing soothing circles into the skin as you say hello to various people in town.

“It’s so nice to see you y/n,” your old high school English teacher hugs you, pulling back to smile at Tom, “and who might this charming young man be?”

“Name’s Tom miss, I’m y/n’s boyfriend,” he smiles as he slips his hand back into yours.

The word feels amazing coming from his lips, and spread a huge grin on your own as you lay out the blanket. Tom kisses you under the fireworks, his hand rests on your ribcage over your tank top, you cup his face, fingers brushing over his freckles.

You walk back home with your head on Tom’s shoulder, your hands intertwined and swinging between you. You don’t notice as you walk up two steps to the front door instead of four.

***

The leaves are beginning to change colors again, from crisp green to soft reds and oranges. People flock to the town of Salem at this time of year, the museum was always busy with tourists wanting to learn all about the Salem Witch Trials. It keeps you busy. You are starting to enjoy the times you aren’t at 11 Blackthorne Road. When you walk through the exhibits of the museum, telling people all about the history of your town. When Tom and you  walk hand in hand to the grocery store, he likes to kiss you in line at the check out, one hand on your hip, the other gently curled around your side, gliding up your ribs. You look forward to your grocery store trips.

When you walk home later that night, after a particularly long shift, Tom is sitting in the kitchen, you can smell peppermint tea and you shiver as you slip your shoes off by the front door. You pass the living room door, pausing when you notice the window is open. Lexi is probably going to catch a cold if she is sitting at the window the entire day, the cold air isn’t good for her. You tsk, attempting to rub warmth back into your arms as you count the floorboards to the window seat.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

There is supposed to be nine. You furrow your eyebrows, shaking your head as you shut and lock the window. You promptly turn and count the floorboards as you walk back to the door.

Nine floorboards. You exhale as you walk to the kitchen. Tom is sitting on the wooden chair, you sit down opposite him in the blue metal one.

“How was work?” Tom asks, taking a sip of his tea.

“Not bad, very busy, all these kids wanted to know if the Bloody Mary myth was true, I had to explain to them that it wasn’t. They kept asking me if all of this paranormal stuff was real, ghosts, demons, I had to bite my tongue,” you let out a laugh as Tom reaches his hand across the table and traces a line in your palm.

“Probably not the best idea to tell them that demons are real,” he smiles, biting his lip.

“Yeah, then they’d try to steal you away from me.”

“Never,” Tom trails his fingers up to the crease of your inner elbow and gently taps at the skin.

“Want to get ready for bed?”

“Sure, let’s go darling,” Tom rests a hand on your hip and follows you up the stairs. You don’t realize there are only twelve instead of thirteen steps.

You both brush your teeth in the bathroom, and he places a toothpaste covered kiss on your cheek, which you groan at and wipe off. You return the favor before rinsing your mouth out and making your way back to your bedroom.

You change into your nightgown, the black satin one Tom got you for Christmas almost a year ago. You have a warm smile on your face as Tom opens the door and walks towards the end of the bed, the moonlight casting a shadow across his face. It doesn’t scare you when you can’t see him fully and completely, it only brings a warmth to your belly when he stands right in front of the bed, the moon shining high above his head now.

“You keep saying that I’d find love Tom, but love was right in front of me this entire time,” you watch as he gets closer and closer to you.

You sit back against the headboard. You ignore the way it seems to warp against your body. You ignore the way his shadow on the far left wall is inverted and shorter than it should be. Or maybe it’s the wall that’s shorter? You scan the green wallpaper, the very top corner curling in on itself, shrinking.

“You love me?” He asks, kneeling at the edge of the bed. Your legs are stretched out in front of you, his knees almost touching your toes.

“I mean, I didn’t want to admit it for a long time, but you were the person I found love in. Is that such a bad thing?”

Tom smiles and shakes his head. “No, because I love you too.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No actually, after you said your sister was better, I figured I could leave. I would let you fall in love with that nice boy who works at the museum with you. He’s had a crush on you since high school you know?”

Heat rises to your cheeks and you shake your head. You have no idea Jeremy even gives you the light of day. But he doesn’t matter. You love Tom. You love the way the moonlight curled around the side of his face, whispering up his jaw, across his cheek bone, trailing up his hair to rest gently above his head. It stands out against the green wallpaper, Tom’s biceps standing out against his white T-shirt, for a moment you swear the moonlight turns into a ring and sits atop his head like a halo. You gasp as his warm hands gently run up your legs and he settles between them.

“I love you too, I love you because of your selflessness. I love you because you let me into your life, a big scary demon, and you accepted me for that. You didn’t love me because of that. You didn’t love me despite that. You loved me as a completely separate entity from the worst quality I have that I can’t get rid of. You are the first person I’ve met in centuries of deals that has ever made me feel anything at all.”

“Tom,” you feel tears well up in your eyes as you sit up. The headboard stays warped and you cup his cheeks in your hand, bringing his lips to your own.

“I love you because I can’t picture spending eternity anywhere but right next to you, on top of these blue sheets, making peppermint tea and eating apple cider donuts,” he admits when he pulls back slightly.

“I love you Tom,” you smile, focusing on his eyes instead of the way the wallpaper continues to curl in on itself, then the wall, slowly the door is closer to the bed than it should be. The moon reflects off the very top of the door instead of the corner of the room. He helps you lie back on the pillow. The headboard is smooth again.

“May I?” He asks, running his hand up your thigh, watching as you shiver beneath him.

“Please,” you nod, his fingers brush against the edge of your black nightgown.

He pushes the satin material up past your waist, kissing across the skin of your thigh, passing your underwear, trailing soothing kisses along the skin of your stomach, his chin lightly pressed against the top of your panties.

“You’re beautiful,” he mumbles and you whimper as his fingers inch higher and higher, hooking into your underwear, “may I?”

You nod, giving him permission with a breathy moan.

Tom can’t help but notice how bittersweet you taste.

You can only focus on one curl brushing down in front of his eyes, and the way one of his hands tightens on your thighs, leaving fingerprint bruises as you cry out his name. You are gasping for air when he brings you to completion. You are utterly overwhelmed by the feeling of his fingers inside of you and the way the moon reflects over the white door to your room.

But that isn’t where the moon should be. You glance over at your clock as Tom kisses up your body. It is 3am. The moon should be right in front of you, staring back at you. You close your eyes as Tom’s lips press against yours. You feel his fingers brush against your ribcage and you whimper as you remember the contract etched into your bones.

