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bellesque · 5 years ago

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Stop & Smell the Flowers (Loki x Reader)

A Loki Oneshot for the Spring Time with Loki Collab Collection on AO3. Also on my AO3.

Rating: Explicit

Words: 8.9K BIG yikes

Tags/Warnings: Sex Pollen (therefore Mildly Dub-Con), Smut, Vaginal Sex, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay, Orgasm Denial, Sex in Space, and some hints of a Praise Kink

Summary: Plant samples from Alfheim and a brooding god as your only companions in a small Quinjet sounds like a recipe for disaster, but some good things can happen in ten hours.

A/N: All I can say is... whoops, my hand slipped?

THE RIDE BACK to Earth is longer than you anticipated.

The small Quinjet is a sturdy and silent thing, the engine’s muffled hum a constant as you hurtle through space. It’s a drawn out, unceasing sound; it brings your boredom to the forefront of your consciousness and warps it into a false sense of steady calm. You might even be able to close your eyes for a second, seeing as there’s nothing but blackness before you—

“Wake up,” a voice snaps from behind your pilot chair, punctuated by a sharp snap of fingers. “You will not crash this ship.”

You straighten in your seat, unfazed by the bite in your companion’s tone. You blink a couple times, squeezing your eyes shut as you stifle a yawn.

“There’s literally nothing to crash into, Loki.”

Heavy boots thud against the metal floor of the ship until they stop by the copilot chair a few paces away from you. “You never were the vigilant type to begin with.”

This time, you sigh. “Look, if it makes you feel better, I’m turning on autopilot. If you can’t trust me, trust Stark. His tech is unparalleled. We will be fine.” You punch a button on the control panel, and the low hum of the Quinjet rises slightly in pitch. Swiveling around in your chair, you turn to face the god with raised hands. “See? No hands. All good. Course set.”

Loki stares at you, his features set in an unamused scowl, before turning on his heel to the farther side of the ship.

It takes a little more willpower than usual not to allow yourself to snap back at him, but you manage. After all, you’re both pretty tired, and he’s most likely antsy because of how long you’ve been cruising through the void of space. You’re sleepy, he’s irritable.

Still, your estimated time of arrival isn’t for another eight hours, and seeing as you’re going to be stuck with each other you might as well try to maintain some semblance of cordiality.

“So,” you begin, pushing up and out from your seat, “Alfheim was pretty.”

Loki stands by the glass window that shows you nothing but the expanse of space. His reflection is so clear that the details—like the strong slope of his nose, his aristocratic cheekbones—are unmarred.

“Yes,” he answers curtly. “Home to the Light Elves. As Stark briefed earlier, if you had been paying any attention.”

You swallow the retort, letting it fizzle out on the tip of your tongue. Stark did brief you on your mission, alright. You just wish knowing how to handle a brooding, irritated god was one of the things on Tony’s agenda.

Your mission was simple enough—collect some plants and flowers and shrubs and cuttings, he said. All the planty things. It’ll be quick, he said. Two rides through the Bifrost from Earth to Heimdall’s Observatory in Asgard, and then to Alfheim, followed by a short Quinjet ride to the nearby planet-slash-moon-thing, he said. Piece of cake, won’t take too long to get there.

He failed to mention how long it would take you to come home since you couldn’t use the Bifrost for reasons that were “none of your damn business.”

“You know, you’re not usually this much of a pain in the ass,” you find yourself saying as you stand side by side.

“And you’re not usually this mouthy,” he replies. He cocks his head at you. “Are you certain the coordinates have been set for Midgard?”

“Yes, sire,” you say, unable to keep the mocking tone from your voice at bay. “I told you. Trust me. If not me, then Stark.”

You lapse into silence, watching distant planets and stars twinkle against the dark backdrop of the void, the unending vastness pulling you into thought.

You’ve been working with the Avengers for just about a year. In this time, you’ve gotten to know everyone in the tower.

Including Loki.

