#Next one will probably be a chunky update but might take a little longer!

[10inksnoquills]

⭐ Blackrock Chapter Update - 2023.02.22

The Cameras (3.2k words)

Ao3 link in source. Enjoy.

[oftenderweapons]

Cue, She | MYG

Pairing: Yoongi x reader (nicknamed Kitten)

Wordcount: 3.9k

Genre: meetcute, strangers to lovers, romance, idol!AU

Rating: 16+ (Some allusions, swearing)

Warnings: swearing, mentions of Yoongi’s injury and past struggles. Yoongi is just a scaredy floof who tries to play bold in this one. There’s a little teaser of an unreleased story YAY

A/N: I AM DONE WITH EXAMS!!!!!! BACK TO WRITING YAYAYAYYYY!!!!!! Posting might intensify since Yoongi’s Small Town Swoons needs urgent updates! Also, thanking @joheunsaram and @nervous-moon for pre-reading and beta-reading. You’re my strongest reassurance.

As usual, here is my masterlist! Enjoy!

Yoongi was always nervous when he needed to discuss contracts.

A part of him was still stuck on selling his songs for barely enough to pay for production. His brain was already calculating how many copies he would have to sell to pay for booking a recording room, producing the track, paying for the rented equipment and if he would be able to make a living with it — how many weeks of food he would be able to afford, how much extra he could give his parents. And then he started wondering whether he would be able to sell that many copies, if enough people would like whatever shit he would make.

He stared at his shoes.

He realised he was wearing more than one million wons in the form of chunky trainers. He realised that if he sold his shoes and told the potential buyers they were his own and that he had worn them for a couple days, then he would be able to get enough money to buy half the equipment in his studio, probably.

He looked at the classy decor of the office he was in.

He was no longer a beggar. Though his shoulder reminded him something different.

He was still the kid who had to bike around town to pay for his mixtape. That’s what kept him so hungry, so eager. That’s why he was someplace where he would make sure he was paid one single won more than what he thought he should deserve.

As usual he was greeted by a sleek, middle-aged receptionist telling him that his trusted lawyer — the owner of the firm, of course — was ready to meet him. Next he and Sejin were met by a line of standing employees who waited for him to pass by. He could see them complaining about his silver spoon, of him being so young and having already earned ten times what they made in thirty years of service to the firm.

And then the big office. And the big boss.

Yoongi was simply intimidated by it all. Although he craved to be a tiger in that moment, he wasn’t much more than a stray cat stumbling in a castle, hoping for the cooks to take him in only to end up becoming the king’s pet.

“Mr. Min,” the director said warmly and reverently.

“Good morning. I’m sorry for coming in at such an early hour, but I thought the sooner, the better.”

“Absolutely. We might as well discuss your contract with BigHit first. I have an expert coming in for your copyright agreement for the collaboration.”

Yoongi was a little dumbfounded. He didn’t like having new people dealing with his most prized possessions. “I hope they’re reliable.”

“My most trusted, no less.”

Yoongi sat. The contract was something ordinary, boring. No extraordinary details, no news except more recognition for his lyrics and production. His percentage on earnings made by his songs for BigHit and BTS had increased by one percent — which is considerable, given how much each song made. He was overall content. He couldn’t complain at all. He was reassured by little victories, they were always the steadier, most reliable ones.

He was relieved when the discussion was over, but his freedom was short-lived. “About the song, now.”

Yoongi sat back against the designer chair — an awfully uncomfortable one, of course. He sighed. “Of course.”

The man buzzed the intercom. “She can come in now.”

Yoongi arched an eyebrow. A woman? He did not have a bias, but it was indeed extremely rare to find a woman in this field — especially when it was about discussing rights and contracts in the music business.

The door opened but he did not stand up or turn around. He didn’t like meeting new people in places he didn’t feel safe. It was a defense mechanism, he glued himself to the black leather chair and hoped he would successfully turn into a chameleon.

The feeling strengthened when the woman sat down in front of him.

“This is ____, my daughter,” your father said. You weren’t yet used to seeing him act as the owner, meeting all his most relevant clients and discussing cases with him. “She came back from the States a couple months ago and I’ve been carefully mentoring her. She has genuinely profound knowledge on copyright and intellectual ownership. I wouldn’t want to gloat, but I’m really proud of her. She found her talent.”

You felt your cheeks heat up just lightly when your father was done introducing you. “Thank you. Now, onto discussing business,” you murmured, vaguely embarrassed.

Wow. That was when Yoongi met your eyes for the first time. He liked your voice. He loved it. It was feminine and soothing and crepuscular. It was made for moonlight breeze and serenades. It wasn’t like honey, sweet, or girlish. It was full, if slightly raspy. It reminded him of amber.

If whiskey had a voice, it would be yours. If his cologne had a voice, it would sound just like you.

He was mesmerised.

He nodded at your cues, following the sound of your words rather than their meaning. “Considering the entity of your fanbase, your expertise, the duration of your career and your international awards, I think we can still tip the scale in your favour. Signing this contract would be by far too generous — naively so. And he would access the market here, while you don’t need him to access the market there. Your office can still push the percentage by two or three points. I would dare even more, but I don’t know their person well enough, I’ll admit.”

You had managed to make the snake come out. He had been curled up in his nest for long enough, waiting, listening. He seemed to be trying to look invisible, as if he weren’t the precise reason you were all gathered there. He seemed like the child everyone is fussing about at the hospital while he’s simply sitting down with his forearm bandaged up, confused and worried.

Now he was leaning forward, his finger pointing dangerously close to yours. “So you say… this is where their terms are off in your opinion. Correct?”

His voice had come out deeper than he intended.

He watched your finger slide just a millimeter away. He hesitated.

“Correct,” you confirmed after clearing your voice. You could feel goosebumps down your spine, struggling not to clench your legs. What had he done to you?

Yoongi observed your reaction, the way you fixed your stance, tucked your hair behind your ear and fixed your clothes nervously.

Had he flustered you? The ice queen? He checked if his supposition was right.

“So there is evidence — numbers, that prove that I should be asking for more?”

From the way you licked your lip and averted your gaze, Yoongi knew he was affecting you.

How, he didn't know.

“Your company should be able to provide them. You can bring them numbers, prove that you're the stronger party but negotiate to achieve only a morsel of the privilege you're entitled to. So that you keep being the good guy, they know not to toy with you, and they understand you're street smart and they'd better not play tricks on you.”

Yoongi liked the way you thought. He knew asking for too much would be counterproductive, and after all, you had given Sejin good points to work on.

“What do you think?” you asked him.

“I think the current contract is still acceptable, but Miss ____ made a point. And you know what I think about your mentality,” the older man replied.

Yoongi nodded to himself. “I think we'll see how much we can get. Thank you for explaining all the documents,” Yoongi smiled delicately.

It was like a speckle of light in a very dark room. It was there for half a second, and maybe you were hallucinating, but it was there. It was right there, before your eyes, just for you.

He was desperately trying to find a reason to see you again. “Would you draft… I know you’re not a secretary, but would you mind drafting a correction letter?” He turned to Sejin, “I believe we can find data and have it sent to you.” He looked at you again. “Or I can have that done by the marketing—”

“I’ll do it,” you replied quickly. “I’d rather have the data sent by today or tomorrow, so we can act timely.”

Yoongi nodded. “Sure. You can draft the document, and then we can confirm it with the marketing specialists. I hope it’s not too much of a bother.” He loved watching you get flustered and accommodating at the same time. “I’d rather be done for today,” he excused himself. “We’ll hold the official signing at the firm with Bang PD. We’ll see you there, I assume,” he told your father. He had a relaxed look on his face, but still businesslike.

“Sure. I hope our services were worthy of your time, Mr Min,” he said obsequiously.

You were not ready to stand up. Your legs were shaking. You were working for Min Yoongi. For Suga of BTS.

You were—

“I believe I didn’t catch your name,” he murmured as he stood up. He would have cheered for leaving the uncomfortable chair, but he was too caught up on not losing traces of you.

You blinked. “Oh, I didn’t introduce myself, I’m ____.”

His voice had to be oceans deep when he bowed a little and said, “Pleased to meet you.”

He watched you bow in reply, hesitating a little before standing up. Maybe you were injured. Considering your attire — and the shoes he’d noticed you wearing through the glass table — maybe you had something wrong with your ankle.

You grabbed the edge of the table and pulled yourself to your feet — painfully. He was dangerous.

So, so dangerous. “I’ll wait for the data. Goodbye.”

Sejin left first, with a deep bow, Yoongi hesitating. Could he— No. He was too busy.

What the hell had he been thinking?!

Suddenly he turned sad. “Goodbye.”

And he left.

There was a bunch of wrong things he’d done. This might be one of the wrongest. “Jeongguk-ah.”

He walked closer to the maknae, currently sprawled all over the sofa in a t-shirt and loose pajama pants. He looked bamboozled. “Hyung?”

“Can I borrow your Instagram?” He hoped that maybe… maybe someone like you would have something like that. After all, you had the kind of allure that girls with social networks have. And furthermore you had studied in the US. People are obsessed with social networks there.

He already felt too old.

“What do you need to do with my instagram?”

He shrugged. “I need to look up a name.”

“Who? A crush?!” Jeongguk sat up. “Oh my god, hyung!”

Yoongi’s shoulders slouched. “No. I just met someone today. I don’t have Instagram, but I think she has a profile there. Maybe.” He stretched his hand out.

Jeongguk clutched his phone harder. “Give me the name.”

Yoongi huffed out. He muttered it half heartedly.

Jeongguk blinked. “Excuse me, I didn't quite catch that, could you repeat?” His smile was outright sardonic.

Namjoon came in just in time. Yoongi turned, hoping he would find a supporter. “Namjoonie, can you lend me your instagram, please?”

Namjoon patted his pockets while chuckling. “You can borrow my phone, with instagram in it. You sound like my dad. Why do you need that?”

“Hyung has a new girlfriend!” Jeongguk exclaimed, jumping from the sofa.

Yoongi rubbed his face. “It’s just someone I met— Holy shit, what is that!?”

Namjoon stopped and pulled his suit jacket back on. “Nothing.”

“Why are you shirtless?”

“It was an accident.” Namjoon looked away. “She didn’t mean to— It doesn’t matter. Take the ph— oh.” He paused. “Oh no.”

Yoongi tried to grab it but Namjoon lifted it off his reach, reading something before the screen went black.

“Dead battery.”

“Just tell me the name!” Jeongguk protested.

“She’s ____.” Yoongi grumbled.

Jeongguk typed it in with a victorious grin, waiting for a profile to pop up. Namjoon also waited, wrapping himself up in his jacket.

“Does she show up?”

Yoongi tapped at one, then went back, tapped at another. Analysed the picture. It had to be you.

“I think it's her.” Yoongi checked the old pictures. Most of them weren't set in Korea. “It's her.”

“She has a tattoo!” Jeongguk said, stealing the phone to show the tattoo to Namjoon.

He observed it for a little before he started exploring the older pictures.

Wow.

“She’s beautiful,” Namjoon stated.

Yoongi nodded. “A damn queen. God, look at this.” You in a thrifted Notorious B.I.G. shirt, sunglasses lowered to expose a ‘step off, peasant’ glare, eyeliner perfectly winged, lips clad in a crimson shade. Next one offered an even cockier expression, middle finger out, mouth agape. And then the last one, you caught midlaugh, eyes closed, head thrown back, exposing the column of your throat.

Yoongi was speechless. “We’re too busy with promotion.” That was the only excuse he kept clinging to.

“I don’t know, hyung. I would say a woman like that beats any excuse.” Jeongguk kept scrolling. You had a thing for black apparently.

Namjoon looked at Yoongi. He could see his resolve crumbling. “Do it, hyung. She doesn’t seem taken. Oh, wow.” Black silk slipdress, an hibiscus in your hair, your back naked, showing your tattoo, a drink in your hand as the sun set on the beach behind you.

“I think he’s not really here, mentally,” Jeongguk told Namjoon.

That was indeed true.

Yoongi was drinking in every detail he could infer from every picture in your profile. They weren’t that many, but they were quality.

Yoongi stared at the phone. “I shouldn’t even give it a go. She’s a woman. I’m a scrawny boy and what would—”

“Oh, shut up. If you’re too scared to do it, just say it. Don’t pretend you don’t stand a chance.” Namjoon shook his head. “I know an excuse when I see one.”

Yoongi clicked his tongue. Jeongguk chased their exchange. “Give it a chance, hyung. The worst that can happen is that she turns you down. Nothing tragic.”

“Or that she eats me whole and I ruin a perfectly efficient, fruitful work connection.”

“She doesn’t look like a praying mantis,” Namjoon commented distractedly. Yoongi had taken the phone and was scrolling more privately. “Take a risk. It ended up quite well for me.”

“No, it didn’t.” Yoongi turned around.

Namjoon rolled his eyes. “It’s rolling. We’ll see how it goes.”

“You have the perfect girlfriend, but you’re keeping her as a fuck buddy,” Yoongi sentenced abrasively. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed.”

Namjoon sat on the sofa. It was not a conversation he wanted to have. “It’s not the current topic.”

“Now it is.” Yoongi sat beside him. “We all liked her. Why do you keep her at arm’s length?”

Namjoon shrugged. “We’re busy. She’s busy, I don’t want her to commit if I can’t commit.”

Yoongi rolled his eyes. “You say you can’t commit but you’re possessive, you bared your teeth at Taehyung for playfully flirting with her. And you can’t keep your hands off her.”

“She had some fluff on her cardigan.”

“Twelve times?”

Namjoon snared.

“I don’t care. What about that girl? What will you do?”

Yoongi decided to let him be. Namjoon was probably already half trapped in his head, analysing every second of the last three hours. “We’re meeting again. I asked her to draft me a document so I could see her again, as a last resort. I don’t know.” He combed his hair back.

“You will know, hyung.” Jeongguk sat down and offered two beers to his friends.

Yoongi nodded. “I felt it. I think I felt the attraction the very moment I saw her. And as the meeting went on I kept getting more and more confused. Her voice sounds so good.” He took a sip. “I think she felt it too. It was… electric.”

“Give it a couple days.” Namjoon suggested.

You couldn’t rest on your seat. He would be coming in any minute now. You watched him coming in through the glass wall. He was alone this time. You stood and fixed your hair self-consciously. “Good morning, Mr. Min.”

“Good morning, and please, call me Yoongi. It keeps me humble.” He smiled in a secret and mysterious fashion. You felt your lips shape into a smile too.

“Then, Yoongi, I have drafted the document. Thank you for sending me the data so readily. This is my proposal. You can discuss it with your marketing and business department.” You turned the printed sheet towards him. He observed your choice in words, your writing style. He noticed it was pragmatic. The requests were written functionally — no misunderstandings. “It’s the Korean translation. I will need to certify that the English and Korean versions are perfectly aligned, but first let’s approve the general lines of the proposal.”

“You wrote it in English?”

“You’re working with an American company. It’s better if they receive a document they’re familiar with. No miscommunication. And I’m used to the American way.” You chuckled and shrugged.

Oh, he liked you chuckling. He propped his elbow on the table and leaned his chin into his hand, quickly rereading the text. “I like it.” He paused. “Do you think they’ll agree?”

“They’ll probably try to bargain over the percentage, but I’d give up one percent, tops. They have the ugly tendency to squeeze everything out of artists. That’s why I’m back in Korea. They’re sharks over there, no brains.”

Yoongi had to agree. He was interested.

This, he thought, this needs to be the chance. “I’d love to know more about that. Would you like to discuss that over some coffee? Or a drink of your choice,” he added with a blush on his cheeks, hiding in between his shoulders.

You cocked your head to the side, a pleased smile on your face. Did he mean…?

“Sure!” You didn’t even think about it. Strengthening ties with Min Yoongi would be a huge leap for your career — and a great chance of getting to know his market better.

But probably you just wanted to spend time with an enigmatic man, trying to decipher him, talk about something interesting for a while. Do something different other than listening to graduated lawyers talking about wedding rings and kids and their husbands or fiances being several different shades of shitty. Or the superficial drinking, clubbing, hooking up with anyone. You wanted something that felt real, educational, new. “Are you free this Friday?”

Yoongi stuttered. He didn’t expect you to actually get into it. He didn’t even expect you to say yes. “We’re rehearsing for a show, but I think I’ll be free after ten pm. Or around seven am.”

You chuckled a little breathy laugh. “I know the perfect place. Privacy, good whiskey, good music. Quiet enough to conversate. I’ll send you the address. Friday, say… ten thirty?”

Yoongi was ready to leave his body. “Ten thirty. Friday. Send me the address.”

You laughed. He was so bamboozled. “I’ll need your phone number, Yoongi.”

He stared, hesitated. “Right. But I must tell you my schedule is very hectic.”

“And you had time to come here when I could talk to your management team?” You propped your chin on your palm, leaning forward only to watch him sink back into himself even more.

“I wanted to see you,” he said, with the lowest, deepest voice he could muster. From the way your shoulders shifted, he knew he had done something. He mirrored your position, faking bravado. “You still want my number?” He took the sticky notes sitting close to you, sliding them across the table while he still looked into your eyes. “Pen?”

It took you a second to register. You were busy looking at his fingers. Damn, those were really nice hands.

Snapping out of it, you grabbed a pen and offered it to him.

He scribbled down his number. “This would have been easier if you just gave me your phone. I would have typed it in for you,” he murmured as he wrote. “And I would have rung my phone so I would have had your number too.”

“Not everything is easy,” you taunted. “Especially lurking on someone’s Instagram without accidentally leaving a like. I figure your friend BiscoBunny must be related.”

Yoongi sneered. Jeon Jeongguk.

“He has a private profile, but he accepted my follow request. It was rather easy to recognise you in some of the pictures.” You were wearing a cheshire grin as you stole his pen and scribbled down your own number on his copy of the document. “Tell him to be more careful next time.”

Yoongi’s face got very, very red. He simply took the paper and folded it, placing it in his inner pocket. “I will. So… Friday?”

“Friday.” You confirmed.

He stood up awkwardly. “Goodbye…”

You stood up too. “Goodbye.”

He was on the doorstep when you called him.

“Yoongi?”

He turned.

“I’m very happy you asked for that draft. I’m glad you stopped by today.” Your tone was quiet. “Maybe you could be a darling and bring me some coffee next time, though.”

Next time? “How do you take it?”

Your smile was flirty. “Americano. Iced, one milk, no sugar.”

Just like his. Yoongi took it as one of those signs Jeongguk always talks about. “Iced, one milk, no sugar,” he repeated. He nodded to himself. “Have a nice day, ____.” He knew his voice was soft and sweet.

From the way your gaze melted a little, he knew you felt it. “You too, Yoongi.”

He typed your number on his phone on the lift. He checked it was actually yours.

When your kakao profile appeared, he felt relieved. He almost wanted to text you, just to say he got the number added. You texted him first.

It was a GPS location.

See you on Friday :)

He stared at the text.

See you :) And sorry I used the draft to see you again.

Next time just ask me out ;)

It took him half the taxi ride to think how to reply. Then, he decided to be bold.

If I had asked you out on our first encounter, would you have agreed?

You read the text twice.

My dad was there. I’m not sure how he would have taken it.

Your reply was evasive enough.

Would you have said yes or no?

You let him grovel for a full hour, focusing on your job and waiting for your lunch break to reply.

Yes.

Yoongi read your text two hours later, after the gym. He was typing when you added,

Next time don’t ask me to make you papers if you just want to see me. Just ask me out, you scaredy cat.

He grinned.

Next time I’ll just bring you coffee, watch you work for a few minutes and then leave.

You giggled at his reply. Min Yoongi was indeed a very interesting human being.

[thedenimdentist]

Bleach Soaking my Warehouse 1001XX

Introduction

The proper way to wash selvedge denim (if you even believe in washing your denim at all) has always been a highly debated topic within the denim community. Since I first started wearing selvedge denim a few years ago, my beliefs, methods, and goals in washing my jeans has gone through a lot of the typical phases most “denimheads” experience. I initially never wanted to wash my jeans, hoping to get the most high contrast fades as possible. I never got into some of the more obscure denim practices, such as ocean washing or putting my jeans in the freezer to get rid of stench or “kill bacteria” or whatever, but I have played around a little with starching to try and achieve some of those SE Asian super crispy fades. 

Since then, my approach to washing my denim (as well as my taste in denim fades in general) has shifted dramatically. While I still can appreciate those super sharp, high contrast fades, I no longer really find them as desirable or visually appealing from a fashion perspective. They can be quite impressive when laid out flat on the floor or hanging, but when worn on body or worked into a full outfit, it just looks kind of bizarre and overly dramatic. That’s just my opinion, at least. There’s no “wrong” way to wash or fade your denim, so if that’s your cup of tea, more power to you.

As of late, I’ve definitely been more drawn to more classic fits and more vintage fades. Conveniently, this preference has also made wearing jeans much more comfortable and my washing practices much more hygienic! If you’ve been following along on my Warehouse 1001XX journey, you’ll know that this pair has been pretty much my daily driver for the past 8 months, and I’ve been washing them pretty much once a month (every 30 wears).

This time, at the 8 month mark (240 wear days), I decided to try something new (maybe even blasphemous within the denim community): I chose to bleach my denim. Not gonna lie, I was pretty hesitant and nervous, because I didn’t want to ruin a great pair of jeans I’ve invested 8 months on and am already pretty happy with how they've aged so far. However, I got over the initial fear and took the leap of faith, and am actually quite happy with the results.

Methods

I’m sure adding bleach to soaking/washing selvedge denim is not a ground-breaking, “never done before” technique to fading jeans. However, there is surprisingly very little information available online on how to actually go about doing it. Thus, I decided to give it a shot, and record exactly how I did it, as well as document my results for anyone else who may be interested in doing it themselves.

Step 1: To start, I just used the standard bleach I already had laying around for laundry: in this case, Clorox.

I’ve seen some videos on YouTube where they dump between half and the entire bottle of bleach into the bath tub to lighten a single pair of jeans. However, their goal was to take a standard darker to medium washed pair of jeans they found at the thrift store and lighten the hell out of em. I, on the other hand, chose to stay pretty conservative and only added about 50 mL of bleach to the bath. (I realize that 50 mL for an entire bath of water is fairly diluted, but as this is the first time I’ve done anything like this, I felt it better to err on the side of under-bleaching than over-bleaching.)

Step 2: I filled up my bathtub to about a finger length’s depth. (Clearly this is not a hard science, and everyone’s bath tubs are different. Nevertheless, I felt it necessary to give an approximate volume of water, as it affects the concentration of bleach added to the bath.)

Step 3: I then added the 50 mL of bleach to the bath and stirred the bathwater in attempt to evenly distribute the bleach. (I would've used a stick or something to stir the water, but I didn’t have one at the time. Instead, I just put on gloves and mixed it with my hands. (To be honest, I’m not really sure how necessary it is to wear gloves when touching bleach. I’m sure it’s not great for your skin, but the amount of time you're actually in contact with bleach is pretty minimal, especially it’s as dilute as 50 mL/an entire bathtub. But whatever. The teenage girl on YouTube told me it was CRUCIAL I wear gloves, so I did.)

Step 4: I completely submerged my jeans into the bathwater for 30 minutes, flipping them at the 15 minute mark. 

Things to note:

I left my jeans right-side-out for the entire 30-minute duration of the soak. My theory was, why bother flipping them inside out. What am I trying to do, hide the indigo-dyed warp from the bleach? Nah.

Do your best to lay the denim out as flat as possible. Not sure how critical this is, but people say you risk uneven bleaching if the denim isn’t super flat, and I’m not about to test their theory and end up with some ugly wrinkles or streaks on my jeans.

One extra step that I added was using a hard-bristle brush to scrub down the areas I wouldn’t mind some extra indigo loss (see photo below). I did this around the whiskers at the start of the first 15 minutes on the front, then on the butt pockets and honeycombs after flipping them over. 

Step 4: After the 30-minute bleach bath soak, I drained the bleach water from the bath, and filled it back up with plain water. I did my best to agitate and rinse out as much of the bleach water from my jeans as I could, and then flipped them inside out.

Step 5: I rolled up my jeans, wrapped them in a white rag towel, and ran them over to my washing machine. I then proceeded to machine wash my (inside-out) jeans on cold for 25 minutes, with the spin cycle turned off. (Note: turning “Spin” off does not mean the drum does not roll and tumble during the washing process. To my understanding, it just means it doesn’t spin quickly at the end to try and expel water out of your clothes (in this case, your jeans) before you pull them out to dry.)

Step 6: I hung my jeans to dry overnight. I sometimes hang them outside for better air flow, but I was lazy this time and hung them inside from a doorframe while blasting them with a fan. (I will note that, because the spin cycle was turned off, the jeans do come out of the machine dripping wet. I laid a towel down to absorb the bluish water drops and protect the hardwood floor.)

Results

I will preface this by saying that the results from this bleach soak are not all that significant. I would have loved to tell you that I’ve discovered the holy grail technique of achieving epic vintage fades, but I’d be lying. That being said, I’m in no way disappointed with the results! The bleach did bring up some of the high points in the fades just a bit, and definitely gave the color of the denim as a whole a bit more pop.

First off, here are a few side-by-side comparisons from before and after the bleach soak + machine wash. It’s a bit difficult to really tell what the fades really look like in the before shots (left), as they’re disguised by the shadows of the creases left from wear. The after photos (right) were taken immediately after hang drying flat, leaving just the fades clear and visible, unadulterated by shadows and creases.

Below are the standard views that I’ve been taking for all my post-wash updates. I just posted the side-by-side comparisons above because I thought it'd probably be helpful to see how drastic (or subtle) differences were in my fades immediately before and after the bleach soak.

