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oceantrust01 · 1 year ago

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11 Best Dive Log Books

Aren't log books just so much fun? You get to relive the dive, fiddle with your dive computer and record all that information. And at the end the day, collecting stamps from dive centers all over the world is always such a pleasure. Whether it is your first dive, or several hundredth, your scuba diving logbook is an essential record that is often checked by dive shops to verify your dive experience, especially if you're intending to dive a challenging dive site. 🤔 1. Do You Need A Scuba Diving Log Book? You'll need a dive log if you are intending to further your education. For example, you'll need 40 verified dives to start a divemaster course, and 100 logged dives for the Instructor course. A dive center might also ask to see dive proof of a certain number of logged dives, especially if they are intending to go to challenging dive sites with say, strong currents. We know of numerous dive centers scattered all around the world that won't take you to on certain trips unless you have 100 logged dives. Of course, after logging 100 dives, it is entirely up to you whether you want to keep logging your dives. Some professional divers may be legally required to keep an up-to-date and full log book, and dive logbooks are often checked prior to employment. 📖 2. What Is In A Scuba Diver Log Book? Your dive log contains critical information about the dive, and helps you log a record of your experience as a scuba diver. They typically contain information like: - The date - Name and location of the dive site - Max depth - Average depth - Dive time (in and out) - Time underwater - Tank pressure at the start and end - Water and surface temperature - Amount of weight used - Dive site conditions - Marine life - Verification area for divemaster/instructor signature, buddy name, and stamp 🤷‍♀️ 3. So What Makes A Good Scuba Diving Log Book? When you're looking for a dive log, there are a few nifty details you might want to look at. - The number of log book pages. The more the merrier, but also the bulkier and heavier. - Water resistance. We have had numerous log books that fall to pieces after getting constantly wet! - Refill pages. Many log books are bound in a spiral and allow you to switch out new pages with old ones. - Compact and lightweight. You're going to bring your dive log along with you on your dive travel so being light is always nice. If you're still confused, don't worry! We'll do the heavy lifting for you. We've seen and used countless log books for all our students, and we're happy to share with you our favorites! 📘 4. Our Favorite Scuba Diving Log Books - Best Overall: PADI Refill Log Book - Red by Padi - Best Custom Log Book: PADI Diver's Blue Log and Training Record (70047) Rev. 3.0 - Best Water Resistant Binder: Dive Logz Binder - Best Travel Log Book: Log Book Low Profile Mini Binder Scuba Diving Dive Flag - Environmental-Friendly Design: Dive Log (SCUBA Logbook with 100 Entries) - Modern Design: Dive Log Book - Scuba Diving Planner - Great for Avid Divers: Travel-Friendly Scuba Logbook With Protective Sleeve ⭐ 5. Reviews – Best Scuba Diving Log Books PADI Refill Log Book - Red by Padi Our Rating★★★★★ Size‎6 x 8 x 1 inchesNo. of Dives50Waterproof?YesPrice$ No matter where your diving adventures take you, it's essential to document your diving experiences. Ensure you keep a record of all your dives and have your logbook with you during your diving vacations. The traditional PADI paper-backed logbook, which is typically red, serves the purpose of recording your dives. Your logbook acts as concrete evidence that you possess the qualifications needed to turn your adventure dives into reality. PADI Diver's Blue Log and Training Record (70047) Rev. 3.0 Our Rating★★★★★ Size‎7.9 x 6 x 0.4 inchesNo. of Divesn/aWaterproof?YesPrice$ This logbook features dedicated pages that span from the initial Open Water Diver certification all the way through to the prestigious Master Scuba Diver qualification. The content is presented in full color and printed on high-quality, non-smear recycled paper, ensuring that your records are both vivid and environmentally friendly. Additionally, it includes a handy equipment checklist, making it even more practical for divers to keep track of their gear and their progress in the world of scuba diving. Dive Logz Binder Our Rating★★★★★ Size5 ½ x 8 inNo. of Dives50Waterproof?YesPrice$$ Elevating the traditional dive binder to new heights, this exceptional binder offers a wealth of impressive attributes. With its modern and streamlined design, it goes beyond the ordinary, setting a high standard for divers who seek excellence. Furthermore, its water-resistant properties add an extra layer of functionality, making it an ideal choice for discerning divers who demand nothing but the best in their equipment and accessories. Dive into the future of organization with this outstanding dive binder! Log Book Low Profile Mini Binder Scuba Diving Dive Flag Our Rating★★★★★ Size9.5"L x 6.5"WNo. of Dives70Waterproof?NoPrice$$ Revolutionary Mini Binder Log Book with 3 Rings - The zippered 3-ring binder is specially designed to accommodate log inserts and includes convenient slots for cards and pens. It also features a quick-snap closure for securing your keys. The log book inserts consist of 66 pages and come included with the binder. The front cover proudly displays the Dive Flag emblem, and the overall dimensions of this innovative log book are 6.5" x 9.5". Dive Log (SCUBA Logbook with 100 Entries, Imperial/Metric Conversion Tables, Hand Signal Review, Equipment & Goals Checklist, World Map) Our Rating★★★★★ Size5.25-inch x 8-inchNo. of Dives100Waterproof?NoPrice$$ - SCUBA record / Log entry pages: 100 - Logbook dimensions: 5.25-inch x 8-inch - Paperback cover This dive log caters to novices and seasoned divers alike. Documenting your underwater adventures offers not only a valuable reference tool but also a contemplative diary where you can record details about your dive conditions, personal statistics, and cherished memories. Within this log, you'll find imperial and metric conversion tables that come in handy when you're exploring different dive locations. These tables facilitate conversions, such as Celsius to Fahrenheit, meters to feet, and bar to psi. The log also features a blank world map where you can mark your dream dive destinations and trace your exploration journey. Additionally, you'll discover a section on basic hand signals to jog your memory before you plunge into your next aquatic expedition. Dive Log Book - Scuba Diving Planner | 100 Dive Log Book | Certified Diver Journal Our Rating★★★★★ Size6 x 9 inNo. of Dives100Waterproof?NoPrice$ One for the avid divers! Every bit of dive data is meticulously structured to mirror the actual diving encounter. Capture details like wave height, currents, and underwater turbulence. Additionally, there are dedicated notes sections equipped with graphing paper to securely store vital personal and potentially life-saving medical information, ensuring quick and effortless access when needed. Ideal for divers of all proficiency levels, whether you're a novice, intermediate, advanced, technical, recreational, or a charter diver. Travel-Friendly Scuba Logbook With Protective Sleeve Our Rating★★★★★ Size4 x 6 inNo. of Dives40Waterproof?YesPrice$ This is a perfect little dive log made by a small, woman-owned business. Protective water-resistant sleeve protects the paper book that allows you to log up to 40 dives. A cute 4 x 6 inches in size, the travel-friendly book includes a dive gear checklist, goal list, and space for dive log highlights. The only downside that after frequent use, the sleeve can tear. 🔍 6. What Are The Alternatives To Scuba Diving Log Books? Now that you have all our favorite scuba diving log books, we'll let you in on a little secret. With some creativity and DIY-know-how, you can have any design of your log book you want! Scuba diving log books are an extremely intimate piece of your dive life and should be tailored exactly to your personal preference. It will record some of your most fun times, and be your travel companion on all your dive trips, so custom make something you are completely in love with! 📄 7. Printable Log Books If you don't need a waterproof book, or a binder, you can download printable diving log books and use them on traditional paper. Downloadable dive logs come in a plethora of designs and have numerous combinations of fields that you can pick and choose from. Some are downloadable free of charge, while there is a small cost associated with others. You can even download separate pages and make yourself a log book with different designs that are exactly how you want it to look. Print as many pages as you want! Then when you dive a bunch and run out of room, simply swap them out with a new design or designs of your choice. DIY Logbooks Now if you truly get adventurous, you can always design your own printable logbook, bind it, and presto! You got yourself a DIY log that you created totally on your own. Designing your logbook is easier than you think, and as an added benefit, you can change it anytime you want. Pro Tip: For the avid scuba diver and if you aren't a big writer and only want to use the logbook to record key information, you can squeeze two dives onto a page, so you'll have to switch out the pages less often. Customizable Log Books by RRRUSHA ❓ 8. Frequently Asked Questions Do I Need A Diving Log Book? New divers should always log their dives. Dive centers often ask new divers to show a record of their training, and for many courses, there are a prerequisite number of dives you'll need before starting them. For example, you'll need 60 dives for divemaster training, and 100 dives for instructor training. Also, logging your dives is a lot of fun. You'll be able to read it in the future and bring back some memories. However, after hundreds of dives, you might get tired of logging your dives! What Do You Look For In A Log Book? Most dive log books come with similar information like time in/out, air, dive site, date, and your dive information. In addition, look for durability (dive logs take a beating!), the ability to refill and change pages, number of dives it can contain, and its weight if you're intending to travel for diving. Continue Reading: - 13 Scuba Diving Rules - Open Water Refresher Checklist - Complete Guide to Getting Scuba Certified 🔚 9. Conclusion Logging your dives is a great idea, especially for beginners. We hope that we've provided you with enough information to continue your dive journey. Thanks for reading and happy bubbles! Read the full article

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dr-spencer-reids-queen · 3 years ago

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Unfinished Business: Part Two

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Word Count: ~2.7k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill, fluff and angst

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated.

Feedback is gold, and it’s the only currency I take

On the plane, Max just wanted to jump into it by immediately talking about the case. He didn’t even wait until it got off the ground to start. You appreciate his enthusiasm, but he seems too eager for this. It might impair his judgement later if he thinks the Keystone Killer is within the team’s grasp. You’ll keep an eye on him, though. Hotch patched Penelope through so she can be part of this conversation since he gave her some tasks to do while they got ready for the plane.

“Philly PD confirmed that Carla Bromwell's been dead less than twelve hours. She was forty-seven,” Penelope says.

“The victims are getting older. That is unusual,” Derek frowns.

“Victimology rarely changes.”

“Her hands and feet were bound with flex-cuffs,” Penelope also adds.

“Flex-cuffs? No ropes?” you ask.

“That's what they said. They're waiting at the crime scene for you.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Derek grins.

“If you need me,” she grins and ends the video chat.

Spencer reaches into his bag and youpeek over to see him take out your note. He opens it and immediately blushes when he understands what it means. You have to hide the smile so you don’t give anything away, and you lean over slightly. You two are sitting on the couch while the rest of the team takes the airplane seats that crowd the only table on the plane.

“What do you got there?” you whisper ever so softly.

“I found this in my bag,” he whispers back and shows you the letter.

“You must have a secret admirer.”

You lean away from him and look at Hotch who is focused on the case and what Penelope said.

“So we have older victims and a different mode of binding and killing.”

“Maybe the note just means we have a copycat on our hands,” you theorize.

“The copycat who just happens to have Amy Jennings driver's license? No! No, it's the Keystone Killer,” Max gets angry.

He gets up and heads over to the small kitchen to get more coffee, and your eyes widen at his outburst.

“How are we supposed to work with him? Gideon, he is not even an active agent,” Derek whispers to him.

“He's here because he knows this case better than any of us. We're leading the investigation, he's only consulting.”

“Anyone tell him that?” you ask and peek over at Max who just pops a pill into his mouth.

You can sense his frustrations and anger for this case, and he’s having a hard time not making it personal. This is the only killer who has taunted him and kept being a problem in his whole career, and then when he disappeared, Max just stewed in his anger. You know he wants this to be the real Keystone Killer, and you just hope that it is. You don’t want him to suffer any more than he already is.

As soon as the plane landed, Max wasted no time in going to the new crime scene. He’s too eager, and that makes him arrogant and cocky. You’re sure he is a nice guy, but his need to catch the killer is overshadowing any good parts about him. He’s obsessed, but you hope the rest of the team can keep him grounded.

The house of the most recent victim is shrouded in sadness and darkness. There isn’t an inch of happiness anywhere in the foundation, and you try your best not to become overly emotional with this. The victims need you to bring them justice because you can see more than most. You have a feeling Max Ryan isn’t a man to believe in what you can do, so you never told him about any of it. He seems too caught up in his own problems to see that he has a whole team to rely on.

“FBI? Detective Charles Santangelo, Philly PD,” the detective in charge greets you when you arrive with the whole team.

“Agents Gideon, Y/L/N, and Greenaway,” Gideon states.

“You actually think the Keystone Killer did this?” Santangelo asks.

“Yes, we do,” Max butts in.

“Agent Ryan.”

“Detective.”

“So, I guessed you'd show up sooner or later,” he chuckles.

“He's consulting with us,” Gideon says.

“CSI's done processing the body?” you wonder.

“Yeah, we'll get out of your way.”

“Thanks. This is his eighth victim,” Max informs as he steps inside the house.

You’re immediately slammed with visions of the victim going about her daily life in spurts. She is going about her life, giving you bits and pieces of who she was right before she died. To get the best results, you go up to the body to see if you can get anything off her body, or maybe see the murder happen. Carla lays on the bed with her eyes open and mouth closed. She looks so scared, but you have to stay away from them. The eyes are the worst thing about a dead person. They reveal more than they know.

“There is no bruising on the wrists, ankles or neck. Just a good size blunt force head wound,” you note.

“Yeah, probably a surprise attack,” Max states.

“Well, the puzzle said no fight.”

“I know what the puzzle said,” Max snaps.

You look between him and Gideon, but you let this one go.

“The head wound is extensive. Level of violence is escalating.”

“This bedroom is in front of the house, and a puzzle mentioned a rear window—maybe he left a print,” Elle suggests.

“No way,” Max shakes his head.

“Well, I think I'm going to check it out anyway,” she sighs.

“You do what you want to do but believe me, you're wasting your time.”

Elle just shakes her head and leaves the room, and you look at Gideon with raised eyebrows.

“Elle's good at this, Max.”

“Did I say she wasn't? I haven't had a feeling like this around a dead body in eighteen years.”

“I remember what you said to me on my first day. Don't lose your objectivity. This isn't personal.”

“Yeah, well, maybe not for you.”

“Look, Max, I know you want to catch this killer because he escaped your grasp and outsmarted you all those years ago. Don’t deny it because I know it’s true. But you have a whole team to lean on, and let me tell you that we’re pretty damn good. I don’t mean disrespect, but you got no right to talk to any of us like that. We’re your partners, not your enemies.”

You don’t want to be in a room with him anymore, so you quickly look at Gideon before you leave the room. You spot Spencer in the farthest room from where you are, so you quickly head into that room to see he is with Hotch.

“Was I like this when you met me?” you ask the men, and they just stare at you in confusion. “I mean, was I like Max? A know-it-all?”

“You could be, yes,” Hotch chuckles.

“I am so sorry.”

“Actually, I didn’t think you were a know-it-all,” Spencer smiles politely at you.

“Well, still, I apologize,” you blush.

“What do you think of Ryan?” Spencer asks Hotch.

“He hasn't changed much.”

“I think we can learn a lot from him,” Spencer beams.

“What could you possibly learn that you don't already know?”

“Hotch, repetitive thinking is the death nail for the brain. For complete brain usage diverse stimulation is the key,” you defend the genius. Spencer and Hotch look at you, but they both have very different reactions. Hotch is more surprised, and Spencer is more proud. “How do you think I got two PhDs? I know a lot more than you know.”

Hotch just shakes his head dismissively, and Spencer canvasses the room when he spots a piece of paper on the dresser. It must be another note because it’s a word search puzzle. Carla could have had a puzzle book, but you know that this isn’t it.

“Look at this,” Spencer says and grabs it with his gloved hand.

“Let's go show this to everyone,” Hotch orders. You three walk back to the bedroom where Carla, Gideon, and Max are. “Found another note.”

“Let me see that,” Max says and practically snatches it out of Hotch’s hand. He skims the words before reading them out loud. “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”

“He's quoting sir Francis Bacon now,” you say.

“I used this specific quote on—”

“—in your book on page 184. I read it on the plane,” Spencer interrupts him.

“And you remember the page number of the quote?”

“Don’t ask,” Derek shakes his head.

“He says to expect another gift in two days.”

“A gift?”

“He calls his victims gifts,” Gideon explains.

“Gifts for whom?” you wonder.

“For me,” Max sighs.

It’s time for another note for Spencer to read, and you have to do it now before he spots you. This time it reads, “In a room full of art, I’d still stare at you”. It’s true because it wouldn’t matter who or what is in a room, if Spencer is there, then you would only look at him. You slip it into his bag so he can find it later on.

Right now, you’re giving the profile to the police department despite them already having one. New victims means there is an opportunity for the profile to change, especially after all that time between killings.

“A lot of things have changed in twenty years including the age of the Keystone Killer's victims,” Hotch begins.

“He's older which means his victims are older. Makes sense to me,” Santangelo shrugs.

“Most unsubs have specific fantasies. This is as if they're killing the same person over and over again. This man clearly had a preference for young brunettes, and now he's switched to older women.”

“Well, what does that mean?”