“Do you want me to stop?” His lips wet and red against your neck.

“No, please, I need your love Tom,” you feel hot wet tears on your cheeks and then his burning kisses taking them away.

“You have it,” he whispers, kissing you as you run your hands under his shirt, across his stomach to rest against his beating heart.

He sits up, helping you take his shirt off. His skin seems to be on fire, blotches of red patches stain his chest, you stare in awe as he helps you take your nightgown off.

“You’re so beautiful darling,” Tom whispers as he presses a kiss to your forehead.

He takes off his sweatpants and underwear and when you wrap your legs around his waist and he fills you so completely, you swear you feel the edge of the bed creep up against your shoulder. You have to close your eyes as he buries his face in your neck because you’re afraid if you keep them open the bed will be reduced to something so small neither of you will fit. And you don’t want this moment to end because 11 Blackthorne Road decides to grow smaller in the most inconvenient way.

So you keep your eyes squeezed shut. And you don’t notice the hazy red glow of Tom’s eyes. You don’t notice the way the upper corner of the wallpaper curls away from the wall, revealing the old stained wood and insulation. You don’t notice the way the back legs of the bed scrape against the twelfth floorboard instead of the eighth. You don’t notice that the floorboards get thinner and thinner, that even though they seemed to multiply, the room continues to shrink.

You gasp into his mouth as you come, his hand seems to curl against your side, almost past your skin, past the muscle, like his fingers whisper against the bone, tracing the words he put there what seemed like so long ago.

You’re cold after everything. You thought Tom would’ve set your insides on fire like he always does, and he did, from the time his lips attached to your own and his hands ran up your sides. He reached inside of you with red wispy tendrils of fire. You are still cold. His arms are tight around your bare middle, but you are freezing cold.

You both clean up, he lets you wear his grey sweatpants after you pull the covers over both of you and you are still shivering in just your nightgown. Then you take that off and change into a sweater. When you open the closet to grab it, you falter for a moment. Your hand collides with solid wood where the doorknob should be. The doorknob is always on the right. The door swings open to the left. But now the doorknob is on the left. You close your eyes. You think of Tom’s fingers whispering hidden universes into your sides and his lips breathing beautiful smoke into your lungs. You allow the fire to settle in your stomach. You open your eyes and the doorknob is exactly where it should have always been. The door swings open to the left. You pull your sweater on and climb back into the homey indent your body made, curling up next to Tom. You rest a head on his bare chest and he maneuvers an arm around your shoulder.

All is well at 11 Blackthorne Road.

****

October 31st, 2020

You wake up with your head resting on Tom’s chest, it is peaceful, the sun shines in through the dull green curtains, illuminating the freckles and bumps and grooves in his skin. He is lying awake, his mind elsewhere until you speak.

“You know, sometimes I think you’re really an angel,” you smile into Tom’s bare chest as he runs a hand up and down your arm.

“Why’s that?”

“You gave me everything I could have ever wanted. You gave my sister the miracle of remission. You gave me love. Besides, I read about it. Demons are only supposed to give someone one thing in their deal. I’ve read about deals between humans and demons they’ve documented. None of them are given more than one thing in their deal. Tangible or otherwise.”

“What makes you think I gave you anything else?”

“What?” You sit up, pushing your back against the headboard and staring down at Tom. He rests his hand under his head and raises an eyebrow at you.

You feel a warp in your headboard that wasn’t there a moment ago. The wood seems to bend to the shape of your body and you pull away from it, standing up and scrambling to grab your bathrobe, pulling it over your suddenly all too cold body.

“What is it?” Tom asks, running his hand along the bedspread, the indent where you were just laying.

“What do you mean by that?” You ask, stepping back, the floorboard is supposed to creak here, it always did when you stepped on it. The house is all too eerily quiet. You step forward, not because you want to go back towards Tom, but because you need to hear the tiny squeak that the floorboard always makes. It is the 5th floorboard that makes that noise.

There’s a sharp pain in your ribs as you stumble back, “what’s happening?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Tom’s voice is laced with pain as he sits up and the bed groans.

“Couldn’t tell me what?” Tears sting your eyes as Tom stands up. You glance at his side of the bed. The headboard isn’t warped. There’s no homey indent in the soft blue sheets. He takes a step towards the end of the bed, towards you. The eighth floorboard squeaks. Or is it the seventh? Your eyes wander to the faded green wallpaper, scanning to the baseboard running along the bottom of the wall. You count the floorboards with bated breath.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Tom is standing on the eighth floorboard.

When you first inherited the house, after your parents died and you and Lexi packed up your things and moved to this old plot of land that belonged to your mom’s family for centuries, you felt like this room was the largest room in the entire house.

It has a huge lovely window opposite the door, dusty green curtains that to this day, no matter how many times you washed them, still collected dust easier than it reasonably should have. You should have known though. Nothing in this house is reasonable. Not even yourself.

Now the window seems to be hardly the size of a piece of paper. You could barely look out of it. You notice how the curtains would make a lovely scarf.

The dark oak floorboards were wide and ran horizontally from the window to the door.

Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve.

Thirteen.

Fourteen.

Fifteen.

The floorboards seem to get thinner and thinner. Even as you counted them, a watchful eye inspecting their change down to the millimeter. They are sneaky. But they shrink anyway.

Tom shifts his weight from one foot to the other. The 8th floorboard creaks again.

It doesn’t make sense, it is your side of the bed that has the creaky floorboards. And it isn’t the 8th, it is the 5th, it was always the 5th. You close your eyes and take a deep breath. On the exhale you shift your weight and the floorboard under you creaks

Your eyes dart to the baseboard and you begin to count again.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

You look at the floorboards underneath your feet, just as wide as when you dragged this old bed up here years ago. The fifth floorboard creaks underneath you.

“Y/N, what’s going on?” Tom’s eyes are nothing but full of concern as he joins you on the fifth floorboard, resting his hands on your shoulders so he could look you in the eyes.

“What couldn’t you tell me Tom?” Your voice raises as your hands shake at your sides.

“The last good day,” he breathes out, as if saying that lifted this incredible weight off his shoulders.

“What do you mean? Come on, don’t talk like that, just say what you mean to say.”

“Your sister, her last good day. October 29th, 2019.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It was her last good day. She sat on the window seat, it was still worn down and indented from how often she would sit in it. She drank peppermint tea and read Frankenstien. It was an old copy,  one you found at a bookstore on Main Street when she begged you for new books to read during chemotherapy. She’s had to have read that book hundreds of times. It was one of the only books she read.”