Even with my Fuji X-T30, it’s difficult to really capture how the fades really look IRL. Thus, here’s a couple photos I snapped with my old iPhone 8 that I feel accurately depict how they looked after bleaching.

Man, so good.

On-Body

Lastly, here’s how they’re looking on body. Sadly, as always, I feel like my on-body photos never do my fades justice. There’s so much depth of color and texture to this banner denim, I just can’t seem to capture it from further away. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but that’s why I always take so many detailed close-up shots—to best capture what I’m seeing in real life.

Conclusions

While very subtle, I am extremely happy with the results of this first bleach soak. The highlights in the whiskers, knees, train tracks, and butt pockets/seat pop just a bit more, and now I can even make out some visible honeycombs (which have always been lagging). In addition, I feel like it did remove just the right amount of indigo from the entire jean as a whole, bringing up some of the areas of deep indigo and revealing more electric blues. This Warehouse banner denim already had so much depth of color and texture, and I feel the bleach soak only brought out that character even more.

Is doing a bleach soak going to give you instant epic vintage fades? No. But are my jeans ruined forever? Not at all. Maybe bleach soaking isn’t for everyone. If you’re one of those people who are going for super high contrast, chunky, Southeast Asian fades, then no, bleach soaking might not be your thing. However, if soft vintage fades are more your speed, maybe adding some bleach to the mix isn't such a bad idea. 

All in all, I just wanted to document this experiment to prove that adding bleach to a raw denim soak isn’t as scary as people make it out to be. For those of you who may have thought about bleaching your denim in the past but were unsure of how much to do so or were afraid of ruining your expensive jeans, hopefully this will give you the confidence to give it a try, knowing the type of results you might get based on how my pair turned out. Just use your brain and think about what you’re doing and why, and you’ll be just fine. Like so many other strange techniques used to fade denim (most of which I find dumb or so obscure and not grounded in science, or even common sense), bleach is merely another tool you can use to fade your denim.

I’ll probably continue to bleach soak my denim occasionally moving forward. Heck, I may even try doubling or tripling the concentration of bleach to 100-150 mL next time, just to see what’ll happen. Cuz at the end of the day, they’re just jeans, so why not have some fun with it?

[cloudywriter]

i never got to say i love you - 2

~~~

A/N: heyy i wanted to update vanilla pudding cups but i’ve really kinda hit a block in that story so enjoy this while i move pass my stump with the other story. also i’m working on some masterlist so navigating stories will be easier!

masterlist & AO3 

also here’s my other feysand au if you would like to check that out! -> vanilla pudding cups

~~~

As classes begin to start up Feyre finds herself adjusting well to her new schedule. Most days she has one or two classes in the morning and one or two in the afternoon. Alis almost always brings her some lunch or snacks as she spends every free moment she has in the studio. If it weren’t for Alis she’s convinced she might’ve accidentally starved to death by now. 

Honestly, Feyre hadn’t made many friends besides Alis who she had grown pretty close with. She had brief conversations with Mor in the hallways and had eventually met her roommate, Viviane, but most of the time she saw Mor outside of the dorm building she was with that group of boys from the dining hall. Yes, the same group of boys Alis still managed to bring up every other day, especially when they’d first seen Mor walking with them very comfortably. Alis was convinced Mor would be their way in. 

What Feyre had never told Alis was a week ago Mor had invited them to come play monopoly in her dorm one Friday night with said boys, Viviane, and her boyfriend, Kallias. Feyre had declined. 

Mor is always extremely sweet and a constant ray of sunshine but so much so it unnerved Feyre a bit, she could easily turn into one of those girls Feyre avoided like the plague in high school. Viviane is similar, but a bit more subdued, however Mor was completely right about her being with her boyfriend more often than not. 

At the moment Feyre was making her way back from her last class of the day to her dorm, mentally preparing herself to pull an all-nighter. She had an assignment due for her drawing class that she had been putting off for weeks until the due date had crept up on her. Therefore, Feyre now had approximately 12 hours to draw an entire portrait. Mostly she had procrastinated up until this point because she just had no idea who she wanted to draw and her options were already limited.

When she finally arrived at her dorm room, having stopped at the vending machine for snacks on the way, she pushed the door open, threw her bag on her bed, and slumped in her desk chair, letting out a loud sigh. 

She was hunched over her sketchbook feeling utterly defeated only a few hours later. The sun was beginning to set which had her hopeful, usually she did her best work in the dead of night anyway. But her fingers ached from gripping her pencil so long and she wasn’t sure she could sit up straight without an immense pain flaring in her back, even her neck and shoulders felt stiff. Not to mention, her efforts only produced a half dozen crumpled balls in the trash and a mound of eraser shreds. 

Luckily, Feyre started to get her rhythm back as the night progressed, it was dark out now the only lights coming from the city buildings surrounding the campus. Alis had yet to return which she found a little odd but it was safe to assume she was studying late in the library. 

Unluckily though, the dorm next to her, Mor’s dorm, was getting increasingly noisy with the darkening sky. The constant sound of muffled voices, laughing, and music poured through the wall. 

Feyre was about halfway done with her portrait which had turned into a drawing of Alis, it had started coming together nicely but the added distraction of all the commotion next door was throwing her off her game. She’d been debating with herself for half an hour now whether or not she should say something to Mor; she knew Mor would probably tone it down if she asked. 

At last, nearly two hours later, Feyre was at her absolute breaking point. She hadn’t made much of a dent in the rest of her sketch throughout those hours due to the ever growing disruptions. How Mor had not gotten a noise complaint yet she did not know. The music was louder, the voices went back and forward between intense bickering and cheering, and even random slamming sounds could be heard every once in a while. 

Feyre tried desperately to tune out her surroundings but just as she was finding success a loud banging on the wall followed by yelling brought her right back. She groaned, burying her face in her hands.

Before her mind even processed what her body was doing Feyre found herself outside of Mor’s door knocking with intent. She heard a frenzy of shushing and the music turned down a few notches. 

The door then swung open.

“Hey, sorry - oh, you’re not the RA.”

A hulk of a man stood in the doorway dressed in a tight black t-shirt and batman pajama pants. The man flashed her a big shit-eating grin. Feyre thought there was something familiar about him.

“What brings you around here, sweetheart?” He added, leaning against the door.

That’s when the familiarity donned on Feyre. He was one of the boys from the dining hall, specifically the one who had half his hair up. She also then realized it was in fact Friday night, game night for them.

She had yet to respond to the boy but made herself look up to meet his gaze, making sure she had her best scowl on. He was quite tall.

“You look cute when you’re trying to look angry.” He smirked at her. His eyes dragged up and down her body slowly, intimately. Fuck, Feyre noticed too late she had really left her room with only a random cropped band t-shirt on, barely there baby blue shorts, mismatching socks, glasses, and her hair wrapped around itself in a ridiculously messy bun with only a chunky wool beige cardigan thrown over herself. 

“I’m not cute.”

“I beg to differ, sweetheart.” He winked at her.

“Don’t call me that,” Feyre ground out.

“Sure, I can switch up pet names. What would you rather instead?” He raised his brows at her in question. 

Before Feyre could stomp on his toes Mor came up from behind him, a red solo cup in hand. “Stop bothering Feyre with your incessant flirting, you brute.”

“Feyre, you say? I don’t believe we’ve met.” He spoke, not breaking eye contact with her.

“Right.” Mor opened the door wider causing the man to stumble and shoot her a glare, Mor only giggled. Now that Feyre could see inside she noticed the small foldable table set up in the center of the room and an array of uno cards scattered across the floor. “Okay, well you’ve kinda met Cassian, he’s an ass. But this is Azriel, Rhysand, and Amren,” she spoke, indicating to each person with her hand. 

Azriel gave her a small, half smile while Amren gave her a disinterested wave of the hand. 

Rhysand, however, studied her with an intense gaze that Feyre returned. She hadn’t seen the front of his face up close until now and she could not say she was disappointed whatsoever. Gods, he was like a greek god or something. He looked as if his face and body had been expertly sculpted out of the finest marble. He had black hair that was longer on top and adorably tousled, eyes that were such a specific shade of deep blue they might appear violet in some lights, and bronzed skin. Azriel and Cassian were definitely not bad on the eyes but Rhysand was just something else in her mind. It didn’t hurt he was also wearing the batman pajama bottoms.

Feyre might’ve thought he was having a similar inner monologue to her own but the harsh reality of what she was wearing right now, her bare face, and her hair’s state had her banishing that possibility. He too seemed as if he were in a bit of a daze, studying her. 

“And this guys is Feyre. She lives next door,” Mor finished off. 

Cassian gave Rhysand’s ribs a sharp jab. Rhysand looked a bit startled at first but recovered swiftly, giving Feyre a small tilt of his head in acknowledgment. “Well, it is lovely to finally meet you, Feyre,” Cassian smiled at her. 

Feyre nodded her head, still a little distracted by Rhysand. “You too, sorry for interrupting.” 

“No, no, you’re all good. I’m really sorry were we being too loud? Were you trying to sleep?” Mor asked so sweetly and genuinely Feyre almost felt bad for coming to ask her to quiet down in the first place.

“I-I no, um, it’s alright actually. Have a good night.” Feyre stammered, turning on her heel to end this embarrassing exchange. 

She heard Mor reply with the same sentiment before disappearing back into her dorm. She closed the door and leaned her head against the solid wood. 

That was not the smoothest interaction she’s ever had, that’s for sure. 

She sat back down at her desk and stared at her work before picking up her pencil once more. It was substantially quieter now, Mor must’ve known what had bothered Feyre in the first place. 

She tried to finish her sketch of Alis but her inspiration to do so had dissipated. With that, Feyre turned to the next page, letting her mind take over as her pencil flowed across the paper. She was somewhat aware of who she was now outlining but couldn’t find it in herself to stop. When she got an idea or saw something that intrigued her she had to draw it, like an itch that wouldn’t go away until it gets scratched. 

