#The price has actually nothing to do with gambling.

[humiliation-doggy]

I'll be so real kitten, mommy gave into his gambling addiction and now is paying the price

[sugarphoenixlovesfanfic]

♤ a tragedy ♤

It’s not clear to anyone but you when Aventurine is exhausted. When the tolls of his job weigh upon his shoulders.

You know he tries every day to make his family and the Avgin proud. Even as he refuses to admit it, even as he scoffs and says, “Don’t be ridiculous. I only serve my best interests. Everyone knows that.”

But you know better than that, as his secretary.

You’ve read through his reports as he argues against eradicating governments, argues for aid and deadline elongations for struggling populations. You’ve read his reports where he finds merit in every developing planet, where he calls for harsh punishments for oppressors.

Sometimes, they listen to him. It’s days like those where he has a spring in his step, where his eyes are ever so slightly brighter.

Sometimes, they don’t listen to him. It’s on these days that nothing changes, at least to everybody else. He’s cold and sarcastic as ever, strange and manipulative as ever. But alone in his office he sends for two bottles more than usual, stays late alone in his office for longer than necessary. He goes home a little more drunk than he should, and when he talks his tone is somber and manic and hopeless as he speaks of meaningless regrets and troubled pasts.

As his secretary, you’re usually the only one who sees him when he’s alone in his office. Sure, it’s annoying when Aventurine gets into one of his states. But it betrays how big of a heart he truly has, how much he actually cares. So you smile in secret, and over time your heart grows fonder. You start doing things for him before he asks, like preparing his morning coffee, and you can tell he’s noticing, because now he’s berating you for “working too hard.”

“Says the man who works overtime even when he doesn’t have to,” you say, measuring out lumps of sugar.

He doesn’t have to tell you his reasons for that are different, and yet, all the same, done out of passion. You know he buries himself in work to escape, and simultaneously to feel like he’s making a difference, as though the death of his kind is all his fault and he’s slowly chipping away at an insurmountable debt. You know he won’t listen to you if you tell him it isn’t his fault. He has no care for himself, his own life and body are poker chips he gambles all the time in the name of his family and his kind. But how is it possible that a man who cares so little for himself dresses so extravagantly, makes sure all his suits are spic and span, gives himself all the luxuries?

Simple. It’s akin to the way a show horse is all groomed and dressed up so it’s sold for a high price.

“What are you thinking about?”

You look up as you pass the coffee cup across his desk towards him.

“Oh, nothing. Just…a tragedy.”

divider by @cafekitsune

[taradactyls]

The full Bennet Family Finances endnote from Ch33

I’ve been doing some more maths (ch26 has the initial discussion) on the savings that our characters might do/should’ve done since it’s fascinating to me and some of the comments I’ve been getting have been making me think more about it. One of the common themes is surprise at just how negligent the Bennets were at saving, instead of merely being stretched thin by expenses. I understand this completely, as it isn’t something that’s explicit in an easily recognisable way for modern audiences.

So, where could they have been more economical? They don’t go to London, no one has a gambling addiction, all travelling (which was EXPENSIVE) is done cost effectively, and they certainly didn’t spend all the money on tutors and the like for their daughters. I’m sure there’s actual academic papers by historians on this (I miss my uni access to those so much) but I can take some educated guesses.

We know Mrs Bennet is just bad with household management. Part of which might mean ordering too much food (it’s mentioned she keeps a good table, so this is as close to canon as we can get) and perhaps not being efficient with what she does order, ie wanting different meats from night to night, instead of having the leftovers served as stews or whatnot, not keeping an eye on the prices of sugar, salt, etc to buy when they’re cheap, making special orders instead of purchasing what’s readily available, etc. We know none of the Bennet women assist in the kitchen (as the Lucases do) so that’s more work for servants and thus likely to contribute to the need of an extra servant or higher wages. Household management could also be more innocuous things like always buying the expensive bees-wax candles, instead of using tallow when guests aren’t around or in out-of-the-way rooms. And being inefficient with candle usage (this is likely a Mr Bennet flaw too, if he enjoys reading in his library at night) in order to have a room better lit than strictly necessary. There was a reason families all tended to gather in one room after dark, and the Bennets notably don’t. Also having fires in all the principal rooms instead of just the ones likely to be used that day. If there’s ways to be inefficient with funds when it comes to cleaning, I’m sure they found a way there, too. Basically, anything that requires forward planning to help with economy would be lacking.

 But that’s all ‘essentials’ just done inefficiently, what luxuries might they have had? They have the income to warrant their carriage, horses, and it seems Mr Bennet does hunt, but that’s also a standard expense for his wealth, so let’s focus on what might be pushing them to their limits. Other than the over-provisioned dining table, which we’ve mentioned, nothing about their socialising habits seems excessive. Mrs Bennet’s love of fashion could be pushing her wardrobe bill up, Mr Bennet’s love of books could be a VERY expensive hobby, and of course – five daughters out at once. Having five daughters out (especially unnecessarily as Lydia and even Kitty were quite young to be out) cost a LOT of money. Lady Catherine was rude as anything, but her surprise at the fact was warranted. Other than money, it also meant the daughters were in direct ‘competition’ for the same limited amount of suitors, which theoretically might hurt the elder girls’ chances. Five distinct wardrobes for young women which needed gowns for all occasions, going through dance shoes and gloves very quickly, bonnets, etc, all added up. At the start of the book multiple hundreds of pounds a year would be going to keeping their daughters looking the part while mixing in society.

But Jane’s only twenty-one or twenty-two at the start of the novel, and came out at fifteen at the earliest. Yet the Bennets still never saved money, and never overspent their income, so there were other expenses they were able to drop which had been preventing them from saving money for the first sixteen or so years of their marriage. I think it’s fair to assume there’s random, one-time bigger expenses that were undertaken with any substantial spare money: perhaps the hermitage Mrs Bennet mentions is a newer addition, was the coach (which are normally ordered around the start of a marriage) refitted more recently, how often is the décor of Longbourn updated (and on that note, are things like the sofa reupholstered or completely replaced), do they impulse buy vases and sculptures, make sure whatever alcohol they do buy (which appears to be a reasonable amount for their class) is the expensive stuff, etc. Whatever it is, it’s a both parent problem. Mrs Bennet is bad at money management and instead of changing her habits or preparing her daughters for financial hardship puts pressure on them to marry (preferably rich, but she doesn’t seem to have a complaint about Wickham in that regard). Mr Bennet is smart enough to see that there is a problem and how to fix it, but after his first idea fails (have a son to break the entail and thus provide for his widow and other children – which doesn’t even necessarily mean the girls would get a dowry, just that they would never live in poverty) does nothing to reassess the issue or find a solution. He essentially shrugs his shoulders and lets his daughters shift for themselves. One parent is too stressed about money and only addresses it negatively, and the other isn’t stressed enough and doesn’t address it seriously at all. Neither do anything productive, even though changing their habits would be enough to fix it. I love them, but MASSIVE parenting failure on their end; and hinted to occur because the parents were too used to comforts and different themselves to be able to work together and act on a solution.