“Stop, Tom, what are you saying?”

Tom just smiles sadly and continues, “You went to give her her pain medication, she just smiled at you and said she didn’t need it. That she wasn’t in pain. She said that maybe later that day the two of you could go apple picking. You laughed, it seemed like a ridiculous request, she hasn’t walked without a walker or stepped foot outside of the house in over a year. She wanted to go apple picking? And then she looked at you and shook her head, she said that ‘today, y/n, I can do anything I want.’ You ruffled her hair, and she scowled but she secretly loved it. You agreed with her, said that you could drink apple cider and eat apple cider donuts, that maybe you couldn’t pick the apples, but the apples could come to you instead. Then you told her you were going to run to the store, you needed to pick up those groceries. She said she loved you, and you said ‘love you too Lex’.”

“Tom, stop,” your lower lip trembles as bits and pieces of that day come flashing through your mind.

You remember a skip in your step as you walked back to the house, a bag of apples in one hand, in the other were a box of apple cider donuts and a half gallon of apple cider. You were going to be sick of apples after that day, but you didn’t mind because Lexi wanted apples. You remember the way the police sirens signaled to you the end of the world. You remember the way the red and blue ambulance lights reflected against the trees lining the dirt road up to your house. You remember dropping the apples, stumbling over them and crushing one underneath your foot. You remember dropping the apple cider and donuts, the cider splashed against your pant leg as you took off in a sprint towards your house.

You remember the noise you made, the high pitched scream as your knees collapsed beneath you and they told you she was gone.

“Lexi,” you gasp, pulling away from Tom’s hold and running out of the room, you run down the hallway, it seems to narrow, the area where the staircase was is now a small pin in the distance. You keep running. You’re out of breath by the time you get to the stairs. You count them as you gasp for air.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve.

You stumble and fall to the wooden floor, there is supposed to be a thirteenth stair. There has always been a thirteenth stair.

Tom’s footsteps tumble down the stairs behind you as you struggle to stand up.

“Y/N, please, wait!” Tom shouts as you run towards the living room. You run right past the door. It’s supposed to be here, you stop and turn, face to face with the light yellow wallpaper that wraps around the hallway down towards the kitchen.

You take two steps back, why is the door here now? Tom watches your confusion. Is the house getting smaller? Each pass down the hallway the living room door seems to inch closer and closer to the front door.

You throw the door open, eyes landing on the empty blue window seat. The soft indent where Lexi usually sat is no longer worn down, you run to it, almost colliding with it. It should be nine floorboards away from you but it is only six. You fall to the ground as your fingers grasp at the soft material of the seat.

“You only gave me one thing,” you gasp for air, trying to smell the familiar scent that seems to seep into the walls of 11 Blackthorne Road. Peppermint tea. Golden apples.

“I couldn’t have given you what you wanted,” Tom says, kneeling down next to you.

You feel tears drip down your cheeks as you remember.

You signed your sister’s body over to the medical examiner, Lexi always insisted her body be donated for science when she died. You had to give her what she wanted. You almost didn’t sleep that night, you curled up on the blue window seat with her Frankenstein book. That very next morning, you woke up to a gentle nudge on your shoulder.

“That’s my seat,” Lexi smiles at you, snatching the book from your hands.

“I couldn’t give you Lexi’s remission. She was gone when you decided to summon me.”

“You’re lying,” You shake your head, “that was a nightmare, the next morning she was there, she took the book from my hands and sat back down in her seat. She asked me for her pain medications and her peppermint tea. I knew I had to help her, help her more than I ever had. And I did! I found you! You made her better! You took away her pain!”

“Where is she now? If she’s alive where is she now?” Tom asks, he’s pleading with you.

“She’s gone for a walk, she wanted to, she wanted to go apple picking. You know what? She’ll be back soon, I should make her some tea before she gets back,” you brush Tom’s hands off your shoulders and stand up. There’s an indent where Lexi sat. You busy yourself counting the steps towards the kitchen. There should be twenty eight. Exactly. You catch yourself before you can almost walk right out the back door.  You turn and walk back to where the living room door is. Then you walk towards the kitchen again. Sixteen steps to the entrance. You don’t have time to recount, you know what 11 Blackthorne Road is doing by now. You know it is closing in on you. But you don’t have time to fret. Lexi would be back soon. You have to get her tea started.

You turn on the stove, setting the kettle on top of the flame. You step one foot to the left to grab the peppermint tea from its spot in the cabinet, you tilt your head because the cabinet isn’t there anymore and take a half a foot to the right. Was the cabinet always this skinny? It seems to stretch upwards for a mile, you have to reach up on your tiptoes to grab the box. It is empty.

“Tom! I’m going to run to the store to pick up some peppermint tea, turn the stove off when the water finishes boiling!”

You count twenty eight steps to the living room door. You slip off your bathrobe and hang it on the staircase, slipping into your shoes. You tug at your wool sweater, the sleeves hung at the tips of your fingers and as you shut the door to 11 Blackthorne Road behind you you have to wrap your arms tightly around yourself. The autumn breeze nips at your skin as you kick a rock down the old dirt road. You pass the crossroads where you met Tom all that time ago. You continue walking as goosebumps rise on your skin. You buy three boxes of peppermint tea. It’s best to stock up, that way you won’t have to leave Lexi alone too often. The woman ringing you out smiles sadly as you tell her your sister is out apple picking and you are going to make her a nice warm cup of tea for when she comes home. You kick the same rock back down the dirt road. You pay attention to that rather than the billowing smoke rising up from 11 Blackthorne Road. You look up, red embers reflected in your irises.

Tom stands amongst the flames, hand outstretched, beckoning, inviting.

You drop the paper bag from your hand.

You watch as the house gets smaller, the wooden shingles of the roof burn, the wispy green curtains seem to evaporate, the porch steps engulfed in flames, fire whispering up the sides of Tom’s dark blue dress pants.

You run your hand along the wood of the mailbox, fingers tracing the ‘11’ of 11 Blackthorne Road. A jagged piece catches your thumb, tearing the skin. You watch the blood drip onto the dirt in front of you.