In record time a completed portrait stared back at her, more specifically Rhysand’s stupid, perfect face stared back at her. Feyre groaned and put her head in her hands.

~~~

please leave feedback & let me know if you wanna be tagged!

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #482

Top Ten Sega Games

So I read somewhere on the internet that in June it’s the thirtieth birthday of Sonic the Hedgehog (making him only a couple of months younger than my brother, which is weird). This is due to his debut game, the appropriately-titled Sonic the Hedgehog, being first released on June 23rd. As such – and because I do love a good Tenuous Link – I’ve decided to dedicate this week’s list to Sega (also there was that Sonic livestream and announcement of new games, so I remain shockingly relevant).

I’ve got a funny relationship with Sega, largely because I’ve got a funny relationship with last century’s consoles in general. As I’ve said before, I never had a console growing up, and never really felt the need for one; I came from a computing background, playing on other people’s Spectrums and Commodores before getting my own Amiga and, later, a PC. And I stuck with it, and that was fine. But it does mean that, generally speaking, I have next to zero nostalgia for any game that came out on a Nintendo or Sega console (or Sony, for that matter). I could chew your ear off about Dizzy, or point-and-click adventure games, or Team 17, or Sensible Software, or RTS games, or FPS games, or whatever; but all these weird-looking Japanese platform games, or strange, unfamiliar RPGs? No idea. In fact, I remember learning what “Metroidvania” meant about five years ago, and literally saying out loud, “oh, so it’s like Flashback, then,” because I’d never played a (2D) Metroid or Castlevania game. Turns out they meant games that were, using the old Amiga Action terminology, “Arcade Adventures”. Now it makes sense.

Despite all this, I did actually play a fair few Sega games, as my cousins had a Mega Drive. So I’d get to have a bash at a fair few of them after school or whatever. This meant that, for a while, I was actually more of a Sega fan than a Nintendo one, a situation that’s broadly flipped since Sega stopped making hardware and Nintendo continued its gaming dominance. What all of this means, when strung together, is that I have a good deal of affection for some of the classics of Sega’s 16-bit heyday, but I don’t have the breadth or depth of knowledge you’d see from someone who, well, actually owned a console before the original Xbox. Yeah, sure, there are lots of games I liked back then; and probably quite a few that I still have warm nostalgic feelings for, even if they’re maybe not actually very good (Altered Beast, for instance, which I’m reliably informed was – to coin a very early-nineties phrase – “pants”, despite my being fond of it at the time). Therefore this list is probably going to be quite eccentric when compared to other “Best of Sega” lists. Especially because in the last couple of decades Sega has become a publisher for a number of development studios all around the world, giving support and distribution to the makers of diverse (and historically non-console) franchises as Total War and Football Manager. These might not be the fast-moving blue sky games one associates with Sega, but as far as I’m concerned they’re a vital part of the company’s history as it moved away from its hardware failures (and the increasingly lacklustre Sonic franchise) and into new waters. And just as important, of course, are their arcade releases, back in the days when people actually went to arcades (you know, I have multi-format games magazines at my parents’ house that are so old they actually review arcade games. Yes, I know!).

So, happy birthday, Sonic, you big blue bugger, you. Sorry your company pooed itself on the home console front. Sorry a lot of your games over the past twenty years have been a bit disappointing. But in a funny way you helped define the nineties, something that I personally don’t feel Mario quite did. And your film is better than his, too.

Crazy Taxi (Arcade, 1999): a simple concept – drive customers to their destination in the time limit – combined with a beautiful, sunny, blue skied rendition of San Francisco, giving you a gorgeous cityscape (back when driving round an open city was a new thrill), filled with hills to bounce over and traffic to dodge. A real looker twenty years ago, but its stylised, simple graphics haven’t really dated, feeling fittingly retro rather than old-fashioned or clunky. One of those games that’s fiendishly difficult to master, but its central hook is so compelling you keep coming back for more.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive, 1992): games have rarely felt faster, and even if the original Sonic’s opening stages are more iconic, overall I prefer the sequel. Sonic himself was one of those very-nineties characters who focused on a gentle, child-friendly form of “attitude”, and it bursts off the screen, his frown and impatient foot-tapping really selling it. the gameplay is sublime, the graphics still really pop, and the more complex stages contrast nicely with the pastoral opening. Plus it gave us Tails, the game industry’s own Jar Jar Binks, who I’ll always love because my cousin made me play as him all the time.

Medieval II: Total War (PC, 2006): I’ll be honest with you, this game is really the number one, I just feel weird listing “Best Sega Games” and then putting a fifteen-year-old PC strategy game at the top of the pile. But what can I say? I like turn-based PC strategy games, especially ones that let you go deep on genealogy and inter-familial relationships in medieval Europe. everyone knows the real-time 3D battles are cool – they made a whole TV show about them – but for me it’s the slow conquering of Europe that’s the highlight. Marrying off princesses, assassinating rivals, even going on ethically-dubious religious crusades… I just love it. I’ve not played many of the subsequent games in the franchise, but to be honest I like this setting so much I really just want them to make a third Medieval game.

Sega Rally Championship (Arcade, 1994): what, four games in and we’re back to racing? Well, Sega make good racing games I guess. And Sega Rally is just a really good racing game. Another one of those that was a graphical marvel on its release, it has a loose and freewheeling sense of fun and accessibility. Plus it was one of those games that revelled in its open blue skies, from an era when racing games in the arcades loved to dazzle you with spectacle – like when a helicopter swoops low over the tracks. I had a demo of this on PC, too, and I used to race that one course over and over again.

After Burner (Arcade, 1987): there are a lot of arcade games in this list, but when they’re as cool as After Burner, what can you do? This was a technological masterpiece back in the day: a huge cockpit that enveloped you as you sat in the pilot’s seat, joystick in hand. The whole rig moved as you flew the plane, and the graphics (gorgeous for their time) wowed you with their speed and the way the horizon shifted. I was, of course, utterly crap at it, and I seem to remember it was more expensive than most games, so my dad hated me going on it. But it was the kind of thrilling experience that seems harder to replicate nowadays.

Virtua Cop (Arcade, 1994): I used to love lightgun games in the nineties. This despite being utterly, ridiculously crap at them. I can’t aim; ask anyone. But they felt really cool and futuristic, and also you could wave a big gun around like you were RoboCop or something. Virtua Cop added to the fun with its cool 3D graphics. Whilst I’d argue Time Crisis was better, with a little paddle that let you take cover, Cop again leveraged those bright Sega colours to give us a beautiful primary-coloured depiction of excessive ultra-violence and mass death.

Two Point Hospital (PC, 2018): back once again to the point-and-clickers, with another PC game only nominally Sega. But I can’t ignore it. Taking what was best about Theme Hospital and updating it for the 21st Century, TPH is a darkly funny but enjoyably deep management sim, with cute chunky graphics and an easy-to-use interface (Daughter #1 is very fond of it). The console adaptations are good, too. I’d love to see where Two Point go next. Maybe to a theme park…?

Jet Set Radio Future (Xbox, 2002): I never had a Dreamcast. But I remember seeing the original Jet Set Radio – maybe on TV, maybe running on a demo pod in Toys ‘R’ Us or something – and being blown away. It was the first time I’d ever seen cel shading, and it was a revelation; just a beautiful technique that I didn’t think was possible, that made the game look like a living cartoon. Finally being able to play the sequel on my new Xbox was terrific, because the gameplay was excellent too: a fast-paced game of chaining together jumps and glides, in a city that was popping with colour and bursting with energy. Felt like playing a game made entirely of Skittles and Red Bull.

The Typing of the Dead (PC, 2000): The House of the Dead games were descendants of Virtua Cop’s lightgun blasting, but with zombies. Yeah, cool; I liked playing them at the arcades down at Teesside Park, in the Hollywood Bowl or the Showcase cinema. But playing this PC adaptation of the quirky typing-based spin-off was something else. A game where you defeat zombies by correctly typing “cow” or “bottle” or whatever as quickly as possible? A game that was simultaneously an educational typing instructor and also a zombie murder simulator? The fact that the characters are wearing Ghostbusters-style backpacks made of Dreamcast consoles and keyboards is just a seriously crazy detail, and the way the typing was integrated into the gameplay – harder enemies had longer words, for instance – was very well done. A bonkers mini-masterpiece.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (Switch, 2019): the very fact that erstwhile cultural enemies Mario and Sonic would ever share a game at all is the stuff of addled mid-nineties fever dreams; like Downey’s Tony Stark sharing the screen with Bale’s Batman (or Affleck’s Batman, who the hell cares at this point). The main thing is, it’s still crazy to think about it, even if it’s just entirely ordinary for my kids, sitting their unaware of the Great Console Wars of the 1990s. Anyway, divorced of all that pan-universal gladhanding, the games are good fun, adapting the various Olympic sports with charm, making them easy-to-understand party games, often with motion control for the benefit of the youngs and the olds. I don’t remember playing earlier games extensively, but the soft-RPG trappings of the latest iteration are enjoyable, especially the retro-themed events and graphics. Earns a spot in my Top Ten for its historic nature, but it’s also thoroughly enjoyable in its own right.

Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if all those crazy internet rumours were actually true, and Microsoft did announce it was buying Sega this E3? This really would feel like a very timely and in some ways prescient list.

[purplesurveys]

987

survey by shamegmeg

Have you ever cut your own hair? I’ve trimmed my own bangs but that’s it. I feel like doing anything to my hair altogether on my own is too big a move and would have bigger consequences if I fuck it up (which I definitely will end up doing).

What do you eat most frequently? Meat - chicken, beef, and pork. It’s in nearly every dish we eat, if not all of them.

Are you a fan of video games? I will always find the topic interesting and I played a fair share of video games growing up, but I’m not an ultra fan of any of the most popular games right now. I do like staying updated with my favorite series like Grand Theft Auto, The Sims, Mario Kart, etc. but it’s rare that I get my hands on the console itself to play. 

What's your favorite color combination? I don’t really think of any specific two colors, but I’m generally a fan of combinations of muted or pastel colors. Anything that doesn’t hurt my eyes too much.

Did you share a locker at school? We didn’t do that; we each had our own.

What's one sport you could never play? Basketball. Never understood the rules and I just never had the stamina for it. I’m also pretty competitive so I feel like I’d be pissed off and take it personally whenever somebody blocks me hahaha.

Blue or black ink? Black. I have nothing against blue though - I just like keeping pens with black ink around more.

Have you ever sang karaoke? Just once or twice. I’m not extroverted enough for it, not even when drunk. I just really hate the sound of my own singing voice, so it doesn’t help if I’m suddenly singing into a microphone.

What was the last concert you attended? Answer’s gonna be unchanged for the meantime, man...Paramore. No complaints naming them every time I’m asked this, though. Let’s hope they’ll also be the next concert I attend, as they like coming back to Manila anyway :))

Have you held anyone's hand in the past week? No.

What's your favorite perfume/body spray/cologne? I’ve used Beyoncé’s Heat Rush since high school. I’ve never gotten tired of the scent and pretty much everyone knows me by that perfume now.

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? Before Covid, it depended on how late I’d get out of bed. If I had the energy to get up earlier, I’d devote 20-30 minutes to getting ready; but if it was a harder morning to face, I’d just take a quick 3-minute shower and wear the first things I see in my closet. These days since I just work from home, all I need to do is shower which takes no more than a few minutes.

What is the oldest age you think should wear makeup? I think anyone of any gender of any age (except babies and younger kids) of any background from any walk of life should be allowed to wear makeup...

How old were you when you went on your first date? I was 16.

What's your nationality(ies)? Filipino.

Are you an open book? I can be for the most part since there’s no harm in sharing, but there are a few things that I’m extremely protective and secretive about.

Do you think you're a good secret keeper? Yeah. I used to share secrets with Gab but that’s because she tends to forget easily, but otherwise I have no problem taking secrets with me to my grave.

Name one fashion trend you could never follow. I have never been into wedges. Too chunky-looking.

Do you prefer long hair or short hair? On me? Short. It’s easier to maintain and take care of.

When do you plan to go to sleep tonight? Depends on how tired I am by the end of the day. I did make a cup of coffee today though so the caffeine might also choose to hang out into the evening.

Has anyone besides your family seen you naked? Yes.

If so, who? Gabie.

What exotic animal would you love to have as a pet? That’s a pass for me. I don’t know their temperament and what they need on a normal day, so I’m really not well-equipped to keep an exotic animal as a pet and I don’t want to end up accidentally killing them or something.

Do you want kids when you're older? At this point in my life I can go with or without them.

Did your parents sign you up for anything you hated as a child? I’m definitely grateful for it now, but when I was going through ballet classes as a five year old I absolutely hated it and had no idea what I was doing there. I wish I could tell my five year old self to appreciate it more because now I think it’s pretty cute that my parents wanted me to take up ballet and enrolled me in classes.

Where's your cell phone? It’s just right beside me. It’s always right beside me, haha.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I’ve always been a firm supporter of the egg lol because it had to be an earlier version of the chicken that laid the egg that would ultimately hatch the chicken as we know them today. Idk though, I hate questions like this hahahaha

What are your feelings about Octomom? I don’t know anything more than the fact that she had octuplets, which is awesome and badass in itself.

Do you know of Smosh? I used to LOVE Smosh, like holy shit. I probably talked about them in my earliest surveys a decade ago; simply put I was hooked. Watched every new episode and every new Lunchtime with Smosh/Ian Is Bored video from around maybe 2010-2013 until they started adding more crew members and until their videos started to stray from the content that made them blow up in the first place. I still remember when it was Smosh and Pewdiepie vying for the highest subscriber count on YouTube, haha. Was also sad when Anthony left. Suffice it to say I’ll always hold a fondness for Smosh - Anthony and Ian were my first favorite YouTubers along with Pewdiepie.

Do you drink enough water daily? Some days I do, some days I don’t.

Is your diet healthy? When I do eat my dishes are always a good balance of meat and veggies, but I feel like me skipping most of my meals overshadows that fact and makes my overall diet not-so-healthy.

What's your favorite fruit? The only one I’ve had and not feel like gagging whenever I consume it is avocado. To an extent, tomato too.

What was your favorite Halloween costume? Going as my former best friend, Sofie.

Have you purchased any cool objects from a foreign country? I bought a few trinkets from Japan when I was there, but they were all for my loved ones and I don’t exactly remember what I bought anymore.

Are you on a laptop or a desktop computer right now? Laptop. 

Where do you plan to post this survey? Tumblr, as I’ve always done in the last near-decade or so.

Do you remember anyone's number by heart? My mom’s, sister’s, and Gabie’s.

Are you a morning person or a late night owl? I’m more of a morning person lately because of work and because of the need to be chirpy by 9 AM. Being awake these days makes me sad now, so I avoid staying up late as much as I can; which means my days of being a night owl are over.

Name something you will never try in your lifetime. Coprophagia.

What do you think is your biggest flaw? I’m super competitive, which makes me the suckiest person to have friendly games with. I avoid them altogether so that I don’t end up killing the vibe of whatever crowd I’m with. I’ll own this lol.

First physical trait you notice in the sex you're attracted to? Wouldn’t say I’m automatically attracted to any sex. With everyone though, I tend to notice body language first which kiiinda counts as a physical trait.

How about personality wise? Whether they look approachable/easy to talk to or not.

Are you sick often? Almost never.

Would you rather have strep throat or an ear infection? Uh I’d rather not be sick at all hahaha.

When did you last shower? This morning, before work. We have online meetings every Monday morning, and I wanted to look fresh and clean for it.

Do you have neat handwriting? I’d say so. I get a lot of compliments about my penmanship and my friends usually call on me when they need someone with consistent and clean handwriting, so I guess must be holding my pens right.

Are you a messy or organized person? I’d say my workspaces are always organized but my personal space (car, backpack, etc) is messy.

At what age do you hope to get married? By the end of my 20s or early 30s.

Is being thin really all that great? Idk, I feel like the experience differs per person. I don’t have complaints about it for the most part, but it can get annoying when there are certain tops I’d like to wear but will never be able to pull off and thus have to leave on the rack just because my chest is flat or my overall figure is rather tiny.

Which of the seven deadly sins do you think you're most guilty of? Pride.

How much time have you spent on the computer today? 9 hours and counting. WFH is basically being on the computer all day, so that’s a big reason why I’ve racked up so many hours.

What size shoe are you? 6–7.5.

How was the weather today? The sun was out but fortunately it wasn’t all that hot for me to feel uncomfortable. I hate that it was bright all day, though. My disposition is more likely to improve if it’s cloudy and a little gloomy, haha.

Do you live above, below, or on the Equator? Above.

Do you know how to use Photoshop? I tried to play and experiment with it as a teen, but it just never made sense to me. I hate touching any kind of Adobe program.

Admit it, you're thinking about someone right now. Eh, false. I’m thinking of how much longer this survey will still be.

Where is he/she?

Where was your first job? My first internship was also at a PR agency, if that counts.

Favorite year in high school? Junior year.

East or West? As in parts of the world? East all the way, of course.

Where did your first kiss take place? On my bed.

What color do you wear most often? Probably maroon because of how many UP shirts I have.

Who was the last person you talked on the phone to? That would be my dad.

Have you ever done your own laundry? Kinda. I’ve had to wash my blanket a few times because Cooper peed on them.

Have you ever been to a night club? Yes.

Are you allergic to anything? Nope.

What's the best place you have ever eaten? Mendokoro Ramenba by a freaking mile.

Do you own a hair straightener? No. My mom does; if I ever need a straightener I just borrow hers.

Are you barefoot right now? Yep, always am when I’m at home except for the rare times I put socks on.

Are you subscribed to any magazine? No. Even when magazine subscriptions were popular I was never subscribed to any; I didn’t see the point when I could just get the new issue every month at the mall myself lol.

Puppies or kittens? Puppies.

If you had a billion dollars, where would your first investment be made? First I would probably read up on investment so that I don’t end up making decisions I’ll regret. My first agenda is to help my parents settle whatever payments they’re making at the moment, so that they don’t have to worry about any of that crap anymore.

Who is the best artist you've seen live? PARAMORE. I mean they’re artists, as in plural, but still.

Any major plans coming up this week? Keep myself alive.

Did you know they never told you Arnold's last name in Hey, Arnold? Never realized that but I don’t really care too much, considering I was never into the show.

Would you rather watch a romantic comedy or watch a thrilling horror movie? Romantic comedy, as long as it’s one I’ve already seen and enjoyed, like Love Actually or The Proposal. Most other romcoms are too cheesy and suck.

How is your hair styled right now? It’s in a ponytail that’s been unchanged all day, so it’s a bit messy at this point.

Favorite person that you've talked to today? Angela.

Do you need AC right now? I’m good. It’s a little chilly tonight, so yay.

Do more people call you by a nickname or your first name? My first name is already my nickname - most people just call me Robyn. At home, though, I’m usually called a shortened version of my name.

Name something you're proud of. I confided in Angela today that I’m finally starting to think of seeing a therapist. Which I think is such a big realization to have and a big choice to have made. So yay me. Let’s hope I actually push through with it, and let’s hope I’m able to land a job soon so I can finally fucking afford to see one.

Are you a hopeless romantic? I never knew what this meant and I don’t feel like learning tonight.

How do you feel about couples who say 'I love you' too soon? No judgment. I don’t comment on how other couples navigate their relationship; it’s their thing.

What's the most recent favor you've done for somebody? Can’t remember.

Are you at home right now? Yep.

What did you last spend money on? Gas.

Does any accent annoy you? Stereotypical ones, like how Filipino-American stand-up comedians always try to cash in on Filipino quirks and make fun of thick Filipino accents, which makes all Filipinos look like we can’t speak English ‘properly,’ whatever properly means. Full-blooded Filipinos are so sick of that shit. We get it, the cellpown is ober der -___-

How about turn you on? None actively turn me on.

Are you wearing any jewelry? No.

Do you get along better with your mom or your dad? Dad. Easier to talk to and we share more interests.

Are you craving anything right now? Sushi.

What's worse: Crocs or Uggs? I’d go with Uggs, because Crocs actually look cute on kids so at least it suits one market lol

Do you knock before you open doors? Yep, always. I learned the habit because my mom never knocks and I quickly realized I don’t want to be that kind of person.

Do you know what a sock on the doorknob means? I think so.

Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate.

What's your zodiac sign? Taurus.

Does Fred from Youtube annoy you? I don’t think he ever did.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 35: Seto and Yugi’s Excellent Adventure

Ah, I’m back from a long trip--I will actually leave on another trip (shorter this time) next week so don’t think this update will mean the timely updates are back haha, they ain’t. But, on this excursions (not really a vacation at all--vacation is next week) I had a hell ton of Netfix and Hulu on in the background and you know what? Lets watch some more. I’m tired as hell. I just want to do something that requires little thought and has nothing to do with anything, but feels like progress for some reason, and that’s what watching a TV series is. So satisfying to click “next.”

Now last we left off, because it’s been kind of a while, we were on somewhat a cliffhanger. I say “somewhat” only because it’s during a card game and it only involves either or Yugi or Kaiba winning and I......don’t think it’s going to be Kaiba. But, if it were, it would honestly not change the outcome of Marik getting roasted. Marik who only wins by putting people in comas and like...electrocuting them or setting them on fire. I feel like Seto is immune to all of those things, especially since the shoulder pads on that coat have to be an insulator from both electricity and fire.

That and like...what’s Marik going to do, use the rod on Kaiba? Like Kaiba kind of owns that thing so would it even work? It can’t work on Kaiba, right? Kaiba’s kind of a shoe-in for beating Marik but I just...I don’t think the show will go that direction since they really want us to side with Yugi in this fight. Or, if it does, it would only do it during the last second. I guess we will see.

During this time, Seto admits for the first and probably last time that he maybe did not do enough playtesting of this card game.

Since these two God Cards decided to arm wrestle, it for some reason triggered a...weird response. Because once, Like Godzilla and Ghidora, a long time ago, these two had a heated arm wrestle battle and destroyed a hell ton of stuff. This time they do an arm wrestle and...it just kinda makes people trip out for a little while. They’ve grown more gentle over time.

(read more under the cut)

So Marik says that Seto is triggering the Millennium rod...which he has done completely by accident once before, but he doesn’t really say why. Like yes, Seto is a reincarnation of the earlier dude that owned this rod and killed the Pharaoh but...what is currently causing this rod to trigger?

Both times this rod was triggered was during a duel, but both times were at a point where Seto was only in danger of playing cards in a match where there are really no stakes for him. Maybe he perceives stakes but like...what’s the worst that Yugi’s going to do? Seto is fine.

But, maybe it just has to do with the vicinity of Seto to this weird rod? That maybe if he plays cards at any point within 100 ft of this thing, he will absolutely hallucinate? I mean, earlier in the season, he was playing cards in a VR realm which had no rod around.

Which...the VR world somehow had less hallucinating than when playing cards in the real world when it comes to Seto Kaiba. Wild.

But just go with it, Seto can occasionally sync with this thing. I don’t know why he does it, he doesn’t know why he does it, he just does it, and whenever he does, he hallucinates weird experiences of his past self, a dude that Seto refuses to accept is himself and hoo boy--I don’t blame him, that guys is the only mess in history who is more of a mess than the current day Seto. (and I only say that because I haven’t yet learned of whatever the hell was going on with Bakura)

This whole hallucination problem Seto has is kind of funny, since the Millennium Puzzle syncs with Yugi all the time and they have had absolutely no hallucinations of Pharaoh’s past life. Not once. Although that would have been super helpful. In fact, this is the first time in my memory that Yugi’s going to get to see the past, and it’s because he’s accidentally piggy-backing off of one of Seto’s acid trips. Like a secondhand high but with exposition.

I’ll give them credit, this was a really sweet level in Mario Odyssey.

They use all 10 of their remaining brain cells left over after 3-4 straight days of card trauma and very, very, very, very slowly start putting it all together.

And so we finally get a glimpse of Pharaoh’s realm, which is...kinda small? But I mean it was the past, there weren’t many people alive yet and it takes a long time to draw buildings so we’ll just...kind of assume there’s a lot of orchards off screen maybe? Maybe people just kind of commuted into the capital but didn’t really live there, like Sacramento.

I also get the vibe that this whole city now exists on some other plane, like maybe the whole city got shadow realmed and it murdered everyone who was originally here? Because there’s no people in this town. Maybe they all got offscreen murdered before Seto and Yugi showed up, but, I have a weird feeling that this won’t...reallllllly ever get addressed. I don’t know how 4kids would handle about 10,000 deaths. Although my Yugioh Death Count tracker would absolutely love that.

But hey, we can fly now. We can fly and make random observations to solve this riddle of “where are we? With the pyramids and sand and stuff?”

And that’s when I get to fully see what past Seto looked like and y’all.

This is a LOOK.

Like, there’s a lot of really bad looks in Yugioh, but this is...a LOOK.

Maybe worst look so far, even worse than Yugi’s emo jumpsuit date outfit that had 6 clashing chunky bangles. I love it.

Oh boy I take like a month break and come back to just a REAL look.

Also, it’s a look so truly bad that that he forced his entire four-person army to also don the dark magician shaped gnome hat. The dedication to purple gnome hats. I can’t believe that the Seto fashion we have now is the upgraded version, I can’t believe this was Seto Beta.

Also...kind of weird that his hat shape is a reference to dark magician. I thought that was Yugi’s thing. But youknow...that’s he hat he chose. This is the hat.

Meanwhile, past Seto and past Pharaoh are fighting some mehhhh DnD campaign. It has a Dark One in it although they kinda forgot about him in the same scene they bring him up. Much like any show that has a villain named Dark One in it. It kind of feels like a placeholder villain name that writers forget to remove.

I would pay more attention to all of that if it weren’t for the just...insane outfits these two are wearing.

And so, just before we found out what the hell ever happened to Pharaoh’s body and like...any of that nonsense, Seto has decided for once in his life that it is time he stopped hallucinating and return to the real world.

Bear in mind, that they have no idea that every TV this was broadcasted on exploded, and so, for all they know, their trip-out is being broadcasted on every TV in Domino. Yugi screaming to Kaiba that he killed him, was something Yugi was pretty sure all of Domino got to see.

And for some reason the God Cards are no longer active. No reason. Don’t think about it. Mokuba noticed, but no one pays much attention to Mokuba unless he’s abducted.

Reminder that we just saw that the last time those God cards were activated against eachother, an entire city was swept into the Shadow Realm and everyone totally died...but this time they just kinda cancelled eachother out? Eh...it’s a kid’s show.

Bro brings up that maybe the God cards looked around at this deserted island and were like “We don’t really want these four guys and Joey Wheeler’s Soul, peace.” and freaking left.

Oh Marik, the only one on this show who would be threatened if Seto found out that Seto is a wizard. I don’t think it would really phase anyone else here if Seto was just suddenly magic. Yugi wouldn’t even blink. Joey probably assumes everyone but Joey is a wizard at this point.

And so Kaiba decides to just ignore everyone and finish his job so he can finally go home, I guess.

Bro brings up that he loves how when Yugi talks, this tablet comes back into fame, but when Seto talks, it kind of just goes away.

And here’s the kicker. Here’s the thing that actually surprised me.

This duel still isn’t over yet???

OK I guess???

So uh...I’m going to leave you on yet...another cliffhanger haha, unless I finish another of these before next weekend, which...I might, I might not.

Anyway, if you just got here, you can start here on Ep 1 S1 and watch my whole journey of watching the entirety of Original Yugioh knowing basically nothing about OG Yugioh. And Season Zero as well, I guess.

[ourredminote7review-blog]

Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 review: one of the best budget phones money can buy

The design of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 is fine, as designs go. It feels a little bit chunky and heavy in the hand, and the bottom bezel is slightly thicker than you might prefer, but it's by no means an ugly phone – there are display curves in all the right places and the teardrop notch isn't too intrusive.

Remember this is a phone you can pick up from as little as £179 – the starting price of the iPhone XS Max is more than six times higher. Does the iPhone offer a more premium finish and feel? Yes. Is it six times as better-looking as the Redmi Note 7? Absolutely not.