“Ted Bundy only killed women that looked like his fiancee. Then, he devolved and brutally attacked a house full of sorority sisters that looked nothing like his previous victims,” Spencer babbles. “He went off script. His final victim was a twelve-year-old girl. When the police found the van that he used to kill her, the amount of blood revealed that he had lost complete control. It was that devolution that eventually led to his capture.”

“He could be devolving into a frenzy,” you add.

“So, you mean he's about to mess up?”

“Keystone Killer's devolution is only a theory. We need to be prepared for anything, and if he is in a frenzy, there's no telling how quickly he'll fall apart or how many more victims he'll take with him,” Derek says.

“So, we're going to go over anything we know—old and new—and hopefully we find him before we find another body.”

“We'll start with agent Ryan's original profile. Max, you want to present it?” Gideon asks.

“No.”

Max leaves the room, and Hotch immediately steps into his place to get the ball rolling. Gideon follows his old friend to see what exactly is crammed up his ass. You know, but he has to admit it if he wants to get any better.

“We're looking for a white male in his late 40's. The controlled crime scenes, the meticulousness, and the collection of trophies suggest a possible military background. We believe he’s been living in the same geographical area for his entire adult life.”

Max’s old profile wasn’t long to begin with, so you’re done earlier than you thought. Spencer immediately heads over to his bag, and you rush over to JJ to pretend like you never put the note in his bag to begin with.

“What’s going on?” she whispers.

“Just pretend like we’re discussing a file,” you rush to get out.

You peek over the file and see Spencer reading your note. JJ snickers when she sees this, but you shush her instantly. He looks up and around the office, but you’re quick to look back down at the file.

“You’re unbelievable,” she giggles.

“This is fun,” you whisper.

Spencer has no clue who is leaving these notes for him, but he knows it’s someone from Quantico. He got a note on his desk back in the office, and it followed him all the way over here. So, he knows it has to either be you, JJ, or Penelope. However, someone could be leaving them for someone else, then that puts him back at square one. He likes getting these notes and feeling this way when he reads them, but he really wants to know who is writing them. He doesn’t recognize the handwriting, so he can’t determine it by that. He could use a fingerprint kit to see who exactly is handling these notes, but that is a little extreme in this case. There’s something about being anonymous that gets his heart pumping because it could be literally anyone.

He wants to think more about it, but he has a case to work on. He pockets the note and heads into the conference room where the rest of the team is. There are a bunch of boards with notes and puzzles and evidence that he has to somehow go through and make sense of. You and JJ follow him into the room and get down to business.

Spencer is already at the white board with a marker in his hand while he tries to analyze the new word search, but your eyes are drawn to the way he is holding the marker. Is it weird to think that’s cute? Get it together, Y/N.

“Alright, let's focus on the differences in the crimes. What's he doing that's new?” Hotch asks the group.

“Well, his latest victim was hit in the head. That's new,” you point out.

“In the word puzzle, he said she didn't fight. So, why hit her? Scare her? Show her he's in charge?”

“Well, he never did that before, and a blow that hard wouldn't scare her but probably just knock her unconscious.”

“In order to control her?” Hotch asks.

“Why switch from ropes to flex-cuffs? The intricate knot was a part of his signature.”

“Flex-cuffs are easier. It probably saved him time.”

“No no no, there's more than that. The rope was meticulously tied, intimate, and completely unnecessary,” Gideon sighs.

“Plus, he abandoned the rope and the use of his bare hands which makes his kills less personal and less controlling,” Elle points out.

“Okay. Seriously, guys, let's just abandon all this. Let's just treat him like he's a new offender,” Derek suggests.

“He isn’t,” Gideon sighs.

“Guys, I have a name,” Spencer interrupts. “Nibrahs. That's a name? From what country?”

“That’s backwards, Spence. S. Harbin. There was a Scott Harbin particulate on Max’s original suspect list,” you say.

“It's not Scott Harbin. Harbin went to jail in 1988 for stabbing a guy while he was trying to escape during a home invasion. The guy later died. Harbin didn't even know there was anyone at home at the time he broke in,” Max shakes his head.

“How long did he get?” Derek wonders.

“Thirty years.”

“So, it makes him a little more than a half way done unless he's been paroled.”

“No. No, it's too easy. I interviewed Harbin, twice. He's a pervert. He's a small time burglar with a fetish for lingerie. I mean he's a creep, but he is not the Keystone Killer. Believe me. Our guy has not been in jail for all these years,” Max refuses to believe it.

“Alright, I'm going to call Garica. See what she can dig up on this guy,” Derek says.

“He’s not the guy!” Max screams and slams his fist against the table.

Everyone stares at him in complete shock, and he just scoffs as he leaves the room. You know he is frustrated, but he doesn’t have to take it out on everyone else.

“Jason, what are we doing here?” Hotch asks after a few moments in silence.

“What do you mean?”

“Is Max interested in catching the Keystone Killer, or just proving he’s right?” you ask for Hotch.

Gideon doesn’t say anything as he gets up and leaves to talk to Max, meanwhile, Derek is already on the phone with Penelope. He puts her on speakerphone so everyone can hear what she has to say.

“Scott Harbin was paroled three months ago.”

“Oh yeah? To Philly?” Derek asks.

“Yeah... looks like it. Hey, guess what. Bad boy missed his last appointment with his parole officer,” she chuckles.

“Well, that right there makes him a wanted man, doesn't it?”

“Uh-huh uh-huh, and I have an address on him.”

“You are amazing.”

“You have no idea,” she flirts back.

wanna be tagged? add yourself to this document! if your tag doesn’t work, find out why!

@averyhotchner @lets-be-gay-for-the-angel @fan-girl-97 @inkstainedwritergirl @estrela-rogers @abitchforjay @kwbaby24 @redsalv20 @joonie-centric @spencerreid-mgg @sixpencespencee @boygenius-reid @reidemandweep @prophecyflame @happynekochan1 @babydee17

#unfinished business #series rewrite #criminal minds series rewrite #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fic #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #cm #cm fanfiction #season 1 episode 15 #s1e15

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ggukcangetit · 4 years ago

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Dreamcatchers 6

Pairing: jungkook x oc

Summary: DI Jeon didn’t need a new partner. Unfortunately, his superiors felt otherwise; especially considering the extremely high-profile murder that had just taken place in the port city. Recent transfer, DI Choi Yuri finds herself confronted with a new cityscape, unfamiliar people, a hostile partner, and a homicide that is certain to bring back unpleasant memories.

Genre/AU: fluff/action/mystery | detective! au | police!jungkook, police!oc

Word Count: 5.2k

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: mentions of violence, alcohol, blood, drugs, death. basically stuff you’d associate with a murder mystery/crime drama.

Chapters 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

A/N: it’s been a while since i posted and even longer since i updated this fic but its still here and so am i! lol. updates are not gonna be very frequent but i have a list of works in progress that i plan to finish so there will be something or the other being posted at the most random moments.

also, reminding everyone that this story features a named oc because i’m still very unfamiliar with writing second person reader inserts. i’m not aiming for strict accuracy in this story, and all criminal investigation/forensics knowledge i have has been gathered by watching crime drama/procedural dramas! my knowledge of geography is also not totally accurate so apologies for that. once again, one thing right by @hobios prompted me to write a police inspector! jungkook story. would highly recommend reading that because it’s probably one of my most favorite pieces of writing!

21st December

"Is this how you conduct a sample analysis?! Where did you even train? I've half a mind to report you and get you kicked out!!"

Yuri stopped at her desk, surprised to hear Seulgi's yelling so loudly that she could be heard all the way from the floor above. She was usually extremely calm and even-tempered, but the past couple of days had seen her irritable, snappy, and downright furious.

"Dr. Ahn sounds really angry," whispered Jisoo, clutching a file close to her chest. "I've never heard her yell at anybody before. I hope she's okay."

"I'm sure everything's fine," said Jeon, walking over to his desk and dropping a bunch of files on it. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Yuri raised an eyebrow at him, but complied nonetheless. They walked outside, standing near a clump of trees outside of earshot of anyone in the station.

"Guess who I've just brought in on suspicion of murder for the 2nd Nov case?" he asked, lowering his voice.

"No!" gasped Yuri. "Minhyuk?"

"Yep. He's been in the country for a while now. Fancy giving me a hand with the interview?"

"Me? I mean," she bit her lip. "I wasn't part of the original investigation."

"I know, but in light of what you've found out and the fact that you're now my partner, Goh thinks it's okay."

"You told Goh?!"

"I had to. I can't restart the investigation without his permission."

Jeon stared at her for a few moments, trying to gauge her reaction. "So, what do you say?"

"Alright. Let's nail this bastard."

Ahreum was late. She had a meeting with one of her professors to decide on which medical stream she'd specialize in. Despite using forensics as an excuse to distract Seulgi, she was seriously considering it now. Deciding to pursue medicine had been a drastic career switch for Ahreum, and a lot of people had questioned her decision relentlessly. But if there was something she had learnt in the years following her parents' divorce, it was patience and the ability to block out irrelevant conversations. Namjoon had always been immersed in his studies, barely affected by the bitterness existing between their parents. Ahreum, barely in high school, felt lost and helpless during those times. After the divorce, things had become less tumultuous and she was able to see her parents as individual entities. That was when she realized that her father was never going to like any of her decisions, no matter how hard she tried to please him, and her mother preferred to stay aloof at the best of times. Ahreum learnt pretty early in life, that she needed to be there for herself. She loved her brother and parents, though the latter a lot less than the former. Her decision to study English Literature and Creative Writing had been a spur of the moment one - dictated more by the fact that her high school boyfriend was going to study at a major Arts university. She didn't really regret any of her decisions. Her degree had led her to finding a hobby she adored - photography. And having a freelance job meant that she could stay with Namjoon - who earned a significantly larger amount than her - and move whenever he needed to move as well. This was also how she had met Taehyung 3 years ago - a happy coincidence of events when she had been taking pictures outside the museum at Seoul. They had started talking about art and photography, eventually realizing that they lived in the same part of the city. In addition to Yuri, she also considered Taehyung to be her best friend. She had seen him during one of his lowest moments when Seokjin had left home; and then some time later when he had found Seokjin living in the town Ahreum and Namjoon had recently shifted to, she had stayed by him as he grappled with his anger and frustration towards his older brother until an eventual reconciliation.

But at this moment, she was beginning to lose patience with him. Five minutes before she was about to leave for her meeting, she received a bunch of frantic texts from him.

8.25 am

T: ahreum?? are u up??

T: jimins still in custody

T: im so worried

8.26 am

T: u there?

T: i want to visit him...

T: will u come with me?

8.27 am

T: hey

T: ???

T: i didnt sleep much so i dont wanna drive there

8.28 am

T: are u sleeping?

T: ???

He knew she had a meeting today. He knew how important the meeting was for her. She had spoken about it many times. Not for the first time, Ahreum wondered whether Taehyung cared about her beyond what directly concerned him. If it wasn't somehow relevant to him, he never seemed to remember much. It was a careless apathy that had hurt her during the beginning of their friendship, but she had accepted it as a part of him.

Her meeting was at 9 am and she usually needed 20 minutes to get there on her bike. She closed her eyes and mentally rehearsed the points she was going to bring up during her meeting. Her phone pinged once more, breaking her concentration.

8.30 am

T: hey

T: can u pick me up?

She frowned and shot a quick text before pocketing her phone and strapping on her helmet.

A: sorry have a meeting... talk later

As Ahreum sped through the narrow lanes, she was convinced that there was no way she was going to talk to Taehyung today. He would have to manage on his own for once.

Yuri and Jeon sat across from a very nervous Park Minhyuk, his bloodshot eyes indicating that he had been brought in after a rough night.

"Good morning." Jeon began the interview, his notes stacked neatly in front of him. "You were very hard to get a hold of, Mr. Park. Specifically because your company categorically states that you've been out of the country for business."

"I-" His face was white as a sheet.

"When we called your office, we were told that you are often out of the country on business trips. Short trips," Jeon flipped through his notes. "A fortnight, 20 days at max. Your secretary was very obliging - he told us that you traveled on October 12th and returned on October 27th. Then left the country again on November 1st and returned on November 16th. Another trip between November 22nd and December 6th. And finally, one more on December 10th from which you still haven't returned."

"Your phone records are very interesting, Mr. Park," said Yuri, joining in. "I'm DI Choi, by the way, and I will be assisting DI Jeon as his partner on the case. Now -" she opened the file in front of her and took out a particular page - "is this your cell phone number?"

"Yes, but-"

"Our Telecomms division looked over recent activity over the last 3-4 months. While your office confirms that you have been on multiple trips out of the country from October onwards, your phone has been operating in Korea for almost two months. Can you tell us why?"

Minhyuk remained silent, his hands clenched on the table.

"Do you recognize this?" Yuri placed a plastic bag on the table and moved it towards him.

The remaining color drained from Minhyuk's face as he stared at the ring inside the plastic bag.

"Let me help you out, Mr. Park," she continued. "This is an heirloom from your mother's side of the family. There was three such rings - one buried with your mother, one on your brother's finger, and one found at the scene of Son Eunbi's murder. Can you tell us how your ring found its way to a murder scene?"

"I didn't kill her!" Minhyuk looked like he was going to pass out. Jeon poured some water into a glass and passed it to him.

"She was dead when I got there!" he said after gulping down the water. His hands were shaking by this point.

"If she was dead when you got there, why didn't you call the police?"

"I..."

Faced with a possible murder charge, Minhyuk looked frightened but not nearly as forthcoming with an alibi as one would have hoped.

"Mr. Park," Yuri spoke after a period of silence. "Did you know that Ms. Son had a three year old daughter named Gina?"

Minhyuk gulped, his eyes breaking contact with hers. He removed his hands from where they had been clenched on the table, choosing to hide them in his lap.

"Are you Gina's father?" she continued. Minhyuk head shot up at her question.

"H-how did-"

"When did you find out?" she asked.

Minhyuk sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I guess there's no point in denying it since you know everything." He reached out and finished the remaining water in the glass. "In October, after I came back from a trip, I happened to meet her by chance and Gina was with her. It was odd, the way that she tried to avoid talking to me. And the fact that Gina also had clear grey eyes."

For the first time since the interview started, Yuri realised the resemblance between the Park brothers was limited but striking. Their eyes were the exact same shade of grey - while Jimin looked cold and unwelcoming, Minhyuk's glasses did well to give him a warmer appearance.

"I asked her why she hadn't contacted me when she got pregnant. Or in the three years since Gina was born."

"What did she say?" asked Yuri, softly.

"She was scared that I wouldn't believe her." Tears had started to roll down his cheeks. "I loved her... so much. And then she just disappeared one day. I tried so hard to find her but..."

Jeon poured another glass of water for him.

"I told her how happy I was to hear about Gina. That I wanted us to be a proper family. I was willing to do whatever was necessary if that's what she wanted as well. I think she was beginning to warm up to the idea. I even told my father to postpone my next trip so that I could spend a little more time with both of them. But-"

"But?"

Minhyuk stared at his hands, looking tired and dejected. "He - uh, he wasn't happy when he heard about Gina. My father has very particular expectations."

"What did he say to you? Did he threaten you, Mr. Park?"

Minhyuk let out a soft chuckle. "My father doesn't threaten. He suggests."

"And what did he suggest you do about Gina and Eunbi?" asked Jeon.

"That I stay away from them. For the sake of my inheritance."

"And did you?"

"I was planning to... I-I was meant to travel the next day and I thought I would go and see her once more before I left. But when I got there..."

Minhyuk covered his face with his hands, taking deep breaths to try and calm himself.

"What happened when you got there, Mr. Park?"

"She was lying there... in a pool of blood. Gina was asleep in the back. I-I didn't kill her. You have to believe me."

Yuri and Jeon exchanged a quick look as Minhyuk protested his innocence. They were aware that the homeless man had killed Son Eunbi. The DNA found at the crime scene confirmed the fact that he had stabbed her. But they needed Minhyuk to give them as much information as possible.

"I'm afraid we do not conduct our investigations based on belief, Mr. Park," continued Yuri, shuffling her notes meaningfully. "You still haven't provided us with an alibi for that night. Strange thing - the Park family seem to have a particular aversion towards providing alibis. Your brother was also extremely resistant when we spoke to him."

"You spoke to Jimin? What for?" Minhyuk's expression had changed completely. He looked strangely alert.

"I guess you aren't aware that Jimin was arrested for the murder of Kang Eunwoo on December 15th." Jeon spoke deliberately, hoping to elicit a reaction. And he was successful.

"What?! That's impossible! There's no way he could've done that!"

"Why are you so certain of that?"

"Because he was with me on December 15th!"

"I'm sorry but we can't take you at your word. You can't even provide a proper alibi for yourself on the night of Son Eunbi's murder. How can we be sure that the two of you aren't just covering up for each other?"

It was then that Minhyuk realised that he would need to come clean. There was no way to save Jimin without telling them the entire story.

"Fine," he sighed. "I'll tell you everything."

"Everything?"