You notice there are only two steps up to the porch. You squeeze your eyes shut and think of the flames that Tom’s fingertips always seemed to draw out from your ribs. You think of the way his lips felt on your own. You think of the hazy red glow in his eyes that you ignored. You think of the moonlight shining over his head, etching along the green wallpaper of your bedroom as he showed you how much he loves you. You think of the words that tumbled easily from your mouth and the bulging throats of the yellow wallpaper of your kitchen. You think of how much you love him, the curl of his fingers against your ribs, the gentle brush of his lips against your skin, the soft brown curls that always managed to fall into his eyes so you could brush them away, the toothpaste kiss he would press to your cheek. You open your eyes again. There are four steps leading up to Tom, like there always were.

How easy would it be to slip your fingers into the space between Tom’s. How incredibly easy would it be to let him press a burning kiss to your forehead. How terribly easy would it be to collapse in on yourself as the house at 11 Blackthorne Road collapsed in on you.

All is well at 11 Blackthorne Road.

***

Tagging people who liked my post about this: @kickingn-ames​ // @littlekidsteve​ // @parker-holland-osterfield​ // @rebekkah4766​ // @mysmileyspideyboi​ // @beelzebubsgirl666​ // @sexytholland​ // @definitely-not-black-cat​ // @goofycactusbear // @truly-y0urs // @bombing-daisies​ // @hollandcreep​ // @bi-infinity 

[hermannsthumb]

From horny twitter: Hermann writes a very very detailed review of a vibrator online

not sfw below cut!!!!!!!!!!! 

----------------------------

Now, usually, Newt doesn’t mess around when he’s on the clock, because that’d be very unprofessional of him and that’s totally not who he is, but he’s in a little bit of a rut with his current project and could use the distraction. Online shopping is his favorite go-to distraction these days: he can lose himself in size charts and color options and hunts for coupon codes and forget, even for a few minutes, that the end of the world is accelerating towards them at an intimidating rate. Plus, he can write off half his shit as work-related expenses. Win-win. Though maybe not this particular search.

Newt has a pretty reliable arsenal of sex toys he’s used on rotation since he packed up and shipped across the world for the PPDC, but the ten-year warranty vibe he’s used since PhD #3 (and his favorite of the bunch) finally crapped out on him last week after a historically intense fight with Hermann got him historically wound up. Eleven years ain’t bad. After testing out a different charger, poking around in the wiring, and even going so far as to zap it a few times with some sorta-stolen drift tech to see if it stirred any life back into it, he finally decided it was time to just mourn, move on, and buy a new one. (Even if, unfortunately, his particular favorite model was discontinued when the company’s factory was destroyed in a kaiju attack and they never quite managed to recover. More casualties of the war.)

The sex toy market is truthfully booming during the apocalypse. It makes sense, Newt guesses—anything for a distraction. Personally, for Newt, orgasms tend to dampen his own existential dread, even if it’s just for a few minutes. He scrolls idly through a few Top Ten For 2023 listicles on various sex magazine websites to see if anything jumps out at him (some of the recommended toys are dildos he already has, and vibes that are a little beyond his k-sci paycheck), just hoping for something to jump out at him. Apparently he missed out on a limited-edition run of jaeger and kaiju-themed vibes and dildos that came out in early January, which he’s honestly a little pissed about—he’s the top expert on kaiju biology, god damn it! Didn’t anyone want to consult with him about their hypothetical junk? Accuracy matters.

“It’s all off,” Newt mutters grumpily as he examines a 360 view of one of the kaiju dildos. Trespasser. “It’s not even the right color. Fucking amateurs. Did they even try?”

“What are you doing?” Hermann says.

Newt slams his laptop shut. Hermann decided to cut his lunch break short today, apparently. “Shopping,” he says.

“You sounded awfully angry about something, is all,” Hermann says. He clacks over to his half of the lab and shrugs off his big parka, then pauses. “Do you need to...talk about it?”

“No,” Newt says.

Hermann breathes out in obvious relief. “Good,” he says.

He takes his usual spot at his chalkboard and resumes his calculating. Newt re-opens his laptop and scrolls away from Trespasser before he can make himself angry over anatomical inaccuracies again. The jaeger vibes from the collection are pretty cool, actually; the designs are a lot cleaner, and their artistic license is a lot more forgivable. The highest-rated of the set is one obviously (but not enough to invoke copyright infringement, if that can even exist for a jaeger) modeled off of Coyote Tango, with like, a million different settings, and an astronomical cost to match. Newt eyes it enviously. He could be shoving that up his ass right now if he’d just signed up for a stupid email list last year.

He follows the link to Amazon to read through some of the reviews enviously, too. Life-changing; best money ever spent; warranty lasts a lifetime. Ten stars across the board. Sold out, obviously. No idea when it’ll be back in stock. He could get the Striker Eureka model for twice the original cost as when it came out, if he wanted, but the idea of constantly having to associate the twenty-something punk Hansen kid with his intimate affairs makes him shudder.

A nine-star review for the Coyote Tango model from someone named MathLover69 is the only one to make Newt really pause, on account of how absolutely insane it is.

I saved quite a few paychecks to purchase this vibrator, and though the cost is steep, I must say it is absolutely worth it. As opposed to my normal vibrator (here another vibe is linked, and Newt’s eyebrows jump at that price, too), which has only five settings, an admittedly bulky body, and average battery life, the CT2023 has a generous ten, a sleeker design, and charges fully in a matter of minutes. The orgasms I have experienced while using it are higher in quality (and more numerous) than any resulting previously from masturbation, though I have not tried beyond setting six yet. It also works wonders for stress relief. (I have an incredibly irritating colleague, and nothing calms me down so much as a quick round with the CT2023 after a spat with him.)

The body is versatile enough to be either inserted into one’s—

Newt feels heat rise to his cheeks in spite of himself, and he skims the second paragraph of MathLover69’s review to get the gist of it—that there are, uh, plenty of ways to utilize the vibe, that it’s discreet and small enough to wear to work (if you were inclined to do so, as MathLover69 implies he might’ve been) and that when combined with the Yamarashi dildo, the pleasurable experience increased tenfold. Talk about oversharing. Jeez.

My only complaint would be that the design is a poor approximation of the real Coyote Tango, and for that I’ve docked a star. I would recommend this product.

“This guy is a total nut,” Newt says to himself.

“Hm?” Hermann says.

Newt considers the implications of showing Hermann the vibrator listing: Hermann will know he was shopping for sex toys, Hermann will know he was shopping for kaiju and jaeger-themed sex toys, Hermann will know he was shopping for kaiju and jaeger-themed sex toys during working hours a mere ten feet away from him. Embarrassing, but on the other hand, MathLover69’s review is too funny to not share with someone else. “Hey, Hermann,” Newt says, angling his laptop towards Hermann. “Look. Who comments shit like this?”