The 6.3-inch screen gives you plenty of room to work with and is bright and sharp enough to a more than satisfactory degree. Like a lot of budget phones, the resolution is pegged at 1080 pixels across, but we found the screen fine in day-to-day use – you're not really going to notice this too much.

From pretty much every angle, the Redmi Note 7 looks stylish. Black and blue are your colour options (at least in the UK they are), but the blue actually offers a subtle blue-purple gradient that looks really nice – if you want to turn a few heads when you're pulling the phone out of your pocket, that's the shade to go for.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 review

The dual-lens rear camera bulges out a little bit, but not so much that it's annoying, and the back of the phone features a classy and minimal design broken up only by a fingerprint sensor and a small Redmi logo besides the camera.

A 3.5mm headphone jack is included up at the top, so you can carry on using your existing wired headphones, and down at the bottom of the phone you've got the USB-C port and two speaker grilles (but actually just one speaker). Volume and power buttons are at the side – they feel a little budget and basic, but still fine.

We do like the tiny LED notification light on the chin at the bottom of the phone, though it seems a bit odd to have it off to the side like it is – it helps you see at a glance whether you've got any notifications to check up on, and it's something we wish that more phones would offer.

Overall, while the Redmi Note 7 isn't going to win any design awards anytime soon, it's still a fine-looking handset, especially for the price. As with many budget and mid-range phones nowadays, it looks more expensive than it actually is, so it has to be a thumbs up for the look and feel of the Redmi Note 7.

These are our favourite small phones on the market XIAOMI REDMI NOTE 7: SPECS AND POWER Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 review

Under the hood the Snapdragon 660 processor is a perfectly respectable choice at this price point – in fact, it's more than respectable, and should give you more than enough power for all but the most demanding tasks on mobile. We certainly didn't notice any lag or slowdown in our time with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7.

Our review unit came with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, and this is the sweet spot as far as configuration goes – 3GB / 32GB is cutting it a bit fine in terms of system resources, and while 128GB of storage is great, it costs quite a lot more too. Considering the phone has a memory card slot, 4GB and 64GB should be fine.

Plenty of Chinese brands are using the Snapdragon 660 in their budget and mid-range phones at the moment, but outside of China the 660-toting handset you're probably most familiar with is the Nokia 7 Plus. That's where we're talking in terms of power.

It's at least on a par with other phones at this very low price range, and may well outperform a lot of them. In terms of Geekbench 4 scores at least (see the separate box out), the Redmi 7 Note does better than a phone like the Moto G7 Plus.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 review

We tried to put the phone through its paces as extensively as possible, but whether it was scrolling around in Google Maps or racing around a beautifully rendered track in the latest Asphalt game, the Redmi Note 7 was up to the task.

Occasionally there's a millisecond or two of a pause where you might expect a smoother experience if you've downgraded from a flagship phone, but it really isn't anything to panic about. As with every other aspect of the Redmi Note 7, you have to balance performance with price – and considering how much (or how little) you're paying, the Snapdragon 660, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage combination is very decent indeed. It's only slightly below the Pixel 3a, which costs twice as much.

Of course we can only talk about the first few weeks of using the phone: buying a more expensive handset usually means it's going to stay faster for longer, though phone makers and software developers seem to be getting better at stopping this from happening.

Based on our time with the Redmi Note 7 and the benchmarking scores it was able to hit, you should have no problems at all with it in the performance department. You won't hit the frame rates or the loading times of something like the Samsung Galaxy S10, but you will find it perfectly responsive and up to all the tasks you give it.

GEEKBENCH 4 BENCHMARKS – XIAOMI REDMI NOTE 7

[CPU test]

Single-core: 1,635

Multi-core: 5,918

[Compute test]

RenderSript Score: 5,681

[Battery test]

Battery Score Estimate: 5,517

The very best phones that Samsung sells right now XIAOMI REDMI NOTE 7: CAMERA Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 review

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 comes packing a dual-lens rear camera, and one of those camera lenses offers up a whopping 48MP of resolution – a very high watermark for a phone at this price. It's accompanied by a 5MP snapper, so on paper the phone should be capable of getting some very decent shots.

We're happy to report that's the case – most of the time at least. On the whole, pictures came out sharp and vibrant, though in one or two shots we did find there was a lack of clarity and sharpness in the details. That was only really visible when zooming in though, so something you'd never notice on a social media feed.

Unless you override it in the settings, the Redmi Note 7 actually takes photos at a 12MP resolution, using the extra pixels from the 48MP sensor to do some clever image processing. Considering 12MP photos are as big as you're every likely to need, we're happy with that.

We did find there was a slight, almost imperceptible lag in the shutter speed on the Redmi Note 7. It's not going to get in the way of you taking the snaps you need, but it's something we noticed compared to the very top flagships on the market (which, sorry to labour the point, cost a whole lot more money).

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 camera impresses, on the whole.

In good light most pictures are sharp and feature a nice balance of colour.

It's not the most advanced camera in the world, but it won't disappoint.

Close ups usually include lots of detail and sharp focus.

For the majority of the time, you can just point and shoot to get great results.

The portrait mode on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 seems responsive and effective.

With a bit of light, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 camera can get decent results at night.

As with most phone cameras, as the light goes down, the noise goes up. Next At night the Redmi Note 7 coped pretty well with the shooting tasks we gave it, as long as there was some form of illumination coming from somewhere. It's in the darkest scenes where noise starts to creep in and the phone's rear camera doesn't hold up to the Pixels of this world. The dedicated night mode does help a little, but we found it a bit hit and miss in terms of balancing noise and illumination.

As in most other areas though, the Redmi Note 7 camera goes above and beyond what you would expect from a budget phone down at the bottom end of the market. There's no optical image stabilisation (so keep your hands as still as you can) and no laser autofocus, so it might take a little longer to lock onto subjects.

You won't find much in the way of shooting modes or enhancements here – bar a rather gimmicky "beautify" mode – but there is a portrait function for blurring the backgrounds behind subjects. It's basic in its implementation, especially compared with the flagship phones of the moment, but in our tests it does a very respectable job.

On the front there's a 13MP single-lens camera which we found to be very much up to the job of taking decent-quality selfies when needed. A second lens for a wider angle would be welcome, but we wouldn't expect one at this price point.

Get yourself a phone for less: the best cheap phones XIAOMI REDMI NOTE 7: SOFTWARE AND FEATURES Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 review

If there is an area where Xiaomi phones fall down, it's in the software it slaps on top of Android, and the Redmi Note 7 is no different in this respect. Xiaomi's MIUI isn't hideous, it's just a bit more bloated and a bit more busy than we would really like.

You get a ton of Xiaomi Mi apps that you can't uninstall, plenty of prompts to set up a Mi account that you don't really need, and no app drawer (something we like to have on Android, but your mileage may vary).

Every app Xiaomi adds on is like a cheap imitation of what Google does – like the "App Vault" that appears when you swipe right from the home screen. Of course you can use the Google apps instead and ignore the Xiaomi ones, and even revamp the entire interface with a third-party launcher, but in our eyes MIUI is still the weakest part of the overall Redmi Note 7 package.

You do at least get the latest Android 9 Pie running under MIUI, but whether you'll get Android Q anytime soon remains to be seen. Like most phone makers, Xiaomi tends to take months to get all its handsets updated, whether you're running one of its budget models or something at the high-end.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 review

Aside from the software, the phone doesn't offer any sort of waterproofing, which is pretty much par for the course at this price level. Ditto wireless charging, which isn't available, though 18W fast charging is. You do also get dual-SIM capabilities, if you need to juggle work and personal numbers.

One of the advantages of lower-powered components and a lower-resolution screen is better battery life, and the Redmi Note 7 scores well in this department too. We often found ourselves with a third of the battery still left at the end of the day, and sometimes more, with light-to-medium usage.

If you really push the battery hard with games, GPS and video you're going to need a recharge by the end of the day, but on most days you're not going to have to worry about making it to bedtime. At the same time the phone isn't going to revolutionise your life with two days between charges either.

In the regular battery test we run, the Redmi Note 7 went down from 100 percent to 87 percent after an hour of Netflix at maximum brightness and medium volume, a fairly average result That works out at 7-8 or so hours of video watching between charges – a result that's about average for a phone in 2019.

The top phones out of the MWC 2019 event this year XIAOMI REDMI NOTE 7: VERDICT Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 review

We're sure you're bored of us saying it now, but: the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 can be yours for as little as £179 (or £199, for the version we tested). Everything else about the phone has to be viewed in that light, and from the camera to the design to the performance, the Redmi Note 7 manages to exceed expectations by some distance.

The few reservations we had about the phone, including a lack of waterproofing and the rather overbearing MIUI software, aren't enough to dissuade us from what is a very good deal right now. The quality, finish and power of Xiaomi phones have been steadily improving over the years, and it's trickled down to the budget Redmi line too.

The Redmi Note 7 isn't going to take photos as well as a Google Pixel can, or look as stylish as an iPhone, or race through tasks as quickly as a Samsung Galaxy – but in terms of the bang you get for your buck, we'd say it beats pretty much everything out there at the moment.

[danfanciesphil]

Some Kind Of Folliful (New Chapter)

Edgelord!Dan x ObliviousBisexual!Phil AU [CHAPTER THIRTEEN] (based off the 80′s classic Some Kind of Wonderful)

Synopsis: Dan has one friend, and only because he was forced into it. Phil is loud, excitable, and irritatingly happy all of the time. Phil seems to find Dan’s perpetual attitude funny, and despite Dan’s best efforts to shun him and everyone else, wants to be around him all the time. That is, until Phil starts talking about Amanda Jones. Word Count: WIP (Estimated 12-15 chapters) updates every Tuesday Rating: Explicit Warnings: Smoking, swearing, heavy drinking, drug mentions, implied prostitution, broken home, class divide/classism, pining, light homophobia, sex

[Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three] [Chapter Four] [Chapter Five] [Chapter Six] [Chapter Seven] [Chapter Eight] [Chapter Nine] [Chapter Ten] [Chapter Eleven] [Chapter Twelve]

[Ao3!]

This chapter is NSFW. Explicit. Sex happens. 

From: Dan To: Louise 13:23pm Can I have the weekend off?

From: Louise To: Dan 13:24pm This better be a damn joke

From: Dan To: Louise 13:25pm I worked the entire school holiday! Double shifts!

From: Louise To: Dan 13:25pm You also skived off two shifts to go get beat up by some rich kid

From: Dan To: Louise 13:27pm Please.

From: Louise To: Dan 13:30pm ughhhhhhHHHH FINE. I will give you today and Saturday off. Only because you never ask so I assume ur either violently ill or have a serious dick appointment.

From: Dan To: Louise 13:32pm :D thanks. srsly.

From: Louise To: Dan 13:33pm I expect details.

From: Dan To: Louise 13:34pm Don’t suppose I could wrangle Sunday too?

From: Louise To: Dan 13:34pm Don’t push it, Howell.

From: Dan To: Louise 13:40pm xxx

*

Despite his best efforts to remain cool and aloof, there eventually comes a point where Dan truly can’t resist looking over his shoulder any longer. He half-expects Phil to be looking right back at him. Instead, Phil is hunched over the small wooden desk in front of him, scrawling onto a pad of paper. His tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth, a tiny pink rose petal, resting on the jut of his lower lip. Just then, Phil looks up, as if he can sense Dan’s break in resolve. His eyes are shining with excitement, which makes no sense, as they are stuck in detention with Mr Richardson for at least another twenty minutes.

Furtively, Phil looks to the front of the room, where Mr Richardson is steadfastly refreshing his LinkedIn page, and then back to Dan. He lifts the pad up to show him, beaming. Centre of the page is a pencil drawing of Dan, slumped over his desk, forehead resting on his hands, in the exact position he’d been in until about a minute ago. Dan rolls his eyes, mouthing ‘creeper’.

Phil puts the pad down, then holds up an index finger to Dan, a signal for him to wait a moment. Dan sighs, pretending that keeping his eyes trained on Phil is some great effort. Truthfully, he’s incredibly grateful for Phil’s presence here. Dan has spent a great deal of time in this very chair, at this very desk, wishing for any kind of distraction or entertainment. Usually he wishes for something banal, like Mr Richardson’s pen exploding, or the stoner kid who sometimes sits in the corner desk to catch his dreads on fire with the lighter he’s always flicking under the desk. But having Phil here is a miracle that Dan had never so much as dared to dream about. He’s a gorgeous beacon of pure light, sat just the other side of the room, all too happy to return Dan’s mildly creepy staring. He holds the pad up to Dan again; this time, there’s a message on it.

Still up for coming over for the weekend? After work obvs. 

P.S ur cute 

xx

Shaking his head, Dan mouths ‘no work today’. The joy of this news lights Phil’s eyes an even more radiant blue. Dan lets the smile teetering on the edge of his mouth fall across his face. A cough startles Dan out of the moment, and he turns to the front of the classroom in time to watch as Mr Richardson strides down the few desks towards Phil. He lifts the pad close to his nose to read it, then sighs heavily.

“Touching,” he says, drily. “But I think Daniel can wait to hear how ‘cute’ he is until after detention, don’t you?”

Mr Richardson lets the pad fall to Phil’s desk with a loud thwack. It makes Phil jump in his seat, adorably.

“How’d you know it was directed at me, Sir?” Dan finds himself asking. It’s too tempting to resist; that little pulsing vein in Mr Richardson’s neck is pounding away as always, just begging to be engorged. “I think he was angling it your way.”

Mr Richardson whirls around to face him. “Would you like for me to double your sentence, Mr Howell?”

“He’s just kidding, Sir,” Phil jumps in quickly, which is probably good as Dan had been about to suggest he and Mr Richardson skip the courting stage and go straight back to his place. “I won’t write any more notes. Sorry.”

With what seems to be a great deal of effort, Mr Richardson lets go of the tension in his shoulders and nods to Phil, then makes his way back to the front of class. Phil sends Dan a look, which obviously reads ‘stop being a prat’, so Dan smirks down at the homophobic graffiti on his desk, and tries to be a good student for the next eighteen minutes.

*

On his way out of detention, Dan is so steadfastly trying to keep his head down and not meet Mr Richardson’s eye that he barrels straight into Megan, the girl he sees in here most days. Her jet black hair is pulled into two ponytails either side of her head; it’s too short to be tied up properly, so they stick out like bundles of feathers, secured by bright pink and purple bobbles. If Dan cared enough to ask her about her unusual style choices - the shiny lime green Doc Martens, the string of ropey bracelets and sweatbands up her wrists, the chunky neon beads she wears around her neck when she can get away with it - he imagines she might say she’s ‘Scene’. It doesn’t seem to bother her that the era of the Scene Kid has, thankfully, for most, been abandoned in the late noughties.

“Shit, sorry,” Dan tells her when he crashes straight into her, hot on Phil’s tail.

She glowers at him. Her kohl eyeliner is thick and scary-looking. “Sorry? That’s rich.”

“Uh, what?”

“You and the art ponce?” She jabs a thumb towards the classroom door, where Phil is lurking, watching Megan with a startled expression. “Really?”

Bewildered by her sudden hostility when he’s spoken less than a sentence to Megan in all the time they’ve been stuck in detention together, Dan just stares. 

“Is there some kind of a problem?”

“After all this build-up between us, you go and date a random dude?”

“Build up?” Dan’s stare becomes a little panicked. He glances at Phil, who appears to be sniggering into his hand.

“You mean to tell me that you're in detention every time I am by chance?” She sneers derisively. “Pull the other one.”

“Um, Megan, is it?” Dan asks tentatively, taking a hasty but hopefully discreet step backwards.

She claps loudly. “Round of applause for the acting skill. Dan, is it?”

“Right, yeah.” He swallows. “I’m sorry but… I’m gay. Did you think…”

Something falls across her pale face, as if she’s been struck. “Gay,” she repeats, voice at a far more reasonable volume now. Her thick eyeliner just looks panda-ish, suddenly. She tugs her chewed cardigan sleeves down over her hands. “Not bi?”

“Nope,” Dan says. Crap, this is awkward. He’s never had to come out to a random stranger before. Although perhaps Megan would argue that they’re close friends. “Just boys.” He glances at Phil. “One boy, actually, now.”

“Oh,” Megan says. She looks hurt. “I thought… because you’re always in here when I am...”

“I’m in here pretty much every day,” Dan tells her. He gestures to Mr Richardson, who appears to have fallen asleep on his own shoulder. “Thanks to my number one fan over there.”

She closes her eyes, shaking her head. “It’s just… everyone’s bi now, y’know? I heard rumours about you some of the guys around town but… I thought you were just playing the long game with me.”

Dan is finding it very difficult to put himself in Megan’s shoes here - he can’t even remember a conversation he’s had with the girl, let alone a moment that might lead her to think he had some kind of romantic interest in her - but he nods sympathetically anyway, hoping it might lead to a faster escape.

“Sorry if I gave off signals or something,” he says, awkwardly.

She shrugs. “It’s okay.”

“Um, I’m sure you’ll find someone?”

She nods, sadly. “I guess. I mean, you did, right? Nobody saw that coming.”

“Yeah,” Dan says, inching around her towards the door. Phil is looking at him, eyes tinged with amusement. Dan sends him a withering look, then turns back to Megan. “Guess if I can snag someone, anyone can, right?”

*

“...you’re like one of those horses with the blinders on,” Phil tells him, hands either side of his eyes in demonstration. “You’re so oblivious to all the people lusting after you every day-”

“Oh, come off it,” Dan interrupts, eyes rolling backwards. “Lusting. Please.”

“Dan, you’re off-the-charts gorgeous,” Phil says. He grabs hold of Dan’s hand and tucks it into his coat. It’s because Dan doesn’t have gloves on - doesn’t own any, even. It’s a sweet gesture, but it makes walking beside Phil a little awkward, especially when other people are walking the other way and have to squeeze past them. “You must see how people look at you.”

Dan shrugs, embarrassed. “Creepy guys at Ozone maybe. Girls, though? Like, actual, reasonably attractive girls. Why the fuck would they want a lanky, perpetually bruised idiot with too many holes in his flesh?”

Phil stops them mid-pavement, pulling Dan towards him, until they’re chest to chest. 

“Because, in an emo, heroin chic way, you’re extremely sexy,” he says, then kisses him. Dan tries to be annoyed that Phil basically just called him a 2002 Pete Wentz, but Phil’s tongue is distracting. It flicks against Dan’s lower lip, where the cut is still healing. “Miss the lip ring, though,” Phil murmurs. “That completed the look.”

“I can prob’ly re-pierce it,” Dan replies, muffled because Phil won’t stop kissing for even a second. “If it turns you on that much.”

Phil laughs, breaking away. “You don’t need a lip ring to do that.”

*

“I don’t like detention,” Phil says, then licks a long line up Dan’s throat.

“No?” Dan gasps out, fingers digging into Phil’s shoulders. He can feel one of the framed, childhood photos of Phil digging into his back, threatening to fall once Phil releases him. “I find Mr Richardson’s lectures on respecting teachers truly scintillating.”

“No, I don’t,” Phil says, pushing their mouths together greedily. “Two hours in a classroom, staring at you, nothing to do but think about all the time wasted that I could have spent doing this.”

“An hour and a half,” Dan corrects, so Phil kisses him harder to quiet him, hands planted on Dan’s hips.

In his time, Dan’s had plenty of selfish, greedy assholes backing him into corners, but nobody he’s ever actually wanted this badly. They’d barely gotten in Phil’s front door before Dan found himself pressed up against the wall of the entrance hallway; they’ve not even taken off their shoes. Vaguely, Dan registers a noise in the distance, and reasons it must be a dog in another room. Phil doesn’t seem to notice the noise, too focused on how far he can slide his hand up Dan’s shirt without removing it entirely. The noise gets closer, and Dan realises blearily, belatedly, that Phil doesn’t own a dog.

Just as this realisation crests, Mrs Lester rounds the corner. “Phil, love is that- oh!”

Phil jumps back at the sound of his mum’s voice, but it’s too late. She’s already seen the worst of it. Dan waits for the ground beneath him to split into a gaping hole into which he can tumble, but presumably because God hates him, it doesn’t happen.

“Mum!” Phil exclaims, breathless.

Dan runs a hand through his hair. “H-hi, Mrs Lester. Kath. Mrs Lester.”

She’s wide-eyed, cheeks rosy pink. In her hands she holds a pair of socks, which she seems to have forgotten are there. “Phil, could I have a quick word?”

Phil tosses Dan a look of apology, then follows him mum through the lounge and into the kitchen. Dan waits for a minute or so, straightening his shirt, trying not to think the worst, and then can’t battle his paranoia any longer. He creeps into the lounge, listening hard to the hushed conversation from the next room. If he stands in the space beside the bookshelf, he can just about make it out, whilst avoiding being seen.

“...thought you’d be gone already.”

“Yes, I can see that, love.”

There’s a pause; Dan can hear his own heart thumping.

“So, you and Dan are…”

“Yeah.”

“I see. How long have you been…?”

“Um, about two weeks? Just over.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“Mum,” Phil says, clearly embarrassed.

“You could have told me, you know.”

“I was going to,” Phil insists. “I just… I wanted to make sure it wasn’t all going to explode. I don’t wanna pressure him. He’s even told me he doesn’t like people at school talking about us. He doesn’t even care about them. But he likes you, I know he does. I haven’t had a chance to ask him what he’d think about you knowing. If it might be a bit much for him. I’m just- I’m so scared I’m gonna say something wrong and he’s gonna bolt. You know what he’s like.”

Dan frowns. Phil is really worried that he’s going to bolt?

“Okay, I understand your concerns,” Kath says, kindly. “But I still think if he’s going to be staying here, I ought to be aware-”

“Yeah, I know, you’re right. I’m sorry,” Phil says. “But nothing’s changed really. He’s just been coming over for Buffy marathons and hot chocolate after he’s finished work, like always.”

“Hmm, well that certainly was not a Buffy marathon I just walked in on.”

Phil laughs, and Dan thinks he hears Kath tittering too. “Sorry you had to see that. So embarrassing.”

Kath sighs, and there’s shuffling noises. Dan thinks maybe she’s giving Phil a hug. “I’m happy for you, sweetheart. Hope you know that.”

“You are?” Phil’s voice is muffled, like he’s speaking into her shoulder.

“Just took me by surprise is all. I mean, I always wondered if maybe you had a little crush on him…”

“I think, in hindsight, it was quite a bit more than a little crush.”

Another long pause. “Well, Dan’s a very lucky boy, then.”

“You’re really okay with it? He can still come over in the week and stuff?”

“Of course,” Kath replies in that kindly, mumsy voice Dan loves her for. His heart aches at the sound of her easy, ready acceptance. She makes motherhood seem so simple. She’s an open book, filled with endless words of love and support, more than happy for anyone who needs it to rip out a page. She saves the best of her chapters for Phil, of course. But there’s some passages bookmarked especially for Dan, too. “Do be careful with him, won’t you, Phil?” Her voice is thick with concern. “That scary mask he wears might fool some people, but you and I know it’s made of thin, breakable glass.”

Dan frowns again, mildly irritated that she sees him as a fragile little flower, but he has to begrudgingly admit that Kath has never once fallen for his tough-guy façade. The first time he ever met her, he was his usual cagey and brooding self, unconcerned with making a good impression on any parent. But much in the same way Phil had, she wore his shell away with persistent sweetness. She invited him to stay for dinner, and gave him second helpings without asking, then chocolate biscuits with tea. She asked him a thousand questions, and didn’t mind if he preferred not to answer them, but listened intently if he did. She told funny stories about Phil as a kid. She told him to come back anytime he wanted, even though he was basically a dick all night. She’d been unrelentingly nice and caring, in a way that Dan had never before felt from an adult.

“Don’t worry,” Phil assures her. “I think I’d give him the whole world if I could.”

“And… what happened to that Amanda girl you brought round? I thought you were besotted with her?”

Dan’s stomach clenches.

“We’re just friends.” The surety in Phil’s voice is like a blanket Dan wants to clutch to his chest.

“Okay then. Well, I guess I’d better get going,” Kath says in a sigh. “I was just finishing packing.”

“Tell Auntie Pat I say hi,” Phil says. “And stroke Mittens for me.”

Alarmed by the movement he suddenly hears, Dan sneaks back through the lounge towards the hall, managing to make it out just before Phil and his mum exit the kitchen. 

“Phil, just one last thing,” Kath says from the lounge, her voice so quiet Dan can hardly pick it up. “You two will be safe, won’t you?”

“Oh my God, Mum, please-”

“Phil, I’m asking for your own good-”

Dan has to clap a hand over his mouth to stop the laugh escaping.

“Yes, fine, wow, we’ll be safe I promise.” Phil says in a rushed garble. “Now I never ever want to speak about this again.”

Kath laughs quietly. “Fine. You’re sensible, I know. But I am your mother, I have to make sure.”

When Phil rounds the corner, he looks vaguely traumatised. Kath is right behind him, a calm smile on her face. Dan smiles back, unsurely, trying to seem as though he has no idea what they’ve been discussing. Kath crosses the hall towards him at once, and wraps him in her arms. Dan feels a little choked up, but manages to remain composed enough to return the hug, gently patting her on the shoulder. She releases him without comment, for which Dan is incredibly grateful, and then starts up the stairs.

“There’s plenty of food in the house boys,” she says as she goes. “Help yourselves, both of you. I’ll be back on Sunday.”

Once she’s out of sight, Phil begins spewing apologies. “...had no idea, I thought she’d have left ages ago because we were all that time in detention-”

“Phil, it’s okay,” Dan says, laughing. “Mortifying, obviously. But not the worst position I’ve been caught in by someone’s mum. And your mum is by far the coolest.”

“Bit of a mood killer, though,” Phil says, sighing.

Dan grimaces. “Yeah.”

They stand in silence for a moment, both reliving the look on Kath’s face as she’d first caught sight of them.

“Wanna watch a film for a while? Take our minds off it?”

“Absolutely.”

*

Three hours after Kath leaves, and they’re on their second film of the evening - Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It’s not helping ease the tension hovering around them, because Phil had said right at the beginning that he’d always kind of fancied Russell Brand, and now it’s all Dan can think about.

“Would you have sex with him?”

Phil wrinkles his nose. “Dunno.”

“Like, if he was here right now,” Dan persists. “Leather trousers, birds nest hair. Asks you to pop your kit off and join him in the cupboard.”

Phil laughs, playing with a popcorn kernel from the almost empty bowl. “Um, no.”

“No?” Dan turns, avidly interested, as ever, in Phil’s elusive sexual preferences. “Why not? He’s had the experience. So, he’d probably be decent at it, at least.”

“Yeah, well, even so.”

There’s something halting, maybe even reluctant about Phil’s tone. Dan might be imagining it, but he thinks Phil’s mildly uncomfortable with this discussion. Dan decides to prod just one last time, to see if he can get whatever the discomfort is out of him, and then he’ll drop it.

“Is it ‘cos he looks a bit, like, grubby?”

Phil laughs again; his cheeks have turned pink. He flicks the popcorn kernel away. “Look, I’m sure Russell’s great in bed. Fantastic, maybe. But right now, I only wanna have sex with you.”

The breath catches in Dan’s throat. As the unexpected statement sinks into his skin, the tension he and Phil have been stewing in fizzles away. He crawls across the sofa - Dan had jumped to the opposite side of it after a startling reappearance of Kath, hands over her eyes, shouting something about leaving her scarf behind and that she wasn’t looking - until he’s close enough to straddle Phil’s lap. He winds his arms around Phil’s neck and kisses him, slowly, taking his time, because they have oodles of it. 

Phil is eager and responsive in the way that Dan imagines he might have been himself, if his first time had been with someone he actually liked. Dan had been too young to appreciate what he was losing, and to whom; he regrets it immensely. He’s determined that Phil’s experience will be different. This sweet, incredible boy deserves so much more than some vaguely nauseating fuck in the back of a car that’s over in less than a minute, and that the other party won’t even remember. If Dan is honest, he believes that Phil deserves more than anything Dan can possibly offer, but if Dan is what he wants, then Dan will do his best to make it perfect.

They’re just getting into it, just starting to find their way beneath hems and waistbands, when the doorbell rings.

They break apart, a little dazed.

“We could ignore it?” Phil suggests, and Dan is more than on board, so swoops back in to kiss him again.

A minute passes, and then it rings again.

Dan sighs, reaching for the remote to shut Russell up once and for all, then climbs off Phil’s lap. Phil stands a little shakily, smoothing down his school uniform, and goes to get the door. Dan idly flicks through his Twitter timeline on his phone, waiting for him to return.

“Amanda,” Phil says, somewhere in the background. Dan shoots upright, swivelling to look. He can just make out Phil, and a vague, familiar silhouette on the doorstep. Her brown curls give her away.

“Hey,” Amanda says. “Is this a bad time?”

Dan gets up, his feet marching him to the door without his permission.

“Well, actually,” Phil starts to say, but then Dan is at his elbow. Phil blinks at him, worriedly.

“She wanted to talk to you,” Dan says. “She told me. You should invite her in.”

*

“I can leave, if you want,” Dan says, because nobody is saying anything.

Phil sits up straight, staring at him. “No, don’t.”

“It’s okay, I can go for a walk or-”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to both of you.”

They both turn to Amanda, vaguely worried. She’s got her hair in a messy ponytail, and is wearing jeans, which Dan cannot remember ever seeing on her before. He doesn’t remember her being at school today either.

“Okay,” Phil says. “Did you want a drink or something? I’ve got tea, or-”

“No, it’s okay. I won’t stay long.”