"Yes. If it can help Jimin, I'm willing to risk my father finding out."

Yuri glanced at Jeon who gave her an almost imperceptible nod.

"Go on."

"After I saw Eunbi... lying there, I couldn't leave Gina. No matter what my father had said, I couldn't leave my daughter in such a situation. So I... took her away with me."

"Where is Gina now, Mr. Park?" Yuri asked, frowning.

"She's safe."

"Where is she?" asked Jeon, sharply.

"In Busan. I have an apartment there and she's been with me since that day."

"Why didn't you tell the police that you had her? Why does your company believe that you are abroad on a business trip?"

Minhyuk rubbed his eyes tiredly and drank some more water. "I couldn't let my father find out. Jimin and I have an apartment in Busan that we bought under a different name. It was a place our father couldn't find us. Gina's been staying there with me since 2nd November."

"Are you sure your father thinks you're abroad? It doesn't seem like something easy to cover up."

"Jimin helped with that," said Minhyuk, leaning back into the cold metal chair. "He told father that I had run away because he hadn't been understanding of my situation with Gina and Eunbi. Jimin's good at convincing people - it's a talent he's barely ever put to good use."

"So Jimin knew that you were hiding in a secret apartment with your recently discovered daughter?"

"Yes, he did. I have an alibi for 2nd November. I was in a meeting till 9 pm and then stopped for drinks at a nearby fried chicken place till 11 pm. I was a bit tipsy after that, which is why I decided to visit Eunbi and Gina. After taking Gina away from there, I went to Jimin's place, got the keys to the apartment and drove straight there. I think I reached around 2 am."

Yuri jotted down all this information, making a note to check on every new detail that had been mentioned.

"What about December 15th? You said Jimin was with you. Why?" asked Jeon, folding his arms across his chest.

"We meet once a week to make sure everything is going okay," said Minhyuk, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Sundays are usually the best days for that."

"Where did you meet?"

"At the local ice-cream shop," Minhyuk frowned, trying to remember something. "You know the one near the end of town?"

"The Dairy Berry? Yes, I know which one you're talking about." Jeon gave Yuri a brief nod to confirm that this was a legitimate spot and not something Minhyuk was making up on the spot.

"Gina loves sweet things and I thought it would be easier to take her with me the same day I met Jimin. I think we were there till 10 pm. After that, I dropped Jimin at a bar and drove back home."

"Which bar was this?" asked Yuri.

"Sunset."

"And you drove straight home after that?"

"You can check the dash cam on my car and the security tapes at my apartment building, if you want."

"We definitely will, Mr. Park," said Jeon, surveying him carefully. "In the meantime, you will be in custody until we have verified each and every single thing you just told us. So I suggest you keep yourself hydrated."

Yuri could feel a pair of eyes on her as she spoke to Jisoo and Suho.

"We need to verify everything that Park Minhyuk told us. But there's a lot of ground to cover and we've lost quite a bit of time since the murder of Son Eunbi. So I suggest you recruit some uniformed officers as well." Jisoo jotted down the locations and the times they needed to verify, and nodded to Suho to indicate she had forwarded the details to him. "We need to get the information as soon as possible."

"Will do," said Suho, giving her a reassuring nod.

Yuri waited for them to leave before walking over to the person who had been watching her for a while.

"Did you want to talk about something?" she asked Seulgi.

"I-" Seulgi tugged at her sleek, high ponytail, looking oddly hesitant. She seemed in a better mood than earlier in the morning when she had almost scared one of the interns into leaving the country. "Do you have a minute?"

"Yeah- " Yuri checked the clock on her phone - "just a minute though. I'm waiting for Jeon to get a warrant from Goh."

"Did he-? I mean, Jimin, uh... have you...? You know-" It was strange to see her grappling for words. "Are you certain he's done it?"

Yuri stared at her for a second. This wasn't what she had been expecting Seulgi to talk about. The doctor's relationship with Jimin was even more puzzling than she had originally perceived it.

"We're looking into it right now." She paused, trying to gauge Seulgi's reaction. "But you already know about the blood sample match - that, in itself, is pretty damaging."

"Y-yeah, I know."

Before Yuri could say anything more, Jeon came out of the Chief Inspector's office. "We've got a warrant to search Minhyuk's apartment. Let's go."

Glancing one more time at Seulgi's ashen face, Yuri put on her coat and scarf and followed Jeon out the exit.

Once inside Jeon's car, Yuri debated whether or not she should attempt to engage him in conversation. Her decision was made for her when he drove onto the main road, and lowered the volume of the police scanner.

"What was Seulgi saying?" he asked, his eyes focused on the road.

"Just where we were in the investigation."

"I see."

Yuri fiddled with the button on her coat, itching to say more.

"What's the deal with her and Jimin?" she finally asked.

"I- what do you mean?" Jeon raised his eyebrow and gave her the most puzzled expression he could muster while trying to stay focused on the crazy traffic.

"Their relationship is... weird. He keeps flirting with her, and she is on the verge of ripping his guts out at every given moment. But just now, she seemed almost worried about him."

"I don't really know... they've never really seen eye-to-eye on much." Jeon checked the rear view mirror to make sure he was clear before deftly changing lanes. "Jimin has always been the person who tries his utmost to push everyone's buttons. And Seulgi... well, she has a lot of buttons."

Yuri snorted loudly. "That tells me nothing and everything at the same time. You really have a way with words, Jeon."

He smirked at this, his eyes never leaving the road. "So does that mean you trust me now?"

"No." She looked at him and caught the way his face fell slightly at her response. "But who knows what the future holds..."

The smirk was back.

Ahreum had a terrible headache. She usually didn't get many headaches. So on the rare occasion that she did, it put her in a really terrible mood. The only person who knew how to handle this situation properly was Namjoon. He knew that she needed silence, dim lighting, green tea, fresh bread, and absolutely no unexpected company.

So when Ahreum got home after her grueling 3 hour long meeting, hoping to relax and recuperate, she wasn't too pleased to find Taehyung sitting in her living room, playing a very loud game on his tablet.

"You're back!" he yelled, once she slammed the door to make her presence felt. "I've been waiting for hours. How was your meeting?"

"'S okay," she replied, shortly. Taking off her coat, she opened the middle cabinet in the kitchen and searched for the green tea.

"Great! So do you wanna go and visit Jimin now?"

"No."

"What? Why not? You don't have anything else to do right now. Just come with me. Please!" He had walked into the kitchen and was standing in front of her with a pout on his lips.

As endearing as she always found his antics, Ahreum was at breaking point. She placed the cup on the counter with a loud clink, and turned to face him.

"Because I don't have time to follow you on your every whim, Taehyung. Because I have a life of my own. Because I am studying medicine, which, if you aren't aware, is a very taxing occupation." She paused for a breath, as his mouth fell open in shock. "Because I am not your babysitter. Or your handler. Or your caretaker. And I'm tired of being responsible for you. You're a grown ass adult and it's about time you acted like one."

"Ahreum, I'm-" His eyes were wide and worried, and she felt a tiny sliver of remorse. "I don't think you're my babysitter or handler or whatever. You're my best friend."

"I thought so too. In fact," she said, looking away from him. "I thought we were, or we could be, more."

"W-what? Ahreum?" Taehyung sounded so lost and confused that she was tempted to console him.

She walked to the front door and held it open for him. "I think you should leave now. I'm tired, I have a headache, and I don't want to be around anyone right now."

"Wait! What did you mean by that?" he asked, hesitantly standing at the entrance.

"I'm tired, Taehyung. I don't have the energy to explain everything to you. Now, please," she began closing the door slowly. "I want to rest."

"It's clear!" The uniformed officer confirmed to them, before opening the door further.

"Okay, let's see whether little Gina is here," instructed Jeon, his face drawn into a frown.

Yuri nodded and walked into the room on the left of the large living area. It was a study of sorts, with a large wooden desk, a swiveling chair, and shelves upon shelves of books. She quickly checked to see if there was anyone in the room before shouting "clear!". There was another door connecting to a smaller room, it's walls bathed in bright sunlight and smelling of soft lavender. This was clearly some sort of guest room, judging by the inconsistent decor theme. The furniture looked sleek and modern, but the sheets on the bed were soft and pastel colored. A bunch of soft toys stood leaning against the flat screen tv, and Yuri realised that this was probably the room that had been hastily fixed up for a small child's unexpected stay. And sure enough, soft strands of brown hair peaked through the large covers on the bed.

She walked over to the bed slowly, not wanting to startle the child. Yuri barely managed to stifle a gasp as she looked into the child's clear grey eyes - the same color as both Park Minhyuk and Park Jimin.

"Hello," she said, softly. "Are you Gina?"

The little girl nodded, bringing the covers closer towards her.

"I'm a police officer. I help catch bad people." She didn't respond, staring at her with wide eyes.

"Do you want to go to your dad, Gina?" She nodded vigorously, sitting up at the mention of her father. "Okay, we will. But first, tell me, are you okay? Do you feel pain anywhere?"

The little girl shook her head.

"Are you sleepy?"

Again, she shook her head.

"Are you hungry?"

Slowly, she nodded her head.

"Okay, we'll go and see your dad, and also get you something to eat. Is that okay with you?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful."

It was just after 2 pm and Yuri felt completely drained. After they had found Gina, she had insisted on returning to the station to ask Jimin about his alibi for the night of Kang Eunwoo's murder. From what she had understood, he had refused to provide an alibi to protect his brother and keep him out of the police's radar until the situation with Gina worked out. Even though she still couldn't get herself to consider him a pleasant person, his desire to protect his brother had humanized him a great deal in her eyes.

Sure enough, once he was made aware that Minhyuk had come forward and spoken about his daughter and the events of the past month and a half, Jimin looked much less hostile than before.

"I was at Sunset from around 10.30 pm to closing time - which is 2 am," he said, sighing tiredly and rubbing his face with his hands. "You can confirm with them."

While Minhyuk and Jimin's alibis were verified, Yuri received a text from Namjoon, asking her and Jeon to meet him at Seokjin's bakery. It was barely a 2 minute drive there, so Jeon suggested they get lunch over there and make it before Goh finished compiling the list of paperwork for them to finish.

The smell of freshly baked milk bread wafted out of the kitchen, adding another layer of warmth to Seokjin's cozy shop. The man in question picked up the large tray filled with various different confections, and brought it over to the table by the window.

"Peach danish and americano for Namjoon, chocolate fudge brownie and vanilla bean ice cream for Jeongguk, and a snow croissant and hot chocolate for Yuri." He placed everything on the table, before grabbing his lukewarm cup of tea and sitting down with them.

"So you finally find the child, then?" asked Seokjin, sipping the tea. He made a face at the odd taste that tea acquires when it's between comfortingly steamy and soothingly chilled.

"Yeah we did," Yuri replied, when her partner remained silent. "Goh is dealing with Minhyuk and the custody charges. It's no longer in our jurisdiction."

"Namjoon, how's grad school treating you?" Seokjin diverted the conversation, realising that his friend wasn't ready to talk about the case at that moment. "How much longer do you have?"

"A few more months and I should be done." Namjoon wiped the pastry flakes from the corner of his mouth and nearly tipped over his americano in the process. Yuri chuckled at this, suddenly remembering those random moments in high school where Namjoon was a lot thinner and less confident, but still had a propensity for knocking things over.

"Remind me why you're putting yourself through this?" Seokjin broke off a piece of the peach danish and popped it into his mouth.

"The last time I tried to explain that, you spaced out and created a new pastry recipe for your menu. As much as I like helping your business flourish, I'm gonna preserve my energy and only talk about things when necessary."

Seokjin chuckled and picked up a spoon from the dispenser. "Jeongguk, can I get a bit of ice cream from you?" There was no response, and looking at him for confirmation Seokjin's eyebrows shot up in alarm.

"Okay okay, I won't eat any of your ice cream. You don't have to tear up about it!"

Yuri and Namjoon turned towards him as well, not sure what to do when they saw tears slowly sliding down Jeongguk's cheeks.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?" asked Namjoon, patting his shoulder softly.

They sat in silence, as Jeongguk sobbed softly and wiped his face with his coat sleeve. He turned towards Yuri, his eyes glazed with tears but holding a soft radiance unlike what she was used to.

"Thank you."

Yuri felt her face heat up suddenly. This wasn't what she had been expecting. The soft sincerity in his voice startled her. It was nothing like the person she had met only a week ago. She looked away abruptly and nodded her head.

"There's nothing to thank me for. This is our job."

Jeongguk smiled and resumed eating the disgustingly sweet dessert combination in front of him. He nudged Seokjin to take some ice cream like he had originally intended. There was silence once more, but this time, it was very different.

Back at the station, Yuri finished the paperwork for the day. There was a lot to complete, and since they had stopped at Seokjin's for a break, they had lost some time as well. Goh had been very clear about completing all the paperwork for social services to take over the case from them now that Gina had been found.

It was barely even 5 pm but Yuri felt a large yawn coming on for the third time in the past few minutes. She wasn't sure how long she would be able to carry on without getting proper sleep at night. At this rate, she would eventually burn out. There was only so much coffee could do for her.

A light tap brought her attention to another person standing in her cubicle. She looked up to see Jeon holding two steaming cups of ramen, tilting his head slightly to confirm whether it was okay for him to sit down.

"Did you need anything?" she asked, after moving her slightly. He placed the ramen on her desk and pulled up his own chair and sat down.

"I've got a peace offering," he gestured to the ramen. "I wanted to apologize properly for being an absolute dickhead to you. I-" He hesitated, looking down at his hands that lay clenched on his lap - "I don't really have an excuse for my behavior but I had a lot on my mind. Particularly about finding the little girl. And, well... you really don't know what solving this case means to me."

Once again, Yuri wasn't sure how to react. She felt embarrassed that he was thanking her for doing her job - something that he did as well. While she appreciated his apology, his entire being remained confusing to her.

"Don't worry about it," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "And thanks for the ramen; food is always appreciated."

Thankfully, her computer ping-ed with a new email before the atmosphere could get any more awkward.

"Okay, we've confirmed Minhyuk's alibi's for 2nd November and 15th December. He wasn't involved in either murder. Jimin was with Minhyuk till 10.15 pm on 15th December - his car's dash cam confirms that he dropped Jimin off at Sunset bar around that time."

"Fantastic! And what about the CCTV footage at Sunset? Does it confirm Jimin's story? He said he was there till 2 am."

"Hang on, I'm opening the report. Th-" she stopped abruptly, frowning at the screen.

"What?" asked Jeon, looking over her shoulder to read the email.

"CCTV footage does not place Jimin at Sunset from 10.15 pm till closing time at 2 in the morning. He doesn't have an alibi for Eunwoo's murder."

She turned to look at him, an odd sense of foreboding hitting her as she realized that they would have to charge Jimin for murder by the next evening. He held her gaze, his dark eyes reflecting a similar shadow of doubt.

please reblog and leave a comment if you liked this part! thank you! 😊

#bts fic #jungkook fic #jungkook x oc #jungkook fluff #taehyung #seokjin #namjoon #yoongi #hoseok #bts fluff #bts bookclub #btswritingcafe #bangtanhq #magicshopnet

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sapphiretsuki · 5 years ago

Text

Road Trip Gone Right? <M>

Keeping my promise to myself here and writing. I am a heathen and start with a goal of like 1.5k max, but somehow I end at 4k. I’ll keep trying. T_T Also, in line with my self challenge I am again writing for a fandom outside my comfort zone. Loosely edited because its 1am and I’m tired :] @channiesmixtape Thank you again for your undying support, ilysm <3

Pairing: Felix x Y/N

Warnings: Uhhhhh, smut, oral, voice kink if you squint, nothing major really. Condoms. (safe sex is good sex too)

cr. to google for the lovely pic

It was the dreaded season of traveling and for whatever reason your school had decided that they weren't going to allow anyone to stay on campus over break. It was your tradition to bask in the quiet whilst all the other students went home and to friends and on trips, but not this year apparently. As if the universe were conspiring against you, your mother had also decided this was going to be the year that all the family, including by extension your best friends family, were all going to gather and celebrate the new year. Whatever. Why people wanted to celebrate that time was passing as it always did was beyond you, but that's how you found yourself in the front seat of your longtime friends car. Felix seemed just as dejected as you about the long drive and the mandatory mingling that was going to occur.

You and Felix had been quite the pair for as long as you could remember. You were about 7 when you met and you had saved him from some punk on the playground who thought being a little shithead was the way to be impressive. You kicked the little fucker in the shin and before you could follow through with a punch he was frantically scooting to run away. When you turned to check on what you thought was an adorable little girl you were met with a starry eyed Felix and he'd been your sidekick from that moment on. As fate would have it, he ended up being your next door neighbor. Gazing at his profile now while he was driving it struck you that at some point he'd grown to be quite masculine and incredibly striking. He always had been beautiful to you, but these days there was something more and you just couldn't put your finger on what it was.