Hermann descends his ladder carefully and inches up behind Newt’s shoulder, squinting at his laptop screen. He immediately turns bright red. Newt must’ve offended his Victorian sensibilities with the mere suggestion of self-abuse. “Oh,” he says. “Er.”

“Way TMI,” Newt says. “Listen to this line. ‘With the Yamarashi toy inserted into one’s mouth, and the CT2023 inserted up one’s—'”

“Well, how else is one meant to review a masturbatory aid?” Hermann snaps, surprising Newt. He looks oddly flustered. “Details can be—er—helpful. Can’t they?”

“Sure, dude,” Newt snorts. “Except they’re obviously just screwing with people. They literally have a 69 in their username.” He taps at the MathLover69, and doesn’t mention—on behalf of Hermann’s delicate mathematician feelings—that the MathLover part is obviously meant as a joke too.

“Well,” Hermann says. “Perhaps it’s just his—er, their birthdate.”

Newt turns around to stare at Hermann, taking in his red cheeks, his red ears, and the gaze he’s fixed steadily on his shoes. It’s all Newt can do to not to gape at him. “Hermann, you’re kidding,” he says. “Right?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Hermann says.

“You didn’t,” Newt says.

“I,” Hermann stammers. “Well—”

“I didn’t even know you—”

“That I what?” Hermann says.

Newt gives a half-shrug. Hermann doesn’t seem the type to engage in any sort of vice, let alone this kind. And especially not with the type of sex toys he apparently gravitates towards. (If Newt was a little bolder, and had a little less shame and care for hygiene, he might ask to check out the Yamarashi, because anatomical inaccuracies aside, wow that sounds awesome.) “I mean, you know,” Newt says. “You’re kinda you. No offense.”

Hermann takes offense. “I am human,” he says. “I am allowed to masturbate, Newton, and I was merely attempting to educate other customers about the—product—with my thoroughness.” He adds, awkwardly, “My review was voted very helpful, as you can see.”

“Okay,” Newt says with a grin. “I get it. Sorry.”

Hermann marches back over to his side of the lab with a scowl. Newt waits until he’s sure Hermann’s not watching him, and is too distracted by muttering angrily under his breath, to bookmark MathLover69’s page of reviews.

It turns out (as Newt revisits the page later that night, in the privacy of his bunk) Hermann buys and reviews a truly staggering amount of dildos and sex toys, and on top of that, has absolutely zero filter behind the wall of anonymity. It’s to the extent that some of his reviews read like goddamn sexts.

It took me three occasions to successfully work myself up to taking in the entire length…

My orgasm was so pleasurable I alarmed my colleague with the noise I made, who believed me to have injured myself…

The highest vibration setting is a bit of a disappointment…

These are excellent for double penetration…

It also turns out Hermann is a veritable sex fiend. Or at least a masturbation fiend. Judging by his reviews alone, Hermann’s purchased more than a dozen different toys in the past three years alone. That’s four a year. One every three months. That’s not even including buttplugs, which (according to other reviews) he sometimes just wears into the lab (“work”) for the hell of it, which Newt isn’t even going to think about right now. How the hell has Hermann kept this much of his life under wraps? When the hell does he have time to jerk off as much as he apparently does? No wonder they never seem to have any fucking funding; all of Hermann’s paychecks are funneled directly into his—well.

Newt recalls the faux-injury incident Hermann mentioned in a comment with mild embarrassment. No wonder Hermann had been so weird and flushed when he opened his door, and made excuses to say bye to him so quickly—Newt just caught him (oh, boy) immediately following the best orgasm of his life. Well, mild embarrassment, and a little more than mild arousal. What Newt would’ve given to have been there five minutes earlier, to watch Hermann in the act of the best orgasm of his life, to maybe even be the one to cause it…

What Newt would give to use Hermann’s fancy-shmancy vibrator on him, or literally anything from his giant masturbatory arsenal. Or even just watch him use it on himself. Hermann’s just so damned buttoned-up and uptight—it’s all about the contradictions. Juxtapositions. Newt unzips his jeans and sticks his hand down his boxers. “Stupid Hermann,” he moans, as he begins to bring himself off to the image of Hermann with that stupid kaiju dildo down his throat and that stupid jaeger vibe up his ass. Negotiator of peace between the two? Stupid joke, stupid Hermann. Or maybe he’s picturing Hermann showing up to the lab, all plugged up and loose from using a different vibe on himself that morning. Or maybe Hermann pushing two dildos into himself at once. How the hell can he even manage that? Ass his size— “Oh, goddamn it,” Newt moans again, and comes all over his hand.

Whatever. It’s not like Hermann’s ever going to find out about this.

[writingsforwinter]

I’m going to kill myself on Friday. There’s no one I can tell in real life. You don’t have to post this obviously. But I just had to tell someone. I’m sorry for giving you this small and terrible weight. I guess you are the only person I have consistently followed through my time on this weird blue website and so you’re the first person I thought to tell. Thank you for holding this for me. Thank you for all the words you’ve given me. Thank you.

It’s not a small and terrible weight. The weight you take up in this world, the space, is a vast and beautiful one. I know as time goes on, different versions of “Don’t leave” and “Please stay” get more and more dull, less specific, and less meaningful. Or perhaps they never truly held much meaning at all. 

I won’t tell you that others will miss you. I’m sure you already know this. While this is about them, it is mostly about you. I cannot guarantee would life ahead of you might look like if you stayed. What I can guarantee is that your absence will make a difference. Not just in the gaping, raw, enormous sense in that a family member or loved one will grieve for you, and most likely multiple loved ones, but also in the sense that every small, minute gesture your future self would make would result in a difference. 

Maybe you would smile at a barista who thought no one noticed her that day, who then went home and, instead of going straight to bed because sleeping is the only non-painful time for her, would instead stay up and paint for the first time in months. Maybe one day she would find the courage to share those paintings with a friend, and maybe one day one of those friends would buy one of her paintings. And then maybe, on another day, she would find the courage to post one online, timidly, cautiously, with a price attached, a price much lower than what her art is actually worth. Perhaps someone would buy that art. And perhaps, in several months’ time, your barista would no longer be a barista and instead would be living off her creativity. All because one evening, in one small inconspicuous coffee shop, you smiled at her.