Dan stares at her hands, clasped in her lap. Her French manicure tips are peeling off. She’s sat in the exact spot on the sofa where Dan had been perched atop Phil’s lap not ten minutes ago.

“I basically just wanted to tell you both that there are no hard feelings,” she says carefully. She aims a smile at each of them, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “At least on my end.”

“That’s good to know,” Phil says, softly. The guilt is still coursing through him, it’s plain to see.

Dan doesn’t respond. He can feel his fingernails digging into his palm, the way they tend to do when he’s trying to suppress some awful emotion he doesn’t want to feel.

“I really am happy for you both,” Amanda continues. She clears her throat, a tiny, perfect crease between her plucked brows. “I know you feel like you used me, Phil. And Dan, I know you must think I’m, like, the ultimate cockblock.”

You have no idea, Dan thinks privately.

“But I’m glad that, even though I didn’t know it at first, I was able to help you both to get what you really wanted.” In her following sigh, Dan’s suspicions are confirmed; this touching speech is not the real reason she’s here. “But - and again, I’m not blaming you guys - after all that’s happened, I’m sort of... in a tricky spot.”

Phil is immediately alarmed. “Is it Hardy? Is he bothering you again?” Dan considers ramming his fingers in his ears so he can drown out the concern in Phil’s voice. He turns to Dan. “You said you scared him off.”

“How is this my fault?” Dan snaps. “If he’s harassing her it’s not because I didn’t punch him hard enough. It’s because he’s a knob.”

The response is about to trip of Phil’s tongue, but Amanda gets there first. “No, guys, it’s not Hardy. Well, not directly.” She shifts in her seat. “The Elite gang are pretty harsh about anyone that doesn’t follow la regle de jeu.”

“La what?”

“The rules of the game,” Dan mutters; Phil glances at him, surprised. “Their game. Shocker, really. They always seemed such an easygoing bunch.”

Amanda raises her eyebrows at him. “Yes, we’ve established that I’m an idiot for going anywhere near them, Dan.”

It’s infuriating that she doesn’t ever try to defend herself. Dan’s not used to having someone so readily accept their own folly. Her acknowledgments knock Dan’s insults right back over to him, and he’s never prepared to swing his racket in time to catch them.  

“Wait, so, it’s all of them?” Phil asks, clearly not following the game. “The whole Elite gang are giving you trouble?”

“Have you ever seen Mean Girls?” Amanda asks. “It’s not like they’re knocking my books out of my hands, or shoving me into lockers. But they’re bitchy and they’ve got the whole school under their thumbs. Together, they’re perfectly capable of destroying my life, and they seem pretty intent on it.”

“Are you saying that going to Prom with Phil is akin to committing ‘social suicide’?” Dan asks bitterly, putting the Mean Girls term in a fake American accent. “What a touching sentiment.” He scoffs. “I’m so sick of this stupid playground drama. What are we, twelve?”

“Dan,” Phil warns.

“No, I get it,” Amanda says, looking down. “He’s right. It’s completely pathetic. Even when I was taking part in it, I hated it. Keeping up with the Elites was exhausting. The constant battle for Queen Bee. The lies and the backstabbing, everyone secretly despising each other. And being with Hardy was just embarrassing. Everyone knew he was cheating. The whole discussed it,  laughed about it, and I had to pretend like I was too ditzy, too lovesick over him to notice.” She puts her head in her hands. “I thought that, maybe, if I took a huge leap, right back over the tracks, I could escape it. That’s why I said yes to you when you asked me, Phil. I saw a chance at some normalcy and I took it. It wasn’t fair of me, I know that. But in a way, we were both sort of using each other, right?” 

There’s a lull in the discussion; Phil aims a worried look in Dan’s direction. Dan begins chewing the skin around his thumbnail. 

“I’m sorry that I’m even asking this,” Amanda says then. She looks up at Phil, then at Dan, eyes shining. “But I need your help.”

Phil sucks in a breath. “What is it?”

Something in Dan’s chest crumbles and breaks away. It seems so unlikely that Phil could be over her, if he’s this willing to jump to her aid, even now.

“It’s not much,” Amanda says quickly. “School is over in a couple of months. I just want to get through it. Lillian and the others are turning the whole school against me. People say horrible things. They leave notes in my locker. They spread rumours. I’m sure you’ve heard.”

Now that she mentions it, Dan does recall hearing a few strange things about her recently. He hadn’t paid much attention - he’s usually bored to tears by high school gossip - but hearing that she’d been seen leaving the Savoy hotel in a new designer dress on the arm of a seventy year old man, or on the other end of the spectrum, dancing on a pole in a poor, cheap disguise at a seedy strip club two towns over, had caught his attention.

“What can we do?” Phil asks. 

Dan wants to make it very clear right now that he is not, and will not ever be, getting involved in this. His mouth won’t seem to form the words, though. 

“I need friends,” Amanda says. Dan waits, but this appears to be the extent of it. “Just to hold the rumours off a bit. If they think I have people on my side, maybe they’d be less vicious. All you’d have to do is sit with me a few times at lunch, or hang out with me outside of school now and again. Maybe I could come to the café every once in a while? Then you wouldn’t even have to make the effort-”

“Amanda,” Phil interrupts. “It’s fine. Of course we’ll be your friends.”

The relief on her face is too overwhelming to be faked. Even so, Dan is not willing to offer his own services as a friend. It’s taken him this long to be comfortable with having just one. Even Lee is still on a trial period. 

“It’s just until school’s over,” she says again. “I just can’t take it on my own. I thought I could, and I tried, but they’re just… they’re terrible people. Lillian’s sister is in Aidan’s class, I’m so worried about what could get back to him-”

“It’s okay.” Phil’s smiling, happy this has all been cleared up so neatly. “I got you into this mess, it’s the least I can do.” He turns. “Right, Dan?”

Dan tears a strip of skin from his thumb with his teeth. He wants so badly to say no. He wants things to go back to how they were, for Amanda to crawl back to Hardy, who would undoubtedly be all too happy for the only believable beard he’s ever grown to fix itself back in place. But for some reason, Amanda “Elitist” Jones is suddenly hellbent on doing the right thing. Even Dan knows that to refuse being someone’s friend, for two measly months, is a dick move that cannot be justified, no matter how suspicious he might be of potential motives. If he says his no, Phil won’t understand. He’ll be angry. Their weekend will be ruined, and so might be their future.

So, Dan swallows it all down. “Yeah, totally.”

Phil beams at Amanda. “Oh, by the way, I have your jacket.” He stands suddenly, and Dan feels a little ill. “Wait here.”

He jogs out of the room before Dan can beg him to stay, leaving he and Amanda alone. She fixes him with a knowing stare. “You’re not happy with this.”

Dan thinks about lying, but decides against it. “No, I’m not. You could beg anyone to be your friend for two months. The Elites might be getting people to shun you, but you’re still Amanda Jones. Just smile sweetly and anyone in St Anthony’s would do whatever you say.”

“Exactly,” Amanda says. “I want real friends. People who I can actually talk to. Not Elite wannabes that put me on some ridiculous pedestal, only hanging out with me because they see an open position on the throne.”

“I just don’t see why it has to be him,” Dan says, gripping the arm of the chair. 

“Him?” Amanda’s smile is as treacherous as it is sincere. “Dan, I want to be friends with you.”

*

As usual, the dust takes a while to settle in the wake of Amanda’s departure. Phil brings Dan a mug of tea, handing it over cautiously. Still sat in the same position in the armchair, Dan takes it from him, still mulling over all that’s happened. 

“So,” Phil says, perching on the arm of the sofa. He sips from his own mug. “That was unexpected.”

“Mmm,” Dan says. His mind is whirring, producing the kind of noise Phil’s laptop makes when it’s overheating from excess Sims playing. “Guess we’re all besties now.”

“Is it a problem for you?”

Dan considers this, finger skimming around the rim of his mug. “I think... I can get past it.”

Phil nods unsurely, scrutinising Dan’s glazed expression. “You sure? If it really bothers you, we can try and find another way.”

Dan takes a sip of his tea. It’s faintly sweet, because Phil knows Dan too well to believe him when he says he doesn’t take sugar.

“Just don’t fall in love with her,” Dan says into the mug. He means it to come out as a joke, but inevitably it’s spoken quiet and sombre.

Phil puts his mug down, then walks to Dan. He takes him by the hand and pulls him from the chair, then wraps him in a hug. “No chance of that,” he says into Dan’s forehead. “I’ve got something a thousand times better.”

*

“No!”

Dan wakes up with a jolt, hands coming up to cover his face, because shouts usually mean he’s about to get smacked. He hears a quiet ‘shit’ and then arms come around his shoulders; his heart slows gradually, and then Dan remembers where he is, and that he’s unlikely to be in danger of getting pounded in Phil’s bedroom. At least not in any way he’d need to defend himself from.

He lowers his hands, blinking in the darkness. “The fuck?”

“Sorry,” Phil whispers, guiltily. “Didn’t mean to frighten you. We fell asleep.”

Dan squints, trying to piece this together. “So you screamed ‘no’ in my ear?”

“I’m annoyed at myself,” Phil explains. “We’re supposed to be in the throes of passion.”

Dan snorts, falling back to the pillows, exhausted. “Russell’s a bad influence on you.”

Phil prods him in the arm, then falls back beside him. “I’m sorry. I promised you a weekend of sordid, non-stop lovemaking. So far, the two worst people that could have interrupted us mid-sexy-times did, and now we’ve fallen asleep in our not very arousing Elmo and Game Of Thrones pyjamas.”

Dan laughs tiredly, eyes already re-closing. “We’ve got loads of time for all that.”

“Tomorrow I’m gonna ravish you,” Phil warns, though by the sounds of it he’s already half-unconscious.

“I’d better prepare my body for the ravishing ahead.”

Phil swats him in the arm. “You’d better, Howell.”

*

They don’t get up until noon, for no good reason other than Phil’s bed is ridiculously comfy. Dan wakes up with his nose in Phil’s neck, so he presses a kiss there, then another, and eventually Phil stirs.

“Hey,” Dan says, then rolls on top of him.

Phil’s blue eyes blink up at him, wide and surprised by the sudden change in positions. “H-hey,” he says. “What’s-”

Dan leans in and kisses the question away. Somehow, Phil still tastes wonderful, even first thing in the morning. Dan can’t be sure the same can be said about his own morning breath. He lets himself sink into the kiss regardless, hands beginning to wander beneath the covers, skidding over the strip of skin where Phil’s pyjama top has ridden up in the night.

Phil’s breath hitches, and then his hands come to Dan’s shoulders, gently rolling him off. Dan sits up, worried. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Phil says quickly, sitting up as well. The covers fall to his waist. He gives Dan a reassuring smile. “Sorry, just… too hot.” There’s a pause as Dan digests this lame excuse. “I’ll make some tea. Do you want some tea?”

“Um,” Dan says, thrown. “Coffee, maybe?”

“Sure,” Phil says, tossing the covers aside.

He stands up quickly, snatching the mugs they’d used last night from the bedside table. Once he’s left the room, Dan stays put for a second, trying to figure out the next what might have just gone wrong. Eventually, he decides to quell his pounding paranoid thoughts, and follow Phil downstairs. In the kitchen, Phil is whistling away as he clatters mugs and kettles about, happy as a clam. Though he finds this sudden turnaround odd, Dan makes the choies to just forget about it. Perhaps Phil was just hot and uncomfortable in the first few minutes of waking, like he said. Or, more likely, maybe Dan’s breath was actually too terrible to withstand the kissing a moment longer, let alone anything else.

“I’m just gonna go brush my teeth,” Dan calls to Phil, making him jump. He turns, hand on his heart, giggling at himself.

“Cool, do you want some toast?”

“Sounds great,” Dan says, then heads for the bathroom.

They eat toast on the sofa together, watching Good Morning Britain.

Licking the crumbs from his fingers, Dan says, “Piers Morgan’s definitely the kind of guy who’d refuse to go down on his wife, but expect her to give him a twenty minute blowjob.” Dan turns to Phil, who is staring at him dazedly. “Like DJ Khaled. Y’know?”

Phil’s eyes are glazed, fixed on Dan’s fingers. His plate of toast crusts is slipping off his lap.

“Phil?” Dan asks. 

He focuses suddenly, snapped back into the room. “Hm? Sorry, what was the question?”

Dan regards him curiously, lowering his fingers from his mouth. “Don’t worry,” he says, turning back to the TV.

A couple of hours later, they’re still on the sofa, because they’re lazy and it’s the weekend. Dan has his feet on Phil’s lap, his back against the other end of the sofa. They’re watching Jeremy Kyle, one of Dan’s all time favourite shows, and laughing at the ridiculous drama erupting on stage.

“To be honest, if some chick told me my boyfriend had fucked her brother and her Dad, I’d probably tackle him on live TV too,” Dan says. He’s got one arm behind his head, and the other resting across his stomach, idly tickling the skin on show. He turns to Phil, amused by the antics on screen. “So don’t try anything, yeah?”

Again, Phil is doing that strange, distant stare. This time his eyes are firmly fixed on Dan’s abdomen, pupils moving in time with the back and forth of Dan’s fingers. A slow smile creeps over Dan’s face, and realisation dawns.

“Phil,” he says again. His voice is a fair bit lower now. “Phil?”

“Hm?” Phil’s eyes are still trained on his fingers, so Dan pushes them just under the waistband of his pyjama bottoms, and Phil looks up, cheeks pink. “Is there something you want?”

Phil swallows. “I was just…”

Dan sits up, feet lifting from Phil’s lap, and closes the gap separating them. He reaches for the remote, switching off the TV, and brings his mouth to Phil’s ear. 

“You can have me whenever you want, you know,” he purrs. “If the staring isn’t doing it for you.”

A shiver goes through Phil, Dan can feel it. He slides onto Phil’s lap for the second time this weekend, careful to watch his face for any sign he might not be into this. There’s an uncertainty in his eyes that Dan wants to get rid of, so he settles himself atop Phil’s thighs, and brings Phil’s hands to his hips.

“You still up for some…” Dan arches an eyebrow. “Fun?”

Phil swallows again, his hands tightening on Dan’s hips. “Yes.” He sighs, eyes fluttering closed. “Sorry. I’m just… nervous, I think.”

“Of me?”

“No,” Phil says in a breath. Dan can feel his leg jiggling, because he’s sat on it. “I just… I mean, I know you’ve done this a lot.”

“Wow,” Dan says, sitting back a little. “Cheers.”

“I’m just kinda daunted,” Phil explains. “What if I suck?”

Dan has to fight the laugh that bubbles up rather hard, and he doesn’t entirely succeed. “Um…”

Phil pokes him in the side, making him yelp. “You know what I mean.”

“Hm,” Dan says, already sliding off Phil’s lap, onto the floor. He kneels on the carpet, a hand on each of Phil’s knees. “Sounds like your worries have got you quite worked up.” Phil’s mouth has fallen into a little ‘o’. Gently, Dan pushes Phil’s knees apart. “Let me…” Dan bites his lip, holding Phil’s gaze. “Help you to relax.”

He waits just enough time for Phil to have the option of refusing, but he remains blissfully, mercifully quiet, just watching Dan with wide, fluttery eyes. As Dan leans forwards, tracing his tongue along the seams running along Phil’s inner thighs, Dan imagines he can hear an Angelic chorus. He curls his fingers around the waistband of Phil’s trousers, inching them down, eyes locked on Phil’s, just in case he might protest.

“Lift,” Dan whispers once they’ve reached a point he can’t pull them past. It takes a moment for it to register, then Phil cants his hips upwards, and Dan tugs. The dark hair beginning at his bellybutton snakes down, spreading into a tight thicket at the base of a long, thick, flushed cock. Dan can feel his mouth filling with saliva at the mere sight. “Fuck-ing hell,” he breathes, wonderingly, and wraps his fingers around it, forgetting to stop and ask if it’s still okay. “Phil, you’re gorgeous.”

Phil’s hips twitch, and Dan reorients himself, remembering that this is, in all likelihood the first time anyone’s touched Phil this way, aside from his own hand. Dan moves his hand gently, watching the expressions of awe flicker across Phil’s face. He’s breathing in short stutters, hips twitching forwards, like he wants to thrust into Dan’s fist. It takes about a minute of gently pumping his curled fingers up and down, before Dan’s resolve breaks. He leans in, fist still wrapped around the base of him, and swirls his tongue around the head.

Phil sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, one hand flying out to rest atop Dan’s head. “Fuck,” he says, eloquent as ever. 

Dan lets out as snort of laughter, which comes out as a pulse of breath through his nose. Phil tastes so good. He tastes as delicious as he does everywhere else, like he’s got waffle syrup pumping through his veins instead of blood. Dan knows, the second Phil’s flavour spreads across his tongue, that he’s addicted to it. He sinks his mouth over Phil’s length, chasing more, already so blissed out it’s a wonder he can stay focused; he’s wanted this for so long that it’s practically torturous to finally receive it. Like giving a child access to an entire candy store, allowing it to gorge itself, after months of only peering longingly through the locked doors. A whimper falls from Phil’s lips, scraping past Dan’s ears on its way to the floor. Dan pockets it for later, knowing it will be very helpful for the late nights Dan spends alone, thinking about all the many, many ways he wants to make Phil come.

“Dan…” Phil chokes out, sounding strained. Blindly, Dan reaches out a hand, and Phil threads his fingers through it immediately. “Dan, fuck. I don’t think I’m gonna last very l-long.”

Ignoring him entirely, Dan just sinks deeper, unable to suppress a groan, born from the thrill that courses down his spine as he feels the length of Phil’s cock sliding down his throat. He goes slowly at first, letting Phil slip in and out of him gently as he bobs his head. But Phil’s whimpers are turning into needy little whines, his hips are threatening to push further into the cavern of Dan’s mouth. So Dan places a hand on Phil’s upper thigh, and picks up the pace. It’s beyond any kind of pleasure Dan’s ever known, to watch, to feel, to taste, as Phil completely falls apart under his ministrations. He meets Phil’s eyes, holding the gaze because he wants to witness every last second. Phil’s got a hand threaded into Dan’s curls, pushing the hair from his eyes. Dan’s name falls like dewdrops from his reddened lips.

And then, just as he warned, it seems he can’t hold on any longer. He tastes like sweet, sun-warmed rainwater as he floods Dan’s mouth. In Dan’s wildest imaginings of this moment, of which there have been many, he never once dreamed of spitting it out, and now, he wouldn’t do it if you paid him. He swallows all of it down, then lets Phil slip out of his mouth slowly, missing the thick, heavy weight of him on his tongue the moment it’s gone. He sits back on his ankles, breathing ragged, and untangles their fingers.

“Feeling a little less tense?”

Phil still appears to be struggling to glide back down to the real world. He sits up, with some effort, and latches his pupil-blown eyes onto Dan’s. “Come here,” he demands, croakily.

Dan’s never been one to deny Phil, and it would be hopeless to think he could start now. He hops up, clambering back into Phil’s lap happily. The moment he’s close enough, Phil drags him in for a kiss. Dan tries to stop him, knowing he’ll only be tasting himself, but apparently this doesn’t seem to bother Phil. He kisses Dan deeply, hungrily, hands slipping straight under his t-shirt, and then pulling it off entirely. Dan chuckles at his eagerness, and then abruptly stops laughing when Phil reaches between them, to press his palm against Dan’s erection, through his pyjamas. Instinctively, Dan bucks into the touch, hands going for the back of Phil’s head. Phil strokes his thumb across the very spot where the tip of Dan’s cock pokes against the fabric. Dan tilts his head to one side, and Phil’s mouth goes straight for the exposed neck, kissing and biting at it.

“Not fair,” Dan complains, though he’s urging Phil onwards with a hand on the back of his head. “You know that’s my weakness.”

Phil finishes sucking what Dan imagines is a very large bruise, then leans back, eyes sparkling. “I warned you I’d give you another one to match.”

“Lesters always follow through,” Dan jokes, and Phil wraps his arms around Dan’s bare waist, pressing a kiss to his chest.

“Will you come upstairs with me?”

Dan is a little surprised, but he nods regardless. He climbs off Phil’s lap, realising for the first time just how ridiculously, achingly hard he is, mostly because of how lightheaded he feels when he attempts to stand. Luckily, Phil, pyjama trousers pulled back up, takes hold of his hand and leads him up to his room. As soon as they’re inside, Phil shoves Dan backwards, sending him sprawling across the bed.

“Hey,” Dan complains, though he’s laughing. “Didn’t know you were into BDSM.”

“You would look pretty hot tied up,” Phil says unexpectedly, scooting around the bed to dig in his bedside drawer. “But maybe we could try that another time, when I’m less terrified.”

For a moment, the smile on Dan’s face freezes. “You’re terrified?” He watches Phil, concerned. “You don’t have to do anything, you know. We can just leave it for now-”

Phil jumps up onto the bed, pulling off his t-shirt. It’s a very effective method of shutting Dan up, as he’s got a gorgeous body, lean and tapered, with big shoulders and a defined waist. Dan reaches out to grab at him, his hopeless arousal muddying his conscience. 

“I think I’d be terrified even if we waited for the wedding day,” Phil says, which makes Dan splutter. “You’re just…” Phil trails a hand down Dan’s torso, lightly sweeping across the skin, side to side. “You’re unbelievably beautiful. On top of everything else.”

Dan thinks about asking what ‘everything else’ is, but knows all too well that Phil’s misguided notions about Dan’s personality are difficult to listen to. Instead, he asks, “what can I do to make you less scared?”

Instinctively, Dan’s hand lands on Phil’s, stilling him as he brushes over the burn scar on his left side. But Phil reaches down and removes it, then leans down to press soft, careful lips against the shiny pink skin. Dan’s eyes sting.

“Just tell me if it feels good,” Phil says as he leans back up. He plucks what looks like a small bottle of lubricant from the pocket of his pyjama trousers.

“Phil, if you knew how many times I’ve dreamt of you... of this...” Dan starts to say, then shakes his head, smiling faintly. “I don’t think it’s possible for you to not make me come, like, ridiculously hard.”

He looks a little dazed at this information, but Phil nods, then slips his fingers into Dan’s waistband, and pulls. Dan lifts his hips so Phil can slide them off, watching Phil’s expression closely as he drinks in the sight of Dan’s entirely naked body for the first time. Dan’s cock twitches, as if it knows it’s being closely observed.

“Shit, Dan,” Phil breathes. His hands are free-roaming over the miles of Dan’s skin now on show. “I want to draw you like this,” Phil says. He trickles light, teasing fingers from Dan’s sternum to his pelvis. “Would you let me?”

“R-right now?”

Phil laughs. “No, not right now.” He settles into a position, half laid on top of Dan, then sends him a mischievous glance. “I have things to take care of.”

Phil picks up the bottle of lubricant, which has fallen to the bed, and uncaps it. He pours some into his palm, then pauses, and squeezes out a little more. He rubs it between his hands for a moment, then, before Dan can stop him, wraps a hand around Dan’s erection.

“Ah! Shit,” Dan exclaims, laughing a little.

Phil freezes instantly. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just freezing,” Dan replies, still chuckling. “Maybe warm it with your hands a little more next time?”

Phil joins in the laughter, nodding. “Sorry.” 

He doesn’t get a chance to expand on his apology, because right then he starts moving his hand, the slick lubricant creating an indescribable friction, one that pushes a moan from Dan’s throat, has him arching his head backwards into the pillows. Phil drapes over him, hand still slowly pumping around Dan’s cock. He presses damp, messy kisses against Dan’s neck, bracing his face above Dan’s with an elbow beside his head. 

“Does it feel good?”

Dan groans, hands finding Phil’s shoulders. “So fucking good.”

Spurred on by the news, Phil speeds up, at which point Dan’s eyelids screw shut, and he bows forwards into Phil’s neck.

“Look at me,” Phil whispers then. It’s an unexpected command, but Dan does it nonetheless, lifting his head to stare into Phil’s eyes.

He can only hold it for a moment before he has to look away again, but Phil is not having it. He releases his hold on Dan’s erection, which briefly makes Dan want to die. Phil reaches up to tilt Dan’s chin back around, forcing their eyes to meet again.

“Please, I want to see you,” Phil whispers, pressing their lips together. “Will you?”

Tears sting Dan’s eyes, and he’s not sure why. There’s something about this that feels too much, like he’s about to slip under a turbulent, roiling ocean. The press of Phil’s body on top of his is overwhelming; Dan can feel connecting of their skin seemingly at every join, can feel their hearts beating in rhythm, their breaths synchronised. Phil is warmth, and light, and sweet, pure love; it sounds absurd, but pressed together as they are, Dan can feel all of it sinking into him, through his pores, to the sinew and muscle beneath. He feels the incredible swell of Phil’s adoration, and it’s dizzying, maddening to know, deeply, that it’s all for him. 

Phil’s hand wraps back around his cock, and Dan tries with all he has to keep his eyes locked on Phil’s like he wants. But two tears spill over, and he has to shut them, to blink them away. Phil kisses him fiercely, like he’s been missing out on the taste of Dan’s mouth for years. Like he’s been battling far away in some great unknown war, with Dan left alone, waiting for him, and now he’s returned, and he’s determined to drown them together, in the love they couldn’t swim in whilst they were parted.

Something cataclysmic builds in Dan’s chest, something terrifying and enormous, so unfamiliar that Dan wonders if he’s on the brink of death. He feels everything Phil is pouring onto him in this moment through their locked eyes, feels the weight of his suppressed yearning. And then it explodes through him, a tidalwave of blinding, electrifying ecstasy, ebbing out to the very tips of his toes. He breathes heavily, gripping onto the only life raft he has: Phil, still above him, floating on the edge of this tsunami, sure, and strong, and safe.

When it’s over, Dan washes ashore, back into the familiar blue and green bedclothes he’s been curled in so many times. Phil rolls to the side, and Dan crashes onto his chest, limp and utterly boneless.

“Was I okay?” Phil asks, tentative and unsure.

Dan doesn’t think words could ever possibly express the pure, raw, visceral phenomenon that he just experienced, so instead, he leans up, spreads himself over Phil however he can, and tries his best to show him.

(Chapter Fourteen - FINAL CHAPTER - Coming Next Tues!)

[likethetailofacomet]

Melt

 Drake x Claire 

Author’s Note: So fair warning, this one got away from me a little bit and is almost double the length of most of the rest of the chapters in this series, but a lot happens in Lythikos. Claire has an overdue discussion with Maxwell, Olivia stirs the pot, and things heat up in the cold. 

NSFW all the way at the end. Sorry, you’re gonna have to work for it just like Claire. ;)

tagging: @sleepwalkingelite @zaffrenotes @notoriouscs @gardeningourmet @natalievgoodehenry @ooo-barff-ooo @nekkidmolerat If you would like to be added to the tags please let me know! 

The drive to the Nevrakis Chateau was about 5 hours. As soon as the altitude had started to change, so had the road, winding it's way through the mountain range making each mile take much longer than normal. Maxwell had fallen asleep beside her about 20 minutes into the drive, after excitedly outlining the day ahead of them.“Olivia's winter estate is amazing!” He assured her. “You like skiing? Bam! We can do that. Ice skating your thing? No problem, there's a huge lake that's pretty much permanently frozen.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Want to warm up with a certain someone? Nothing nicer than a fire to snuggle by!”

Like magic the blood in her veins rushed warmly throughout her body. She imagined falling asleep against Drake's broad chest, the crackling fire casting an orange glow across the two of them as snow fell heavily outside. She imagined the way his arms might snake around her body, pulling her gently closer, how he might also drift off to sleep, how their breathing might fall into sync. She snapped herself from the daydream when Maxwell caught her staring, slack jawed, into space.

“Uh, Claire?” he was waving his hand in front of her eyes. “Claire?! You okay?” he had a look of shock on his face.

“Y-yeah, yes. I'm good. Fine, fun! Just...excited for the fun.” Fine, fun? Excited for the fun? You're lucky this is Maxwell and not Bertrand, Claire.

“Yes! So. Much. Fun!” Maxwell called out in a sing song voice, completely convinced by her 'couldn't-be-thinner' excuse. After elaborating on exactly how much fun they were about to have, he'd stretched and yawned, just like he had on the flight from New York, and in less than a minute  he was out. He's like a golden retriever, Claire mused, taking in his open mouth and raspy snores. So much excitement and then crash!

Pulling into the driveway of the palatial estate, Claire couldn't keep a “wow” from falling from her lips. Evergreens had been planted along the long driveway, shielding the estate from sight until the very last moment, their snow burdened boughs giving way to the turrets and leaded window panes of the chateau. It was beautiful; the original architecture maintained to perfection and updated with all of the modern necessities, and the white blanketed landscape around the house went on for as far as the eye could see. She couldn't wait to stretch her legs and explore, and neither could Maxwell- he was already running up the estate steps. “Meet you for ice skating in 15 Claire! Oh, you're room's the last one on the left corridor, someone will bring your bag in for you, bye!” he called over his shoulder, all in one breath, before disappearing through the front door.

She smiled, shaking her head to herself. Stepping out of the car, her boot immediately hit a patch of ice and she slid backwards, arms going out to her sides to try to steady herself, until thudding hard into someone behind her.

“Watch it, Berkley, haven't you ever been on ice before?” Drake caught her by the shoulders and held her steady at arms length, dropping his hands as soon as she found traction again.

“Yes, and I happen to be an excellent skater...ironically enough,” she cocked her head at him and put her hands on her hips.

“You're not a better skater than me.” he stated matter of factually.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “That so, Walker? Guess we'll see about that.” She spun back to the car and grabbed her own bag, ignoring what Max had said about someone bringing it for her. Spinning back towards Drake, she let her voice drop just a fraction before saying “See you on the ice,” with a playful smirk before making her way up the steps towards the front door.

Drake couldn't help but watch her as she walked away. After slipping on the ice she seemed to be making a show of how confident she felt in these conditions, and he hated how much he liked it. “See you on the ice, Berkley,” he muttered to himself, wondering how on Earth she was going to keep from melting it as soon as she touched it. He watched the other ladies shuffling around patches of ice, fearfully clutching onto each other for stability as their drivers carried their luggage in for them. He smiled to himself as he caught Claire hefting her bag onto her other shoulder before vanishing into the estate.

“I see Claire is keeping you on your toes already, my friend.” Liam came up from behind him, clapping a hand to his shoulder, a wide, teasing grin spreading across his face. He'd made a mental note never to refer to her as Lady Claire or Lady Berkley to Drake.

“Cool it, Liam,” he said, shooting his friend a look. Liam had a tendency to get excited about things the moment they show up as thoughts in his head- and why wouldn't he? He's a prince; if he can dream it it's his. If he falls for someone, they fall for him harder. Drake had never known that luxury. Nothing had ever come easy for him. Nothing. He'd developed a tendency that was the exact opposite of Liam's. The moment things showed up as a thought in his head, he was already trying to tell himself not to bother. He simply didn't want to deal with the disappointment, the heartbreak, so he told himself that whatever he thought he wanted wasn't worth it. He was trying to do that with her, but for the first time in years it wasn't working.