He’s… quite a character, to say the least. Silent. Calculating. Not plotting his next attempt at world domination, but still, many are wary of his presence. You’ve spent enough time with him to know he’s a different Loki from the one in New York, though. You’d even go as far as to say that he’s… almost kind of good. Wreaking chaos, sure, by way of annoying the hell out of Steve and Tony especially, but… good.

And you’ll even admit to yourself, just a little, that he’s nice to be around. Not right now; no, he’s unnecessarily bitchy at the moment. But when it’s just you and him in the tower while the rest are either off-world or taking a day off outside the tower, it’s almost refreshing. His presence is companionable. When you watch a movie, his comments are genuinely witty and they make you laugh. He’s more aloof—more himself, you feel, and he allows himself to actually fucking smile.

And hell, when he does, looking at you with those green eyes and that heart-wrenching, happy smile—

You huff, squashing the blooming feeling in your chest. Pivoting on your heel, you make towards the other side of the ship: the small corner by the hatch that holds your collection of plants from today’s excursion. Maybe the weird, exotic flowers will keep you from acknowledging your tiny (but growing) crush.

“Do you have plants like this on Asgard?” you ask, hoping to inject some light into the heavy and tired air that hangs between you.

It takes Loki a second to move from his stance by the opposite window, but he ends up by your side eventually. He picks up a glass jar that houses a plant with blue, stunted leaves. “No.” He brings it up to eye level, examining it and rotating it in his hand. “The plants we’ve acquired are native to the Alfheim regions, it seems.”

“What does Stark want with them?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

He sets down the jar with a dulled thunk and picks up another. The flower inside this one is pretty: curling petals with an orangey, reddish, and golden iridescence to it. It glitters in the low light of the Quinjet’s interior, and you can’t help but voice your admiration for it.

“Do you know what that one’s called?”

“No.”

“So why’d we get it?”

Loki’s eyebrows scrunch together, shifting his weight to the other foot. “Are you a child, mortal? Why must you ask such—”

You never get to hear the rest of Loki’s question; the Quinjet makes a hard, stuttering sound, almost as if it’s skidding over gravel, and the entire ship lurches forward and then sideways. The scraping sound of metal doesn’t cease as the ship continues to vibrate from the turbulence. You lose your balance, clutching at air to steady yourself, only one particularly hard jerk to the side causes you to stumble into Loki with a soft oof.

The pair of you are jostled to the floor, and the next thing you register is the distinct sound of glass shattering.

After a few seconds, the vibrations stop. Thankfully, because you were really starting to worry that dying in space was going to become an actual thing. The lights flicker before steadying and it resumes its normal hum as though it didn’t just go through the most unholy turbulence you’ve experienced. Granted, this is only your third time in space, but the unexpected collision leaves you spooked out nonetheless.

“What was that?”

It’s this moment that your mind chooses to notice that Loki’s chest has seemingly cushioned your fall, the top half of your body splayed on top of him.

Feeling the heat rise to your cheeks, you hastily clamber off him. “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t say anything, only rises to his feet and dusts off the front of his clothes. “You and I are in big trouble,” he says.

You hurry to the cockpit, which isn’t much of a cockpit considering how small the ship is compared to what Stark usually provides. A space rock just about the size of the ship lazily rolls away. “Looks like an asteroid?” you say, uncertain. “Are we caught in a belt?”

“No, it was a rogue one. The trouble I pertain to is not that, mortal. I’m afraid we’re one plant short now.”

“What?” Your head whips to the back so fast that your neck cricks, and you rush to the spot Loki points at.

Broken glass, and a flower that’s lost some of its iridescence. Some particles glitter on the metal floor, and you curse.

“There’s a spare jar in one of the overhead cabinets. Maybe we can still salvage this one.” You sigh. “What if this had some super special healing power and we just ruined it?”

“I told you not to crash this ship, and yet—”

“Shut it, Reindeer Games.” At this, you can see in your periphery how Loki’s nostrils flare just the slightest at the nickname. He hates it. Hates it because Stark uses it.