Now for some actual MATHS! Which, yes, I realise I am strangely excited about.

The idea that most of the Bennets’ money is spent by having so many daughters out at once seems to keep popping up in my time on the internet. So, I thought it would be interesting to see what their dowries could be if that five-daughters-out-at-once money wasn’t spent on other things before any daughters were out. Costs of this could vary a bit between families, and though we know Lydia’s expenses were almost £100 per annum that includes board and food as well as little gifts from Mrs Bennet, so we can’t simply multiply that by five and be done with it. But, given Mrs Bennet’s desire for fashion and the poor financial management we see from her and some of her daughters, it’s quite possible clothes were being bought new rather than pulled apart and remade more than they ought to be, so spending £50 to £60 a year on each daughter being ‘out’ seems reasonable. For the purposes of this, let’s look at a total of £250 and £300 a year for all five, and in the 4%s because that’s where the money settled on Mrs Bennet apparently is. After sixteen years of marriage (when we will assume Jane comes out) that’s £5,456 or £6,547. Meaning that just doubled their dowry, even if they save nothing else after that. If the interest is left alone, that’s more than £1,000 that’s added to it before the novel even begins. Suddenly Mr Bennet dying at the start of the novel would leave his widow and daughters with between £11,500-£13,000 instead of the meagre £5,000 they actually have.

And the girls didn’t all come out at once, so just to put some numbers to it for math purposes, let’s say Elizabeth came out one year after Jane, Mary two years after her, Kitty another two years later, and Lydia the following year. For simplicity, each girl coming out is going to remove the same amount of money (when realistically it’s likely Jane, who needs everything new, and Lydia, who’s spoilt, would have cost the most). With the lower estimates of expenses, that’s £8,062 saved at the time of the novel, taking the total for Mrs Bennet and the girls to £13,602 or £2,612 each, assuming nothing else is saved. At the higher cost for the girls being out, that’s £9,676 saved and £14,676 that they’ll eventually inherit a share of. Still below what they should have as dowries, but a vast improvement, and proof of why having five daughters out at once was an additional strain but not THE strain. It was just another element in a mountain of problems.

“But what if it was in the 5%s?” asks no one but me. I think they would stick to the more stable bonds Mrs Bennet’s dowry is in, but if they didn’t, the same situation as above would save £9,243 (or £14,243 total) or £11,090 (£16,090 to share or £3,218 each).

For pure funsies, the numbers if Mr and Mrs Bennet had also saved the interest of the £5,000 settled upon her (which by itself would grow to £12,324 in the 4%s) in addition to these savings are:

£20,387 (£4,077 each at the start of the novel) with the £250 expenses estimate. At £300 for all five daughters out, we get to £21,998. Both of these numbers suddenly mean the Miss Bennets would never have to fear poverty when Mr Bennet died and they would individually each be as rich as their mother was, and though they wouldn’t be counted as rich themselves, would at least have something respectable. They might not cost their husbands money to marry.

AND THEN if everything is in the 5%s but that original £5,000, and the interest it gains is also moved to the higher interest account, the grand total would be either £22,528, again assuming the £250 expenses, and £24,376 at the £300 estimate.

I’ve been doing some equations for Darcy, too. So, let’s talk about that next chapter, to give me time to really figure it out.

[botanyshitposts]

Opinion on the US's Cogs damn obsession with corn?

don't know what you're talking about specifically but my understanding of US agricultural policy in general is that being a farmer in capitalism sucks and has since colonization and for a long time the US government tried to make it suck less with subsidies which sometimes work (because people get paid predictably regardless of demand and its less like gambling with crops) but sometimes go over really badly (because then too many people grow it and the price per bushel goes down and then government has too much corn) and then a couple times they got rid of all the subsides and related regulations and that REALLY didnt work (because then the price just crashed hard and with nothing to compensate them a bunch of farmers, many of whom were in debt for other farming-related reasons, couldnt get paid and actually had to foreclose their farms, which accelerated the long-standing trend of farms getting foreclosed on and then being bought out by bigger farms that then ended up running INSANE multi million dollar operations, sometimes even on farms in other states where the owners do not live, in communities they do not contribute to) and they had to backpedal on it and then eventually they just started on the current system where you simply pass a farm bill every 10-12 years instead of yearly or biyearly and that way you simply dont have to think about it, and then when it is election time you go stand by a cornfield for a while for tv. it does not fix the huge enormous farms buying out smaller farms problem or any of the complicated related problems but it DOES put it off for longer which is more important.

sometimes also you (USAID for instance) can give the too-much-corn you have from farm subsidies to a foreign country as a 'gift' and say youre just being a helpful little guy, but in the process of doing so undercut the local farmers in that country because they cant compete with free stuff but that's cool because then the foreign country can't really survive as well without US agricultural aid and you can manipulate them to do imperialism better AND you have more demand for the corn which might raise the price per bushel in the US. also sometimes the corn is fed to livestock en masse because the meat is worth more and sometimes its made into gas or high fructose corn syrup, and sometimes the price is so low per bushel that the insurance on the field is worth more than the actual corn.

but. i CANNOT stress enough that the most important thing about corn is that you can stand next to it on tv and if you cant do that, maybe you can stand next to a guy who is around it a lot and say you are helping him.

in my relatively uneducated opinion the most epic way to solve this complex multi-century interdisciplinary push and pull of supply and demand would be to just pay farmers a salary through the state since youre already paying out massive state subsidies for crops you dont need anyway and the farmers are performing a vital service and that way you can guarantee people a consistent salary AND control how much of each thing gets planted so you dont have a massive stockpile at all times AND you reward individual people instead of paying out large amounts of money to whatever massive operation sells the most corn by virtue of being big, but if you dont want to do that then the second best thing is to just pass another mediocre farm bill whos inflexible 10-ish year lifespan makes it impossible for it to respond well to changes in market demand and that way you can just put off making tough decisions and instead stand next to a guy and a cornfield on tv again. which as we have covered is the most important part of american agriculture

[starcurtain]

The Kinda Unhinged Ratiorine Fic I Want to Read

In an (admittedly very contrived) AU situation, Dr. Ratio finds out he's about to be cut out of his (mostly estranged) family's inheritance forever because of his complete lack of interest in continuing the family line. Which, all factors considered, does make perfectly logical sense. Investment of capital should go to the branch of the lineage most likely to benefit from it, and Cousin Tiberius has five sons and daughters already. Let the house and the trust fund go to them.