Liam put his hands up defensively. “Hey, I'm just calling it like I see it, man.”

“Well...don't, okay. Not...” he looked toward the front door, toward where she'd just been standing in such stark contrast to every other woman he'd ever met. “Not yet.”

It's got to be today, Claire had told herself while she changed into her heavier clothes. She would talk to Maxwell today and tell him the truth. There was no sense hiding it from him. Liam knew, Hana knew...she hoped by now Drake believed her. If it's a problem they can send me back to the bar, she told herself. She cut herself off from finishing the thought with maybe that would be for the best. Maybe it would. But Daniel had  told her that she should trust herself, and she trusted him so why not take his advice? She wrapped a chunky plaid scarf three times around her neck, fixed her hair in the mirror, and headed out towards where everyone had started to gather for skating.

Olivia and Liam were gliding arm in arm on the far side of the lake. Maxwell had advised that the pair of them had grown up together and were old friends. In the few, short interactions that Claire had had with Olivia in the boutique and other common areas of the palace, the redhead had been sharp, biting and standoffish. She thought it odd that someone as kind and welcoming as Liam would have a friend as prickly as Olivia, but then she admittedly knew nothing about courtly politics. She watched as Olivia chattered happily away at Liam as he nodded and smiled, but it was clear to Claire that he wasn't paying her much attention. She followed his crystal clear eyes a few feet away, where they landed on Kiara's flowing raven hair as she tossed it, laughing with Penelope as the two women struggled to keep each other steady on their skates. Claire wondered whether Kiara or anyone else noticed the way that Liam found any moment he could to steel glances at the lady from Castelsarreillan. Probably not. No one seemed to notice the same about her and Drake.

“Claire! Hey snowbunny!” Maxwell's cheerful voice rang clearly through the cold air. He was sitting on a bench tying his skates, waving one arm over his head. Now or never, and better when there are more people around.

“Hey, Max,” she strode over and took a seat next to him to lace up her own skates. “Want to do a lap together?” she asked when she was done.

“Claire, I'd like nothing more.” He stood, held his hand out for her and she took it smiling. On the inside her stomach was roiling.

They made their way out onto the ice and linked arms. “How are you at this?” Maxwell asked tentatively.

Claire looped her arm through his and took him on a graceful glide. “You tell me,” she said smirking.

Maxwell was impressed and clearly relieved. Claire had her hands full trying to keep him upright. Looking around it was clear that most of the nobles weren't the outdoorsy type. The second that thought had crossed her mind, Drake sped past her and Maxwell looking happier than she'd seen him since the first night they'd met. Her heart jumped to her throat and she felt a pressing need to get the conversation with Maxwell over with. She waited until they were far enough away from other ears before leveling with him.

“Hey, Max, I uh...I need to tell you something.” She didn't give him time to respond. Doing so would give her just enough time to change her mind and spin a quick lie to cover what she'd said. She continued hastily, “I need you to know the truth about why I came here and the truth is this: I thought that I had a connection with Drake the night of Liam's bachelor party, and I haven't had that in...in a long time and, I needed to see what it meant. And god you were so right that I didn't want to go back to that bar, Max. You have no...no idea how right you were, and...and I” she glanced over at him. His expression was neutral, he was waiting for her to finish. “I'm sorry. I know you and Bertrand were hoping that I'd somehow bring honor to your house but... I'm the wrong girl for that job, Max.” She looked down at her skates, watching the blades bite into the ice below them, too nervous to look back at Maxwell.

“Does Liam know?” Maxwell asked, finally.

“He does. He's...” she smiled despite still feeling bad for letting Maxwell down, “He's actually kind of for it.”

Maxwell smiled, shocking her. “Well if the Prince approves, who am I to say a word?” He nudged her with his elbow playfully. She let out a huge sigh of relief. “Besides, it wouldn't kill Drake to find a little happiness in life,” he rolled his eyes.

They finished their lap around the lake and Claire gave Maxwell a big hug, thanking him for being so understanding. “Look,” he'd said, “I know you're new around here. But marrying the prince really isn't the only reason for the social season, and it's not the only way that you can make your mark on the court.” He squeezed her hand and bounded off to talk to Hana.

A blue blur whizzed past the corner of Claire's vision, and she turned in the direction that it went to see Drake just a few feet away from her, looking like a professional skater. “Hey, Berkley, you ready to prove what you said about being a better skater than me?” He challenged. He was grinning, and without noticing, Claire let out a little bubbly laugh, her own lips pulling up involuntarily at his uncharacteristic display of happiness.

“You're on, Walker,” she called over to him. He closed the distance, blades cutting to a stop and spraying her toes with ice. “Should I skate faster than you, more gracefully than you?” she asked teasingly as she circled him. “What kind of contest should this be? Or maybe I should ask, what kind of contest do you feel like losing?” she was feeling a little more brazen after her talk with Maxwell, and reminded herself to reel it in a bit.

“Do I look like a figure skater? We're racing.” he cocked one eyebrow, looking at her like she had three heads for suggesting anything but a race.

She shrugged, “Like I said, didn't matter to me, I'm flexible,” That's reeling it in?! She scolded herself.

She thought she saw Drake's eyes darken just a bit, thought she heard a slight rumbling growl from the back of his throat before saying, “Berkley, you just go looking for trouble, don't you.”

Smirking, Claire turned away from him and skated over to the edge of the lake. Drake followed, again stopping right in front of her, so so close to her. She felt a flutter in her chest and a shiver though her bones that had nothing to do with the cold. She pointed to where everyone else had gathered, all abandoning their skates. He nodded, staring her in the eye. “On your mark,” she said, crouching into her stance.

He did the same, “get set,” he said, keeping his eyes locked on hers.

“Go!” she yelled, taking off. He was right on her heels, but she could go faster. She dug deeper, put her head down, and increased her speed. Pulling ahead, she saw that the rest of the group had noticed the race and were watching. Pushing as fast as she could, she reached the other side, slowing by doing a dramatic figure eight to great applause from Liam, Maxwell and Hana.

Drake finished just as she was coming out of her figure eight, a breathless, shocked look on his face. “You...weren't...kidding,” he huffed.

Claire smiled. “Nope. My first job was a skating instructor. Did I forget to mention that?” she stuck her tongue out at him.

He let out a slight chuckle, “Yeah you may have forgotten that detail,” he said. “Good race, Berkley.” His eyes softened but just for a second. As if remembering that the rest of the group was still looking at them, he said, “uh, everyone seems to be waiting for us, so we should head in.”

Claire nodded. The moment was over and she'd have to wait for the next one. He was like a puzzle. A puzzle you could only solve in a certain sequence at a certain time. “Okay, let's head in.” she brushed her hand against his almost imperceptibly as she passed him, but she felt him stiffen at the contact and knew that he had felt something.

Later, after the sun had gone down and everyone had taken hot showers and warmed up, Olivia led the suitors and members of the court into a large sitting room with a roaring fire and several plush couches. “Prince Liam has some stately business to attend to before joining us,” she announced, “but the bar is full, so please, make yourselves comfortable.” They all did as she suggested, and milled about chatting before pouring themselves a second drink and settling onto the various couches.

Claire got herself a drink from the bar; a whiskey on the rocks, and took a seat next to Drake on the couch. “Come to gloat about your win, Berkley?” He took a swig of his drink.

“No way, I'm no sore winner,” she said smiling. “You looked like you were having fun today.”

“I was,” he said with honesty. “Usually courtly functions mean suits and parties, endless droning on of nobles all praising one another for nothing. I like being outside, breathing fresh air.”

“I like that too,” she said. “I don't get enough fresh air in New York. I love that city, but god it can be suffocating.” she took a drink.

As Drake opened his mouth to say something, a tall shadow crossed in front of them, and he went rigid. Looking up, Claire saw their host, Duchess Olivia, clutching a glass of red wine in one hand, the other on her hip. “Lady Claire, that was quite a performance on the ice today,” she said flatly.

“Thank you, Duchess-”

The redhead cut her off, her eyes trained on Drake, red lip curling up. “Be careful though, Lady Claire. Ladies who spend a lot of time with Drake end up vanishing. Isn't that right, Drake dear?” she said, her expression sickeningly sweet.

Drake glared at her, his eyes darkening three shades. “Don’t, Olivia.” He warned in a low growl.

Claire shifted next to Drake uncomfortably. “Hey, Olivia,” she tried to interject.

“How long has it been, Drake, since you’ve heard from Savannah? 8 months? A year? More?”

“I said don’t.” The anger was making his voice shake as he stood abruptly, hands becoming fists.

“And how about dear Lady Isla?” Olivia ignored Drake’s protests and smugly pressed the button she knew would cause the biggest reaction. “She just up and left the night before Landon’s engagement ball, so very unlike her. How long has it been since you’ve heard from her, Drake?” She crossed her arms and hitched one eyebrow high.

“I said, DON’T!” He snarled into Olivia’s face.

“Or what, Walker?” she spat at him. “Lighten up, it was just a joke.” she huffed and took a sip of her wine.

“That's the fucking problem with people like you, Olivia. The world is just a fucking joke.” he growled at her, slamming his empty glass down and stalking past her towards the entry way.

Claire stood from the couch and stared Olivia in the eye. “That was cruel, you know that? You're cold. Why would you do that? Couldn't you see it was bothering him?” She was unprepared for Olivia's seemingly careless approach to people's feelings.

“Of course I could see, Claire, don't be ridiculous,” she stated and went to refill her wine.

Claire looked around but no one else had noticed Drake's departure. Liam wasn't in the room and Maxwell was busy doing some party trick or another on the other side of the room. Making a split decision, Claire left the sitting room and followed Drake out into the night.

Without the sun the air temperature had dropped drastically. Claire was used to cold winters being from the north eastern United States, but she knew that it was too cold to stay out for too long. She needed to find Drake and make him come back inside before one or both of them got hypothermia. She followed his footprints, glad that it hadn't started snowing yet. Glancing up at the sky she could tell by the clouds that that wouldn't be the case for long.

She found him standing in a clearing, hands on his head. She approached slowly, snow crunching beneath her feet. Reaching a hand out, she placed it gently on his back hesitating for half a second before doing so. As her hand made contact with his back she felt him tense up again like he had when she brushed his hand out on the ice. “Drake...” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

He closed his eyes at the sound of her voice, let his shoulders relax. It was frigid outside, and Olivia had just chilled his heart, but the sound of her voice and the weight of her hand on his back sent a comforting warmth through his body. “Berkley,” he croaked. “Why'd you follow me?” he still hadn't turned to face her. He couldn't.

“Drake...I...was worried about you. It's cold, and...” she took a step around to the side of him, peering up at his face as he continued to stare straight ahead. “And what Olivia did was wrong. I” she shook her head. “I don't know what any of that meant, but...” he looked down at her. She looked genuinely upset about what Olivia had done. “but it was wrong of her.” she said, looking up at him and meeting his eyes. She kept her hand on his back as she came fully around to the front of him, their bodies almost touching.

“I...” he closed his eyes again. “I'm not ready to tell you about all that,” he sounded deflated. It was different from his flat, stoic, sarcastic tone. It broke her heart.

“That's okay,” she said. “You don't have to, I just...wanted to make sure you were alright.” She dropped her hand from his back as the other reached up to rest on his chest. He looked down at her, unable to remember a time when anyone but his family or Liam had shown him concern. This woman was changing everything he thought he was sure about.

“It's cold,” she said after a beat. “Let's get back.” she turned back towards the estate.

“Hang on,” he said, hand darting out to grab hers. “Look,” he pointed up at the sky and she followed his finger to see the sky erupting in a brilliant meteor shower.

“Beautiful,” she gasped.

The sky twinkled and glittered like diamonds, but he'd seen it before. He'd never seen her see it, though, and he thought that the awe on her face was more beautiful that anything going on in the sky. “Yeah, it is, isn't it?” he said in a low voice, eyes not moving from her.

They stayed watching the meteor shower for a few minutes until Claire began to shiver. Drake noticed and pulled her to his side, rubbing her arm. She huddled closer as snow began to fall. “Okay,” he said, breaking apart, “let's get you back.” He took her hand tightly and led the way, Claire clutching onto him for safety- she was afraid that if she let go she might lose any hold she had on him.

By the time they had made it back everyone had retired to their rooms for the night, either not caring or not noticing the absence of the commoners. The reddish glow from the dying fire spilled out into the entryway where they stood, breathing heavily from the walk in the cold, both shivering at this point. Claire took a shaky breath before reaching up to Drake's face. She brushed snow out of his wet hair. His hand came up and caught hers and pulled her into the sitting room.

Once inside he shut the door and they collided in a kiss that made the embers in the hearth jealous. Her fingers went to his buttons, shedding his shirt, their lips still locked, tongues entwined, his hands in her hair grabbing fistfuls. Dropping his shirt to the floor she started to remove her own top when he broke the kiss.

“Berkley-” his voice was strained.

“Shh,” she said, moving to kiss the skin behind his ear. A strangled moan fell from his lips. “We have to get these cold, wet clothes off,” she said before returning her lips to his. He moaned again into her mouth at the sensation of her skin pressed to his chest. It set every inch of him tingling, an electric current buzzing through his veins. She feels amazing, he thought to himself, how is this real? How is she real?

They moved to the couch, hands roving over each other, warming themselves against one another. He slid his hand up to cup her breast and she hummed against his lips as his strong fingers kneaded her soft flesh. He could barely breathe for how it felt to touch her.  Drake sunk into the corner of the couch, stretching his legs out, and pulled her on top of him. She sighed as he lined her hips up against hi own, and he took her bottom lip between his teeth, sucking, drawing a satisfying gasp from her. One hand was tangled in her hair again, the other pressing lightly on the small of her back. He felt her breath rise and fall with his, his fingertips starting to trail lightly up and down her spine. He'd slowed the kiss down, tongue gently sliding over hers, getting lost in it. They were both lost in it.

Lungs burning with a need for air, Claire reluctantly pulled her lips from his, amazed at how difficult it was to stop kissing him. Gasping, she tilted her head down resting her forehead against his chest. He smells like autumn, she thought, like the air after rain. She felt his fingers unwind from her hair, smoothing it gently now. He placed a delicate kiss behind her ear and she sighed, breath evening out slowly. She shifted her weight to lay against him, placing her cheek against the place where his heart was still thumping wildly. He looped both arms around her body and tightened his hold on her, turning his face to rest against hers, noses touching. They stayed there, not saying anything, neither daring to speak first, until Claire began drifting in and out of sleep.

Drake wanted to stay there all night holding her. He needed the delicious feeling of her warm body pressed against his own. He wanted nothing more than to wake up like that, to see her in his arms in the clear, gentle light of morning with sunbeams dancing through the blinds and through her hair. But he knew that it wouldn't look good for someone to find them like this, half naked and tangled together, sweaty and content. Fighting his desires, he brushed  a light kiss to her cheek and she stirred awake, blinking up at him, a small, sheepish smile forming. “Sorry... didn't mean to fall asleep...” she mumbled, stretching and moving to get off of him.

“It's okay,” he said. It's more than okay, he thought. “But we should get to our rooms. Come on, I'll walk you.” He handed her her shirt and she slipped it on as he did the same. They left the room, fingers laced together loosely, and walked in silence until they got to her door.

“Well,” she bit her lip and looked down. “Good night, Drake.”

“Hey, Berkley...before you go...” he dropped his own gaze, pulling his hand up behind his neck. “Thank you. For coming after me, I mean.” He chanced a glance up at her and met her steady gaze.

“You don't have to thank me, I-” she began.

“No, Berkley, I do. You might not understand it but...” he sighed. “Just let me thank you, okay?”

She could see something in his eyes, like he was straining himself. She nodded. “Okay.”

“Good night, Berkley,” he said, moving back from her door. “See you tomorrow.”

“Sleep well, Drake,” she said with a yawn, closing the door.

Drake knew he wouldn't be sleeping. He'd be laying in his bed trying to remember how she had fit so perfectly against his chest, how their lips had joined so seamlessly. He would be laying there thinking about what it meant to have someone that he wanted to take a chance on, someone that could melt the ice around his heart.

[jamesgeiiger]

Financial Samurai 2018 Year In Review: Almost A Fantastic Year

Although 2018 ended on a down note with the stock market selling off, I feel good about how things unfolded. I’ll take the ratio of three good quarters to one bad quarter any year.

Believe it or not, my theme for 2018 was: back to early retirement life. I pushed myself to the point of burnout in 2017. But the funny thing about hard work is that it’s over. I only remember bits and pieces of how difficult 2017 was.

At year-end, it’s easy to forget our accomplishments and our failures. With this post, I’m excited to relive the good and the bad in the following categories: Finances, Family, Health, Business, and Odds & Ends.

This post is like a 4-for-1 special. It needs to be thorough so I can prove to my son his old man wasn’t a deadbeat when he inevitably starts rebelling or when I’m no longer here to defend myself. 

2018 Year In Review

Finances – 2.5 Out Of 5 Stars

At the beginning of the year, I predicted we’d see a slowdown in coastal city real estate, a 10-year bond yield under 3%, and a stock market that would have one last hurrah with a 10% return. I was almost three for three with the stock market up ~8% in September. Too bad it gave up all its gains and then a whole lot! At least I got more defensive starting in March.

My net worth is roughly made up of:

30% in stocks/bonds = -3%. After writing Your Risk Tolerance Is An Illusion in the Spring, I reduced my stock allocation in my House Sale Fund to roughly 52% from 70%. As bonds began to outperform stocks coupled with further profit taking, my end allocation is roughly 40% stocks / 60% bonds. Owning a bunch of equity structured notes in my other main fund has helped minimize volatility. But clearly I wasn’t defensive enough and should have taken more profits during the summer.

My House Sale Fund portfolio was up around 13% at one point until I gave all the gains up in the 4th quarter. Right now, it’s holding onto a tenuous 5.4% gain, after the huge rally on Dec 26. Overall, my public investment portfolio is slightly down, which violates my rule of never losing money post retirement. I plan to update this performance daily due to the volatility.

I’m disappointed with my public investment performance. This goes to show that no matter how concerned you are about an asset class or the economy, greed can override logic.

Here’s a good chart that shows how the Vanguard Long-Term Bond Fund has outperformed the S&P 500 since 1999. The next time I start feeling greedy, I need to remind myself that slow and steady wins the race, especially if you’ve already passed the finish line.

6% in cash/CDs = +2.3%. Thanks to rising short-term rates, you can now get around 2% in a money market and 2.5% in a 12-month CD. It’s wonderful to earn something from our risk-free investments now. Cash and short-term CDs have been 10%+ outperformers against the S&P 500. Hopefully, folks will no longer badger me about the risks of underperforming inflation when the real risk is losing absolute dollar value. Unfortunately, I should have had closer to 15% of my net worth in cash and CDs.

30% in real estate = -5%. The online estimates say my real estate holdings have gone up ~6% YoY, but I doubt it now that the stock market has sold off so aggressively from the peak. Online price estimates and public data are always lagging estimates. Prices did continue to go up until about January 2018, but began falling for the remainder of the year. The chart below shows data months before the 4Q2018 stock market correction. Therefore, I’ve manually inputted -5% from +6% for a 11% swing.

Even though my real estate holdings are down, I thankfully feel no stress compared to my stock holdings, which is one of the reasons why I prefer real estate over stocks. One rental property has no mortgage since 2015, my primary residence is providing utility every day by sheltering my family, and my vacation property is generating a positive cash flow. I can’t wait to bring my boy up to Lake Tahoe to touch his first snow in March!

It’s unfortunate that I reinvested $600,000 of the $1,800,000 proceeds from my house sale into the stock market. I should have just stayed super conservative. But I suspect the best I could get now for the house is $2,600,000 today versus the $2,740,000 sale price in 2017. My house was on a busy street next to the busiest street in all of San Francisco. Fringe location properties, even in a good neighborhood, tend to underperform during a market softening.

8% in alternative investments = +5%. My alternative investments in venture debt and real estate crowdfunding seem to be doing well, to the tune of a 11% – 20% IRR. But these figures are probably too aggressive as well, so I’ve assigned a +5% performance instead. REITs and rental property have outperformed all year as rents are stickier than stocks. I remember back in 2009, my rents stayed flat because by the time the lease was over a year later, the recession was over.

25% in my online business = 0% – 150%. My business is the trickiest to value. Revenue and profits are up 20%+ YoY. Therefore, one might conclude that its value should also be up by 20%+. However, valuations have probably compressed since the stock market sell-off. The good thing is that a peer site with about 35% less traffic sold for 2X the value I assigned for my business in my net worth calculations. Therefore, there’s a possibility my site could be worth 2X – 2.5X my assigned value if we normalize for traffic.

From an estate planning perspective, I want my business to be valued as low as possible. It’s the same way you want your house to be valued as low as possible to pay less property tax. To prepare for hard times, I’ve kept my business at 0% growth in my net worth calculation.

Net Worth Growth

Here’s my 2018 net worth progression chart according to Personal Capital. The chart is a little chunky because of cash recognition delays. But overall, it was doing pretty well until the end of the year.

2018 Net Worth = +6.5%

The main reasons why my net worth is up ~6.5% in 2018 are business cash flow and aggressive savings. I continue to save over 70% of my after-tax income. If I didn’t aggressively save, my net worth would have been flat. As my net worth has grown, it’s harder to move the needle as much.

6.5% is OK, but at one point I was up ~11%. Hence, it feels a little disappointing. 10% YoY growth has always been my minimum net worth growth target since graduating from college. Despite the disappointment, I’m glad my net worth didn’t go in reverse.

If you’re feeling bummed out, it helps to look at how far your net worth has come over the past five or 10 years. When I left work in 2012, I was comfortable with what I had. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have left. Having another six years of growth, excluding 2018, has really been a blessing post early retirement.

The key is to not lose all your gains to a bear market.

Related: Recommended Net Worth Allocation By Age Or Work Experience

Family & Fatherhood – 4.7 Stars

I could not have tried harder to be a great stay at home dad. I only have one shot, so I did everything to educate myself about parenthood. I also spent as much time as possible with my son as a stay at home dad.

My greatest moments of joy all year came from seeing my son’s milestones. He started waddling with help at around 11 months and slowly started to walk unassisted at 12 – 13 months. By 18 months he was able to count to 30, say all letters of the alphabet, and identify eight different colors.

His favorite words and phrases at 20 months old are “hot dog, ketchup, yum, yum, yum” “double wide garage door,” “walk with daddy,” “knock knock,” “verde,” “voila,” and “da hai bao (big seal in Mandarin).” He’s also just begun to sing a couple lullabies, one in Japanese and one in French. We try to talk to him in multiple languages as supposedly that helps brain development. He’s hilarious and full of determination. Oh boy is he determined.

When I’m not working on Financial Samurai or managing our investments, I pretend I’m a pre-school teacher and occupational therapist. Because he has a vision issue, I’ve been helping him track objects, work on his depth perception, and hand-eye coordination. So far he can walk up stairs no problem, but he still needs assistance going down stairs.

Now we’re focusing more on his fine motor skills, like drawing, holding a pencil, brushing his teeth, playing piano keys, and using scissors. The duties are never-ending, but it’s been a blessing to care for him every day and watch him grow.

He is a determined boy

My greatest sorrows have also all come from my son. Between 11 – 15 months old he would fall frequently or accidentally bonk his head on something hard or sharp. I felt his pain each time and admonished myself for not doing a better job protecting him.

As a result of his accidents, I ended up padding everywhere around the house and padding every wall and table corner. Interior design be damned! Thank goodness we live in a modest size house. The padding has saved him from injury numerous times, including on Christmas, when he stumbled on a package and hit his head on our coffee leg corner which was padded, hooray!

It turns out that toddlers between 12 – 19 months fall about 17X an hour on average according to one study of 120 toddlers. Only until about age 4 do most toddlers fully master their walking and running skills. That made me feel a little better, but it still made me so sad whenever he hurt himself. Taking him for a walk with a harness has helped tremendously. I’m teaching him to look both ways before crossing the street.

It’s also interesting it takes up to 24 months before a toddler’s fontanel closes. Therefore, we as parents might as well be as diligent as possible in trying to protect his head before his skull gets to full strength. So much about parenthood the first several years is about survival – from preventing suffocation while sleeping to making sure they don’t walk off a ledge.

The better our boy sleeps and the more he is able to communicate his desires, the more rewarding parenthood has become. Because he is so strong-willed, his temper tantrums are also quite a challenge.

One of my concerns is that he will hurt himself during these temper tantrums by banging his head on something hard or arching his back and hurting himself on the floor. Doctors say temper tantrums peak by around 24 months, subside, and then rise again at around 36 months. Here’s where I need to demonstrate maximum patience as a parent for the next 18 months.

Before my son was born, there was never any whining or crying around the house. But once he arrived, I have heard crying and whining every day, multiple times a day for 20 months in a row. Unfortunately, there is no logical reasoning with a young boy, except to use a technique called “caveman speak” while voicing what we think he wants to calm him down. Adjusting to this new scenario has been hard.

It’s also difficult to write, record a podcast, or mentally relax when there is so much noise. Being able to more easily find a quiet space is one of the benefits of upgrading to a larger house. As a result of needing to find quiet time, I often had to wake up between 4am – 5am to get things done. But I’m proud to say I’ve never lost my temper around my boy.

I’ve still got to improve my patience with my wife and not let business stress or stock market stress hurt our relationship. We operate at different paces, and I need to do a better job slowing down. The whole point of financial independence is to be free from money stress to live your best life.

Given my wife is a full-time mom and absolutely does more of the caregiving, the pressure is on me to make sure our finances never go in reverse. As the stock market melted down in 4Q2018, my stress level definitely increased.

Our goal is to both stay full-time parents for at least our son’s first two years of life and ideally try to be full-time parents for five years before he attends kindergarten. Fatherhood is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

Related: How To Survive The Pressures Of Being A Sole Income Providing Parent

Health & Fitness – 3.2 Stars

I’m the same weight as I was in 2017, which is OK. But I gained 5 lbs in 2017, which was not OK. I need to get down to 162 lbs from 170 lbs. At least I exercised 3X a week on average plus took light walks with my son 5X a week on average. Given my goal is to live until 75, or whenever my son can establish himself and find a life partner, it’s important for me to stay in mental and physical shape.

Luckily, I’ve had no serious injuries or medical mishaps this year. I did catch some flu-like virus that knocked me out for 1.5 days in October, but that was it. We did have our first emergency room visit for my son at 5am because he seemed to have come down with a similar virus I had a month later. We also went to an after-hour care facility for some inflammation. Luckily, things got better after 24 hours.

At 41, I still haven’t sprouted any grey hairs, which is a surprise since I first got several grey hairs at 33, the year before I left my day job. The only reason I can imagine for this phenomenon is that not working a full-time job is less stressful. It’s one thing to say how much better life is after achieving financial independence. It’s another thing for the body to show us.

My most fun physical addition has been joining a softball meetup group that plays every Saturday it doesn’t rain. I must have played over 30 games in 2018. Ah, now I remember sustaining a left knee bone contusion that hurt for six months. My personal highlight was drafting and captaining a 4th of July softball tournament and winning. Curiously, it was one of my most satisfying life moments!

Finally, I found out in December I wasn’t getting bumped down to 4.5 in USTA tennis from 5.0. I did poorly in 5.0 league at the beginning of the year and was hoping to get bumped down after three seasons. When I didn’t, I appealed and got denied.

5.0 level tennis is brutally tough. From an ego perspective, it does feel good to be in the top 1% of all tennis levels. Other players give you respect as you puff out your chest and start thinking you’re the shiznits. But after you start repeatedly getting beaten by players younger than you, it starts to get demoralizing! Therefore, I always try to make fun of myself to others by saying the computers must have malfunctioned to keep me at 5.0.

Business – 4.8 Stars

I could not have tried harder to build Financial Samurai either. Here are some of the accomplishments:

Published three posts a week on average

Published three pages a week on average

Published one newsletter a week on average