You manage to pick up the bigger pieces of broken glass without inadvertently cutting yourself and throw it into the waste bin. Loki hands you—well, more like shoves into you—another glass jar, into which you carefully place the flower. You slot it with the other plant samples and straighten up.

“There are still some smaller shards of glass around here,” you say, gesturing vaguely at the floor, “so we just need to be careful when we walk here.”

The floor shimmers in some angles: some attributed to the minute glass shards, some from the flower. Loki dips his chin in acknowledgment before resuming his perch by the window, staring out at the abyss of space as he was doing before you and he decided to look at the Alfheim plants.

A decision you’re regretting more and more with each passing minute.

You’re back in the pilot chair, scanning for any possibility of crashing into another space rock. If what you were feeling earlier was sleepiness, how you’re feeling right now is that tenfold with an extra weight of ten pounds on your head. Your eyelids are heavy and your body is beginning to feel warm. You sniffle, your nose a little congested, and a sneeze permeates the silence.

You swivel around to face Loki. The simple action of it causes your head to spin; you feel almost lightheaded, the same feeling you get when you’re sick. You steady yourself by planting your feet on the floor. “Hey. Are you feeling a little woozy?”

Loki’s eyes snap to you, concern written on his features. “Are you feeling unwell?”

“Not really. Feels like… like an allergy. From the flower.” You sneeze again. “Head’s heavy. Wanna sleep.”

“There’s a pull-out cot you can rest in.” In a flash, Loki’s helping you up, one arm around your waist. You can’t stop your eyelids from closing this time, feeling your grip on consciousness slip from you as your head lolls onto Loki’s shoulder. It’s a weird feeling. Heavy and light at the same time. You want to voice how it feels, but all that comes out is another sneeze.

“Perhaps the Alfheim flowers are a little too intense for your mortal body.”

Maybe it’s the allergies, but you swear you hear the hint of a smile in his voice. Loki drapes a blanket over you—wait, is he tucking you in?—and cards his fingers through your hair. You’re not sure if it’s real or not, but it feels nice.

“Sleep,” he says, voice distant and muddled. “I will take care of the ship.”

It doesn’t take you long to fall asleep to the Quinjet’s comforting hum.

It’s hot.

Way too hot.

You blearily open your eyes, the feverish warmth that’s spread over your body the first thing you notice. The funny thing is you’re hot but you aren’t sweating. At all.

Just warm.

Excessively so.

“It’s hot,” you blurt out dumbly, sitting up on the strangely comfortable cot. The blanket falls away from you as you squint at Loki’s silhouette in the pilot chair.

The lights are a little dimmer, you think. Not as harsh and cold, blinding white too, but almost warm. You didn’t even know the ship had that feature.

Loki doesn’t answer you. You realize this a little late after marveling over the Quinjet’s new lighting. “Are you hot?” Your voice sounds foreign, different to you—a different timbre, a little more hoarse.

“Not particularly.”

Your stomach does a little flip because shit, his voice sounds different too.

You swallow, rising to your feet. “How long was I asleep?”

“I did not keep track. Perhaps an hour. Maybe two.”

He swivels in the pilot chair, and your stomach does a funny kind of flip. He’s the perfect picture of a confident, cocky prince with a sort of casual regality; he’s leaning back just a little lower with his legs spread open, one arm hanging over the armrest while the other is bent at the elbow, a closed fist by his face. Like he sits on his own throne, proud and powerful and incredibly sexy.

And you’ll be damned if you don’t admit it’s an attractive sight.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks, his head falling to one side. The intensity of his gaze burns into you, and something inside you coils unmistakably. What the hell…?

“I…” your voice catches, and you clear your throat. “I did. Maybe—do—uh, do you want to take a nap this time? ’Cause I can keep watch.” You hurry to your feet, and your legs feel like jelly as you stand. It’s as if they aren’t a part of your body as they take you to the heart of the ship, the halfway point between the cot and the cockpit.

Loki stands, still staring at you, and even in the dimness of the ship you can see that the intensity with which he looks at you hasn’t waned. He reaches you, standing a good foot away, and stops.