In high school English class, we read a short story by Ray Bradbury called A Sound of Thunder. In the story, it’s 2055 and time travel exists. Two hunters are allowed to travel back in time to hunt dinosaurs. They are told before they go to minimize the changes they make in the past so as not to disturb the present. When one of the hunters sees the T-rex they had planned to kill, he becomes scared and stumbles off the path and into the forest. The other hunters kill the T-rex and the tree that had originally been supposed to fall on it and kill it, falls on its dead body instead. The hunter removes the bullets from its body. When the hunters return to 2055, English words are spelled differently. A fascist has won the election. LIfe is completely different, and it is about to get worse.

The hunter looks down at his boots. A butterfly is crushed into mud on one of the soles. The death of the butterfly, which he stepped on as he strayed from the path, has changed everything.

I don’t want you to be that butterfly. I don’t want you to be crushed. Your life, whether or not you realize it, has significance that is far greater than you could ever know.

I’m sure your wings feel very heavy. I’m sure you bear a terrible and mighty load. But I am also sure that one day, you will feel lighter. Not because the load you carry has lifted, but because you’ve found, at long last, another way to deal with it all. 

I cannot make up your mind for you, and I cannot tell you what to do. I was where you are, once, and I know how hard it is to change a mind. If you go, I hope you go peacefully and I hope you remember, even briefly, that you matter. Even if you don’t believe anyone will be thinking about you on Friday, I will be. If you go, remember me. And if you don’t go, I will still be here, and we can share the load together.

Peace be with you.

[whenrockwasyoung19]

It’s Time to Talk about a Bespectacled Elephant in the Room

I’ve been in the Beatles fandom for 8 and a half years. I have had a Beatles blog for the entirety of those 8 and a half years, and I have watched as discourse about these four men evolve. The discourse inside and outside the fandom has become so toxic that I don’t think I can engage with it in the same way that I could before. Let me explain. 

When I entered this fandom 8 and a half years ago, it was in 2012, quite an infamous year in tumblr history. That was the pique of “”cringey”” fandom culture. The Beatles fandom was as steeped in fandom culture as any other fandom. I know this because I was part of two of the top of fandoms at the time, Doctor Who and Sherlock. Believe me, I have seen cringe. 

The fandom at the time was totally aware of the John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s flaws as individuals, but most fans tended to simply enjoy Beatles fandom as if it were the 60s. Some might call it ignorant bliss. If you asked me at the time, I’d have said it was self-aware ignorant bliss--if that even makes sense. At the time, there wasn’t a person with a Beatles icon who hadn’t heard the line “John Lennon beat his wife.” Everyone knew it, but everyone also knew the real story, and so everyone just made peace with it. As a result, people didn’t think about every bad thing the Beatles ever did on a daily basis. It was more like a once-a-month kind of thing. Otherwise, fandom discourse was quite fun and relaxed. There were no shipping wars, no one fought over who was the best Beatle, everyone gushed over the Beatles wives, and we all just had fun with fics and fan art. 

Of course, in this period, people engaged in conversations about one bespectacled Beatles problematic behavior. These conversations usually came from outside of the fandom. It was usually randos coming into the tags or into someone’s ask box and ranting about John Lennon’s violent behavior. Some of it came from within the fandom. Some people really didn’t like John and gave others shit if they listed John as their favorite Beatle. A lot of the discourse boiled down to: ‘hey, I see you like John Lennon. You should know that he beat his wife. And now that you know that, you should feel bad about ever liking him in the first place.’ And the response was often, ‘Actually, John Lennon didn’t beat his wife. They weren’t even married at the time. And also he didn’t beat her, he slapped her once in the face, and then never did it again.’ No one’s minds were changed. The fans had made their peace, and the antis came off as cynical and pretentious. 

When Dashcon happened, and Tumblr took a hard look at its cringey fandom culture, the Beatles fandom evolved as well. The fandom became, frankly, less fun. It no longer felt like a group of people who found the Beatles decades after the 60s and were fangirling like it was 1965. There was still some of that left, but a lot of it kind of faded. So, most fandom interactions were reblogging pictures of the Beatles from the 60s and various interview clips and quotes. But the barrage of antis never really went away, and the response didn’t evolve. 

Then, the advent of cancel culture came on. I always waited for the Beatles to get, like, officially canceled, but I also felt they were uncancel-able at the same time. Let me explain. I have been a Beatles fan primarily in an online space, rarely engaging with fans in real life. But I have met fans who are life-long Beatles fans, people who are a lot older than us and who’s fandom isn’t tied to the internet. They don’t give a shit about any of our discourse. They may or may not have heard it before, but they seem totally indifferent to all of it. I’m sure most of them have never heard ‘Mclennon’ before. These are the people that flock to see Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in concert (and pay astronomical prices for it). These are the people who go to record shops and buy vinyl. These are the people I run into at flea markets who buy up all the Beatles merch before I can even arrive (true story). So, the Beatles will never be canceled because there will always be people who love the Beatles and don’t engage with online discourse. Rarely said, but thank god for Gen-X. 

As cancel culture took over the internet, fandoms changed. It’s not as noticeable in fandoms without problematic favs. For instance, I’m also steeped in the Tom Holland fandom, and that boy is a little angel who has done no wrong. No one has discourse about the unproblematic boy who plays an equally unproblematic character. But in fandoms with ‘problematic favs’ the mood has shifted. I’m also in the Taron Egerton fandom. Taron Egerton, for those who only follow me for my Beatles stuff, is a genuinely sweet and kind person who has had zero scandals in his six year career. There were some rumblings when he was cast as Elton John, and some people took issue with the fact that he’s a straight man playing a gay man. This discourse seemed to die quickly as a whole lot of straight people played gay people in that same year (Olivia Coleman as queer Queen Anne, Emma Stone as her queer lover, Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury). Why jump on this boy who at the time was still technically on the rise. He’s not exactly the same target as someone like Scarlett Johansson who has her pick of roles. Taron doesn’t have quite that some power in Hollywood, and I think most people made peace with the fact that this was a big role for him, and it’s not really fair to take that away from him. So, all in all, the closest thing to a scandal was something that died pretty much on arrival. 

That was until this summer when everything changed. When George Floyd was murdered, celebrities flocked to social media to mourn his loss. Taron’s social media account was silent. For weeks, Taron said nothing about Black Lives Matter or Floyd’s death. This caused outrage in the fandom. Many raced to defend him, starting a hashtage #IstandwithTaron. Others sought to tear him down and anyone who supported him. The kind of mania this one incident caused tore through an otherwise peaceful fandom. What I saw was two sides in a total panic. The antis were people who once had faith that Taron was a good person and were now questioning that. Andthe defenders were people who desperately wanted him to be a good person and were afraid that he wasn’t. In essence, both sides could feel Taron about to get canceled. The defenders wanted to stop it, the antis wanted to ride that wave. 