But the library.

There's absolutely no way Veritas could bear to be permanently parted from the staggering assemblage of paper volumes under his collected family's auspices. Not only would being separated from tomes so full of memories be heart-wrenching, but think of the devastating blow to his research! There are records in those archives that no other mortal eyes have ever gazed upon!

So there's only one solution for it: He needs to pass on his family name, immediately.

(Andddd the rest is under a read more because what is brevity?)

Problem 1: Veritas Ratio is very gay.

Problem 2: Statistically, single men have the lowest chance of being selected for adoption placement, and this Child Welfare Agent is looking at his alabaster head very, very strangely.

Think, Ratio, think. What is the most efficient way to solve such a tedious quandary?

The obvious first step is to increase his likelihood of being selected by the adoption agency, and the quickest way to do that is... Eureka! How elegant a design! He just needs to enter into a (temporary) committed and stable partnership to demonstrate a degree of domestic dedication and home-building prowess!

Problem 3: ...Where in the universe is he going to find a stable and committed man willing to marry him?

Ratio does not exactly possess the world's most endearing personality. He might... never have had any form of romantic relationship lasting past a one-night stand even, because it turns out most people don't like being scored a 2/10 on their technique during intercourse.

So he's probably not going to find a stable and committed man.

But... He might at least find someone willing--for the right price.

Enter Aventurine (stage left). He's as expensive as they come, the greatest reward saved for the highest bidder, but despite his festering ambitions, he's still trapped as nothing more than a high-class escort, owned by a company the IPC has on the books as selling everything but what they actually trade in: Avgin slaves.

Sigonians... The reputation--and sleazy men's curiosity--precedes him, and though he only has to get on his knees for the truly bold nowadays, he hasn't yet been able to make the ultimate gamble, pull the last string needed to finally gain his freedom: the freedom to live his life as he pleases--and to enact every ounce of vengeance he's been storing for decades like cards up his sleeves.

Until now.

Until an absolute madman shows up at the underground headquarters waving around an offer that no average person would possibly make: He wants to buy Aventurine and wed him.

(Because marrying a Sigonian thrall is a safe and sane thing that safe and sane people do.)

The offer is far too good to be trusted: A real marriage certificate but a perfectly fake marriage, a no-fault divorce once an adoption is finalized, and a guaranteed sponsor for his citizenship documents. A year or two of fake homemaking, this Veritas Ratio claims, and then Aventurine can walk away a completely free man, no strings--no chains--attached.

Well, Aventurine of the Myriad Stratagems has always held one skill dearer to his heart than any other: a crystal clear knowledge of when to fold--and when to go all in.

(...Problem 4: Amber Lord help him, Aventurine's new husband is the most irritating man in the entire universe.)

Alas, if only that was their biggest problem. Somewhere between learning to navigate the citizenship process, the adoption process, a truly unacceptable level of systemic racism, and also, increasingly, each other, Ratio and Aventurine discover that the circumstances of their lives might be far more entangled than they ever could have imagined from the beginning, and the same shadowy parties that profited off Aventurine's existence might have a vested interest in parting Ratio from valuable research secrets--permanently.

While struggling to maintain a charming and loving facade and struggling not to kill each other behind the scenes, Aventurine and Ratio also end up having to out-roll and out-plan a particularly dangerous enemy; something they can really only do together.

Or, tl;dr: Dr. Ratio chooses the most efficient but most unhinged method of finding a husband that intelligence could possibly contrive, only to determine that marrying a guy whose track record for unexplained deaths matches his track record for card counting really is the encyclopedic opposite of "committed and stable." Ridiculously enough, the trouble they get into is almost entirely Ratio's fault, the only one who is remotely convincing in front of the Child Welfare Agency is Aventurine, and sometimes it turns out the guy you married for the library ends up being the guy you married for life.

[thekatebridgerton]

Today on another episode of stories I'm too sleep deprived to write: Jekyll and Hyde Bridgerton boys au

Since the Bridgerton boys tend to get so bipolar around their love interest, what if it was actually a day/night curse that only true love can... blend in.

Take Anthony, Benedict and Colin, respectable gentlemen by day, rakes by night.

During daylight, Anthony is respectfully courting Edwina and trading barbs with Kate, but during any night time ball he's cornering Kate in dark libraries and whispering sensually in her ear about all the things he wants to do to her. Kate finds him distasteful at first, easily cluing in that during daylight hours, Anthony is too rational to attempt to seduce her, and running away from him during night time balls, but his changes in mood are getting out of hand, she's taken to staying at home for the past number of balls and Edwina swears that Viscount Bridgerton is beginning to scare her. The less of Kate he sees at night, the more his ungentleman side wants to have her. And Kate is running out of options to avoid him, she's falling for him and if she doesn't do something drastic she's going to end up ruined, or worse, married to the insufferable man, so in a last ditch attempt to save herself she's just announced she's going to India... Now Anthony's unrestrained side has started blending in with his good one in an attempt to stop Kate from leaving him and it's not good, not good at all

Benedict thought he was spared the most unsavory sides of the curse, some night time debauchery here and there was a small price to pay for keeping his reputation as the ton's darling. That until he met the lady in silver, and for the first time the wild side of the curse got out of control. The one that got away drove his nocturnal self mad with want. For 2 years he fought against it only for Sophie Beckett to bring it out of him more strongly than before. Sophie Beckett isn't scared of anything, she should be scared of Benedict, who gets her a job in the morning, then demands she be his mistress at night. But she's figured that even at his worst she can push him back and he won't hurt her. Sure he's determined to help her establish herself independently during daylight and demands she depend only on him during his nighttime adventures, but Sophie is strong, she's dealt with worse. At least until gentlemen daylight Benedict starts seducing her in a very rakish way. And wild untamed nighttime Benedict starts romancing her like a gentleman in love

Colin... Well Colin has always known he's cursed. He learned to work around it, keeping his darker nature under control with decadent food and debauched travels and the occasional gambling. Until Penelope Featherington asked his nighttime self for a kiss and got in the way of his neatly laid plans. Penelope is clever, too clever, his daylight self might hate her, but oh his nighttime self can't live without her and she thrives on it. Truly it irks Colin to know that she prefers him at his worst during the night and rejects his at his best during daylight. She with her lady Whistledown secrets, smiling as she indulges his every hungry whim during secret nighttime meetings and then pretends the man she's taken for lover is not Colin Bridgerton. If she didn't frustrate him so, he might think himself inlove with her. Penelope Featherington knows Colin's secret, truthfully she doesn't mind if he knows hers, as lady Whistledown its only fair that he knows she can ruin his life if he dares to ruin hers. His nighttime self is fun, savage, and completely enamored with her body, nothing like daylight Colin. Penelope adores that side of him. Part of her doesn't even want to admit they're the same person because Daylight Colin is the popular charmer of the ton who can't even look her in the eye and calls her his dear friend. But nighttime Colin is hers and he doesn't demand anything out of her as her lover, truly its the best arrangement in the world... That is until an overprotective Colin Bridgerton ravishes her in a carriage and proposes marriage in front of all her family, all in the same morning. Could it be his two personalities are blending??