You try to calm the wild beating of your heart, rooted to the spot from his attentions, and you fidget. Your eyes are flighty in contrast, flitting from his face to his chest to the void outside the Quinjet and back again.

He lifts a single finger up to your face, tipping your chin upwards so your eyes meet. Heat begins to pool somewhere specific now, and you’re not sure what to do about it.

Obviously nothing, your brain screams in protest. It’s like your mind is swimming, your afterthoughts delayed and your actual thoughts heady, private wishes just bubbling at the surface.

“Your face is red,” Loki comments, his voice low and soft. Like the blanket he tucked you into. No, a part of you thinks, stop this right now—

He brushes his knuckles against your cheek, regarding you with great interest. “You’re burning up as well. Shall I take you to bed?”

Surely he doesn’t mean for his words to come out as much of an innuendo as they do, but that’s immediately where your mind goes: into the gutter.

“A-aren’t you tired?” you say instead, allowing Loki to steer you by the shoulders back to the pull-out. “I can definitely—”

“No, you need to rest,” he insists. As your butt hits the mattress, Loki’s expression shifts into a thoughtful one. “Although your suit seems to be an unfitting set of clothes, considering you’re quite hot. One moment.”

Loki disappears, walking to a hidden part of the ship and you take this time to fan yourself. It’s still unbelievably hot, and the way your folds are slippery without any stimulation (except, you think with a small smirk, Loki’s little pilot chair moment was visual stimulation enough) causes alarm bells to ring faintly in the distance of your mind.

You experimentally flex your lower muscles and—oh. Oh.

“Here,” Loki says as he saunters back into view. He tosses you a dark green shirt. “Wear that.”

You stare at the bundle of fabric in your lap and realize it’s his.

And just like that, a fire is lit within you.

You bring up the shirt to your face, inhaling his scent when he turns his back, and fucking hell does he smell good. Your mouth practically waters at it, your eyes trained on Loki’s back as he settles back into the pilot’s chair.

Unconsciously you bite your lip as you wonder what his skin might look like underneath his armor.

“Don’t turn around,” you say, fighting the urge to jump him right then and there that surges to the fore. You’re tempted. You really are. And you also want him not to listen to you and turn around, watch you undress and change into his shirt.

Again, what in the hell…?

You shimmy out of your clothes and pull Loki’s shirt over you. It’s Asgardian in design, likely tailored specifically for him. You wearing it just feels so intimate. The smell that’s so distinctly him envelops you and quite frankly, it’s intoxicating.

You stand, and the shirt falls just to your mid-thighs. He didn’t bother getting you any shorts; you’re not sure if you’re grateful or angry, or maybe a heady mix of both.

Bundling up your used clothes in your arms, you clear your throat. “Thank you.”

Loki swivels around, stuttering to a stop when he sees you. His eyes rake over you, from your messy bedhead down to your exposed legs. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat quite visibly, and your pride rears its head in victory.

“No shorts, though?” you ask innocently, one eyebrow shooting up.

“Unnecessary,” he answers with a devious grin that makes your insides melt and ignite all at once.

He turns his attention back to the controls, and you lay your clothes by the side of the pull-out.

Wearing Loki’s shirt does little to cool your temperature—in fact, it’s still blistering despite the Quinjet’s air conditioning.

“Are you sure it isn’t hot?” you ask again. You know you’re asking unnecessary questions, but you want to get him talking, speaking to you in that gorgeous velvet full voice of his.

You hear him chuckle, a gush of heat rushing towards your center. “I’m afraid that’s all you, little one.”

Sighing, you flop onto the bed, pulling a pillow over your legs. Maybe if you take another nap, the heat will subside from your body.

Your arousal, on the other hand…

A thought enters your mind, fleetingly, because you immediately push it away and chastise yourself through the murky fog of your brain. Pleasuring yourself? In Loki’s presence? The absurdity of the idea. You should be feeling shame… only you don’t. Not really, at least.