Shaking yourself out of your thoughts, you reached out to turn on the radio. Maybe music would help whatever this feeling was. It was probably just anxiety over the long drive and the anticipation of being subjected to people you didn't get along with very well. You were unique and not quite the cookie cutter image of perfection that the rest of your cousins were and they never wasted an opportunity to let you know. As if sensing your thoughts, Felix's deep voice broke through the thoughts again, "Penny for your thoughts?" he asked. "Huh? Oh. It's nothing really. Just thinking about the cousins and wondering what brand of hell they'll try to subject me to. I haven't seen them since I started college you know."

His laughter rang out through the car and made you feel a bit better. "I'm sure that no matter what they try, you're still far smarter than them and a hell of a lot stronger too. Try not to worry Cheeks." At the mention of your special nickname you couldn't help but smile. A bit precocious growing up, and definitely the most vocal of the children, you'd earned the title of cheeky which had in turn affectionately turned into the nickname Cheeks. As much as you were dreading this visit, it made you feel infinitely better that Felix was going too. Not that he had any choice either. Just as you had become fast friends at a young age, your families had become some sort of hybrid family through strong friendship.

You must have finally relaxed enough to fall asleep at some point because you awoke with a bolt. There was a loud bang and Felix slammed on the breaks. "Shit, what the hell was that?" He put the car in park and turned the hazards on before turning to you and telling you to stay put. He pulled out his cellphone and turned on the flashlight before stepping out of the car. You anxiously watched him walk around the car and disappear as he squatted down. You were praying he hadn't hit some woodland creature because from the looks of it you were in the middle of nowhere and that was a very real possibility. You jumped as he tapped on your window. "Can you pop the trunk for me? We appear to have a flat." You nodded and unbuckled your belt and climbed over to the drivers side to hit the latch for the trunk. As you sunk back into your seat you could hear him digging around in the trunk. A flat wasn't so bad. Sure it wasn't ideal, but at least there would be no dead animals or screwed up undercarriages right?

Just as you were coming to terms with a small hiccup in the journey you heard another bang followed by a few expletives that made you quirk an eyebrow. That was unlike Felix. You were the one with the foul language problem. If he was cursing something must be terribly wrong. Curiosity getting the better of you, you snatched the keys out of the ignition and stepped out from the vehicle. "Whats going on short stack?" you called out as you approached the visibly frustrated man. "The spare has a crack in it. My roadside assistance doesn't have anyone that can help. They'll reimburse me, but we're going to have to call a tow and probably find somewhere to spend the night since I'm sure there isn't a garage open at this hour." Well shit. This was going to be a pain in the ass. "Okay, which part do you want me to start looking up? How about you figure out the tow situation and I'll see if theres a motel or something. Where are we even anyway?" you asked trying to laugh at the circumstance you found yourself in.

Two hours and a ride on the struggle bus with cellular service later you found yourselves in the lobby of a motel that made you feel like the star of a horror film. You were in some backwood town with a population of almost no one and there were nothing but trees for days. The receptionist or owner or whoever she was seemed friendly enough, but she also reminded you of a walking corpse. Her bony hand deposited a key into your palm and with a toothless grin she rasped out your room number. You thanked her and went to collect Felix and your bags and hightail it to somewhere with a lock on the door. This whole evening had made you feel uncomfortable and all you wanted was to sleep so morning could come and you could be back on your way. Funny that there was something that made you feel worse than spending time at home, but here you were.

Juggling your bag and the room key you were having trouble making the key go into the lock. A warm hand stopped yours from shaking and suddenly closer than you remembered him being, Felix silently took the key from you and ran his fingers over the back of your hand before inserting the key into the lock and opening the door. He gestured for you to go in first and continued to hold the door open as you pulled yourself together and stepped into the room. Feeling around on the wall you found the switch and flipped it. As the light flickered on, yes flickered, because your life obviously needed to resemble a horror movie down to the last detail you let out a groan as you looked around. There was only one bed. It was rather small also. You weren't sure it even qualified to be called a full. There was absolutely no way that you were going to have either one of you taking the floor though. You'd definitely indicated two beds at the desk, but something told you this wasn't a problem with a solution. The place was so ancient they still used key locks, and the lady downstairs looked like she came from 1900 directly. You turned to Felix as he was dragging your suitcases in to break the news to him.

"Looks like we're going to be revisiting our childhood tonight shorty. Theres only one bed and like hell either one of us is sleeping on the floor." His head snapped up from what he was doing to shoot you an incredulous look. "Y/n, I'm far from short anymore compared to you and that," he says pointing in the direction of the bed, "is not a bed. That's fit for a large child at best." You wondered what had him so obviously upset, but you chalked it up to the frustration of the situations that seemed to keep arising. "Felix, believe me, I realize this is less than ideal, but it's what we've got. We both have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, you especially, so we're just gonna have to suck it up and do what we gotta." You said placing a hand on your hip and turning your other palm up towards the ceiling in a gesture of both sass and nonchalance. "I'll see if theres a pizza joint or something in this town, why don't you go take a shower first? It'll help take some of the tension off." He nodded and went towards the bathroom while you dove into trying to get a signal to see if you could figure out food.

Miraculously after the fight of the century with your service you were able to locate pizza. Even better was that they delivered. Downside of the size of the town you were in was that the person on the other end of the phone knew exactly who you were, and described you as 'that poor stranded couple'. Well whatever, food was becoming more necessary by the minute since you'd relaxed a marginal amount and your stomach felt like it would eat itself. You were giddy with excitement and digging through your purse for some cash when Felix reappeared. You didn't notice him at first but when you looked up and there he was in nothing but a pair of low slung sweats with a towel hanging around his neck you let out an audible gulp. He quirked an eyebrow at you, but before he could question what your problem was, you snatched up some clothes and stuffed some money in his hand. "I'm amazing and pizza should be here any minute. I'm gonna go shower now. You don't have to wait for me to eat." You said to him as you brushed past and quickly made your way into the safety of the bathroom.

Once you shut the door, you placed a hand on your chest to calm the beating of your heart. What was wrong with you today? Sure it had been a while since you'd seen Felix shirtless. And wet. But it had never affected you like this before ever. It was like you were discovering that he wasn't the person you'd known most of your life. Just when had he gotten so toned? His lithe body was beautiful and always had been, but when had it also been appropriate to describe him as manly? Stepping into the scalding spray of the shower you prayed that you were just hungry and tired and it was making you crazy. Washing with a speed you normally reserved for things you disliked, you scrubbed away the filth of the day. Wrapping a towel around yourself you rubbed some of the fog off the mirror and after toweling your hair out as much as you could, ran a brush through it. You rubbed your skin vigorously and put on your tank top and realized you'd forgotten your panties. Laughing at the luck you'd had today you just shook your head and pulled on your pajama pants.

When you returned to the room the soft light and sounds of the TV accompanied Felix and his pizza. Belatedly you realized there wasn't likely to have been any sort of plates or anything to use and cursed yourself for not asking. Oh well, things still could have been far worse today so you were gonna stuff your face and call it a night before the bad luck that seemed to be following you around could claim any more of your energy. You plopped unceremoniously on to the bed next to Felix and snatched up a piece of pizza. As you took a bite you let out a moan at how delicious it was. "Really y/n, sometimes I think you'd be happiest with food in your hands at all times." Felix said, chest rumbling with laughter. Your face suddenly felt like it was on fire and you were oddly embarrassed even though this exact scenario had played out many times before. "I just love food and am hungry enough to eat a cow right now short stuff." You huffed out indignantly. Still slightly laughing Felix reassured you that it was fine and he was only making an observation. You felt jittery and nervous still even though you'd checked off all the things you thought were the culprits so you decided to initiate bedtime.

"I think we should get some sleep, we have a lot to do tomorrow and we still have a lot of miles to cover." Felix seemed to mull over your statement before he nodded his agreement. He began to box up the remainder of the pizza and you went to brush your teeth. Making your way back to the room you heard Felix's phone chime and picked it up from the dresser it was sitting on to hand it to him. You weren't being nosy but you saw a name that made your blood boil a little bit. It was one of your catty cousins and now you were wondering what the fuck he was doing talking to her of all people. Unable to help yourself you spat out at him, "What are you doing talking to her?" As soon as the words were out you couldn't believe yourself and your hand flew up to cover your mouth in embarrassment. "You know what, I'm tired, never mind, disregard my craziness, I'm just gonna lay down. "As he stared at you with wide eyes, he responded anyway. "They occasionally text me trying to snoop I think. I just stored the name so I'd know to ignore because I made the mistake of answering a message once before." Well now you were feeling a whole lot more awkward. Deciding that there was safety in silence you simply nodded and laid down in the bed.

Getting under the covers you scooted as far to the side as you could. You weren't sure how you were going to handle being that close to Felix's shirtless body with the maelstrom going on inside your head but you were just going to have to try. Sliding under the covers and in turn being closer to you than you thought was explicitly necessary he pulled the blanket up over you both and whispered to you, "Good night Cheeks." His deep voice laced with a tired rasp sent a shiver down your spine and it hit you then like a bolt of lightning. Holy shit, you were in love with your best friend. Your best friend turned you on. Holy shit, what the fuck. Sleep was probably going to be a problem with your heart hammering away in your chest. Staying as still as you could so as to not draw attention to yourself you mentally went over all the signs trying to figure out when the hell this had happened. You thought Felix was asleep and you turned to look at him. His breathing had evened out and his plush lips were slightly parted. The moonlight coming through the window cast a soft light and made the smattering of freckles on his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose look exceptionally gorgeous.

With his eyes still closed he shocked you when he began to speak. It was as if he could sense your restlessness even though you weren't moving at all. "I can feel your eyes y/n," he drawled and you went rigid. "Not to make things weird, or weirder, but I thought about you when I came last night." Now it was your turn to give the wide eyed stare. He cracked one eye and looked at you and slowly started to grin. "Y-you did?" you squeaked out. He turned to face you and it's not like you had anywhere to run, the bed was so tiny. You were close enough to feel his breath ghost over your face as he continued, "I thought I might have been imagining things but it seems you're just as affected by me Cheeks. You were calling me short stack still so I was a little unsure, but if you could have seen how hungry you looked earlier and I'm not talking about food." You should have known it was going to be a short lived secret but you were reeling that within such a short time of you realizing you had feelings and physical attraction he was calling you out on it. Felix had always known you better than you knew yourself sometimes.

What he didn't expect was that you wouldn't put up a fight about it. He was prepared to spell it out for your stubborn ass if need be, but you saved him the effort and planted your lips on his. You kissed him with all the hunger he described moments before and pulled away, chest heaving. "How long? How long have you known that we could have been doing this? How long have you been thinking about me when you cum?" You shoved him so he wasn't on his side anymore and climbed on top of him before he could do a thing about it. Looking at his face you were searching his eyes as if they held the answers. What you found instead was a look of lust so dark you couldn't do anything except seal your lips to his again. He didn't fight back and instead placed his hand on the back of your neck to turn your head slightly. He licked your bottom lip seeking entrance and you obliged. His plump lips felt so soft on yours and as his tongue swirled with yours you unintentionally found yourself grinding your hips into his as you let out a moan.

Felix also let out a groan at the friction and decided he'd had enough. He flipped you so your positions were switched and you found yourself again marveling at how manly was now how you'd describe him. Caged in between his arms he leaned down and nipped on your throat. Practically growling in your ear, his voice sent shivers down your spine. "I'll show you exactly what I was thinking about when I came if you want me to y/n." If you had been wearing underwear they would have been absolutely ruined. His voice was already one of your favorite sounds in the world, but right up in your ear making lewd suggestions had you feeling like you were coming unraveled. He placed open mouthed kisses along the column of your throat and reached to tug on your shirt. He pulled it up and helped you take it off only removing his mouth from your skin long enough to get it over your head. He continued down your chest and down to your hip where he hooked his fingers in the band of your pants. You lifted your hips so he could pull them down. "Well well, Cheeks, I never thought you'd go without panties, but that certainly makes things easier on me. He took a moment to appreciate your beauty and you found yourself feeling shy. He trailed a finger down your stomach and began to lightly tease your pussy until you were squirming with need. Just when you thought you couldn't take the teasing anymore he slid a finger into your slick folds and then into you.

"A-ah, Felix, more," you whined out. You were so turned on it was practically unbearable. He seemed pleased at your request and inserted another finger and started pumping in and out at a slow pace. He curled his fingers upward and began rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb as he picked up the pace. You began to feel the curling heat and tightening up in your stomach and knew you were going to cum. He could feel your walls clenching around his fingers as he brushed past your sweet spot with every pump. Just when you thought you were about to completely lose it he pulled out and immediately attached his lush lips to your clit and sucked on it. Your orgasm washed over you like a waterfall and he held your stuttering hips in place as he worked you through your high. Feeling like the personification of bliss you reached down and ran your fingers through his hair. He kissed his way back up your chest and you pulled his face to yours to taste him.

"We're not done just yet, y/n. I still haven't shown you everything I was thinking about when I came." You had just barely come down from your high but you felt as if you could cum all over again at his suggestion. He reached over to the nightstand and retrieved his wallet and pulled out a condom. As he went to tear the foil you placed a hand on his wrist, "Can I?" You asked. He allowed you to take the packet from him and he pulled off his sweats. As his cock sprang free you were absolutely stunned. He was so much bigger than you thought he'd be and now you were wondering where he hid that and how it was going to fit. You grabbed at his dick and gave it a squeeze before rolling the condom down his shaft. He moved to lay you back down and lined his cock up with your entrance. He slid the head through the slippery remnants of your earlier undoing and every time he brushed your clit you twitched with need. Finally, finally he started to slide his cock into your warmth. Slowly at first, giving you plenty of time to adjust, he inched inside until he was all the way in. Buried to the hilt he stilled so you could get used to his size and then began to pump in and out of you. You wrapped your arms around his neck and he began to pick up the pace.

He set a brutal pace and you gasped and panted. Your erotic voice was making him impossibly more turned on. As he thrust into you your cries of pleasure spurred him on. He shifted slightly and pulled your legs up so they were over his shoulders. The change in position allowed him to go deeper and with every pump he fully dragged across your g-spot and you felt the familiar ache starting to build again. He continued to thrust and reached out to rub one of your nipples. "Ahhh y/n. You look so beautiful. Look and the way your pussy just devours my cock. This is exactly, ah, what i was thinking about while I got myself off." His voice, and the pure filth coming out of his mouth were enough to send you over the edge. Your walls clamped and spasmed around him and you came on a cry of his name. "Ah F-Felix, fuck." His rhythm became sloppy as you rode out your high and soon he was spilling his release with a loud groan.

You were both sweaty, panting messes. As he began to soften up he slipped out of you and removed the condom. Tying it off he tossed it in the direction of the garbage can before returning to you and the bed. He wrapped you up in his arms and kissed you on the forehead. Before you could even get a word out his phone was chiming again. You gave him a look that said he should check it and so he grabbed it. It was your cousin again and you were struck with a brilliant idea. You knew it was probably partly them snooping like he thought, but there was also the knowledge that they were jealous of your relationship with Felix. "Lemme see your phone," you said with a smirk. He shrugged and handed it to you. You opened the camera and snapped a selfie of the two of you. Her message was some ‘what are you doing’ type thing so you sent the picture and then powered his phone off with a satisfied smile. He let out a little laugh at your antics and from your position with your head on his chest it was the best sound in the world.

Waking up much later than you intended, and certainly more sore, you reached to check the time on your phone. You were met with the family group chat notification count being astronomical, and also a notification from your favorite cousin. It read, 'I know that was you bitch'. With a smile you turned the phone towards Felix who was wondering what besides him had you so smiley this morning. You were rewarded with his eye smile and morning voice telling you, "You're something else Cheeks, but damn I love you."

#stray kids smut #lee felix smut #felix smut #skz smut #stray kids one shots #stray kids felix #lee felix #kpop smut #skz felix smut

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maximelebled · 4 years ago

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How I encode videos for YouTube and archival

Hello everyone! This post is going to describe the way in which I export and encode my video work to send it over the Internet and archive it. I’ll be talking about everything I’ve discovered over the past 10 years of research on the topic, and I’ll be mentioning some of the pitfalls to avoid falling into.

There’s a tremendous amount of misguided information out there, and while I’m not going to claim I know everything there is to know on this subject, I would like to think that I’ve spent long enough researching various issues to speak about my own little setup that I’ve got going on... it’s kind of elaborate and complex, but it works great for me.

(UPDATE 2020/12/09: added, corrected, & elaborated on a few things.)

First rule, the most golden of them all!

There should only ever be one compression step: the one YouTube does. In practice, there will be at least two, because you can’t send a mathematically-lossless file to YouTube... but you can send one that’s extremely close, and perceptually pristine.

The gist of it: none of your working files should be compressed if you can help it, and if they need to be, they should be as little as possible. (Because let’s face it, it’s pretty tricky to keep hours of game footage around in lossless form, let alone recording them as such in the first place.)