And Gregory Bridgerton, he's seventeen and afraid, very afraid about when he'll reach a point where his curse will be triggered and what that will mean for his best friend Lucy Abernathy. Because Greg knows he's going to respect Lucy till the day he dies, but he also knows he can't live without her and he can almost feel the want in his bones, how little it would take for his Lucy to be his undoing and the reason he needs to lock himself up at night... It's going to happen eventually but Gregory hopes it takes longer than a few years, for Lucy's sake and for his own.

[thelordofhats]

Murder on the W Express thoughts, heavy spoilers under the cut.

Faust is the easier one to talk about—she’s lost her wifi connection, can no longer access Faustcord or Faustpedia. She’s adrift, and we get to see her cope with that. And it’s very, very good.

I’ve seen people say that her every move is being like, tyrannically dictated by the Gesellschaft, and I don’t really think that’s accurate. At least, not in the sense that she’s some unwilling slave. I would describe it more as… Faust made a (Faustian) bargain (with Faust) to gain knowledge of (Faust) all things. After all—she values knowledge very highly! How could she pass up on this? And I wouldn’t be surprised if the asking price wasn’t even that high.

But what she didn’t really realize is how much she valued the *pursuit* of knowledge, of pushing against her limitations. But now, with all of the information she could possibly ask for at her fingertips, everything is just a matter of entering a couple of search terms, and there you go. It’s all been done before. Sure, there are some blind spots. But given that there are innumerable Fausts, she isn’t really going to be the right Faust for the job of uncovering that. And so, slowly, a lot of who Faust was as a person sort of atrophied. Just follow the wisdom of the collective. If you try and find it out for yourself, you’re just replicating work for no reason—what’s the point? Just follow the path. Embrace the comfort of absolute certainty. Nothing needs to be left to chance.

But the child has, briefly, fallen out of the flask. She doesn’t have that Certainty to fall back on, and it has reminded her of the Thrill of acting on her own initiative. Of not knowing what’s going to happen, and making a gamble. Of actual collaboration with other people, getting different perspectives on available information and sifting the truth out of them. She has, momentarily, returned to the Flask. But a seed has been planted, and is going to grow. A hungry seed, that wants *more* than this gray Certainty. That does not want to be that husk of a self.

(Dante doesn’t parallel all of that, but they definitely reflect on how easily they fell into Faust Knows, Just Ask Faust, and how dangerous that reliance was).

I like it a lot.

Don Quixote is Don Quixote. Not a lot more to say there—because the character to *really* discuss is, as I will refer to her, Alonso Quixano.

We don’t see all that much of her. But there are a couple of things we can say for certain:

1) She is Crazy Powerful. So let’s take it on faith given what we’ve seen that we’re working on World of Darkness rules here, and the higher your generation number the weaker you are. Don is almost *certainly* at least on par with Elena. “One of the last fights in LoR” Elena. “Star of the City who killed a Color Fixer” powerful. Alonso can straight-up tell a lesser Bloodfiend to fuck off and die, and boom, he is dead.

2) She’s comfortable with authority and hierarchy. I’m pretty sure she has an Arbiter silhouette for a reason—not because she is/was one, but because that is the feeling they are trying to sell. She doesn’t explode the guy because he’s a monster, she exploded him because he transgressed against the hierarchy. Also the way she addresses Dante—others are Beneath Her.

3) Her drip is impeccable. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Those are things we can state for certain. Past this is speculation on my part:

1) She fucking *hates* herself. She is, in her own mind, a horrible monster. And she views her own nature as being basically inescapable. She isn’t chasing redemption here, making up for past acts. She can’t be redeemed. She can’t change. She puts on the boots so that she can Stop Being Alonso Quixano completely. She *needs* to not be herself. Not a different version of herself, she needs to be somebody else entirely. It doesn’t seem like she shares Don’s memories at all. She wants to have nothing to do with herself.

2) She doesn’t actually believe that Fixers are the paragons of virtue that Don does. But she does very much like the *ideal*, all the same. She read a bunch of stories that were maybe children’s stories, maybe just press releases, and what she really loved was the idea of the kind of person who would believe in that, even though she never could. A pure heart believing in heroes, in chivalry, in Justice. So the persona of Don Quixote is carefully crafted to be that.

3) The Dream Ending is probably going to be some level of “sorry, you can’t just wish yourself out of existence like that”. Don isn’t getting full-on replaced by Alonso, but she is probably going to have some level of *awareness* of Alonso, and of her own nature. A gradual synthesis.

4) Alonso is a Blood Fiend. Don is… mostly not. I think Rocinante prevents Don from doing most of that kind of stuff (except, if I am reading this right, eating that one W Corp employee to recover).

5) I don’t think Dante can rewind bloodfiend stiff, judging by how it interacted with the Warp Train—if Alonso did go all out and needed to recharge, she’s gonna have to munch people, there’s no getting around it.

[theangelsheardyou]

RRRR NOTHING ON MY BRAIN EXCEPT KAKEGURUI AU SKK

Ok instead of a a school it takes place within the Port Mafia which is the biggest gambling ring in japan

Pm dazai and chuuya here but dazai is 22 and the pm boss and chuuya lost his place as an executive after losing against mori in a gamble for his position

2 months afterwards mori mysteriously dies and dazai becomes the boss

He calls chuuya into his office and teases him about his loss and offers him a deal

A deal where if chuuya wins he gets his old job back

If dazai wins, chuuya has to follow a life plan dazai had made for him

In this plan he must leave the Port Mafia altogether and marry dazai and bear his kids

Oh did I mention this was omegaverse????