What this long drawn out Taron example is meant to convey: is that cancel culture has put fandoms on edge. One’s fav has to be perfect, otherwise it can jeopardize the existence of the entire fandom. I’ll admit, I was afraid that I’d be some kind of pariah for standing by Taron through all of this. My actions were to basically reason with the antis but still defend Taron. I defend him mostly because I felt that his silence was the result of a needed social media absence and that trying to shame him back onto social media was an invasion of privacy. But I was genuinely afraid that he would get canceled, and the fun of the Taron fandom would be lost. 

In the Beatles fandom, it often feels like the Beatles, mainly John, have already been canceled. I see this coming from two different sources: antis from outside of the fandom and antis within the fandom. The outside antis are just the same as the ones from 2012. These are people who like to drop in that John Lennon beat his wife, posting this in the tag (which violates an ancient tumblr real by the way--no hate in the tags). 

The antis outside the fandom speak to a larger anti-John Lennon sentiment online. I see references to John Lennon ‘beating his wife’  on Tiktok and twitter. The tone of anti-John Lennon posts has shifted. Before, it felt like the antis were being smug but also argumentative. They wanted to have a conversation about this bit of info they read on Reddit with no context. Now, “John Lennon beating his wife” is practically a meme. It’s a running joke online that John Lennon was a wife beater. I can’t look on my instagram explore page because every so often a John Lennon beats his wife meme will pop up amongst the other, normal, memes.

This change in discourse suggests that the internet has just accepted this as fact now. I should note that back in 2012, it seemed as if few people knew this fact. The fandom knew it, and these random antis knew it, but few others did. Now, because of how common these memes are, it seems to be widespread knowledge.

Consequently, the Beatles fandom, who used to ward off attacks from antis, seems to have given in. I recently saw a post from a Beatles blog (had the URL and icon and everything) that confessed they felt guilty for listening to the Beatles, and I’ve seen similar sentiments expressed in the fandom. People tend to put disclaimers in posts about John or even all four that John is an ‘awful man.’ It seems like the self-aware ignorant bliss has completely gone away. Occasionally, I still see posts joyously talking about Mclennon or reblogs of old photos from the 60s. But the culture has shifted. 

Online, it no longer feels comfortable to be a Beatles fan. It feels like you have to own up to 8 decades of mistakes by four men you’ve never met. And, I should note, this is kind of how it feels to be a fan of anything right now. Taron is not canceled today, but he could be tomorrow. It’s this pervasive feeling of guilt that the person you’re supporting may or definitely has or is doing something wrong.

I’ll admit this uncomfortable feeling has expanded into other parts of my fandom life. I listen to their music, and I feel elated--the way I always have. Then, I get these intrusive thoughts which sound like all the worst parts of Twitter combined. It wasn’t always like this. Back in 2012, when I knew almost nothing about them, I saw them as four young men who were full of happiness, love for another, and talent. Back then, listening to their music was exciting and joyous. Sometimes, I fear that I can never feel that way again. Next year, when I finally go to Liverpool, will I be filled with excitement or guilt? 

I say all this for a few reasons. One, I love John Lennon. I appreciate all the good he did for the world not just as a musician and an artist but also his advocacy and charity work. I love him, and a part of me will always love him, but observing the change in discourse has enlightened me as a historian. Part of my job is to observe people’s legacies, and John’s is perhaps the most interesting legacy I’ve ever observed. When he died, he was hailed as a saint. But tall poppy syndrome set in, and the antis started. This culture grew and grew to the point where it seems to, at least among the younger generation, taken over the sainthood. 

But as a historian and a fan, I have never seen the saint or the devil. I’ve only seen the man, the incredibly flawed man. The thing that these antis never understand is that John Lennon was painfully aware of his own flaws to the point where it made him all the more self-destructive. In essence, his past mistakes caused him to make additional mistakes. But John, aware of his own flaws, always tried to change and was often successful. I’ve talked about this before, but John demonstrated that he was capable of being a good person, like properly so, again and again. After he struck Cynthia, he never hit her again. His shortcomings as a father to Julian weren’t repeated with Sean. He worked on his drinking, his drug addiction, and his anger, trying to overcome those demons till the day he died. By all accounts, the John Lennon that died in 1980 is not the John Lennon who struck Cynthia Powell at school. That John Lennon was living a cleaner, healthier life. He was a better father to both his sons by that point, and was trying to repair his relationship with Julian. He was a good husband to Yoko and saw himself living a long and happy life. 

John Lennon cannot and should not be boiled down to just his flaws. It’s one thing as a fan to acknowledge that John is a flawed human being (news flash: they all are), but he is also much bigger than that. 

So once again, why am I writing this long, rambling post, once again talking about John Lennon’s virtues? Because if I can’t engage with healthy discourse about the Beatles and John Lennon, then I can’t engage with discourse on the topic at all. So, I probably will post less Beatles stuff because I find it hard to go through the tags or even my dash (well, I can’t really go through my dash anymore for other reasons I’m not going to get into right now). If any of my followers have noticed a lot of Taron posts lately, it’s not just because I love Taron, it’s because Taron’s  tag is pretty much the only location on tumblr I feel 100% comfortable in. Any foray into John or the Beatles tags becomes uncomfortable and guilt-ridden quickly. 

So, I probably will post less about the Beatles until I can find a blog or a tag that doesn’t give me bad vibes. My fandom will likely outgrow tumblr and the internet. I have a ton of Beatles books; maybe I’ll rely on those. I am doing official scholarly research on them now. Maybe that will be my outlet. I’m sorry if I post less about them now, but it’s really for my own well-being. 

[fireblogger]

Tips to Reduce Spending

I’ve never had a problem with my monthly budget, mainly because it doesn’t exist. I naturally spend less than I make, therefore there’s always some money for the bills and rarely some time spent managing my money. It’s not a good situation to be in, it’s not the worse by any means, but if you want to build your savings and retire earlier you need to be deliberate with your spending and savings choices.

This is traditionally done with a budget. Now I’m not going to lie, I’m terrible at budgets. I can create them no problem, but remembering to actually follow them? Good luck.