Improved my short-form writing skills with the newsletter

Produced over 40 podcasts

Did several podcast interviews on other platforms

Launched the Financial Samurai Forum with 1,300 members thanks to my wife who set everything up over a year

Got mentioned in Business Insider, CNBC, MarketWatch, MSN, Apple News, Forbes, and Yahoo

Updated How To Engineer Your Layoff with a new forward for 2019

Increased overall traffic by 20% YoY, with 50% YoY traffic growth between August 11 – December 27

The 50% YoY traffic surge since August 11 seems like an anomaly. It’s like suddenly turning into a speedboat after being a cruise ship. But traffic has been elevated for almost four months so far, with December being the highest traffic all year. For years, December has always been a quiet month due to the holidays. Perhaps the traffic increase is due to a combination of more production, search algorithm changes by Google, and content syndication.

Overall, I’m just really happy there’s been a correlation with effort and reward. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, hence part of the reason why I left work in 2012. Every year since the birth of Financial Samurai in 2009, Financial Samurai has drastically outperformed the S&P 500 and the San Francisco real estate market. As a result, blogging has surpassed real estate as my favorite asset class to build wealth.

For poops and giggles, here’s another net worth chart if I manually input a business value based on recent comparable sales. The 30% spike is nice, but is also dangerous because it brings a false sense of complacency. It’s best to stay motivated as the economy softens. Just know that creating next level wealth is all about owning growth equity over the long term.

Net worth including market value of business = +30% YoY

Life’s Odds & Ends – 4 Stars

In May, I helped coach my high school boys varsity tennis team to the Northern California Sectional championship. This was the first championship in the school’s entire 40+ year history. This victory was particularly sweet because we had come so close my first year in 2017 only to lose in the finals to a school 3X our size. This was another incredible life moment that had nothing to do with money. I only got paid $3,500 for 3.5 months of work. The relationships I developed with some of the parents were a nice bonus.

My dad came to visit three times and my mom twice. My mother-in-law also visited twice and my father-in-law once. It is always great to see them, and I hope they continue to visit us more often. My dream has always been to have three generations spend as much time together as possible. Unfortunately or fortunately, all our grandparents want to remain independent and live in their respective cities. It’s hard to change the older you get, which is why I’ve been trying so hard to move to Hawaii.

I further strengthened a couple friendships. This is huge because as a stay-at-home dad, it’s often hard to make new friends or deepen friendships. There are simply less social events to attend e.g. happy hour. I love having a good buddy to shoot the shit with. I also developed a new in-person relationship with an FS reader, who also so happens to also be a professional athlete on my favorite team. Pretty neat!

I did some decent home maintenance projects this year: caulked the top of our living room window sill to prevent leaks, varnished all our wood planter boxes, rooted the upstairs sink that was clogging, re-roofed the leaking light well, maintained the yard, and fixed a leaky faucet at my rental. Man, I forgot about all this stuff until my wife reminded me. Thank goodness I sold the other rental.

Finally, we finalized our will and revocable living trust. My wife also led the charge getting us through this cumbersome and complicated process. There were so many documents to gather and questions to ask the estate planning lawyer that she estimates the whole process took her about 40 hours. But after we finally signed all the documents on December 20, I felt a huge sense of relief that I could die knowing that my wife and son wouldn’t have to go through probate court.

2018: 3.8 Out Of 5 Stars

Although I didn’t decide to take it easy per my 2018 goal, I have no regrets staying consistent with Financial Samurai. I don’t think I’ll ever change my work ethic until my body starts breaking down. The joy of writing is so tangible because it is an identifiable product that can be eternally consumed.

It’s been hard to accept no longer making a positive return on my public investments after nine years of up, up, up. I’ve got to do a much better job at not letting financial loss negatively affect my mood and my relationship with my wife. Not taking unnecessary risk will help.

During downturns, I envy those in professions that have nothing to do with the stock market. For example, when I asked my estate planning lawyer about what she thought about the stock market collapse in December, she said she had no idea because she outsources all her financial planning to someone else. What a blessing.

I also have zero regrets being a stay at home dad all year. Yes, the days were long and there were many moments of frustration, but just hearing his squeals of joy made full-time fatherhood worthwhile. All I want to do is squeeze and kiss him 100X a day! I’m so thankful my wife has been an amazing mother and partner all year.

Family and Financial Samurai are my two great loves. Everything else comes in a distant second. There was a point where we thought we’d never have a child. So we say a prayer of thanks every evening. Financial Samurai has been a part of me since the bottom of the last financial crisis in 2009. It’s like an old friend that has stuck with me in the worst of times.

The key is to not let my two loves collide, but to let them be synergistic. My family gives me motivation to write, while Financial Samurai is a creative outlet that helps ensure we remain stay-at-home-parents until we decide otherwise.

There’s always a silver lining to a downturn too.

For Financial Samurai, it’s increased traffic as more people are paying attention to their finances. Book sales on how to negotiate a severance are also increasing as savvy employees are trying to get ahead of the layoff curve. Finally, our passive income has also increased due to higher interests rates and my shift towards higher yielding assets like cash, bonds, and CDs.

For family life, it’s being less tempted to go back to work because the return on effort has declined. When all is in shambles, why bother dealing with a commute, company politics, difficult clients, and a declining company stock price.

I hope if my boy one day reads this article that’ll he’ll be proud of his dad. Although 2018 wasn’t a fantastic year, it was filled with many positive milestones.

I’ll be sharing my 2019 outlook and goals next. In the meantime, I’d love to hear some of your hits and misses for 2018!

Related: The Best Financial Samurai Posts For 2018

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[fashiontrendin-blog]

How To Pick The Perfect Jeans For Your Body Type

http://fashion-trendin.com/how-to-pick-the-perfect-jeans-for-your-body-type/

How To Pick The Perfect Jeans For Your Body Type

The average man is five-foot-nine and wears a size medium or large. If this sounds like you, then congratulations – you’ve hit the jackpot in denim shopping, and all jeans are essentially made for you.

Brands and designers base their sizing on a man of average dimensions, then scale up or down. Of course, for those that don’t fit these exact specifications, shopping for jeans can be just as tricky as buying tailoring.

Fortunately, there is a checklist for different shapes that, if followed, means you can update your denim rotation with ease and tailor your purchase to your body. This is the FashionBeans guide to buying jeans that suit, whatever your size.

The Basics

For all body types, the four corners of nailing denim purchases are: rise, colour, shape and break.

Before even stepping foot into a shop, it’s important to do some homework. Getting the right inseam measurement forms the basis for all jean choices thereon.

Unless you’re a yoga master, however, it’s a difficult measurement to take yourself. For around £10, dry cleaners or high-street tailors should be able to help, allowing you to tackle the rails knowing you’re not going to end up with flipper feet or pedal pushers.

While shopping, pay attention to the rise (the distance from the crotch seam to the top of the waistband) as much as the length. Both are equally important in getting denim that fits well, but length can be altered easily – the rise cannot.

Ensure that the original hem is kept; otherwise, it will look as though the jeans have just ended abruptly. Not doing so can also change the overall fit. Shortening denim results in a wider leg opening, so learn the terminology and request an original hem rather than a tucked hem.

Shorter Men

If you’re below average height, the perfect pair of jeans will make your frame appear taller than it is. However, thanks to brands’ generic one-shape-fits-all attitude, a shortening effect can just as easily occur.

Luckily for your wallet, you needn’t go down the bespoke route to secure a decent fit. There are a few things that you can do as a vertically-challenged man to get more height on the high street.

If short legs are the issue, avoid low-rise denim at all costs. Stick to mid-rise styles, as these add balance to the top and bottom half of the body.

It seems like common sense that relaxed- or loose-fit jeans would make you look bigger, but in reality, they do the opposite – drowning yourself in fabric is a sure-fire way to look like you’ve borrowed them from someone else’s wardrobe.

“I’d go for a slimmer cut – it seems to work better even if it’s a chunky guy,” says professional stylist and founder of SartoriaLab, Sarah Gilfillan. Pick a straight-leg design to help elongate the body’s frame, thereby giving the illusion of height.

Aside from fit, invest in a simple denim colour that works across your wider wardrobe and steer clear of anything with too much detail. “Choose a wash in a uniform shade (i.e. no contrast fading) and not too low waisted,” suggests Gilfillan.

If you are determined to wear ripped jeans, Gilfillan suggests a lighter coloured denim, so there’s not too much contrast between the rips and the denim colour. “Ensure the back pockets aren’t too low either as this will make your legs look shorter.”

General Guidelines

Mid-rise Solid, dark washes Straight or slim leg Classic break

Key Styles

Taller Men

The definition of ‘tall’ varies from country to country, but typically, anyone over six-foot is thought to fall into this category. That also means it covers a wide range of sizes – everyone from male supermodels to NBA and rugby players will need tall denim, giving retailers a lot of scope to get it wrong.

For taller guys, the high street’s current lean towards high-waisted jeans can be a minefield. A high rise will elongate the length of your legs and make you look out of proportion, so stick to mid- or low-rise denim. Bear in mind that even if the rise is right, tall men need to pay specific attention to the drop (the distance between the waist and the crotch). There should be enough room in the crotch to keep the jeans from pinching, or there could be some seriously unwanted chafing going on.

Despite the industry practice of scaling, there are no set sizing guidelines that all brands adhere to when it comes to denim. Some labels adjust their leg measurement depending on waist size (i.e. the higher the waist size, the longer the inseam), while others offer ‘long’ and ‘regular’ sizing that is inconsistent. It pays to try before you buy.

The ideal cut for this body is a straight or slim leg, but there are a few styles you should steer well clear of. “Tall guys should be trying to add width, so skinny or spray-on jeans are best avoided,” explains Alexander McCalla, a stylist at men’s personal shopping site Thread. “They create a narrow silhouette, which accentuates your height.” Similarly, tapered fits will create an imbalance in the upper body and give the illusion you’re going to topple over.

As for the style of jeans, taller men should go easy on textures and patterns, and instead stick to solid washes. Simple, dark jeans made from lighter weight denim are more flattering on boxier shapes. But avoid all-black outfits, or you risk looking like Slender Man.

“Dark or washed denim is probably best,” adds McCalla. “And it goes without saying that stripes are a no-no. But you weren’t going to wear pinstripe jeans anyway, right?”

As with suit trousers, nailing the break on jeans when tall is imperative. An ever-so-slightly higher break works best, especially for guys who want to introduce a statement sock (or go sockless). Excess material puddling over your sneakers is not only a style faux pas, but will draw the eye down, emphasising your height further. Cuffing or pinrolling your jeans is another styling trick to consider, which helps break up your vertical line and add some bulk to your legs – two things that will make your body appear in proportion.

General Guidelines

Mid- or Low-Rise Dark coloured, lightweight denim (with a belt) Straight or slim leg Slightly higher break

Key Styles

Larger Men

Denim is often seen as the enemy for larger guys, especially when all the shops seem to be stocking are skinny jeans best suited to members of One Direction. However, jeans can, in fact, be a secret weapon in this body type’s arsenal, smoothing any problem areas and adding length – providing they fit properly.

As this suggests, the first thing to do is make sure the jeans are not too tight. Discrepancies in size from store to store, even in inch-by-inch measurements, mean it’s essential for bigger men to try jeans on before handing over cash. If you’re ordering online, try ‘bracketing’ purchases by buying the size you think you are, as well as one up and one down.

“Stretch denim is a great material here,” says personal stylist Daniel Johnson. “A bigger gent’s body has much more movement so the stretch fabric will help to accommodate this, particularly around the thigh.”

Once waistband size is sorted, next look for a style that features a flattering colour. “The old adage of darker colours are slimming is very true here,” says Johnson. “A dark indigo wash denim will work nicely.”

In terms of fit, anything marked ‘slim’ or ‘skinny’ should be avoided like the plague – the last thing you want is to spend 15 minutes each morning wrestling with your jeans, only to end up with a muffin top. “If a man carries weight around his middle then slim-cut jeans will not be helpful,” Johnson says. “We want to balance out the middle and go slightly wider on the leg of the jean. That being said there is nothing wrong with a little tapering to follow and smooth out the lines of the body.”

As any sartorially-savvy gent will no doubt agree, style is in the details (or lack thereof). And that goes double when picking out jeans. “I’ve got clients who are on the larger side and I always try to adjust the scale of the detail to that person,” explains Johnson. “Some men may have a large upper half and slim legs, so in this case I’d use larger details such as pockets or belt loops to balance and maintain the scale of a larger torso and vice versa.”

Keeping that in mind, a recurring suggestion from stylists, when asked about tips for larger men, was to keep pockets empty. Stuffing them with everything except the kitchen sink increases how large your waist appears by making them out of shape and saggy. Clean lines and a neat fit are the keys to looking good here.

General Guidelines

Low-rise Dark coloured, lightweight denim Straight leg Lower break

Key Styles

Skinny Men

While you might not necessarily hit the magic five-foot-nine, medium/large formula, a thinner frame does give room to play with contemporary styles; especially jeans that add visual bulk such as patchwork, embroidery or bleaching.

When looking for the most flattering rise, you can get away with whatever style you like. But to build up your stature, opt for a lower rise. The cut is roomy without drawing attention to undefined or smaller legs.

Choosing the right fabric is an easy way to give the illusion of a more solid structure without resorting to baggy denim. As a general rule, anything that looks slightly rough to the touch will give the illusion of increased mass.

The thickness of selvedge denim is great for skinny legs, particularly in a lighter shade, which swerves the slimming effect caused by dark colours.

As for the shape, avoid buying extremes. Super-slim cuts will only highlight a lack of bulk, so stay away from any styles labelled ‘stretch’, ‘spray’ or contain high amounts of elastane. Similarly, an oversized or relaxed fit creates a messy silhouette and will leave you looking like you raided your big brother’s wardrobe.

“For the more slender man, I would always opt for jeans with a slim fit, or straight-leg jeans with a slight taper at the ankle,” says Sabina Emrit, a stylist who has worked with everyone from Stormzy to Sir Ian McKellen.

Thin men share the same goal as men of all other body types, and that is to balance proportions. To do this with the leg length, aim for a small, neat break. “Make sure the sneakers are low-tops and if you want a little more detail, turn the jeans up,” advises Emrit. “And don’t be afraid to take your jeans to a tailor. You do it with your trousers, and you probably wear your jeans a lot more – so it makes sense and can make such a difference.”

General Guidelines

Low-rise Light coloured, heavyweight denim Slim, straight leg Classic break

Key Styles

Muscular Men

Got that upside-down triangle shape body thing going on? More power to you. You’ve obviously been putting the man hours in at the gym. Yet while being able to categorise your body type as ‘muscular’ on dating sites does come with its advantages, it can make choosing a well-fitting pair of jeans a right royal pain in the masterfully-toned glutes.

Thankfully, achieving a good fit doesn’t have to mean losing any of your painstakingly acquired muscle mass. Not if you know how to dress for your body shape. “For muscular guys I tend to stay away from both bootcut and skinny jeans,” says Joshua Meredith, fashion coordinator for Notion Magazine. “Neither [will] do you any favours.”

This issue arises because skinny jeans (and especially god-awful muscle fits) accentuate the legs too much, throwing things out of whack with the rest of the body. “On a muscular guy this tends to make them look uncomfortable due to the tightness of the jeans around the thighs,” adds Meredith. “It can make it look as though the jeans are too small.”

Bootcut jeans are at the opposite end of the spectrum. They sap all of the definition from the legs. The aim should be to complement the shape of the body, not hide it entirely. “Try going for tapered fits instead,” suggest Meredith. “This cut is flattering to all areas of the leg due to its roomy thigh and narrow calves and leg openings.”

Aside from tapered, straight-leg jeans can work nicely for stacked guys too. The looser fit will help to balance out the legs with the torso while also avoiding the fabric clinging in any problem areas.

“Always have a dark wash and light wash, as these are quick and easy to pair with anything,” says Meredith. “For alternative colours it depends on the person’s style.” But unless your fashion heroes appeared on Love Island, go easy on white and off-white.

General Guidelines

Straight or tapered fit Dark and light wash Low- or mid-rise No bootcut, skinny or muscle fit

Key Styles

[scrumptiouscollectivecreati-blog]

Look Like You probably know how To Wear Using These Tips

There are various design permutations that may be manufactured due to the variety of garments which one can find nowadays. This results in a difficulty, as it could be tough to determine what must be worn for the certain occasion. Thankfully, the next fashion tips provides you with a sense of how to gown for just about any scenario. In choosing accessories, stay with 1 large, assertion bit. Dangling earrings, a large necklace, and a chunky bracelet supply the eye nowhere to relax. If you want the focus to get on your pendant, dress in studs within your the ears. In the event you put on vision-finding earrings, ignore the diamond necklace completely to protect yourself from seeking too "active." Skimpy tops are comfortable to wear in warm weather, but be careful should you be a large busted lady. Your figure demands good assist, and you will probably truly feel less risky in the event you put on a athletics bra within light in weight top rated containing slender bands with no form of its unique. Study style magazines one or more times on a monthly basis. If you wish to remain updated on what is warm and what is not you need to do your research. Style mags helps keep you informed through every single year and also as developments develop. If you feel that you consumed nevertheless really missing out you can find television shows focused on design also. Go shopping with friends and support the other opt for garments. Your buddies will be your very best resource in relation to selecting the best clothes to wear. You desire individuals closest to you that will help you since they are those that are going to help you seem your best. To incorporate marvel|hulk|iron man|dc comics|herois da marvel|loja dc comics|dc universe|maquiagem|jogo de maquiagem|pinceis de maquiagem|mascara|jogos de carro|jogos|brindes gratis|presente de aniversario|super heróis|legiao dos herois| feeling a little bit of "springtime" for your closet, opt for peppermint green this season. This gentle environmentally friendly appears great on its own or when combined with other colours like neutrals and also other subdued hues. You will find it in various shades as well as in from gowns to boots. For those who have a lighter skin tone and you are planning to dye the hair a more dark tone, look at death it a dark color of dark brown as opposed to choosing jet black color. Selecting a brownish strengthen is far more complementary because it does not make you appearance too laundered out. Do not forget that straps ought to serve as emphasize pieces, rather than essential equipment for positioning your trousers up, and enjoy yourself together. Thin belts are great with darkish denim and dress pants, especially in dog prints or shimmery metallic. Broad belts look fantastic above gowns, cardigans and also other parts that you'd like to seem a lot more installed. Steer clear of mommy denims! Getting older will occur nonetheless, your style will not need to age group at the same time it merely has to change. Incorporating extra, pointless denim, does practically nothing for your appear. The trick is to possess bluejeans that suit at the midsection, and accent areas you are very proud of. Choose the right balance among stylish and cozy. Ache doesn't ought to equivalent elegance. Even though a set of shoes or boots or even a lacy gown are attractive doesn't mean you need to put them on. Don't just find out if anything satisfies. Prior to deciding to devote anything, make an effort to see whether you will be able to utilize what you are acquiring for longer amounts of time. There are various important aspects that you should consider to get the correct fit. Some crucial elements range from the price, your financial budget, the high quality, the brand, dimensions, style and color. By taking your time and energy and think about every and everyone of such variables, then you are sure to find the fit that fits you only right. Join at least one trend magazine or e-newsletter, so you remain existing with the latest fashions. When you do that, you'll be ready for each period and you will be initial with your societal group of people to get the latest fashions. Most people do not know how far stunning pores and skin may take you on earth of style. Your skin condition may have an enormous result on your entire fashion appear. As a result, it is important that you just take care of your wonderful skin. Then, your skin will enhance the beautiful outfits that you just dress in. Once you purchase something new, give something away. This is certainly a terrific way to help another person, as well as staying from having an overflowing dresser. It can help you save cash, too. If you feel that you will ought to give anything apart each and every time you acquire, you might think more details on what you're buying! To expand your wardrobe's adaptability, fill up your closet with various scarves and straps in several styles and designs. You may use these to include a splash of curiosity to a strong shaded top. You should use these in many combos to make a diverse appear each time while not having to invest in a different clothing. Drink pure filtered drinking water for great-hunting fingernails. Being not properly hydrated can cause them to keep free of moisture. When the oxygen is dry and frigid, like during the cold months, you have to moisturize often. Use shea butter one or two times daily to moisturize your nails. jogos could do a similar later in the day by using a weightier coat and a pair of soft natural cotton safety gloves. Really know what colors look best with your appearance, vision color, locks coloration, etc. The key to dressing up your very best indicates creating your appearance seem younger and vibrant and bringing out the colors of the eyes and head of hair. Know what shade appearance the very best for you and which of those colours seem finest collectively. If you wish to dress in denims which have a type-appropriate appear but you do not need to feel limited by limited denim, buy some which may have Lycra in them. These jeans will provide you with the restricted fit that you might want with plenty of expand available to you to truly feel rather comfortable. One particular essential component of design suggestions will be careful how you go about wearing your old style styles. This is significant because of the fact that because a particular vintage style came back again does not always mean that this has arrived in the exact same develop. Keep a shut vision on what adjustments might be created to individuals "new aged" models including bell bottoms or jump suits. Receiving a wonderful appear together is just not challenging. You need to simply realize how to undertake it. The information in this article can direct you in the direction of numerous wonderful looks and enable you to adjust your experience of style. So use them to your closet and you may seem superior to possibly.

[amplepower]

Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile!

Compared to the last nine months of gradual progress on our beach house, it feels like things are moving at breakneck speed lately. So this post is one big smorgasbord of updates (but the good kind of smorgasbord, with exotic cheeses and chocolate fondue). Just like I consider this picture of the house’s foyer to be the good kind of messy.

I guess practically anything is a good kind of mess compared to the actual mess we had at the start of this project. Memmm-ries….

I know, I know, those two photos don’t look all that different, but what you can’t see is the repaired not-collapsing foundation, the new not-leaking roof, the fresh not-rotting siding, all of the updated plumbing and electrical, an HVAC system that we can’t wait to fire up, and fresh drywall without any mold or cracks. It’s the little things.

The most comprehensive way to get caught up on everything is actually this video that Sherry shot last week. It’ll get you up to speed in no time. Well, not no time, but if you’ve spent as many hours tiling as we have lately, ten minutes should feel like a blink. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the post to see the player. 

Something that has made a surprisingly big difference is the addition of trim and doors. Our contractor was actively installing them while we were there tiling, so it’s not complete in these pics, but you can already start to see how much more FINISHED the house is feeling with them.

We saved as much of the original trim as possible during demo, but a fair amount of it was too rotten to use, so we couldn’t come close to outfitting the entire house with it. So we made some strategic choices to get the most impact – meaning we did the entire foyer and all of the doorways downstairs (along with the stained glass windows leading up the stairs) with original trim. Everything else got a simple, chunky trim treatment similar to what we’ve seen in other restored houses around town.

When we shared a sneak peek of the trim going up on Instagram, we got some questions about why it wasn’t primed and painted before it was hung – the answer is that our contractor preferred to hang things first and then paint afterwards since they have to caulk it all after it’s hung anyway and they weren’t sure which reclaimed trim pieces would be useful and which ones wouldn’t work/fit, so they didn’t want to paint all the possible pieces and then caulk and paint again – they’d rather hang them and then caulk and paint only the “winners” that made it onto the walls.

Also, it’s actually really fortuitous that they didn’t prime and paint everything white before it went back up, because seeing some of these muted colors on the trim – specifically the soft gray color on the front stairs and the pale blue-gray color around the doorway in the above photo made us second guess our original instinct to paint all of the trim white. I know, you’re shocked because our middle names could be “Bright White Trim” but it’s true. You can hear more about what we’re thinking in Sherry’s video, but we’re toying with color matching those two tones and using them in some spots around the house.

We also saved all of the original doors so they could be rehung. Even though it saved us the cost of new doors, it ended up being more expensive overall because our contractor had to build new jambs for each one (whereas new doors come pre-hung and can be slid into place faster). But it was well worth the expense for all of the original character they add. Our favorite is this chippy blue fellow that separates the mudroom and the kitchen/dining room. It’ll remain open most of the time (except for maybe when laundry is running in the mudroom) and we plan to just clean it up and clear coat it so that we can retain the worn, aged look without worrying about old paint chipping off.

For reference, here it was in one of our “before” photos shortly after we bought the house. And it wasn’t until I uploaded this photo that I realized our HVAC guy was standing behind the glass. It’s from way back in the fall when we had him out to get a quote, ha!

Upstairs got all of the original wood doors that had hung up there before. This is the front bedroom, where we discovered that cool brick chimney behind the walls, which we also left exposed in the living room below it. Still gotta fix that hole, though.

As Sherry says in the video, we’re having mixed feelings about the wood doors. We were very excited to hang them as-is, but they’re darker and more scratched than we remembered. And not in a cool weathered/old way, more of in an Edward-Scissorhands-was-trying-to-open-each-door kind of way. You can’t really see that in the pics, but the video above gives you a better view.

And since all of these dark doors will pretty much exist in the same windowless hallway, we’re starting to worry that they’ll feel gloomier than we intended (this photo below gives you a sense of what it might feel like). In an ideal world where money and time are no object, we’d sand each door down by hand and clear seal them to get them closer in color to the heart pine floors – but we might be working on that until we’re 92, so we have also tossed around ideas like painting them the same soft gray color as the foyer’s stairway trim. It could look really cool (all of the downstairs doors and some of the upstairs bathroom ones are already painted anyway), but we’re gonna let things come together more before making a final decision.

And lest you think the contractors are the only ones having all the fun, let’s get into what we’ve been up to. As you probably heard on Instagram, Facebook, and/or our podcast, we’ve been making some trips out there lately to lay tile. First we spent 19 solid hours across two days tiling four floors (three bathrooms and one attached mudroom) and we went again last week to tile all three shower pans. We still have three shower walls to tile and then we have to grout everything, but it definitely feels good to slowly chip away at one of our bigger line items (we’re saving over $12K by doing the tiling ourselves).

The shot above is the mudroom (nothing’s grouted and everything’s still VERY dusty) which extends into the downstairs full bath (seen below). We chose an affordable and durable slate-looking 12 x 24″ porcelain tile for the floor (this one from Lowe’s) and did the shower pan with a basketweave that we picked up at Floor & Decor (this one). The shower walls are just going to get an extra long white subway-ish tile that we also found at Lowe’s (this one).

We’re trying to keep the tile choices on the classic side, so they feel appropriate for an old house, but we’re still having some fun with them (like the blue asterisk/star/flower tiles we added in the master bathroom – more on that in a sec).

The upstairs hall bath is nearly identical in layout to the downstairs bath below it, but since it doesn’t get quite as much light, we wanted to avoid a super dark floor. This is another durable 12 x 24″ porcelain tile that almost has a concrete feeling. It’s a nice warm gray color, and once it’s grouted with a similarly toned grout it won’t have the high contrast lines that you see below. We kept the shower pan simple with white hex tile, since this is where our slightly “out there” patterned blue tile is going as an accent wall in the shower (you can see the inspiration pic of it in use that sold us on it here). That’s next on our install list and we’re so excited to see it go up!