Not rlly bc it has nothing to do with scents or mating cause honestly I'm not feeling it

It's just an ideal world (where men can get pregnant as they SHOULD)

Anyway the game is called "Disappearing Dazai" it's a game dazai invented for this situation

The way it works is that each player is given a set of doors

These doors have a small plastic box behind them where you can store something inside

There are six doors each in a color from the rainbow and arranged as such

Then the player whose turn is first is given a small ceramic dazai doll

While the other player has their back turned and a blindfold on for extra precautions, the other will hide the Disappearing Dazai in one of the doors

Then the other player must turn around and take off the blindfold and try to guess which door holds the dazai doll

While chuuyas back is turned he focuses on the sounds of the door closing and the ceramic doll hitting the inside of the box

He hears it come from the left side

So when he turns around prepared to choose one of the doors on his now right side, he is surprised to see that the doors have been rearranged. Some are now on the opposite side, seemingly at random

Dazai says that the rules never mentioned rearranging the doors so it's definitely allowed

Confused and overthinking, chuuya chooses the wrong door

He stuck to his decision to thr sound coming from the right side and chooses an orange door, thinking that maybe dazai rearranged the doors first before inserting the doll

However, he is wrong

He realizes that the board they are playing on is made of velvet, which is a soft material that made him unable to hear the sound of the doors being rearranged

The truth was that dazai put the doll in the blue door, the one originally on chuuyas right, and then switched them after

Ok this is getting long and I'm too lazy to explain how the rest of the game goes so pretty much chuuya lost and now has to pay the price

He really doesn't want to and fights against it, but dazai tells him that no one in the pm respects him anymore after he lost to mori, and now his career in the mafia is forever stagnant at an underling position

He is no longer the strong and powerful chuuya nakahara, the gravity manipulator

He is now chuuya nakahara, the prideful idiot who bit too much than he could chew and lost pathetically

So now, since dazai is ever so generous, he gives chuuya a choice

He can remain in the mafia, however trapped in this unmoving, unpromotable state where he will never be respected again

Or he can obey dazai and willingly choose to live by his life plan, at least keeping his pride and erasing his embarrassing blunder from the past by cutting ties with the mafia altogether

And since I'm a silly lil fanfic writer ofc he chooses the life plan

From there it's kind of fuzzy with how I plan to keep it going buuuttt at least I got this much figured out

I wanna actually write this properly in fanfic form but I just made this to get the idea out there, see if people like it, get feedback, and so that when I do write it, I have a guide I can look at so I don't forget everything haha

BTW I had this idea at like 12 am last night while I was supposed to be sleeping so there might be some plot holes or something wrong with the logic

I'm especially worried about the logic of the game since I am nowhere smart enough to think of something actually on the kakegurui level

So anyway ya!! Watch kakegurui if u haven't since that's what this au is based on and if u know it you might understand the story better

Also it's got girls orgasming everywhere so....idk ur feelings abt that......

Anyway tell me what u think!! I'd love to get ur feedback and fix whatever mistakes I made!!

[completeoveranalysis]

[10]

Of course Lava Lamp’s thoughts immediately return to the moment that caused this. How he thinks this is his fault. How he wishes he hadn’t hesitated. 

How there’s literally nothing they’ve been able to figure out in seven years but now he has SECONDS to figure this out or Sakura really is dead forever. 

How the only option he can even think of is reversing time itself - but how incredibly out of reach is even the thought of that? If Nadeshiko can only JUST manage to stop time, and she’s stronger than anyone else in Clow at the moment, what hopes does he have of pulling this off? In a few seconds? With no notice?

I suppose the only option would be to call Yuuko, but could he do that? I think he would have tried that before now if he was able to. Could he call her in seconds? What would the PRICE be to turn back time that far? If Nadeshiko is dying to even PAUSE time briefly, actually turning back the clock seven years?!?!

More than anyone could conceivably imagine surely. 

OH

OH YOU FUCK

THIS WAS ALL A TRAP

THIS WAS A TRAP FROM MOMENT ONE

DID HE NOT EVEN REALLY INTEND TO KILL SAKURA? DID HE JUST SET THE TRAP SINCE HE KNEW LAVA LAMP WAS THERE, AND SLOWLY DROVE HIM INTO DESPERATION KNOWING THAT BY THE TIME IT KILLED SAKURA HE’D BE READY TO TRADE LITERALLY ANYTHING TO EVIL WOLVERINE?

This is how he gets Lava Lamp into the lava lamp then?

Also it’s sad to see that the same trick that Yuuko used earlier (being in a slightly different dimension to not trigger Fai’s curse) must be what Evil Wolverine is using to get around the Time Stop. He’s technically not even in Clow, so he can still reach in and communicate with Lava Lamp even while time is frozen. 

OH I HATE THIS MAN. 

And yet OH THE SMALL TOUCH BETWEEN FAI AND LAVA LAMP EARLIER, BECAUSE FAI WAS THE CLOSEST ONE TO UNDERSTANDING HIM

IN REALITY HE REALLY WAS EXACTLY THE SAME

EVIL WOLVERINE PORTALLED IN INFRONT OF BOTH OF THEM, MURDERED THEIR MOST TREASURED LOVED ONE, AND THEN ASKED THEM BOTH TO SELL THEMSELVES TO REVERSE IT. 

I suppose the only difference was that Nadeshiko was here to freeze time, which is probably the only reason why Sakura didn’t actually straight up die here. And I suppose you could go either way on if this was intentional - if Evil Wolverine didn’t really care either way, or if he set this up specifically for a moment where he knew Nadeshiko would be watching and ready. That’s a pretty huge gamble if so, but we’ve seen his plans go drastically wrong often enough that maybe he was willing to bet Sakura's life on getting this moment to play out right. 

WILD. 

And that’s the last page?

That’s the last page!

HEY I HATE THIS MAN

[forjustice]

Volo loves playing a gambling game from his merchant days called the Faerie Roulette. For the price of P500, customers could play once a day and select from seven items. One would bestow one month of good luck for the customer in the pursuit of their goals, four would do nothing, one would do something but be kind of "meh," and one would inflict the buyer with a month of incredible bad luck. He had a boss before Ginter who was generally a shitty boss but he loved this idea of Volo's; Ginter was better to him emotionally but he shut the Roulette down because he did not approve of gambling. Ironically, this actually worsened Volo's attitude problems about being a merchant, even though he was being treated better--because he could no longer do the only thing that was making his merchant job worth it.