This means that any AVC files should be full (0-255) range, 4:4:4 YUV, if possible. If you use footage that’s recorded with, like, OBS, it’s theoretically possible to punch in a lossless mode for x264, and even a RGB mode, but last I checked, neither were compatible with Vegas Pro. You may have better luck with other video editors.

Make sure that the brightness levels and that the colors match what you should be seeing. This is something you should be doing at every single step of the way throughout your entire process. Always keep this in mind. Lagom.nl’s LCD calibration section has quite a few useful things you can use to make sure.

If you’re able to, set a GOP length / max keyframe range of 1 second in the encoder of your footage. Modern video codecs suck in video editors because they use all sorts of compression tricks which are great for video playback, but not so efficient with the ways video editors access and request video frames. (These formats are meant to be played forwards, and requesting frames in any other order, as NLEs do, has far-reaching implications that hurt performance.)

Setting the max keyframe range to 1 second will mildly hurt compressability of that working footage but it will greatly limit the performance impact you’ll be putting your video editor’s decoder through.

A working file is a lossless file!

I’ve been using utvideo as my lossless codec of choice. (Remember, codec means encoder/decoder.) It compresses much like FLAC or ZIP files do: losslessly. And not just perceptual losslessness, but a mathematical one: what comes in will be exactly what comes out, bit for bit.

Download it here: https://github.com/umezawatakeshi/utvideo/releases

It’s an AVI VFW codec. In this instance, VFW means Video for Windows, and it’s just the... sort of universal API that any Windows program can call for. And AVI is the container, just like how MP4 and MKV are containers. MP4 as a file is not a video format, it’s a container. MPEG-4 AVC (aka H.264) is the video format specification you’re thinking of when you say “MP4″.

Here’s a typical AVI VFW window, you might have seen one in the wild already.

In apps that expose this setting, you can hit “configure” and set the prediction mode of utvideo to “median” to get some more efficient compression at the cost of slower decoding, but in practice this isn’t a problem.

Things to watch out for:

Any and all apps involved must support OpenDML AVIs. The original AVI spec is 2GB max only. This fixes that limitation. That’s normal, but make sure your apps support that. The OpenDML spec is from the mid-90s, so usually it’s not a problem. But for example, the SFM doesn’t support it.

The files WILL be very large. But they won’t be as large as they’d be if you had a truly uncompressed AVI.

SSDs are recommended within the bounds of reasonability, especially NVMe ones. 1080p30 should be within reach of traditional HDDs though.

utvideo will naturally perform better on CGI content rather than real-life footage and I would not recommend it at all for real-life footage, especially since you’re gonna get that in already-compressed form anyway. Do not convert your camera’s AVC/HEVC files to utvideo, it’s pointless. (Unless you were to do it as a proxy but still, kinda weird)

If you’re feeling adventurous, try out the YUV modes! They work great for matte passes, since those are often just luma-masks, so you don’t care about chroma subsampling.

If you don’t care about utvideo or don’t want to do AVIs for whatever reason, you could go the way of image sequences, but you’ll then be getting the OS-level overhead that comes with having dozens of thousands of files being accessed, etc.

They’re a valid option though. (Just not an efficient one in most cases.)

Some of my working files aren’t lossless...

Unfortunately we don’t all have 10 TB of storage in our computers. If you’re using compressed files as a source, make sure they get decoded properly by your video editing software. Make sure the colors, contrast, etc. match what you see in your “ground truth” player of choice. Make sure your “ground truth” player of choice really does represent the ground truth. Check with other devices if you can. You want to cross-reference to make sure.

One common thing that a lot of software screws up is BT.601 & BT.709 mixups. (It’s reds becoming a bit more orange.)

Ultimately you want your compressed footage to appear cohesive with your RGB footage. It should not have different ranges, different colors, etc.

For reasons that I don’t fully understand myself, 99% of AVC/H.264 video is “limited range”. That means that internally it’s actually squeezed into 16-235 as opposed to the original starting 0-255 (which is full range). And a limited range video gets decoded back to 0-255 anyway.

Sony/Magix Vegas Pro will decode limited range video properly but it will NOT expand it back to full 0-255 range, so it will appear with grayish blacks and dimmer whites. You can go into the “Levels” Effects tab to apply a preset that fixes this.

Exporting your video.

A lot of video editors out there are going to “render” your video (that is to say, calculate and render what the frames of your video look like) and encode it at the same time with whatever’s bundled in the software.

Do not ever do this with Vegas Pro. Do not ever rely on the integrated AVC encoders of Vegas Pro. They expect full range input, and encode AVC video as if it were full range (yeah), so if you want normal looking video, you have to apply a Levels preset to squeeze it into 16-235 levels, but it’s... god, honestly, just save yourself the headache and don’t use them.

Instead, export a LOSSLESS AVI out of Vegas. (using utvideo!)

But you may be able to skip this step altogether if you use Adobe Media Encoder, or software that can interface directly with it.

Okay, what do I do with this lossless AVI?

Option 1: Adobe Media Encoder.

Premiere and AE integrate directly with Adobe Media Encoder. It’s good; it doesn’t mix up BT.601/709, for example. In this case, you won’t have to export an AVI, you should be able to export “straight from the software”.

However, the integrated AVC/HEVC encoders that Adobe has licensed (from MainConcept, I believe) aren’t at the top of their game. Even cranking up the bitrate super high won’t reach the level of pristine that you’d expect (it keeps on not really allocating bits to flatter parts of the image to make them fully clean), and they don’t expose a CRF mode (more on that later), so, technically, you could still go with something better.

But what I’m getting at is, it’s not wrong to go with AME. Just crank up the bitrate though. (Try to reach 0.3 bits per pixel.) Here’s my quick rough quick guideline of Adobe Media Encoder settings:

H.264/AVC (faster encode but far from the most efficient compression one can have)

Switch from Hardware to Software encoding (unless you’re really in a hurry... but if you’re gonna be using Hardware encoding you might as well switch to H.265/HEVC, see below.)

Set the profile to High (you may not be able to do this without the above)

Bitrate to... VBR 1-pass, 30mbps for 1080p, 90mbps for 4K. Set the maximum to x2. +50% to both target and max if fps = 60.

“Maximum Render Quality” doesn’t need to be ticked, this only affects scaling. Only tick it if you are changing the final resolution of the video during this encoder step (e.g. 1080p source to be encoded as 720p)

If using H.265/HEVC (smaller file size, better for using same file as archive)

Probably stick with hardware encoding due to how slow software encoding is.

Stick to Main profile & Main tier.

If hardware: quality: Highest (slowest)

If software: quality: Higher.

4K: set Level to 5.2, 60mbps

1440p: set Level to 5.1, 40mbps

1080p: keep Level to 5.0, 25mbps

If 60fps instead of 24/30: +50% to bitrate. In which case you might have to go up to Level 6.2, but this might cause local playback issues; more on "Levels” way further down the post.

Keep in mind however that hardware encoders are far less efficient in terms of compression, but boy howdy are they super fast. This is why they become kind of worth it when it comes to H.265/HEVC. Still won’t produce the kind of super pristine result I’d want, but acceptable for the vast majority of YouTube cases.

Option 2: other encoding GUIs...

Find software of your choice that integrates the x264 encoder, which is state-of-the-art. (Again, x264 is one encoder for the H.264/AVC codec specification. Just making sure there’s no confusion here.)

Handbrake is one common choice, but honestly, I haven’t used it enough to vouch for it. I don’t know if the settings it exposes are giving you proper control over the whole BT601/709 mess. It has some UI/UX choices which I find really questionable too.

If you’re feeling like a command-line masochist, you could try using ffmpeg, but be ready to pour over the documentation. (I haven’t managed to find out how to do the BT.709 conversion well in there yet.)

Personally, I use MeGUI, because it runs through Avisynth (a frameserver), which allows me to do some cool preprocessing and override some of the default behaviour that other encoder interfaces would do. It empowers you to get into the nitty gritty of things, with lots of plugins and scripts you can install, like this one:

http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Dither_tools (grab it)

Once you’re in MeGUI, and it has finished updating its modules, you gotta hit CTRL+R to open the automated script creator. Select your input, hit “File Indexer” (not “One Click Encoder”), then just hit “Queue” so that Avisynth’s internal thingamajigs start indexing your AVI file. Once that’s done, you’ll be greeted with a video player and a template script.

In the script, all you need to add is this at the bottom:

dither_convert_rgb_to_yuv(matrix="709",output="YV12",mode=7)

This will perform the proper colorspace conversion, AND it does so with dithering! It’s the only software I know of which can do it with dithering!! I kid you not! Mode 7 means it’s doing it using a noise distribution that scales better and doesn’t create weird patterns when resizing the video (I would know, I’ve tried them all).

Your script should look like this, just 3 lines

LoadPlugin("D:\(path to megui, etc)\LSMASHSource.dll")

LWLibavVideoSource("F:\yourvideo.avi")

dither_convert_rgb_to_yuv(matrix="709",output="YV12",mode=7)

The colors WILL look messed up in the preview window but that’s normal. It’s one more example of how you should always be wary when you see an issue. Sometimes you don’t know what is misbehaving, and at which stage. Always try to troubleshoot at every step along the way, otherwise you will be chasing red herrings. Anyway...

Now, back in the main MeGUI window, we’ve got our first line complete (AviSynth script), the “Video Output” path should be autofilled, now we’re gonna touch the third line: “Encoder settings”. Make sure x264 is selected and hit “config” on the right.

Tick “show advanced settings.”

Set the encoding mode to “Const. Quality” (that’s CRF, constant rate factor). Instead of being encoded with a fixed bitrate, and then achieving variable quality with that amount of bits available, CRF instead encodes for a fixed quality, with a variable bitrate (whatever needs to be done to achieve that quality).

CRF 20 is the default, and it’s alright, but you probably want to go up to 15 if you really want to be pristine. I’m going up to 10 because I am unreasonable. (Lower is better, higher numbers means quality is worse.)

Because we’re operating under a Constant Quality metric, CRF 15 at encoder presets “fast” vs. “slow” will produce the same perceptual quality, but at different file sizes. Slow being smaller, of course.

You probably want to be at “slow” at least, there isn’t that much point in going to “slower” or “veryslow”, but you can always do it if you have the CPU horsepower to spare.

Make sure AVC Profile is set to High. The default would be Main, but High unlocks a few more features of the spec that increase compressability, especially at higher resolutions. (8x8 transforms & intra prediction, quantization scaling matrices, cb/cr controls, etc.)

Make sure to also select a Level. This doesn’t mean ANYTHING by itself, but thankfully the x264 config window here is smart enough to actually apply settings which are meaningful with regards to the level.

A short explanation is that different devices have different decoding capabilities. A decade ago, a mobile phone might have only supported level 3 in hardware, meaning that it could only do main profile at 30mbps max, and if you went over that, it would either not decode the video or do it using the CPU instead of its hardware acceleration, resulting in massive battery usage. The GPU in your computer also supports a maximum level. 5.0 is a safe bet though.

If you don’t restrict the level accordingly to what your video card supports, you might see funny things happen during playback:

It’s nothing that would actually affect YouTube (AFAIK), but still, it’s best to constrain.

Finally, head over to the “misc” tab of the x264 config panel and tick these.

If the command line preview looks like mine does (see the screenshot from a few paragraphs ago) then everything should be fine.

x264 is configured, now let’s take care of the audio.

Likewise, “Audio Input” and “Audio Output” should be prefilled if MeGUI detected an audio track in your AVI file. Just switch the audio encoder over to FLAC, hit config, crank the slider to “smallest file, slow encode” and you’re good to go. FLAC = mathematically lossless audio. Again, we want to not compress anything, or as little as possible until YouTube does its own compression job, so you might as well go with FLAC, which will equal roughly 700 to 1000kbps of audio, instead of going with 320kbps of MP3/AAC, which might be perceptually lossless, but is still compressed (bad). The added size is nothing next to the high-quality video track you’re about to pump out.

FLAC is not an audio format supported by the MP4 container, so MeGUI should have automagically changed the output to be using the MKV (Matroska) container. If it hasn’t, do it yourself.

Now, hit the “Autoencode” button in the lower right of the main window. And STOP, do not be hasty: in the new window, make sure “no target size” is selected before you do anything else. If you were to keep “file size” selected, then you would be effectively switched over to 2-pass encoding, which is another form of (bit)rate control. We don’t want that. We want CRF.

Hit queue and once it’s done processing, you should have a brand new pristine MKV file that constains lossless audio and extra clean video! Make sure to double-check that everything matches—take screenshots of the same frames in the AVI and MKV files and compare them.

Now all you’ve got to do is send it to YouTube!

For archival... well, you could just go and crank up the preset to Placebo and reduce CRF a little bit—OR you could use the 2-pass “File Size” mode which will ensure that your video stream will be the exact size (give or take a couple %) you want it to be. You could also use x265 for your archival file buuuut I haven’t used it enough (on account of how slow it is) to make sure that it has no problems anywhere with the whole BT.601/708 thing. It doesn’t expose those metadata settings so who knows how other software’s going to treat those files in the future... (god forbid they get read as BT.2020)

You can use Mediainfo (or any player that integrates it, like my favorite, MPC-HC) to check the metadata of the file.

Good luck out there!

And remember to always double-check the behaviour of decoders at every step of the way with your setup. 99% of the time I see people talk about YouTube messing with the contrast of their video, it’s because they weren’t aware of how quirky Vegas can be with H.264/AVC input & its integrated encoder.

Hope this helps!

#video encoding #video editing #encoding #x264 #megui #avisynth

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pixelgrotto · 4 years ago

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Remixing a tomb plus a highway to hell

Last month I finished DMing Tomb of Annihilation for one of my D&D groups. It’s a campaign that sees heroes adventuring to the land of Chult to stop big bad lich Acererak, who’s made a device known as the Soulmonger that’s emanating a Death Curse and screwing up the world’s resurrection magic. It’s also a spiritual successor to Tomb of Horrors, one of the classic deathtrap dungeons of tabletop RPG history that came about because D&D creator Gary Gygax wanted to screw his players over for opening doors wrong. In short, it’s certainly one of the more memorable adventures for D&D 5e, but the version of Tomb of Annihilation that I ran for my players was actually extremely remixed and hacked apart, as is the case with every official Wizards of the Coast module that I run.

There were a few reasons for this - my players were coming into this campaign fresh out of Curse of Strahd, and everyone was level 8. One of the players had died early on in Curse of Strahd - in the very first session we played, hilariously enough - and was temporarily sustained by the mists of the Shadowfell only to collapse upon returning to the material plane. With this in mind, I felt that it would be a great twist to have the party venture on a quest of resurrection only to learn that resurrection magic throughout the world had stopped working due to Acererak’s nefarious plans.

Additionally, I wanted to give my players the chance to try out alternate characters if they so desired. In the name of grand ambition, I decided to have my players create two sets of characters, and wove a homebrew story, dubbed “Fiends in Waterdeep,” that would run analogous to and eventually intertwine with Tomb of Annihilation. The first set of characters - consisting of some of the veterans who had survived Curse of Strahd - would investigate the streets of Waterdeep, which was suffering from an invasion of devils and demons that seemed unconnected to Acererark’s dark doings. The second set, consisting of new level 8s, would venture to Chult, the vaguely African-inspired landmass in the south of the Forgotten Realms, to track down the source of the Death Curse. After progressing through seemingly unconnected storylines, at the end of the campaign the disparate plot threads would mesh. The Waterdeep explorers would travel to the Nine Hells only to learn that the fiend invasion was caused by the abduction of the Queen of Hell’s newly born infant - a soul-devouring mass of flesh that could open portals into other worlds with its burps and farts - while the Chult expedition would delve into the jungle to find Acererark, smash the Soulmonger and free the aforementioned child.

In short, I basically made a complicated D&D adventure even more complicated by layering my own story on top of it and running two campaigns at once. I think I was looking for a challenge, and oh boy, I got one. I probably won’t be undertaking something like this ever again, because it required a lot of planning hurdles on my part. For instance, my players and I usually gamed for about 5-6 hours at most, which meant devoting 2 and a half or 3 hours to both sets of characters. If one battle lasted too long or a social interaction went south, I’d have to adjust this timeframe accordingly, and every DM knows that players will always defy your expectations in one way or another, so there was a lot of improv on the fly to make sure that our sessions stayed well-paced.

In the name of pacing, I also stripped much of the fat out of Tomb of Annihilation, which is largely composed of a really long hexcrawl. D&D 5e’s hexcrawl exploration and survival rules have never been particularly good, in my opinion, and the rules in the book expect you to roll LOTS of random encounters and deal with stuff like inclement weather, mosquito attacks, hunting, getting lost, etc. I incorporated some of this stuff (the hunting, since we had two rangers in the party), but I pre-rolled all of the random encounters and potential locations the party could go ahead of time, getting rid of some of the ones I didn’t like, and largely handwaved stuff like getting hopelessly lost. Reddit explorations have revealed that by far and large, everyone running this campaign does the same thing - particularly for higher level players trying to get through the jungle without feeling like they’re wasting time. (And from my firsthand experience with Out of the Abyss, there’s nothing worse than going through multiple D&D sessions and feeling like you haven’t accomplished much.)