1.     The first step to create a budget is to document your expenses. If you don’t know how much you tend to spend then it will be very difficult to create an effective budget. If most of your transactions are on debit and credit cards, then you can go back through previous months to track your spending. Or you can start tracking today so you have a better idea in the future.

2.     Once you have a good idea of how much money you tend to spend on various categories you can start building the budget itself. (Don’t forget about annual or semi-annual expenses like car insurance). Make sure you are aware of the differences between needs and wants when you are budgeting.

3.     Once you have a budget you aren’t done, you should continue to track your expenses and adjust the budget as needed.

So, now you have a budget. How does that translate to actually spending less money?  Here are some behavioral tips to help spend less money:

·       Now that you know about how much you spend on things start paying for them in cash. When you go to a grocery store with a $100 bill (or a $100 gift card) you are forced to spend less than that $100. You can’t go over, but if you had a debit card a $112 bill would approve even though it was $12 over your budget.

·       Change your daily habits to avoid temptation. Does your route to or from home pass by a fast-food restaurant that you just love? Did you just notice that you actually spend $50 a month there on coffee and French fries? Try taking a side street so you never see the sign. Do you habitually order delivery through your handy-dandy phone? Try deleting the apps, not seeing them on the phone can reduce temptation and the extra step of needing to redownload every time can slow you down when you’re thinking about ordering. Even if you don’t want to delete the app you can hide in somewhere in the back folders of your phone so you don’t see the icon and thing huh, think imma get myself some pizza.

·       If there’s a consistent ‘treat’ you like to get, think about low-cost alternatives. For example, I love pizza. Like, it’s not healthy, neither is my solution but we’re talking about money not fitness. I will often keep some tortilla shells, a cheese blend, and a bag of pepperonis on site. Then if I’m craving pizza, I can make myself a 400 calories pizza roll that costs less than 50 cents instead of spending the minimum of $10 (to deliver) which usually ends up being a $12 order which also has a delivery charge, tax, and tip and becomes something closer to $20 for a single craving?

·       Consider how your spending habits change when you’re emotional, are you more likely to buy yourself a treat and how much does that treat cost a month? Make the decision before-hand to redirect emotional buying to other positive behaviors instead. Things like working out, calling a friend, drawing a doodle of whoever pissed you off then burning it in the sink, or meditating. Whatever you do, don’t open up Amazon.

·       Ask yourself if you need something or want something before you buy it. Do you need those new shoes? Or do you want them? Taking the time to add one more mental step before actually spending the money can help reduce impulse purchases. My No Spend Year | Michelle McGagh | TEDxManchester is a great TED Talk on this topic.

·       Forget trends. Don’t even bother trying to keep up with all the newest fads. And if a fad looks really cool? Take a step back and ask yourself if you really think that this new item is actually useful and will add joy to your life, or if you just think it is because of herd mentality.

·       Don’t go into debt to buy things. This mainly applies to credit-card debt and doesn’t really apply to houses (especially if you plan on getting a duplex and renting out of it). If there’s something that’s really cool, it will still be really cool when you have the money saved up to buy it in cash. It might even be really cool and cheaper if a new model comes out in the meantime.

Pay down your debts. This is less advice to reduce immediate spending and more advice to avoid future spending on interest payments. There are two main schools of thought when it comes to paying down debt:

1.     Start with the high interest debt. This makes the most logical sense as high-interest debt will end up costing you more in the long run.

2.     Start with the lowest balance, regardless of debt: This makes the most emotional sense. People are human, and they like to see progress on their goals. The feeling of success when you pay off a debt completely can help spur you on to tackle the next debt.

Starting with the high interest debt is my preference. I want to save every penny possible, and that’s the way to do it. But if you know that you may have difficulty sticking to a plan, or if you want the satisfaction of paying off your debt then the second option is a fine one to take.

Changing your behavior and paying down debt are some of the harder steps to take when trying to spend less money overall. Here are some simpler, practical, pieces of advice:

·       Buy in bulk. When you go grocery shopping do some meal planning first and buy in bulk. If you have a larger family then stores like Costco or Sam’s Club can be very useful to get some discounted prices. However, if you’re like me and live in a very small household then buying some items in bulk at a local cheap grocery store can be just as effective without cluttering up limited storage space.

·       Explore secondhand shops for new appliances, clothes, furniture, etc. Online marketplaces like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace can be great places to get good deals. There’s no need to spend $50 on a waffle iron when the Youth Ranch down the street or Bob around the corner is selling one for $5.

·       Price-shop. Amazon won’t always have the cheapest prices, and while convenience is nice they aren’t the only home delivery store. Shop around to see where you can get the best price for your purchases.

·       Don’t buy as much stuff, borrow it if you can. If anyone knows me then know how much I love books. I used to have multiple bookcase that I would move about once a year when I switched apartments. Over time I forced myself to give away or sell most of them, and now check the local library for my next read. And by now I mean pre-COVID-19. But post Covid I’m sure I’ll be back at it!

·       Look for long lasting, high-quality versions of products. A nice pair of shoes can last you five years or more in my experience. If you can, save up for the longer lasting versions so you don’t have to replace them as often.

·       Reduce any monthly bills that you can. If you consistently have rollover data that may mean that you should pay less for less data. If you’re going to the gym just to use the treadmill, consider walking around the block a few times instead. Decide if you really need all those streaming services that you pay for.

·       Adjust the thermostat, especially if your home isn’t especially energy efficient. Keep the apartment a little colder in the winter and a little warmer in the summer for power savings.

Finally, this is all well and good. But how do you actually follow through? The best person to answer this is yourself, but here are a few options:

1.     Get an accountability partner. You can go through each other’s finances to make sure you are hitting your goals. Having an extra set of eyes can be incredibly useful to not only spot places where expenses can be curbed, but to make sure that what’s on paper matches what you wanted there to be.

2.     Pay for everything in cash. This is reminiscent of Dave Ramsey’s cash budget. But if you have an envelope of cash labeled food, and that’s all the fast food and grocery money you have for the month it will be difficult to go over the limit. There’s also something more visceral in giving up cash as opposed to sliding a card that may make you think twice about going through with your purchase.

3.     Feel broke to be rich. Try opening a second bank account for your paycheck and bills, then set up a recurring transfer to your main checking account. If you never see the bulk of your money, and if your bank balance looks low every time you open the app to check it may be easier to avoid spending money. This isn’t a mindset that everyone wants to be in, but I’ve found that constantly feeling broke means I am far less likely to spend money on frivolities.

If you have more ideas on how to save money on a daily basis leave a comment below!