In the modern day, he often runs the game with an added touch: Jingles like on this trading card unwrapping Youtube channel. The game starts off with a feminine voice announcing, "Should I walk away? Or should I spin the wheel?" If the wheel lands on the good luck section, the jingle goes, "WOWOW! You didn't really do too bad!" If the wheel lands on the "meh" spell item or an item that does nothing, the jingle goes, "WOWOW! That was actually mid!" And if the wheel lands on the bad luck spot, the jingle goes, "OH NO! (OH NO!) You really should've walked away! (Why did you even try?)" (Just watch a couple of videos on that channel and you'll know exactly how each of those things sound. LMAO) Oh, and by the way, when it's a wheel being spun--since you can't split a circle into seven equal parts....I should mention. The good luck section of the wheel is just ever so slightly smaller than the bad luck section of it >:3

If this were a thing in-game, the effects of getting the good luck blessing would be the following:

Any Pokémon with a chance of 5% or less of appearing which you do not have in your Pokédex has a higher chance of appearing. This chance is taken out of the chance for more common Pokémon to appear.

Shiny rate is doubled from 1/4,096 to 1/2,048.

Alpha rate goes up by 1.5x.

Materials for crafting that you need more are more likely to appear. You can manually set up to three "focus materials" for this purpose at a time.

Evolutionary stones and other rare items are more likely to appear.

If you black out, you will drop less items, and common items will be more likely to drop than uncommon ones.

There is a very small chance of Vitamins (which can change your Pokémon's nature) to drop.

Effects last for 30 in-game days (aka 30 complete in-game cycles of day & night). Use the time wisely!

Help I wanna make this a dash game.

[elysia-nsimp]

OC introduction: Buggie (Twisted Wonderland)

Basics

Orville Becket, more known as just Buggie (he/they/it/bug/bugself) is an Octavinelle student based on Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas. It is the Motherfucker Ever. Also it’s somewhere on both the ace and aro spectrums, but still enjoys romantic relationships. They have described their gender as “mmmm bugs👍”

(Author’s note: I’m still very much learning about noun pronouns! I’m going to use the first three sets of pronouns for this intro for now.)

Buggie is… sure something from the Nightmare Realm. He just calls himself a nightmare creature and leaves it at that. No one knows exactly how old Buggie is, but… I mean, they’re a second year. He fuckimg hates all things school but is scarily good with potions.

Buggie’s maybe 5’9, little on the bigger side, but weighs like nothing? Pick it up and it will bite you. Anyway, Buggie doesn’t really do clubs, but does run a very legal gambling ring somewhere under NRC (and is the undefeated champion for completely legit reasons).

Hobbies, Talents, Preferences

Buggie enjoys cooking! They’re actually very good at making drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Makes yummy stew (don’t ask what’s in it). A lot of students are hesitant to eat whatever Buggie makes, but it’s probably one of the most competent cooks at NRC, up there with Jamil.

As expected, based on their name, Buggie also likes to take care of bugs. You will always find bugs on them or in their clothes… they have named every single one and remember each and every one of their names. They can also always tell each bug apart, no matter how similar they look. They can also communicate with these bugs as if they were people too. It’s kind of scary.

Buggie ALSO knows a little too much about nightmares. If you fall asleep near him, you WILL have very vivid and awful nightmares. Buggie cannot control this but will not apologize if he doesn’t consider you a friend.

He enjoys bugs, mostly. That and card/dice games. Challenge him to a game, I dare you. He’s unbeaten. His favourite snack is snake stew—no spiders tho. Least favourite food is any kind of salad. Bro won’t eat veggies if you force it down their throat. They also do NOT like it if you hurt their bugs… like… has a PHYSICAL reaction if you step on one. Do not the bugs.

Backstory

Buggie, being a creature from the Nightmare Realm, grew up with a VERY different set of rules than us. Even despite the difference in rules, I think we can all agree that Buggie’s parents SUCKED.

Buggie didn’t get SHIT growing up. No birthday celebrations, no “good job”s when it did good in school… nothin. It grew bitter from the neglect and ran away about a year before appearing at NRC. It wasn’t invited, but it’s here now. No one knows where exactly it came from or how it found itself here, but no one can get it to leave so it’s a student now.

He will not accept any gifts you try to give him. He doesn’t understand the concept of giving gifts to others… he lives off of a “take what you need to survive” mentality.

Unique Magic

Any time anyone asks about their unique magic, Buggie just laughs and responds with “wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy?”

Anyway. Incantation.

“Roll the dice,

Don’t think twice,

And pay the price;

Snake Eyes!”

You may hear it mutter this incantation under its breath during gambles.

Relationships

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul HATES Buggie… it never wears its uniform right and every time he points it out, Buggie changes something so it’s even worse. Buggie just finds it funny though.

Jade Leech

Look, usually Buggie is the one making others scared, but Jade scares Buggie. Actually, there’s an AU where they get over their differences and become extremely close, but… yeah not generally the case.

Jamil Viper

Oh. Oh Jamil hates Buggie. Buggie just LOOOOVES dropping beetles down Jamil’s shirt. Jamil avoids Buggie like the plague.

Literally all the professors

No one can tame Buggie. Teachers hate them.

Other Works

Playlist 😈

Media

^ made by my buddy Howl lol

[noblemansdemon]

I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm afraid I have to get the word out.

Dismantling most accusations/complaints against Pokemon Sleep (There are a few which are actually valid and to a point the developers have started to work on them)

Part 1 - Those I don't understand

- Pokemon sleep steals our biometric data

No they don't, they specify that very well in the terms. Yes they ask to use your mircophone but there are other sleep thrackers that do that. This one simply earned an uproar, because it was Pokemon who dared to. Also in your phones settings under Apps>Pokemon Sleep>Authorization you can disable the app to access your microphone.

- Pokemon Sleep could turn our children to compulsive gambling

As a pedagogical caretaker who actually tried and pkayed the game I can't see this. They are not monopolizing on the time before and after going to bed. Everything you can do is done in at most 10 Minutes. As for the payment options, if there is no Debit/Credit Card or Paypal account behind the account you use on the play store they can't buy anything anyway. If there is it is the responsibility of the parent to show them, on what they would spend real money.

- Pokemon sleep is inaccurate when you're around the room but not on your mattress trying to sleep.

Yeah, no shit sherlock, any other sleep tracker would be too. Even my fitness tracker sometimes counts me being completely still as being asleep in the eveningy when I'm actually just reading or watching something.

- Pokemon Sleep is too hard to play

Actually it is really simple and everything is explained pretty well. A game shouldn't serve you everything on a silver tray, there should be room to explore and I think pokemon sleep does that quite well

- The progress in pokemon sleep is too slow

This is no super fast progress game, duh. It is meant to be relaxed and to encourage you to improve your sleep cycle in a fun and cute way and it does a wonderful job. If you need to have fast progress to have fun, it is a sign of how damaging those games with fast progress actually are, they are much more attention and time grabbing and much more dangerous when it comes to developing compulsive gaming disorder.