My approach to streamlining Acererak’s deathtrap lair at the end of the campaign was similar. I skimmed through the entire dungeon with all of its bajillion floors (which could take an average group months to get through) in favor of using the 10 rooms that I liked the most, which was more than enough. Tomb of Annihilation, while probably fairer than Gary Gygax’s Tomb of Horrors, is still in my opinion full of wacky stuff in the final dungeon that just isn’t my cup of tea for D&D, including one trap that can get characters stuck in real-world Victorian London. (Okay, that’s cool on paper, but to actually run it as a DM, especially when your players are in the final hours of their adventure? I’ll pass.)

Additionally, I made Ras Nsi - the warlord-turned-yuan-ti - into more of a developed NPC who was actually willing to help the players slay Acererak. In the book, he’s very much a Darth Maul-type bad guy who looks cool but has a minimum of characterization. This is because Tomb of Annihilation leans into the stereotype that Ras Nsi and the rest of the yuan-ti are all merciless bastards with inscrutable plans, and while this may be fine if you’re familiar with the Conan the Barbarian serpentfolk tropes that inspired the yuan-ti, it’s not great if you’re trying to build a believable world with compelling characters. Much has been written about how Chult stumbles at portraying a fantasy Africa - largely by depicting the characters as foreign saviors and the Chultans as relatively helpless - and while some of this was alleviated in my game by the fact that one player’s character actually was Chultan, I still felt it was necessary to give some of the indigenous races a chance to help undo the curse that, after all, was first and foremost affecting their land.

Switching gears, when it came to the accompanying Fiends in Waterdeep homebrew story, I recycled some material from Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, which I’d previously run for two different groups, and also took inspiration from the Wizards of the Coast module Descent into Avernus. At the time of planning, Descent Into Avernus was the most recent D&D hardcover, and all the reviews I’d read painted it as cool in concept but a major pain in the butt to run in reality. So, I decided to use only the nifty bits - a journey into the first layer of the Nine Hells via Mad Max-style tanks powered by souls - and mixed it with my own tale that was influenced by a profile of Fury, the dragon queen of hell, that I’d read in the third-party 5e supplement Legendary Dragons. It turned into a mildly amusing story about Fury warring against her ex-husband Asmodeus, and the players ended up serving as therapists in what amounted to an interplanar lover’s spat. I’d recently started therapy when I came up with the campaign concept, so this is probably one of those unique instances where real life truly influenced art. And hey, the unpredictable whims of all-powerful, world-shaping deities make for great adventure hooks, and judging by how Greek mythology seems to have re-entered the modern zeitgeist these days (I’m thinking about Hades, one of the most popular indie rougelikes out there, as well as that Netflix series Blood of Zeus) it seems like I was on the nose!

In the end, this two-tiered campaign lasted roughly 70 hours and climaxed with all sets of characters reaching level 10. Acererark’s Soulmonger was smashed, the feud between Fury and Asmodeus smoothed over, and after enduring the eerie mists of the Shadowfell, the hot temperatures of Chult and the flames of Avernus, the story of these motley players - who’d started questing with me back in 2018, and endured a move to online games in the era of COVID - came to a gentle end. I’m a believer in the reality that campaigns don’t necessarily need to last forever, and with real life throwing some of my players (and myself) a few recent curveballs, this seemed like a solid finale point. A consistent campaign running over two years is in many ways a dream for a lot of D&D players and DMs, and I’m glad I got the chance to make it happen.

#pixel grotto #musings #tabletop gaming #dungeons & dragons #d&d #tomb of annihilation

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dominga860962692-blog · 5 years ago

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mybillyhardgrove · 7 years ago

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Thanksgiving Dinner b.h.

a/n: my first piece!! i’m so excited to share my work and if someone reads this and likes it, lmk!!! thanks a bunch

Disclaimer: i don’t own any Stranger Things material

Word count: 2243

Warnings: just a few curse words

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x Reader (female)

Summary: it is Thanksgiving and your mom and you attend the Hargrove’s dinner and you hatch a plan to escape with Billy

“Honey, come on. The Hargroves are waiting for us. It’s already 6:30 and I told them we’d be around for dinner at 6.”

“Sorry, mom, I’m almost finished… I just need the stupid- where the hell did I put my hairspray?” You mumble and lean away from the full mirror in the bathroom. Of course it’s not where you thought you left it, but has instead somehow magically moved its way across the room to sit atop the toilet. You grab the cold metal, shut your eyes, hold your breath, and spray everywhere. Once you’re satisfied and have cracked the window open to let some fresh air in, you switch off the light and follow your mom to the car.

From the little bit of information Billy has let slip about his family life, you are antsy and uncomfortable on the quick ride over to his house. The last thing in the world you would want for your Thanksgiving is to be at a table, all stuffy in your dress and heels, looking Neil Hargrove in the eyes as you try to eat your turkey and make small conversation for however long dinner and dessert take, which you suspect will be well over two hours. The only reason you’re doing this is because Billy has been complaining about it all week.

Though a little selfish, when he asked you to come to his house and help him get through the night, you explained how it wouldn’t be fair to leave your mom alone on a holiday. You thought you were in the clear, but as it turned out, he convinced Susan to invite the both of you over, so now you had no choice but to sit there and smile your way through the night - prisoner to the talk of weather and what schools you’re thinking about for next year.

“This was so nice of Susan to include us in their little family tonight. I wasn’t sure how I was going to cook a turkey on my own.” Your shoulders slumped a little at the comment your mother made because it had so much more than just having to make dinner by herself. This was only the second year without your father and, try as your mom might to keep herself together for your sake, the walls in your house were thin and you could hear her crying some nights when she thought you had already gone to sleep. You didn’t say anything, but looked at her profile as she kept her eyes on the road, thankful you still had her in your life. When she smiled at you, you decided to stop your moping and play along to give her and Billy the perfect Thanksgiving dinner they deserved.

After no time at all, you were pulling up to the small house and your mom hopped out, grabbing the bottle of wine she bought as a gift and heading up to the door. You sat in the silent car for a few seconds, taking a deep breath and straightening your shoulders as you met her at the door. You knocked three times and Susan popped into view as she pulled the door open.

“Welcome you two! So excited you accepted our invitation to dinner! Come right in and head to the kitchen.” You gave her a tight-lipped smile and stiffened when she leaned in to kiss your cheek and comment on how beautiful you looked. “Billy is in his room, honey. Feel free to go in there and I will call you down when the food’s ready, which shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.” She gave you a warm expression and you nodded, heading away from her, your mother, and the young girl you assumed to be Max.

“Thanks, Susan. Your house looks lovely by the way and the food smells really good.” It wasn’t her fault after all for the actions of her husband. Speaking of, when you rounded the corner in the hall, you came face-to-face with none other than the man of the house, Neil Hargrove. He was much smaller than you had pictured, but he had a menacing look in his eyes nonetheless. “Hi.” You cleared your throat, trying to keep your palms from sweating and your voice from wavering. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hargrove. I-I’m-”

Before you had to continue the awkward introduction, a wooden door flew open and relief flooded your system when you saw your knight in an unbuttoned red shirt. “Finally, you’re here. Dad, we’ll be in here if you need us.” Without waiting for a reply, he pulled you in after him and shut the door. He wasted no time pushing your body against the stiff wall and pressing his pink lips against yours, gently lifting the hem of your dress and hiking it up to your stomach. He growled in frustration when he finally realized you were wearing tights that would make access a little more complicated. Regardless and without breaking the kiss, he rubbed his cold hands on your hips and behind your back, nipping at your bottom lip to allow his tongue to slip between your teeth. You sighed and pushed lightly on his bare chest, letting out a breathless giggle at the disappointment evident on his face.

“Nice to see you, too.” You fixed the fabric bunched up on my butt and walked past Billy to the mirror against one of the walls, rubbing around your slightly swollen lips and wiping the stray lipstick away. When you turned back, he was still in the same place watching your backside. “Hey, Bill. My eyes are up here.” You winked when he finally made eye contact with you and sat on the edge of his bed, leaning back on your hands and closing your eyes.

“Listen, it’s not my fault you look sexy in your little holiday getup.” He put his hands on the bed on either side of your thighs and gave you a much gentler peck on your lips before going over to the mirror and grabbing his lighter and a cigarette, pursing his lips and shaking his hand once the stick had been lit. He sure was a sight for sore eyes and the way the silver pendant rested on his chest made you wish it were your lips, but you reminded yourself to stay civil and indifferent. Tonight was not the night for your thoughts to get the best of you. You would eat and leave. Simple.

You could hear the muddled voices of your parents in the kitchen and noticed the muscles of Billy’s broad shoulders tighten when his father’s voice came through loud and clear. It made you sad to see him in pain and knew this night of playing house and pretending Neil was a good person was going to be extremely hard for him, so you stood and ran your palms across his shoulders, massaging his neck a little in the process. “Relax, baby. I’ll be with you the whole time and we don’t even have to talk to anyone. Once dinner is finished, we can slip back here and hang out alone.” He let his head hang low and took a few mouthfuls of smoke, letting each breath slip out slowly. “Talk to me. What do you want tonight to be? I’ll do anything for you because I know how hard this is. Please, Billy.”

He lifted his head again and looked at you through the mirror, sighing. “What I want is to spend this stupid holiday with you and only you. I don’t want to eat Susan’s shitty mashed potatoes or dry turkey or smelly broccoli casserole. I want to drive around with you and make out with you and not have to button up my shirt and pretend to be the perfect son I’m not. I can barely even look at my dad… he is pretending we are a perfect cookie-cutter family who all love each other and communicate with gentle voices a-and play board games and shit. We just fuckin’ aren’t and it pisses me off that I have to deal with this.” He paused and regained his composure, knowing how his raised voice and rushed tone could get his father’s attention. If he is heard, there will be real consequences. “I just can’t do this.”

You are speechless because, with your relationship being only a couple months old, Billy has never been so candid about what he deals with. He hits his fist against the wall lightly and turns to face you, wrapping his strong arms around your ribs and burying his head in the crook of your neck, taking a deep breath through his nose and sinking a bit into your embrace. His thick lashes tickle your skin and you smile a little, rubbing his back. Suddenly, an idea pops into your head and you put your hands on his upper arms, pushing slightly to make eye contact with him. You see his bottom lashes are a little stuck together with what you assume are tears, but you don’t point it out because you don’t want to embarrass him. However, you feel your heart break a little. “I have an idea, but I’m gonna need your full support and your full cooperation for it to work.”

He perks up and cocks an eyebrow, suspicious of my intentions. “What have you got cookin’ in that pretty little head of yours, princess?”

“You don’t want this dinner and I don’t want this dinner… how about we get out of it?”

“I’m listening.”

“The only thing is you’re going to have to act like daddy’s perfect son for a little while, which means this is going to have to be buttoned up.” You grab the red fabric of his shirt and start doing them up to leave only one open, tickling his chest and collarbones with your fingers in the process. “We make small talk, get ourselves plates of food, and then after an appropriate amount of time, I’ll complain about feeling sick and you can offer to drive me home. The parents stay here and we go free. Max is gonna be on her own, but I think she can handle it… So? What do you think?”

“I feel like I’m choking,” he tugs on his collar, “but I can survive a little while.” You giggle and he looks at you with a little smirk and when a questioning expression pops on your face, he explains the cause. “You’re an evil genius.”

You curtsy and reply, “Thank you. I try.”

“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. Are you sure I can’t do anything for you?” You feel a little bad lying to your mom and Susan who has been a wonderful hostess, but Billy is your priority right now and, with his hand inching higher and higher on your thigh, you fake a look of hurt and nod.

“I think I just need to go home and lie down. Thank you for dinner and thank you so much for having me. Happy Thanksgiving.”

“You’re very welcome. Hope you feel better.” You smile without teeth and get up, Billy following suit and putting his hand on the small of your back. You lean down and kiss your mom’s cheek, sensing the conflict she is facing internally.

“I’ll see you at home, mom, and don’t worry. Take your time here. Billy will help me.” You rub her shoulder and shrug on your jacket with Billy’s help, walking out the door and then running to the Camaro, hopping in on the passenger’s side and slapping your hands against the dashboard. “I can’t believe we did it! What did I tell you? That plan was perfect and we only had to be there for half an hour! We have the whole night ahead of us.” You looked to your left and saw the giant smile on your boyfriend’s face that you help put there, your heart swelling at the idea. “What should we do now?”

“Well, I was hoping we could go back to your place and play doctor. You are sick, after all.” He wiggled his eyebrows and you scoffed.

“You’re an animal. Besides, I’m hungry and I’ve been craving a Dairy Queen blizzard all week. What do ya say, Billy? Fries and shakes. I need something to wash down that stuffing. I mean, what the hell was in that?”

He laughed at your comment, nodding along. “Alright, you little freak, we can get Dairy Queen.” With that, he turned on the car and turned up the music. You rolled down your window and stuck your head out, enjoying the crisp November air and the way the trees’ bare branches looked in the moonlight. Popping back in, you leaned over and pressed a giant sloppy kiss on Billy’s cheek and a few smaller ones all over his face as he dodged your lips, trying to keep his eyes on the road. Your hands unbuttoned his shirt and your fingers danced around his chest and sides, feeling the laughs rumbling from his chest and filling the car. You were so incredibly happy and didn’t know a holiday could ever be so good. You sat back in your seat and closed your eyes, cheeks sore from smiling so completely. Billy glanced over and watched for a few seconds, so grateful that someone like you was in his life to make everything a little easier.

masterlist

that’s it and i hope you enjoyed - ellie

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bostonbiggamefishclub · 3 years ago

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Best Baitcasting Reel In 2021 Reviews & Analysis

Top Baitcasting Reels Reviewed and Compared

When looking for the best fishing gear, but only have a limited amount of time to spare and can’t afford to read through all of our tips and reviews, this succinct paragraph will help you narrow down your search. Following extensive research into the topic of which baitcasting reels are worth the money and which ones are not, we have come to the conclusion that the Abu Garcia BMAX3 is the model that you should give some consideration to purchasing. This reel, which boasts four stainless steel ball bearings as well as one that provides smooth operation, comes highly recommended if you’re looking for balance and performance. Despite the fact that it is constructed from some of the lightest and most resilient materials available, the reel manages to perform exactly as it should for its owners. Furthermore, it is one of the most cost-effective options available, making it an excellent choice for anglers who are just getting started with baitcasting techniques. If the Abu Garcia model is out of stock, the Shimano 200I Curado should be considered as an alternative.

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1.Abu Garcia 1365366 Black Max Low Profile Reel, 6.4: 1 Gear Ratio, 5 Bearings, 26″ Retrieve Rate, 18Lb Max Drag, RH, Boxed

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1. Abu Garcia Black Max Series

This unit should be on your list of potential purchases primarily because it is a versatile option that will allow you to get the most out of it. When it comes to angling, the reel can be used in a variety of situations, and it will provide you with the best performance possible in all of them. This is what we have determined after reviewing the ratings and reviews that the option has received.

A good feel is reported for the model in the hand, and one of the most impressive aspects of it is that, despite its incredible price, it does not contain nearly as many plastic components as one might expect given its high price.

If you are concerned about whether or not this reel is the pinnacle of quality, we will put your mind at ease by stating that, while it is constructed of high-quality materials and provides excellent functionality, it is intended for use as an introduction to fishing reels. With proper care, it can last for an extended period of time; however, because it is so inexpensive, you may not even want to wait because you can always buy another one later on.

Based on the feedback we’ve received about this unit, it appears that it performs better in freshwater than it does in saltwater, which is consistent with our observations.

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Aside from its lightweight, sleek, and stylish design, this option includes a one-piece graphite frame and graphite side plates that provide the essential sensitivity you require so that vibrations can be felt effectively by your hands, as well as a one-year warranty.

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According to one customer, this product is good for small fish but not for larger ones, and vice versa.

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2. Shimano 200I Curado RH Baitcast Reel

The Shimano, in comparison to other reels in the same line, is significantly more expensive, so you should consider your options carefully before making a purchase. Nonetheless, because it is one of the most efficient and versatile units available, it is likely that you will see a significant return on your investment if you decide to purchase it.

For the most part, people who have purchased and used the reel have expressed surprise at how easy it is to use right out of the box. It takes only one slide to access and expose the variable brake system, which is one of the most attractive and user-friendly features of this unit. It is also one of the most convenient features of this unit.

Shimano has managed to take things to an entirely new level with the cross carbon drag washer, as most anglers who have used this model have expressed their satisfaction with the smoothness of the drag. An additional feature of this reel that distinguishes it from the competition is its ability to handle heavy loads without squeezing.

This product is not intended to be used in saltwater, so keep this in mind when placing your order for this product.

Pros

In addition to being built to last, this exceptional Shimano product has a robust metal Hagane® body that provides exceptional impact resistance, which allows it to withstand the tremendous forces that are at play while fishing.