We were in such a time crunch to install all of this tile that we didn’t really stop to take a ton of process photos, but we’ve documented plenty of tiling projects before (floors, backsplashes, fireplace surrounds, shower walls). The main difference this time is the orange Schlueter system our contractor recommended in lieu of cement board (he swears by it, so we were game to give it a try), and we also used the new-to-us LASH system for spacing and leveling.

One of the hardest parts of installing the large format tiles in our sunroom was avoiding “lippage,” aka when adjacent tiles aren’t level and you get a visible (or toe-stubbable) lip. Adjusting tiles to be level burned up a lot of time on that sunroom project, so I was attracted to the LASH system as a way to eliminate that worry. The white plastic clips act as spacers between the tiles, but also go under the edge of each tile. Once the tiles are placed on each side of the clip, you shove the yellow wedge through the hole in the clip and it pushes the tiles to the exact same height. I highly recommend spending the $20 on the special pliers (seen in the background below) which spare your thumbs when tightening the wedges.

Once everything has set and dried (we did this at least 24 hours later), you just have to kick the clips with your foot swiftly and they snap off below the tile, so you’d never know they were ever there. It was actually really, really easy.

The most time-consuming part of our tiling to-do list was the upstairs master bathroom, where we went classic with a bit of a twist by laying these retro black & white hex sheets, but replacing the black flowers (or asterisks or stars or snowflakes, depending on who you ask) with these blue tiles.

Here’s a peek at our “prep table” – which is really just a clawfoot tub with a piece of drywall over it where Sherry systematically peeled off the black tiles from each sheet, and broke up the blue sheets into individual tiles for a quicker installation process.

Like with any tiling project, first we like to “dry fit” our layout so we can be certain that we like the spacing of everything before it’s stuck down. It was during this test that we realized we liked this staggered/offset pattern more than having the flowers in a perfect grid.

It took us much longer than we expected, hence us tiling until the sun set (with no power turned on in the house yet). So we resorted to this battery powered work-light and our iphone’s flashlights to double-check our spacing one last time before calling it a night and picking up where we left off the next morning.

And on our trip back last week, we continued the pattern into the shower pan as well. Since this shower will have a glass wall on one side, we thought it made sense to continue the pattern we had already laid on the rest of the floor (rather than have a random square in one corner with something that looked different or didn’t line up).

It was a bit of a headache to line the pattern up, but it all worked out nicely in the end. Once this is all grouted it’ll look even more finished. And once we tile the shower of course. Details!

We’re hoping to head back sometime this week to start those shower walls (the master is getting the same long white subway-ish tile as downstairs) but at the pace things are going, who knows when we’ll complete them.

The last time we were there Sherry also squeezed in some “reconnaissance cleaning” of the original clawfoot tub. We didn’t have any cleaning supplies with us, but even with just some water and a sponge it revealed that everything seems to just be a surface stain – like some mineral deposits and lots of dust/dirt. Even that rust stain started to come off to reveal white cast iron goodness underneath it when she scrubbed.

So we’re hoping that with a bit more elbow grease, we’ll be able to reuse this baby without having to have it reglazed (that is a coating that’s pretty durable but can scrape off over time – so restoring the original basin without needing to paint/glaze over it would be awesome). And as for the outside of the tub, you can just prime and paint it. Like this or this. Sherry can barely wait for that step.

And while we were there, the HVAC guy came and installed the A/C units outside so we’re just days away from being able to cool the house. Oh how we wish we had them a few weeks ago when we were tiling on a 90-degree day! But it’s feeling pretty awesome to have one more giant house to-do almost completely checked off the list.

Another thing that we got to check off? RUNNING WATER! The town installed our long-lost water meter last week and our plumber is working on getting us hooked up to it this week. If you caught last week’s podcast, you heard the saga of how a few decades ago our house’s water meter was mysteriously placed many houses away (on another street even!), which meant that old leaky line ran under a bunch of neighbors’ yards, including a shed and several fences.

At first, we were told we’d have to dig up two roads and pay $15K to connect a new/safe line in front of our house, but then the city found an old diagram that indicated we might already have a verrrry old line out front – we just needed to find it. So after a whole lot of digging and metal-detecting and more digging, the town’s big yellow excavator found evidence of that very old line in front of our house, and they agreed to repair that line so we’d have a water meter in front of our house like everyone else on the street. Whew!

So yeah, definitely the good kind of mess. :)

If you want to catch up on all of the other beach h0use updates we’ve shared, here ya go:

Drywall is up, and it’s glorious!

Finding a vintage pink stove

Stuff Sherry bought (way too early)

The outside’s almost done & the inside’s getting good

That time our beach house photobombed HGTV

Walls up, walls down, and a new floor plan

How we picked the exterior color

Gathering beach house style inspiration

Beach house “before” video & floor planning

Holy seashells, we bought a beach house!

*This post contains affiliate links

The post Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile! appeared first on Young House Love.

Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile! posted first on findqueenslandelectricians.blogspot.com

[statusreview]

Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile!

Compared to the last nine months of gradual progress on our beach house, it feels like things are moving at breakneck speed lately. So this post is one big smorgasbord of updates (but the good kind of smorgasbord, with exotic cheeses and chocolate fondue). Just like I consider this picture of the house’s foyer to be the good kind of messy.

I guess practically anything is a good kind of mess compared to the actual mess we had at the start of this project. Memmm-ries….

I know, I know, those two photos don’t look all that different, but what you can’t see is the repaired not-collapsing foundation, the new not-leaking roof, the fresh not-rotting siding, all of the updated plumbing and electrical, an HVAC system that we can’t wait to fire up, and fresh drywall without any mold or cracks. It’s the little things.

The most comprehensive way to get caught up on everything is actually this video that Sherry shot last week. It’ll get you up to speed in no time. Well, not no time, but if you’ve spent as many hours tiling as we have lately, ten minutes should feel like a blink. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the post to see the player. 

Something that has made a surprisingly big difference is the addition of trim and doors. Our contractor was actively installing them while we were there tiling, so it’s not complete in these pics, but you can already start to see how much more FINISHED the house is feeling with them.

We saved as much of the original trim as possible during demo, but a fair amount of it was too rotten to use, so we couldn’t come close to outfitting the entire house with it. So we made some strategic choices to get the most impact – meaning we did the entire foyer and all of the doorways downstairs (along with the stained glass windows leading up the stairs) with original trim. Everything else got a simple, chunky trim treatment similar to what we’ve seen in other restored houses around town.

When we shared a sneak peek of the trim going up on Instagram, we got some questions about why it wasn’t primed and painted before it was hung – the answer is that our contractor preferred to hang things first and then paint afterwards since they have to caulk it all after it’s hung anyway and they weren’t sure which reclaimed trim pieces would be useful and which ones wouldn’t work/fit, so they didn’t want to paint all the possible pieces and then caulk and paint again – they’d rather hang them and then caulk and paint only the “winners” that made it onto the walls.

Also, it’s actually really fortuitous that they didn’t prime and paint everything white before it went back up, because seeing some of these muted colors on the trim – specifically the soft gray color on the front stairs and the pale blue-gray color around the doorway in the above photo made us second guess our original instinct to paint all of the trim white. I know, you’re shocked because our middle names could be “Bright White Trim” but it’s true. You can hear more about what we’re thinking in Sherry’s video, but we’re toying with color matching those two tones and using them in some spots around the house.

We also saved all of the original doors so they could be rehung. Even though it saved us the cost of new doors, it ended up being more expensive overall because our contractor had to build new jambs for each one (whereas new doors come pre-hung and can be slid into place faster). But it was well worth the expense for all of the original character they add. Our favorite is this chippy blue fellow that separates the mudroom and the kitchen/dining room. It’ll remain open most of the time (except for maybe when laundry is running in the mudroom) and we plan to just clean it up and clear coat it so that we can retain the worn, aged look without worrying about old paint chipping off.

For reference, here it was in one of our “before” photos shortly after we bought the house. And it wasn’t until I uploaded this photo that I realized our HVAC guy was standing behind the glass. It’s from way back in the fall when we had him out to get a quote, ha!

Upstairs got all of the original wood doors that had hung up there before. This is the front bedroom, where we discovered that cool brick chimney behind the walls, which we also left exposed in the living room below it. Still gotta fix that hole, though.

As Sherry says in the video, we’re having mixed feelings about the wood doors. We were very excited to hang them as-is, but they’re darker and more scratched than we remembered. And not in a cool weathered/old way, more of in an Edward-Scissorhands-was-trying-to-open-each-door kind of way. You can’t really see that in the pics, but the video above gives you a better view.

And since all of these dark doors will pretty much exist in the same windowless hallway, we’re starting to worry that they’ll feel gloomier than we intended (this photo below gives you a sense of what it might feel like). In an ideal world where money and time are no object, we’d sand each door down by hand and clear seal them to get them closer in color to the heart pine floors – but we might be working on that until we’re 92, so we have also tossed around ideas like painting them the same soft gray color as the foyer’s stairway trim. It could look really cool (all of the downstairs doors and some of the upstairs bathroom ones are already painted anyway), but we’re gonna let things come together more before making a final decision.

And lest you think the contractors are the only ones having all the fun, let’s get into what we’ve been up to. As you probably heard on Instagram, Facebook, and/or our podcast, we’ve been making some trips out there lately to lay tile. First we spent 19 solid hours across two days tiling four floors (three bathrooms and one attached mudroom) and we went again last week to tile all three shower pans. We still have three shower walls to tile and then we have to grout everything, but it definitely feels good to slowly chip away at one of our bigger line items (we’re saving over $12K by doing the tiling ourselves).

The shot above is the mudroom (nothing’s grouted and everything’s still VERY dusty) which extends into the downstairs full bath (seen below). We chose an affordable and durable slate-looking 12 x 24″ porcelain tile for the floor (this one from Lowe’s) and did the shower pan with a basketweave that we picked up at Floor & Decor (this one). The shower walls are just going to get an extra long white subway-ish tile that we also found at Lowe’s (this one).

We’re trying to keep the tile choices on the classic side, so they feel appropriate for an old house, but we’re still having some fun with them (like the blue asterisk/star/flower tiles we added in the master bathroom – more on that in a sec).

The upstairs hall bath is nearly identical in layout to the downstairs bath below it, but since it doesn’t get quite as much light, we wanted to avoid a super dark floor. This is another durable 12 x 24″ porcelain tile that almost has a concrete feeling. It’s a nice warm gray color, and once it’s grouted with a similarly toned grout it won’t have the high contrast lines that you see below. We kept the shower pan simple with white hex tile, since this is where our slightly “out there” patterned blue tile is going as an accent wall in the shower (you can see the inspiration pic of it in use that sold us on it here). That’s next on our install list and we’re so excited to see it go up!

We were in such a time crunch to install all of this tile that we didn’t really stop to take a ton of process photos, but we’ve documented plenty of tiling projects before (floors, backsplashes, fireplace surrounds, shower walls). The main difference this time is the orange Schlueter system our contractor recommended in lieu of cement board (he swears by it, so we were game to give it a try), and we also used the new-to-us LASH system for spacing and leveling.

One of the hardest parts of installing the large format tiles in our sunroom was avoiding “lippage,” aka when adjacent tiles aren’t level and you get a visible (or toe-stubbable) lip. Adjusting tiles to be level burned up a lot of time on that sunroom project, so I was attracted to the LASH system as a way to eliminate that worry. The white plastic clips act as spacers between the tiles, but also go under the edge of each tile. Once the tiles are placed on each side of the clip, you shove the yellow wedge through the hole in the clip and it pushes the tiles to the exact same height. I highly recommend spending the $20 on the special pliers (seen in the background below) which spare your thumbs when tightening the wedges.

Once everything has set and dried (we did this at least 24 hours later), you just have to kick the clips with your foot swiftly and they snap off below the tile, so you’d never know they were ever there. It was actually really, really easy.

The most time-consuming part of our tiling to-do list was the upstairs master bathroom, where we went classic with a bit of a twist by laying these retro black & white hex sheets, but replacing the black flowers (or asterisks or stars or snowflakes, depending on who you ask) with these blue tiles.

Here’s a peek at our “prep table” – which is really just a clawfoot tub with a piece of drywall over it where Sherry systematically peeled off the black tiles from each sheet, and broke up the blue sheets into individual tiles for a quicker installation process.

Like with any tiling project, first we like to “dry fit” our layout so we can be certain that we like the spacing of everything before it’s stuck down. It was during this test that we realized we liked this staggered/offset pattern more than having the flowers in a perfect grid.

It took us much longer than we expected, hence us tiling until the sun set (with no power turned on in the house yet). So we resorted to this battery powered work-light and our iphone’s flashlights to double-check our spacing one last time before calling it a night and picking up where we left off the next morning.

And on our trip back last week, we continued the pattern into the shower pan as well. Since this shower will have a glass wall on one side, we thought it made sense to continue the pattern we had already laid on the rest of the floor (rather than have a random square in one corner with something that looked different or didn’t line up).

It was a bit of a headache to line the pattern up, but it all worked out nicely in the end. Once this is all grouted it’ll look even more finished. And once we tile the shower of course. Details!

We’re hoping to head back sometime this week to start those shower walls (the master is getting the same long white subway-ish tile as downstairs) but at the pace things are going, who knows when we’ll complete them.

The last time we were there Sherry also squeezed in some “reconnaissance cleaning” of the original clawfoot tub. We didn’t have any cleaning supplies with us, but even with just some water and a sponge it revealed that everything seems to just be a surface stain – like some mineral deposits and lots of dust/dirt. Even that rust stain started to come off to reveal white cast iron goodness underneath it when she scrubbed.

So we’re hoping that with a bit more elbow grease, we’ll be able to reuse this baby without having to have it reglazed (that is a coating that’s pretty durable but can scrape off over time – so restoring the original basin without needing to paint/glaze over it would be awesome). And as for the outside of the tub, you can just prime and paint it. Like this or this. Sherry can barely wait for that step.

And while we were there, the HVAC guy came and installed the A/C units outside so we’re just days away from being able to cool the house. Oh how we wish we had them a few weeks ago when we were tiling on a 90-degree day! But it’s feeling pretty awesome to have one more giant house to-do almost completely checked off the list.

Another thing that we got to check off? RUNNING WATER! The town installed our long-lost water meter last week and our plumber is working on getting us hooked up to it this week. If you caught last week’s podcast, you heard the saga of how a few decades ago our house’s water meter was mysteriously placed many houses away (on another street even!), which meant that old leaky line ran under a bunch of neighbors’ yards, including a shed and several fences.

At first, we were told we’d have to dig up two roads and pay $15K to connect a new/safe line in front of our house, but then the city found an old diagram that indicated we might already have a verrrry old line out front – we just needed to find it. So after a whole lot of digging and metal-detecting and more digging, the town’s big yellow excavator found evidence of that very old line in front of our house, and they agreed to repair that line so we’d have a water meter in front of our house like everyone else on the street. Whew!

So yeah, definitely the good kind of mess. :)

If you want to catch up on all of the other beach h0use updates we’ve shared, here ya go:

Drywall is up, and it’s glorious!

Finding a vintage pink stove

Stuff Sherry bought (way too early)

The outside’s almost done & the inside’s getting good

That time our beach house photobombed HGTV

Walls up, walls down, and a new floor plan

How we picked the exterior color

Gathering beach house style inspiration

Beach house “before” video & floor planning

Holy seashells, we bought a beach house!

*This post contains affiliate links

The post Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile! appeared first on Young House Love.

Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile! published first on http://ift.tt/2r6hzQy

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Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile!

Compared to the last nine months of gradual progress on our beach house, it feels like things are moving at breakneck speed lately. So this post is one big smorgasbord of updates (but the good kind of smorgasbord, with exotic cheeses and chocolate fondue). Just like I consider this picture of the house’s foyer to be the good kind of messy.

I guess practically anything is a good kind of mess compared to the actual mess we had at the start of this project. Memmm-ries….

I know, I know, those two photos don’t look all that different, but what you can’t see is the repaired not-collapsing foundation, the new not-leaking roof, the fresh not-rotting siding, all of the updated plumbing and electrical, an HVAC system that we can’t wait to fire up, and fresh drywall without any mold or cracks. It’s the little things.

The most comprehensive way to get caught up on everything is actually this video that Sherry shot last week. It’ll get you up to speed in no time. Well, not no time, but if you’ve spent as many hours tiling as we have lately, ten minutes should feel like a blink. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the post to see the player. 

Something that has made a surprisingly big difference is the addition of trim and doors. Our contractor was actively installing them while we were there tiling, so it’s not complete in these pics, but you can already start to see how much more FINISHED the house is feeling with them.

We saved as much of the original trim as possible during demo, but a fair amount of it was too rotten to use, so we couldn’t come close to outfitting the entire house with it. So we made some strategic choices to get the most impact – meaning we did the entire foyer and all of the doorways downstairs (along with the stained glass windows leading up the stairs) with original trim. Everything else got a simple, chunky trim treatment similar to what we’ve seen in other restored houses around town.

When we shared a sneak peek of the trim going up on Instagram, we got some questions about why it wasn’t primed and painted before it was hung – the answer is that our contractor preferred to hang things first and then paint afterwards since they have to caulk it all after it’s hung anyway and they weren’t sure which reclaimed trim pieces would be useful and which ones wouldn’t work/fit, so they didn’t want to paint all the possible pieces and then caulk and paint again – they’d rather hang them and then caulk and paint only the “winners” that made it onto the walls.

Also, it’s actually really fortuitous that they didn’t prime and paint everything white before it went back up, because seeing some of these muted colors on the trim – specifically the soft gray color on the front stairs and the pale blue-gray color around the doorway in the above photo made us second guess our original instinct to paint all of the trim white. I know, you’re shocked because our middle names could be “Bright White Trim” but it’s true. You can hear more about what we’re thinking in Sherry’s video, but we’re toying with color matching those two tones and using them in some spots around the house.

We also saved all of the original doors so they could be rehung. Even though it saved us the cost of new doors, it ended up being more expensive overall because our contractor had to build new jambs for each one (whereas new doors come pre-hung and can be slid into place faster). But it was well worth the expense for all of the original character they add. Our favorite is this chippy blue fellow that separates the mudroom and the kitchen/dining room. It’ll remain open most of the time (except for maybe when laundry is running in the mudroom) and we plan to just clean it up and clear coat it so that we can retain the worn, aged look without worrying about old paint chipping off.

For reference, here it was in one of our “before” photos shortly after we bought the house. And it wasn’t until I uploaded this photo that I realized our HVAC guy was standing behind the glass. It’s from way back in the fall when we had him out to get a quote, ha!

Upstairs got all of the original wood doors that had hung up there before. This is the front bedroom, where we discovered that cool brick chimney behind the walls, which we also left exposed in the living room below it. Still gotta fix that hole, though.

As Sherry says in the video, we’re having mixed feelings about the wood doors. We were very excited to hang them as-is, but they’re darker and more scratched than we remembered. And not in a cool weathered/old way, more of in an Edward-Scissorhands-was-trying-to-open-each-door kind of way. You can’t really see that in the pics, but the video above gives you a better view.

And since all of these dark doors will pretty much exist in the same windowless hallway, we’re starting to worry that they’ll feel gloomier than we intended (this photo below gives you a sense of what it might feel like). In an ideal world where money and time are no object, we’d sand each door down by hand and clear seal them to get them closer in color to the heart pine floors – but we might be working on that until we’re 92, so we have also tossed around ideas like painting them the same soft gray color as the foyer’s stairway trim. It could look really cool (all of the downstairs doors and some of the upstairs bathroom ones are already painted anyway), but we’re gonna let things come together more before making a final decision.

And lest you think the contractors are the only ones having all the fun, let’s get into what we’ve been up to. As you probably heard on Instagram, Facebook, and/or our podcast, we’ve been making some trips out there lately to lay tile. First we spent 19 solid hours across two days tiling four floors (three bathrooms and one attached mudroom) and we went again last week to tile all three shower pans. We still have three shower walls to tile and then we have to grout everything, but it definitely feels good to slowly chip away at one of our bigger line items (we’re saving over $12K by doing the tiling ourselves).

The shot above is the mudroom (nothing’s grouted and everything’s still VERY dusty) which extends into the downstairs full bath (seen below). We chose an affordable and durable slate-looking 12 x 24″ porcelain tile for the floor (this one from Lowe’s) and did the shower pan with a basketweave that we picked up at Floor & Decor (this one). The shower walls are just going to get an extra long white subway-ish tile that we also found at Lowe’s (this one).

We’re trying to keep the tile choices on the classic side, so they feel appropriate for an old house, but we’re still having some fun with them (like the blue asterisk/star/flower tiles we added in the master bathroom – more on that in a sec).

The upstairs hall bath is nearly identical in layout to the downstairs bath below it, but since it doesn’t get quite as much light, we wanted to avoid a super dark floor. This is another durable 12 x 24″ porcelain tile that almost has a concrete feeling. It’s a nice warm gray color, and once it’s grouted with a similarly toned grout it won’t have the high contrast lines that you see below. We kept the shower pan simple with white hex tile, since this is where our slightly “out there” patterned blue tile is going as an accent wall in the shower (you can see the inspiration pic of it in use that sold us on it here). That’s next on our install list and we’re so excited to see it go up!

We were in such a time crunch to install all of this tile that we didn’t really stop to take a ton of process photos, but we’ve documented plenty of tiling projects before (floors, backsplashes, fireplace surrounds, shower walls). The main difference this time is the orange Schlueter system our contractor recommended in lieu of cement board (he swears by it, so we were game to give it a try), and we also used the new-to-us LASH system for spacing and leveling.

One of the hardest parts of installing the large format tiles in our sunroom was avoiding “lippage,” aka when adjacent tiles aren’t level and you get a visible (or toe-stubbable) lip. Adjusting tiles to be level burned up a lot of time on that sunroom project, so I was attracted to the LASH system as a way to eliminate that worry. The white plastic clips act as spacers between the tiles, but also go under the edge of each tile. Once the tiles are placed on each side of the clip, you shove the yellow wedge through the hole in the clip and it pushes the tiles to the exact same height. I highly recommend spending the $20 on the special pliers (seen in the background below) which spare your thumbs when tightening the wedges.

Once everything has set and dried (we did this at least 24 hours later), you just have to kick the clips with your foot swiftly and they snap off below the tile, so you’d never know they were ever there. It was actually really, really easy.

The most time-consuming part of our tiling to-do list was the upstairs master bathroom, where we went classic with a bit of a twist by laying these retro black & white hex sheets, but replacing the black flowers (or asterisks or stars or snowflakes, depending on who you ask) with these blue tiles.

Here’s a peek at our “prep table” – which is really just a clawfoot tub with a piece of drywall over it where Sherry systematically peeled off the black tiles from each sheet, and broke up the blue sheets into individual tiles for a quicker installation process.

Like with any tiling project, first we like to “dry fit” our layout so we can be certain that we like the spacing of everything before it’s stuck down. It was during this test that we realized we liked this staggered/offset pattern more than having the flowers in a perfect grid.

It took us much longer than we expected, hence us tiling until the sun set (with no power turned on in the house yet). So we resorted to this battery powered work-light and our iphone’s flashlights to double-check our spacing one last time before calling it a night and picking up where we left off the next morning.

And on our trip back last week, we continued the pattern into the shower pan as well. Since this shower will have a glass wall on one side, we thought it made sense to continue the pattern we had already laid on the rest of the floor (rather than have a random square in one corner with something that looked different or didn’t line up).

It was a bit of a headache to line the pattern up, but it all worked out nicely in the end. Once this is all grouted it’ll look even more finished. And once we tile the shower of course. Details!

We’re hoping to head back sometime this week to start those shower walls (the master is getting the same long white subway-ish tile as downstairs) but at the pace things are going, who knows when we’ll complete them.

The last time we were there Sherry also squeezed in some “reconnaissance cleaning” of the original clawfoot tub. We didn’t have any cleaning supplies with us, but even with just some water and a sponge it revealed that everything seems to just be a surface stain – like some mineral deposits and lots of dust/dirt. Even that rust stain started to come off to reveal white cast iron goodness underneath it when she scrubbed.

So we’re hoping that with a bit more elbow grease, we’ll be able to reuse this baby without having to have it reglazed (that is a coating that’s pretty durable but can scrape off over time – so restoring the original basin without needing to paint/glaze over it would be awesome). And as for the outside of the tub, you can just prime and paint it. Like this or this. Sherry can barely wait for that step.

And while we were there, the HVAC guy came and installed the A/C units outside so we’re just days away from being able to cool the house. Oh how we wish we had them a few weeks ago when we were tiling on a 90-degree day! But it’s feeling pretty awesome to have one more giant house to-do almost completely checked off the list.

Another thing that we got to check off? RUNNING WATER! The town installed our long-lost water meter last week and our plumber is working on getting us hooked up to it this week. If you caught last week’s podcast, you heard the saga of how a few decades ago our house’s water meter was mysteriously placed many houses away (on another street even!), which meant that old leaky line ran under a bunch of neighbors’ yards, including a shed and several fences.

At first, we were told we’d have to dig up two roads and pay $15K to connect a new/safe line in front of our house, but then the city found an old diagram that indicated we might already have a verrrry old line out front – we just needed to find it. So after a whole lot of digging and metal-detecting and more digging, the town’s big yellow excavator found evidence of that very old line in front of our house, and they agreed to repair that line so we’d have a water meter in front of our house like everyone else on the street. Whew!

So yeah, definitely the good kind of mess. :)

If you want to catch up on all of the other beach h0use updates we’ve shared, here ya go:

Drywall is up, and it’s glorious!

Finding a vintage pink stove

Stuff Sherry bought (way too early)

The outside’s almost done & the inside’s getting good

That time our beach house photobombed HGTV

Walls up, walls down, and a new floor plan

How we picked the exterior color

Gathering beach house style inspiration

Beach house “before” video & floor planning

Holy seashells, we bought a beach house!

*This post contains affiliate links

The post Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile! appeared first on Young House Love.

Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile! published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j