Complaints I do understand (and am willing to offer a solution)

- The relaxing tune is too loud.

I had that problem too and it is not a solution of sorts, but they fixed that pretty fast. What I prefer to do though, is to listen to my own custom playlist on my iPad and set the timer to one hour to turn the music off.

- The mobile overheats/the app crashes/it uses too much battery

This one I find more understandable. There is a notion that bug fixes are underway. If you're not willing to wait for the bug fixes an alternative would be to buy the pokemon go plus +. No I'm not sponsored by The Pokemon Company in any way shape or form, but I calculated it trhough. For a sleep tracking device which can also be cross used with Pokemon go, the pricing is alright. My current fitness tracker with an innate sleep tracker costs almost thrice as much. There are Smart watches out there you pay ten times as much for. The device comes with a clip to not fall under your pillow, and your mobile has to do nothing over night, because you simply sync the sleep data in the morning. The battery of the Pokemon Go plus + also keeps going up to one week when fully charged. And needs about 3 1/2 hours to carge from zero.

Due to emotional involvement some of this contains my personal opinion/advice. I'm not seeking any form of a fight over these points, though I'll be happy to discuss them with you contructively in the comments.^^

[dragongirlpaws]

gotta say amongst all the other problems capitalism causes, loneliness, poverty, suppression etc etc, at this exact moment i got a bone to pick with investors and stocks

like, oh god forbid a company make slightly less money than last year, time for all the investors to pull out! why does every company ever need investors? why do they need to constantly pay more and more dividends and fire people to save on money and make the most stupid ass decisions ever known to man just for the sake of 'investors'.

like nothing can just exist and be a service, it has to be a service that changes and grows and draws in more people, all the people, and take all the money.

game dev companies keep getting sold for god knows why to the big publishers who are guaranteed to delete the studio anyway in like a couple years, eg microsoft, EA etc etc.

unity makes the worst most stupid move of all time and now like, so many indie devs have to move somewhere else.

this goddamn hellsite needs to monotize to hell and back and to appeal to broader and broader audiences to the appeal of no one for the sake of the fucking investors getting their money back.

why should stocks and investors affect anything at all? its literally pretend money. its imagining that a company has value that you can just buy and make money on by virtue of owning it. that by buying it, a promise is made that what you buy will keep getting bigger forever. its a gamble. a gamble that something will exist and exist bigger and bitger forever.

and when it doesnt, just sell it off, cut it off. kill the company. kill the lives of the people in the company. kill the product people used and might have even liked.

yknow, maybe, just maybe, the success of a company shouldnt be decided by gambling addicts playing a game of pretend. god forbid a company succeed or fail on just if it actually makes a profit or not. no, its gotta make a profit, and then have people say that profit is a thing that can be purchased. capitalism has put a price on the concept of making a profit itself. in-fucking-sane

[twisted-gremlin]

AU where the doorms are actually Rival cafes put against eachother by the Night Raven company.

They hire mainly fresh out of high-school faces and hire internally. You apply to the main company and get tossed into one of the cafes (or in Yuu's case get to do your own :>)

Doorm heads = bosses/managers

Vice doorm head = manager

Heasrtsbyul Cafe:

Card napkins, Alice in wonderland feel all over. Weird and amazing ways that they make the food.

Trey is the head baker, doing well with his work and his skill shows.

Riddle is a pritty damn good boss all thibgs conciderd. He makes sure everyone does their work, take their mandatory breaks. He keeps up with how workers should be treated. They get a four day work week, and a liveing wage, plus raises!

Cater is one of the most popular workers there. He is well beloved as a waiter and he is the sotal media manager. He posts Treys' pastries in the best ways possible and the pages explode.

Ace is a new hire mainly doing it for the good money. He likes to help Yuu in uis free time since their Cafe is MUCH less busy and quite cozy with all the upgrades they have so far.

Deuce is working there to get himself a good reputation, with the good reputation he can get the money for collage and become a police officer. He helps Yuu because he wants to and genuinely likes hanging out with them, even if ace(his future boyfriend) is there

Savanaclaw

Its a gym with an attached resturant that serves healthy food and heath drinks and stuff

Leona is there because irs something for him to do so his family will stop nagging him. He has scheduled himself for work every day, in the afternoons tough

Ruggie is a manager and mainly works with the food. He can't be trusted on the till tough, he has a history of theft and Leona KNOWS

Jack is a coach trainee, he helps coaches anyone who pays the main coach there. He helps Yuu because they are childhood friends and he is very loyal to them and their friendship

Ocranavile

Listen- it's not known as the fish mafia for nothing- Azul has a hand in every pie he possabbly can. He has connections in each Cafe and supplies them with everything. But it's mainly a lounge Cafe that's a bit upper class with a gambling area along with his backroom deals

Azul is the boss. No question about that. He makes sure everything is good. He keeps a good eye on everything, everything and everyone is a possible investment

Jade is the manager for the wait staff, able to keep the cool calm facade of the main floor. He also does shady work for Azul, at a price, as allways

Floyd is a dealer for the gambling floor, this man, causes HAVOC. He knows every trick in the book. He can deal someone a perfect hand ine turn, then completely screw them over when they are on a roll loseong it all. He does a little of everything depending on how he feels.

Scarabia

Is rivaled with Heasrtsbyul for most popular Cafe. It's filled with Arabian culture and feel.

Kalim is the boss, his dad bought him the business so he can learn on how to do some hard work. He leaned that he dosent have the money to do everything he wants, but he has everyone at a liveing wage, plus bonuses and raises ofc. He listens to Jamil a bit more often because he is able to help him out.

Jamil at first was pissed. He wanted this job so he didn't have to serve the Al-Aslims anymore. But, this felt much differnt. When he coiced his opinions, they were taken seriously. He was seen more as an equal. He really internalized this and liked it. He dosent mind as much Kalims wild ideas of adding so many exotic animals and such since when he explains that not everyone there would know how to care for them and it would take up too much space. Etc. Etc. He is much happier like this, of course he now willingly protects Kalim and even agrees to teach him how to cook!

Pomfiore

It's a place where the workers host the guests. It was the bosses Vil's idea, a famous model and actor. He is often busy and leaves things in Rooks hands. But he goes around the store atleast once a month to be sure everyone is doing their jobs right and to help if thjbgs have been doing poorly.