Because it can retrieve fish at an incredible 2.6 inches per crank, this option allows you to reel in your catch in a shorter amount of time.

This reel is user-friendly due to the SVS Infinity Brake System, which allows you to easily control the retrieval process according to your needs or skills.

You will enjoy smooth retrieves and adequate line control as a result of the Cross Carbon drag washer. Because of the proprietary drag system, even heavy loads can be handled with relative ease.

Each crank of the handle on this reel results in a greater amount of line being reeled in. This reel has a gear ratio of 6.3:1. This means faster retrieves in order to reel in the catch as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Cons

There is a learning curve associated with the type of brake system with which this reel is equipped. People who have never worked with this component before may experience some negative reactions at the start of the process.

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3. Piscifun Baitcaster Reels Right Handed Baitcasting

The Piscifun Baitcasting Fishing Reel is a low-cost option for anglers on a tight budget. It is designed for left-handed users, which is an important consideration given that baitcasting reels cannot be switched from one hand to another like spinning reels. Due to the fact that you will be casting with your entire arm and not just your wrist, the model is extremely lightweight. This is a significant advantage. If you want to improve your fishing comfort, it is always a good idea to experiment with different types of fishing reels until you find one that strikes the perfect balance between convenience and durability.

Thirteen ball bearings are included in the baitcasting reel’s construction, which is sufficient for increased smoothness of drag. The gear ratio is 6.3:1, which is a medium-speed option that can be used in a variety of situations, depending on the situation. Many users highly appreciate it and have written positive reviews about it because of its increased versatility and extremely low pricing, among other reasons.

In order to adjust the spool tension, the model makes use of a magnetic brake system. A fishing reel with this feature should be used so that you can adjust the tension in the line in order to prevent backlash and overrunning while casting your fishing line.

This baitcasting reel has also been designed for ease of use and ergonomics, which you will notice right away. This fishing pole is equipped with a double handle with EVA knobs for added convenience, making it suitable for a variety of fishing activities.

A combination of aluminum and graphite makes up the Piscifun Baitcasting Fishing Reel, both of which are high-quality materials that contribute to the overall quality of the reel. Aluminum is well-known for its durability, despite the fact that it is significantly heavier than graphite. Graphite, on the other hand, is extremely lightweight, and it helps to balance the components made of aluminum, allowing the total weight to be kept to a bare minimum, resulting in increased comfort for the user.

Providing smooth performance and a comfortable design for people who need to use a left hand baitcasting reel, this is a highly recommended purchase, especially if you are on a tight budget and do not want to spend a lot of money on fishing equipment.

Pros

Thanks to the 11 corrosion-resistant stainless steel ball bearings in the reel, which are supplemented by 1 roller bearing, you can expect smooth operation. The bearing assembly makes it possible to retrieve items quickly and easily.

This lightweight unit is equipped with a precise brass gear system that allows for retrievals at a high rate of efficiency. The 7.1:1 gear ratio, which allows you to pull in a longer length of line with each crank of the handle, will be greatly appreciated by you.

This does not imply, however, that you will be unable to control the rate at which the line is released, as the reel is equipped with an 11-pound test power disk drag system that ensures a robust and instant stopping drag functionality when the line is released.

The side plates and frame of the reel, which are made of graphite, do not add any weight to the unit. In fact, the components help to lighten the overall weight of the reel.

Because of its hollow-carved design, the aluminum spool does not add any additional weight to the reel, allowing you to fish with it for the entire day without fatigue.

Cons

This particular model is intended for left-handed users, and as a result, it cannot be switched to the other hand as easily as a spinning reel machine.

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4. Shimano Curado CU71XG left hand

This particular model, like all of Shimano’s most recent reels, has improved gear durability and can be used in both saltwater and freshwater environments. Even when you have to drag a larger prey out of the water, the fact that the Shimano 200IHG Curado RH Baitcast Reel can perfectly balance the pinion gear with the drive gear will assist you in doing so without exerting too much effort.

The exceptional overall performance of this vehicle is attributed to the use of a specialized brake system on this model. The use of a brake system is essential for better control over the spooling speed. Because of the SVS Infinity brake system, you will be able to use a wide variety of lures and baits and adjust your baitcasting reel to match your fishing conditions perfectly.

In addition to the numerous other benefits provided by this baitcasting reel, you will notice an improvement in overall stability. Due to the fact that the Shimano 200IHG Curado RH Baitcast Reel features the S3D design, which reduces vibrations during casting and retrieval, this is possible. This is the type of reel you should bring along with you on your next fishing trip if you want a smooth, precise casting experience.

For a smooth casting experience and overall superior performance, the baitcasting reel is loaded with features and special technologies that are unique to this model. Because of its high gear ratio of 7.2:1, this is a lightning-fast baitcasting reel that is also extremely durable and dependable. In addition to being extremely ergonomic and convenient for regular use, the PV handle grips ensure that you will not experience the usual fatigue associated with baitcasting reels when using the reel. This reel, which is made of high-quality materials, will undoubtedly improve the overall quality of your fishing experience, and you will be able to return home with an abundance of fish to brag about to your friends and family.

When using this baitcasting reel, the majority of reviewers express their appreciation for the braking system as well as how smooth the casting becomes. Shimano is well-known for producing high-quality fishing equipment, and this product continues the tradition by ranking highly in the preferences of anglers all over the world. If you’re looking for a dependable reel, this should be at the top of your list.

Pros

This baitcast spinning reel is designed with a gear ratio of 7.2:1, which allows for easy and quick retrieves. With each turn of the crank handle, more line is released, allowing for faster and less effort when reeling in and out of the boat. Every rotation results in a gain of 30 inches in line length.

With a durable metal Hagane® body, this model is exceptionally impact resistant, allowing you to store it alongside your other fishing gear in your tackle box without worrying that it will break when it is bumped around.

You’ll appreciate the innovative reel technologies that come with this selection. X-Ship and Super Free Spool technologies are used to reduce friction between the reel’s spool shaft and pinion gear, which allows for more consistent operation.

The Shimano Stable Spool Design, which is a Shimano-exclusive, also helps to reduce vibration on the spool itself. This results in a configuration that is more stable.

The SVS Infinity technology, which includes brake weights that help maintain speed, is also included to give you even more control over your reels in your hands.

Cons

Users who have not yet cast with this reel’s new brake system may experience backlashes. This is especially true for new users.

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What is a Baitcasting Reel?

Fishing reels designed for baitcasting are intended to provide anglers with an accurate cast while also being able to handle the heavier lines and lures required to bring in larger game fish. The reels are also designed to make it simple to maintain control over the line during the cast, as well as to bring it back in slowly and smoothly. While baitcasting reels are a little more difficult to use than spinning reels, with a little practice, anyone can be out on the water casting for bass and other game fish with confidence.

How to Use a Baitcasting Reel

When it comes to successfully using a baitcasting reel, there are a few tricks that will also help to prevent backlash from occurring. Casting with your entire arm rather than simply snapping your wrist forward will ensure that the line plays out smoothly, and rotating the reel will assist in ensuring that the lure lands in the intended location. Getting used to controlling the line with your thumb while also remembering to keep the other hand on the lever is one of the most important tips you can learn. While it does take some time to become proficient with a baitcasting reel, the effort is well worth it once you land your first bass.

Baitcasting Reels Described

As soon as you have become acquainted with the various characteristics associated with baitcasting reels, it will be much easier for you to select the most appropriate one for your needs.

Type Baitcasting reels are generally classified into two categories, each with its own set of advantages. Round reels have the advantage of being able to accommodate larger spools and are therefore recommended for use with salmon and other long-running fish. Other types of baitcasting reels are available, including those with a low profile design that will fit comfortably in your palm during retrieval, which are ideal for bass fishing.

Body Body For saltwater fishing, graphite reels are an excellent choice because they are lightweight, corrosion resistant, and have excellent casting characteristics. Despite the fact that aluminum baitcasting reels are lightweight, they have the added strength required for bringing in larger species of fish.

Ball Bearings Ball Bearings are a type of bearing that rotates on a ball. The type and number of ball bearings used in the reel are two of the most important factors to consider because they will determine how smoothly the reel performs. When it comes to overall performance and durability, stainless steel ball bearings are generally preferred over bushings, and you want your reel to have as many BBs as possible. When you consider how important stability and performance are when fishing for bass, it is well worth the extra money to invest in a reel with at least six ball bearings (preferably more).

Gear Ratio Gear Ratio is a measure of how well a piece of equipment works. It is the gear ratio that determines the speed and power of the reel, and it is often determined by the type of fish that you are casting for when casting. Lower gear ratios are recommended for trolling on the bottom or with a lure, while higher gear ratios provide the power you need to keep up with a fast-moving fish on the surface. With a gear ratio of 4:1, the majority of baitcasting reels provide you with plenty of speed and power while remaining easy to control.

Anti-Reverse Handles The majority of fishing experts will advise you to avoid using a reel that does not have an anti-reverse handle on it. In order to ensure that the handle does not turn backwards and that the hook is securely set in the fish, this convenient and necessary feature is included. While most baitcasting reels are equipped with an anti-reverse handle, it is still a feature you should look for before making a final decision on a particular model.

Drag System Drag System is a system that allows you to drag objects around. It’s also important to think about the drag system, which needs to work smoothly if you want to be able to reel in fish on a consistent basis. A bite on the line should not cause any difficulties in running the line from the spool, and it should be just as simple to reel back in when the line is not bit. Depending on the weight of the fish you are reeling in, you should be able to adjust the tightness of the line as well.

Fishing Lines and Lures One of the benefits of using a baitcasting reel is the ability to use a variety of different lines and lures to catch different fish. Because the reel is capable of supporting heavier weights, you can pursue larger game fish. Most fishing experts recommend using a 10 pound or heavier line and lures that weigh at least 0.25 pounds when fishing for largemouth bass.

How to Prevent Backlash

Many anglers are reluctant to use baitcasting reels because they are concerned about the possibility of backlash, which refers to line that snarls or continues to run after it has been cast. It is critical to ensure that your baitcasting reel is equipped with a durable magnetic brake in order to avoid this annoying problem, which can also ruin your fishing excursion. A small dial on the reel allows you to fine-tune the tension on the line for smooth casting and retrieval on every cast and retrieval attempt.

Summary Choosing and using a baitcasting reel doesn’t have to be difficult; however, it will require some effort and patience on your part. The baitcasting reel should be constructed of a durable and sturdy material and should provide a smooth operating experience. You want it to be comfortable in your hand, which is critical because your thumb will be in charge of controlling the line’s tension. It should also be simple to reach the casting and retrieval mechanism with your thumb when using the casting mechanism. In wet weather, non-slip reel grips are always an advantage, and the best fishing reel will be available at a reasonably priced price as well.

Products that are no longer available

Abu Garcia Black Max Low Profile

Baitcasting reels are the subject of some unjustified controversy among anglers, particularly those who are less experienced, because they are perceived to be difficult to master. If, on the other hand, you choose a high-quality baitcasting reel, such as the Abu Garcia Black Max Low Profile Baitcast Reel, you will not have to worry about a thing. This baitcasting reel is constructed of high-quality materials and features a design that provides the best value for the money. It is an excellent choice for those who are just learning how to cast a baitcasting reel.

The model is equipped with four plus one ball bearings, which ensures that it operates smoothly. While having a greater number of ball bearings on your reel is generally preferred, if the ball bearings are made of high-quality materials, such as stainless steel in this case, the number is not as important as it appears.

Abu Garcia is a fishing equipment manufacturer with a long history of producing high-quality products, and this particular model does not disappoint. In addition to balancing the total weight of the reel by incorporating both graphite and aluminum into the construction of its components, Abu Garcia’s Black Max Low Profile Baitcast Reel provides consistent smooth casting that all anglers will appreciate.

Another significant advantage of this particular model is its ergonomic design. Because you will be casting with your entire arm, it is critical to ensure that the baitcasting reel you purchase is gentle on your muscles, especially if you intend to spend a significant amount of time doing what you enjoy the most. Because of the smooth drag performance, you will experience less fatigue, and the fact that this model is extremely lightweight will appeal to you. When combined with the Abu Garcia Black Max Low Profile Baitcast Reel’s gear ratio of 6.4:1, you get an excellent combination of power and dependability. You won’t have to worry about the reel breaking too soon because it has a fast retrieve speed.

It should be noted that this is a right-handed reel, rather than a left-handed reel, because baitcasting reels, unlike spinning reels, cannot be switched from one hand to another.

source https://www.bbgfc.com/reels-and-electronics/best-baitcasting-reel-in-2021/

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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More Businesses Are Standing for Justice What’s good for business Andrew here. Yesterday’s guilty verdict against George Floyd’s murderer, a former Minneapolis police officer, was a symbol of something profound: a demonstrable shift in the way this country, increasingly supported by business, has strived for civil rights. As we ponder the meaning of this decision, it is worth recalling a moment in 1965, in the middle of that era’s civil rights movement. A Wall Street bond firm, C.F. Securities, told Alabama that it would “no longer buy or sell bonds issued by the state or any of its political subdivisions.” Gov. George C. Wallace, who objected to desegregation, had said the state shouldn’t pay for the National Guard to protect Martin Luther King Jr. and protesters in the Selma-to-Montgomery march. The investment firm’s executive vice president, Donald E. Barnes, wrote to the governor that his failure “to protect the citizens of Alabama in their exercise of constitutional rights” amounted to “discouragements to Alabama’s economic future.” He insisted that the move was based on economic risk, but the letter made clear it was about more than that. The rest of corporate America was mostly silent, or opposed: Moody’s said it was “not sympathetic with the civil rights movement” and had no plan to change the state’s credit rating. What C.F. Securities did may have been unique in 1965. But this past year has proved that business is playing a much larger role in social justice, even if progress has been far too slow and much work remains. Companies have given employees paid time off on Juneteenth; the N.B.A. emblazoned the words “Black Lives Matter” on courts; Netflix steered its cash into local banks that serve Black communities; Wall Street banks announced programs worth billions to support Black communities; and just last week, in perhaps the greatest demonstration of the new responsibility business is feeling, 700 companies and executives signed a letter opposing laws that make it harder for people to vote. “The murder of George Floyd last Memorial Day felt like a turning point for our country. The solidarity and stand against racism since then have been unlike anything I’ve experienced,” Brian Cornell, the C.E.O. of Target, wrote in a note to employees of the Minneapolis-based retailer yesterday. “Like outraged people everywhere, I had an overwhelming hope that today’s verdict would provide real accountability. Anything short of that would have shaken my faith that our country had truly turned a corner.” You know what? Justice is good for business. HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING The European Super League has collapsed. Plans to create a closed competition of top soccer clubs fell apart yesterday when six English teams withdrew, bowing to outrage from fans and threats by lawmakers. Shortly after, an official at the Super League said the project had been suspended, ending an effort to upend soccer’s multibillion-dollar economics. Johnson & Johnson resumes the rollout of its vaccine in the E.U. The bloc’s drug regulator said that the shot’s benefits outweigh a small risk of blood clots, but wants a warning added. U.S. regulators will decide whether to end a pause on the vaccine in the coming days. Goldman Sachs releases worker diversity data. The Wall Street bank disclosed for the first time how many of its senior U.S. executives are Black: 49 out of more than 1,500. Banks agreed last year to publish more information about their work forces; Morgan Stanley has an even smaller share of Black executives than Goldman. Apple’s new products raise competition concerns. The tech giant unveiled new iPads and iMacs, and a revamped podcast app. But its new AirTags, which attach to items to help find them, was criticized by the C.E.O. of Tile, which makes a similar product. Apple also said it would roll out new iOS privacy features — criticized by Facebook and other app makers — next week. Understanding the ‘antimonopolist’ Lina Khan Lina Khan’s nomination to the Federal Trade Commission is one of the clearest signs of progressive influence in the Biden administration. A Columbia University scholar who worked on a major congressional report about Big Tech and antitrust last year, Ms. Khan is a star in the constellation of competition law experts known as “antimonopolists.” Her confirmation hearing with the Senate Commerce Committee is today. Ms. Khan “captures the zeitgeist,” Bruce Hoffman, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb and a former director of the F.T.C.’s competition bureau, told DealBook. She helped shape the legal and cultural conversation about the power of internet giants, which could win her some conservative support. Having a “strong” perspective probably isn’t an obstacle to confirmation, Mr. Hoffman said. “Antimonopoly is more than antitrust,” Ms. Khan wrote in 2018. It shifts away from a “consumer” take on mergers managed by antitrust agencies to a broader approach using “policy levers” across the government and keeps workers, voters, the environment and more in mind. Big Tech will be a likely focus at the hearing. But this would be a “disservice” to Ms. Khan, according to Mr. Hoffman. “At the F.T.C., a lot of the agenda is reactive,” he said. Companies file merger paperwork and regulators respond, whatever the industry. Ms. Khan has a broad perspective on competition law, Mr. Hoffman said, and today would be “a fair time” to ask what “objective standards” she’d apply. Updated April 20, 2021, 10:50 p.m. ET “You have to have some morals.” — Ari Emanuel, the outspoken C.E.O. of the entertainment conglomerate Endeavor, speaking in a New Yorker profile about returning an investment from Saudi Arabia after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Separately, Endeavor disclosed yesterday that it hopes to be valued at more than $10 billion in an I.P.O. These ‘Roaring Twenties’ have railroad battles, too Canadian National Railway yesterday offered to buy Kansas City Southern for $33.7 billion, topping a $29 billion bid last month by its rival Canadian Pacific. They’re jockeying over the chance to create the first railroad connecting major ports from Canada to Mexico. The bidding war reflects bullishness about an industry poised for growth if a post-pandemic boom ushers in this generation’s “Roaring Twenties.” Money or certainty? Canadian National said its bid “clearly provides superior value.” Canadian Pacific, which is smaller and has less overlap with Kansas City Southern’s operations, said antitrust concerns made the counterbid “illusory and inferior.” Kansas City Southern said it would evaluate the new bid in accordance with its agreement with its original suitor. A curveball or a grenade? Canadian National may be bidding in earnest — or just disrupting its competitor’s deal. The new offer could raise anxieties about railroad consolidation, making regulators more cautious. The prospect of a deal has received a mixed reception from freight shippers, who suffered in the last round of consolidation. And we haven’t yet heard from Senator Amy Klobuchar, who heads the antitrust subcommittee and represents key industrial interests in Minnesota. Giving Coinbase a run for its (digital) money The public listing of Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S., generated a wave of excitement that competitors aim to ride. Among them is Binance.US, the third-ranked domestic crypto exchange, which yesterday named Brian Brooks — formerly Coinbase’s chief counsel and most recently acting U.S. comptroller of the currency — as C.E.O., beginning in May. “There’s a lot of buzz about my former employer, which is well-deserved,” Mr. Brooks told DealBook about Coinbase. “But it’s in everybody’s best interest if there’s more competition.” Mr. Brooks’ first task is building trust with regulators. He says “managing reputation” is his biggest concern. Binance has shifted its operations throughout Asia since it was founded in 2017, and some say it played fast and loose with rules. The C.F.T.C. was reportedly investigating the company for allowing U.S.-based customers to trade crypto derivatives, which is banned (the agency declined to comment). Mr. Brooks insists he did “a lot” of due diligence on his new employer and dismisses “loose talk” about the exchange flouting regulations. Binance’s group C.E.O., CZ Zhao, says he embraces regulation. Hiring Mr. Brooks is one way the company is trying to make the point. Binance also hired Max Baucus, the former Montana senator and ambassador to China, last month, along with other former regulators. Binance.US sees potential to lead in undeveloped areas of the American crypto landscape, like derivatives and lending. Mr. Brooks said the company can learn from competitors like Coinbase and Kraken — and challenge them. That is, if he can convince regulators to bless its efforts to bring crypto into the financial mainstream, a preoccupation of players across the industry. JPMorgan wants to end banker burnout, for real this time Yesterday, JPMorgan Chase’s co-heads of investment banking, Jim Casey and Viswas Raghavan, announced policies aimed at improving working conditions amid record deal volume and banker burnout. The company has attempted similar things before. DealBook spoke with Mr. Casey about the latest plan — and whether this one will stick. JPMorgan has recently hired 65 analysts and 22 associates, and plans to add another 100 junior bankers and support staff, Mr. Casey said. It’s targeting bankers at rival firms, as well as lawyers and accountants interested in a career switch. The bank will tell associates not to do marketing work on weekends. It will encourage all bankers to go home by 7 p.m. on weekdays and add more flexibility for personal time. It will also force bankers to take at least three weeks’ vacation a year. JPMorgan rolled out similar efforts to protect junior bankers’ hours in 2016, but “it wasn’t stringently enforced,” Mr. Casey said. Why not? “Laziness.” This time, junior bankers’ hours and feedback will figure in senior manager performance evaluation and compensation. “It’s not a money problem,” Mr. Casey said, so there won’t be one-time checks or free Pelotons after a rush. Junior bankers will get their share of the record $3 billion in fees JPMorgan earned in the first quarter. Some things won’t change. Because banking is a client-service job, managers sometimes have limited control over workloads and hours. “You might do 100 deals a year, but that client only does one deal every three years,” Mr. Casey said. How the bank will measure success: “Ask me what our turnover ratio has gone to and I will tell you,” Mr. Casey said. The goal, he said, is “lower.” THE SPEED READ Deals Politics and policy Senator Bernie Sanders is co-sponsoring a bill that would impose a financial transaction tax on Wall Street to drastically expand tuition-free access to community colleges and trade schools. (CNBC) Twelve megadonors accounted for nearly $1 of every $13 raised by federal candidates and political groups since 2009, a new study found. (NYT) Tech Best of the rest The Sacklers, the family that founded the maker of OxyContin, are worth about $11 billion, according to documents released by a Congressional committee. (WSJ) “Behind the Mysterious Demise of a $1.7 Billion Mutual Fund.” (WSJ) Amazon is opening a hair salon in London. It isn’t called Prime Cuts. (WaPo) We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. Source link Orbem News #businesses #Justice #standing

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elijahjacobs1994 · 4 years ago

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The best cheap car insurance in Virginia? That depends on a number of factors, including your driving history, credit score and the type of vehicle you want to insure. To get the best and cheapest quotes we compared car insurance rates for various driver profiles and tested policies. We found that car insurance in Newport News is on par with the lowest rates in other Pennsylvania cities. However, it’s still important for a young driver to explore his insurance options. A few factors could significantly increase your insurance premium — namely, his age, if he needs to file an insurance claim, or how much he can earn in the state in which he resides. If you have an older or weaker vehicle, you might be tempted to let it drive up your car insurance rates. For example, young drivers are considered more experienced, generally have less driving violations, and are less likely to file claims. Because of this, the lowest car insurance rates often aren’t the cheapest, but they can pay off in the form of savings. For instance,.

About Insurance.com

About Insurance.com (“Insurance Company”). . The insurance under a previous owner’s policy is called the original policy. Competitive pricing from any company. See more tips and information about auto insurance in your state below: If you are unsure of your state’s insurance laws, you can purchase online from various insurance companies that will get access to drivers in your state (like State Farm). The insurance company that will give you the best price is used to determine the rates they offer you. The insurer that will give you the best price is used to determine the rates they offer you. The insurer that will give you the cheapest price is used to determine the rates it offers you. In many situations, the highest insurance rates for car coverage will be found in the state with lower rates. This is because each state is different in its regulatory and insurance laws. Car insurance companies determine cost in a few different ways. The reason is that car insurance rates vary by industry and state. These costs can.

Health Insurance

Health Insurance Provider. If your insurer is not listed here, or if you have a company not listed here, then you will need to contact us. We will be glad to help you in any way we can. As an independent insurance broker we can arrange a custom quote using companies other than GEICO. However, you ll need to be listed as a full service agent, which is out of our reach. There s no way to find out all companies in each state. For example, if you re given a quote by one company for an insurance policy you don t like the most, you can go back and choose another company. If you’re not sure, you can always reach out with your insurer and see if this policy would be best suited for you. GEICO offers many different types of insurance coverage. These are some of the most common types: When you choose GEICO for car insurance, you can compare policies from multiple insurance companies. This means you ll receive a personalized quote and coverage.

Other Insurance

Other Insurance Insurance is more than an insurance company. If you have a term insurance policy, you can expect to have to pay a big premium on any cash value they provide to you. If you want a better guarantee a new one, you should ask yourself if they need to renew all of your insurance policies or will you need to go without insurance? The average car rental loss is nearly $16 a day and the cost of repair depends on a number of factors and can range from a repair or replacement to having your own repairs done. The good news is, you can save on your annual car rental insurance premium. And you probably could be saving money on your auto insurance policy since the cost is often based partly on your personal driving history. Auto insurance policies offer an individualized coverage to cover each person and vehicle within a coverage set by the company. It includes bodily injury liability coverage, property damage liability coverage and personal injury protection. The company also provides.

Home & Renters Insurance

Home & Renters Insurance The difference in rates will vary by the city, but the general rule is that every insurance rate will be lower in the towns with more claims and, therefore, lower in all towns, suburbs, and cities throughout Texas. This may not seem like a big price. In fact, an insurance rate, just like every car insurance, will be calculated differently based on what is involved in the purchase of the insured vehicle, the type of vehicle involved in the accident and where you live. The insurance rate is set by the insurance company — but the price for the policy is also the rate set by the state. A good insurance policy is one that provides coverage that is reasonable to the driver, vehicle, and passenger and provides maximum protection against uninsured, underinsured, and damages. A policy that provides better coverage at a lower price can actually increase the accident rates and damage the vehicle. This is because, in Texas, Texas is one of the states at the heart of the cost of auto repairs and accidents.

How to get renters insurance

How to get renters insurance quote from the most affordable insurers for your home. The most common factors in determining affordability are home location and household size. When shopping for renters insurance, youâll need to compare quotes from different providers to get the best coverage. But some cities offer the most affordable renters insurance in Florida – nearly 70% below the state average. A comparison of the cheapest and most expensive rental insurers in Gainesville, Florida could give you a sense of homeownership rates and homeowners insurance quotes. In addition to the specific coverage options that a company will provide, each company will also offer different discounts and the rates on its own. Before you shop your choices, consider whether the quotes you get from multiple companies are more affordable. The average monthly cost of homeowners insurance in Gainesville is $90. Thatâs the largest rate difference from average living costs in a state that pays . Your actual rates could be higher or lower than the average. There are several factors that determine the cheapest.

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How Many Seats Do Republicans Need To Keep The House

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How Many Seats Do Republicans Need To Keep The House

Gop Sees Path To House Majority In 2022

Republicans returned to the Capitol this week with a spring in their step after they defied expectations and gained House seats on Election Day, putting a GOP majority within their grasp for 2022.

GOP lawmakers rewarded House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthyDonald TrumpPollsters confront tough survey landscape after 2020 flubsThe Memo: Will DeSantis’s star fall as Florida COVID numbers rise?Legal experts welcome sanctions of pro-Trump lawyers, say more neededMORE out of office but backed Republican candidates in the House and Senate.

It was a stamp of approval for divided government and gave Republicans a sense of momentum in their goal to recapture the lower chamber two years from now in the midterm elections, when the party that controls the White House historically loses seats in Congress.

The GOP has flipped nearly a dozen seats with a handful of Republican candidates leading in uncalled races. And while Republicans will fall short of the 17 seats needed to win back the House this cycle, Democrats will be holding the thinnest majority since World War II.

And we’ve already heard from some great candidates in places where we just came up short.

GOP leaders said they are cautiously optimistic about their odds in 2022, noting that while they feel good about their current position, they will still need to fight to take back the majority.

Scott Wong contributed. Updated at 4:12 p.m.

Graham Claims He’s ‘never Been Challenged Like This’ After Senate Victory

Democrats largely focused their campaigns on protecting the Affordable Care Act and stepping up efforts to combat the coronavirus. Republicans mostly focused on the economy and preventing a Democratic-led Senate that could pursue progressive legislation in a potential Biden presidency.

Two top Republicans Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas will be re-elected, NBC News projects. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., will be re-elected, NBC News projects. All were heavily favored.

Republicans held open seats in Wyoming and Kansas with victories by their candidates Cynthia Lummis and Roger Marshall, respectively, according to NBC News projections.

And Democrat Ben Ray Lujan won an open seat in New Mexico, keeping the state for Democrats.

Opinion:the House Looks Like A Gop Lock In 2022 But The Senate Will Be Much Harder

Redistricting will take place in almost every congressional district in the next 18 months. The party of first-term presidents usually loses seats in midterms following their inauguration President Barack Obamas Democrats lost 63 seats in 2010 and President Donald Trumps Republicans lost 40 in 2018 but the redistricting process throws a wrench into the gears of prediction models.

President George W. Bush saw his party add nine seats in the House in 2002. Many think this was a consequence of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America nearly 14 months earlier, but the GOP, through Republican-led state legislatures, controlled most of the redistricting in the two years before the vote, and thus gerrymandering provided a political benefit. Republicans will also have a firm grip on redistricting ahead of the 2022 midterms.

The Brennan Center has found that the GOP will enjoy complete control of drawing new boundaries for 181 congressional districts, compared with a maximum of 74 for Democrats, though the final numbers could fluctuate once the pandemic-delayed census is completed. Gerrymandering for political advantage has its critics, but both parties engage in it whenever they get the opportunity. In 2022, Republicans just have much better prospects. Democrats will draw districts in Illinois and Massachusetts to protect Democrats, while in Republican-controlled states such as Florida, Ohio and Texas, the GOP will bring the redistricting hammer down on Democrats.

Lindsey Graham Wins Reelection In South Carolina Senate Race Cbs News Projects

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham won reelection, CBS News projects, after a contentious race. Although Democratic candidate Jaime Harrison outraised Graham by a significant amount, it was not enough to flip a Senate seat in the deep-red state.

Graham led the high-profile confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and Harrison hit him for his reversal on confirming a Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.

Meanwhile, Republican Roger Marshall has also won the Senate race in Kansas, defeating Democrat Barbara Bollier.

House Districts That Flipped In 2018 Among Those To Keep Watching

New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District: Rep. Jeff Van Drew has arguably one of the most fascinating House races of this cycle. A freshman, the Republican is in a tight race against Democrat Amy Kennedy, whose family is a political dynasty.

Van Drew switched from the Democratic Party to join Republicans during Trump’s impeachment trial. The move was jarring given that Van Drew helped flip the district, which Trump won by nearly 5 points, over to Democrats.

His switch garnered praise from Trump, who invited him to the White House where Van Drew promised Trump his “undying support.”

More:How Jeff Van Drew went from being a Democrat to speaking at the RNC

California’s 21st Congressional District: Rep. TJ Cox, a freshman Democrat, is in a rematch against Republican David Valadao.

The pair went head-to-head in 2018, and Cox came out on top, defeating Valadao by 862 votes. Cox faces Valadao again in the aftermath of scandals over business dealings and unpaid federal taxes.

The district was won by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton by double-digit margins.

More:Democrats, White House spent months bickering over a coronavirus aid bill that never happened. Will it affect voters at the ballot box?

New York’s 11th Congressional District: Rep. Max Rose faces a bitter race against Republican Nicole Malliotakis a campaign that has included an assortment of curses, accusations of lying and name drops of New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio, who is unpopular in the district.

Democrats Keep House Majority But ‘republicans Defied The Odds’

The Democrats could wind up with the slimmest House majority in 20 years.

Nancy Pelosi praises Democrats for retaining the House majority

The Democrats will keep their majority in the House of Representatives, but after all the votes are counted, they could wind up with the slimmest House majority in 20 years.

The Democrats gained a majority in the House following the 2018 election in which they won 41 seats. This was the largest gain for the political party since the 1974 election, in which they gained 49.

Some of the popular freshman Democrats who came into office in 2018, including New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, have been elected for a second term.

But Republicans appear set to make some gains, winning nearly every tossup and picking up at least six seats based on calls of races by The Associated Press.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted Wednesday morning, “Republicans defied the odds and grew our party last night.”

He also tweeted to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “You’ve been put on notice.”

Among the Republican victories is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won Georgia’s conservative 14th Congressional District after publicly supporting the fringe conspiracy theory known as QAnon.

In videos unearthed by POLITICO, Greene is also heard spouting racist, Islamophobic and sexist views.

President Donald Trump has fully embraced Greene, calling her a “future Republican star” after she won her primary.

What Are The Odds That Republicans Keep Control Of Congress

Republicans donât exactly have the best odds of retaining control of Congress. According to PolitiFact, the party of the current president usually loses seatsin the midterm elections. This year, thatâs the Republican Party. The biggest question will be whether they lose enough seats for control of Congress to pass into Democratic hands.

Republicans Are Expected To Gain Seats In Redrawn 2022 Congressional Maps But Democrats Could Be Worse Off

U.S. Census data released Monday will shift political power in Congress, reapportioning two House seats to Texas and one each to Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Colorado, and Montana and stripping a seat from California , New York , Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia. Florida, Texas, and Arizona each controlled entirely by Republicans had been expecting to pick up an additional seat.

“On balance, I think this reapportionment offers a small boost for Republicans, but the bigger boost is likely to come from how Republicans draw these seats in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia,” the Cook Political Report‘s Dave Wasserman tells Axios. “Reapportionment itself means little compared to the redistricting fights to come.” It won’t exactly be a level playing field.

“Republicans control the redistricting process in far more states than do Democrats, because of GOP dominance in down-ballot elections,”The New York Times reports. “Democrats, meanwhile, have shifted redistricting decisions in states where they have controlled the government such as California, Colorado, and Virginia to independent commissions intended to create fair maps.”

House seats broken down by final redistricting authority :

– Republican: 187

Dave Wasserman April 26, 2021