Rook is the manager and isn't the best host but he brings out the hosts and makes them feel ontop of the world. He makes them feel like the best versions of themselves and easily helps with a raised profit of the pleace

Epel is a host, meant to be the quiet and sweet type and the bad boy type. Depending on what he/rook/Vil thubgs the coustomour would want. He is new but VERY popular. He helps the Ramshake crew get customers aswell by being a waiter there and selling and showing off his carved apples

Ignahyde

It's a internet Cafe with futuristic and simplified food

Idia is there because he wants to do somethjbg simple to make enough money to go to concerts, get his merch, and play games. He is the boss like he was born to be. This is simple work for him, but he likes it. No big expectations for him, just peace.

Ortho happily works at the Cafe with Idia, he helps people with whatever problems they have. He worked here ever since Idia did, so he is a manager by the time he graduated high-school. He is the friendly face who is allways willing to help

Diasomnia

Gothic Cafe

Malleus works as a manager to learn how to do simple things that he otherwise would never know. It'll help him be a better leader according to Lilia. It was alot for him not to give hell to those who pissed him off and try to damage the Gargoyles on the building. But he has learned and grown from this

Lilia is also a manager, he makes it a bit more hectic, and yet so much more fun. He is banned from the kitchen tough, he can only wait the food

Silver is also a waiter, the favorite of coustomours due to how sweet he is to everyone after you become a regular

Sebek is- kept to the kitchen. His skills slowly improved working there. He is apathetic to cooking, but Malleus allways loves it now, so he can't help but smile and love it a little too. He helps Ramshake because Malleus likes to go there and visit Yuu from time to time. So he may aswell help and make Malleus' perferd food while there, and for whenever else orders it too I guess

Ramshake

Yuu is imedeatelu the boss. It's a little scary, but they managed to Handel it fine amd improve their little creepy cottage Cafe. Grim is also there as the cat that lived there before and Yuu didn't want to get rid of it after the sad little cry it gives. Yuu managed to tame him and now he is only an ass to asshole coustomours

[blazehedgehog]

Sonic team and sega both need to piss off. I'm more likely to get a finished product out of fangames and contractors who make one game and jump ship. How many times will sonic team make a "step in the right direction" before they stumble into something actually worth the retail price?

This is kind of a dangerous line of thinking, because that's assuming the problem comes from Sonic Team or even Sega itself.

We've already had off-hand comments from Takashi Iizuka about how he wants to make Sonic Adventure 3 but "Sega won't let him" and made them do Sonic Frontiers instead. Sonic Frontiers, a game Sega's current president was deliberately pitching as "targeting high review scores."

So you could say, "Well Sega is the one who is responsible, right?" But Sega is not the top of this ladder.

I've been talking about this video with friends since I saw it, because it's very interesting. Moon Channel is run by a Real Actual Attorney, and he uses that knowledge and insight to provide opinions on certain legal sides of video games. In this video, he tackles why Sega seems to be so lax about fan-made content. It's sort of a sequel to a previous video, about why Nintendo is so protective.

The general idea put forth in this Sega video is that corporations are protective of things that have value, and Sega used to be more protective than Nintendo when it comes to intellectual property.

That changed when Sega was bought out by Sammy, a company mostly known for its pachinko gambling machines. Moon Channel suggests that Sammy bought Sega almost more for PR reasons than financial ones. Sega has a loyal and dedicated fan base, and by putting Sega forward as the face of the company, Sammy gets to operate with less scrutiny towards their gambling business.

For as loyal as Sega fans are, Sonic fans are even more loyal. So Sammy basically allows Sonic to operate as a "hero to the children" both figuratively and literally as long as it helps keep the company's image clean and Sega ultimately looking benevolent. Even though Sammy very clearly does not provide enough time, resources, or budget to actually make sure Sonic products are consistently good.

He does not make these claims baselessly. He references real earnings reports where Sammy directly talks about some of this strategy, and how little Sonic actually matters compared to their pachinko business.

He also suggests that Sonic could be at something of a turning point right now, given a confluence of recent success even in spite of Sammy's general disinterest towards actually growing the Sonic brand. Sonic has hit a string of success almost by accident, and by Moon Channel's prediction, that could mean Sega could start getting protective again, if nothing else, to prevent another Ken Penders incident.

My point in all of this is that you gotta go up the ladder a few rungs if you're looking for somewhere to point fingers. Even Takashi Iizuka, for all the power he has within the Sonic franchise, is still just trying to keep his job.

Does that absolve him of making bad decisions? No. It merely explains where some of this blame is coming from. The end product can still be bad, but there's a lot of pressure coming down from the top and all sorts of arbitrary guidelines we probably don't know anything about.

And, in general, "THERE ARE FAN GAMES BETTER THAN THIS" is probably a very good way to draw the wrong kind of attention. If you start threatening Sega about this stuff, you endanger a lot more than just yourself.

[zarpaulus]

My life feels like it's falling apart

In July I lost my shitty but stable day job that I'd held for over twelve years. The CEO's attempts to chase new tech and bigger clients finally caught up to him and everyone got laid off as a consequence.

I was fortunate enough to qualify for unemployment, but I couldn't afford to pay @joghost 's artist anymore and even after my mandatory four job apps per week and half a dozen interviews the only job offer I have to show for it is an even shittier seasonal tax job that I need to take a class for and doesn't even start until January.

And then as if that wasn't bad enough, Cohost went bankrupt. The best social media site I've seen in ages, like Tumblr before they got bought out. It was rapidly becoming my new home on the net.

Knowing that the job market is a bear I started trying to find supplementary income. My book royalties are lucky to bring in $10 a month so I started offering story commissions. A few people took me up on the offer when my prices were cheaper than dirt, but then I timed my writing speed and raised my price to be over minimum wage and crickets

I threw things at the wall and nothing stuck. I opened a Twitch channel and my audience scurried away every time I acknowledged their arrival. My fursuit that I've been waiting for over a year finally arrived and I did an unboxing video but my attempts to do something on camera with it on have fallen flat. I put up my old knitting projects for sale on my Ko-Fi and nobody bit.

DVS was fun, even as a first-year staffer, but some of the panels had me questioning my genderfluid identity. I'm actually thinking of looking into HRT but I know that would make it even harder to find a new job and it's expensive.

A lifelong agnostic, I might have found religion. I set up a Shinto shrine in my bedroom a while back but I actually started leaving daily offerings at it after I got laid off.

On the other hand, my new financial situation has put a fire under my ass to get some things off the ground. I talked to Fenris about publishing Joanna. I've got concrete plans to Kickstart a @para-imperium RPG based on Cepheus, but that's a gamble especially with how many furry TTRPGs there already are.

Anyways, this'll probably be my last post here, check out my myriad other sites listed on Carrd https://zarpaulus.carrd.co/

And if you feel like tossing me a few bucks, buy me a coffee https://ko-fi.com/zarpaulek