You shift onto your side, squeezing your eyes tight. Sleep does not come to you. You try lying on your back, on your stomach, and then again—

“Are you alright back there?”

The normal tone Loki uses astounds you, seeing as you’re somehow a feverish, horny mess and he isn’t. It puzzles you, and some deep part of you wants to figure out why. Only your brain seems to refuse to cooperate unless you’re thinking of doing certain things.

Things you certainly don’t mind doing with Loki.

“I-it’s hot,” you explain, embarrassed defeat lacing your words. How many times have you said that to him? You probably sound like a broken record.

At this, Loki lets out a full peal of laughter, husky and with a sensual edge to it. You wish you could make him laugh, hear it one more time. Or twice. Or on loop. It doesn’t really matter.

He swivels again to face you, his sitting posture similar to the one earlier, and it does things to you. Causes an uproar that’s novel to you, a need rising within you that must be sated.

Loki makes a smooth come hither motion with his fingers, curling from his pinky to his index. A beckoning you can’t refuse. “Perhaps I can help. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m quite adept at magic. It may help the current predicament you face.”

You slide off the cot and walk barefooted to the copilot chair. He looks a little different, you realize as you amble towards him. Maybe it’s the allergies, but just as he sounds different, there’s something different about him now that you’re really looking. He’s always been a pretty face and you’ve always found him extraordinarily handsome, but right now is different. You just can’t put a finger on it, so you chalk it up to his aura changing. Or the allergies. Most likely it’s the allergies.

You’re about to sit in the copilot chair beside him, only to be stopped when Loki laughs again and wraps his fingers around your wrist. All you hear is a faint, “No, silly girl,” before he pulls you in between his legs.

Pulls you with surprising strength, it seems, because your butt lands almost unceremoniously in the crook of his groin and lap. Your knees are hooked over the opposite arm rest, which means if you shift even just the tiniest bit to the side, your hip will come in contact with a certain part of him.

It’s a dilemma, you think with a giggle, if you want to be caught in a hard place.

His arms snake around your waist, pulling you close to him, and it just registers that you’re sitting on his lap holy shit you’re sitting on his lap.

“Are you comfortable?” he murmurs, adjusting your position so he can rest his chin on your shoulder. Instantly your mouth goes dry; it’s the proximity. You’ve never been this close to him before, and being in such a… an intimate position has you tense and rigid on top of him.

“I think so?” you squeak, stilling further as Loki’s nose burrows into your hair. He parts the curtain of your hair with side to side movements, until he buries his face into your neck. He inhales, and a delicious shiver runs down your sides.

“Good,” he breathes.

You’re frozen on his lap, afraid to even let out the smallest puff of air. His face just stays there, in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply.

“Are… you okay?”

And then your heart stops, because he’s lifting his head, his fingers brushing your hair to the back and exposing your nape to the cool air. The next second he’s tracing the tip of his nose from your chin up to your earlobe, where he pauses. You’re acutely aware of his lips against your skin, just barely brushing against it. “Never been better.”

He inhales again, deeply, and another shiver runs down your spine. You were wrong to think he was unaffected; something’s changed between you as you slept, and you aren’t sure why or what it is.

“You smell…” He trails off, moving down and back to the spot behind your ear. You swear you feel the slightest whisper of a kiss there, and it takes extra effort to hold in the sigh that’s caught in your throat. “…different.”

“I have a smell?” It comes out with a halfhearted, short laugh; an attempt to ease the thick tension that hangs over you.

Loki only hums in response. This time, with the pressure on your neck and the puffs of his breathing against your skin, you’re sure Loki’s lips are on you. Not a kiss, nothing more—just a steady weight that anchors you in his lap.

Anchors you to the reality that you are in his lap.

“And you are so warm.” The way he says it, his mouth moving against your skin, it’s almost as if he’s talking to himself. His arms around your waist tighten, and your hip comes in contact with a little bulge.

Well, not very little, but…

“Y-yeah, I thought you were going to do something about that.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes.”

His hand rests on your exposed thigh, his thumb rubbing hypnotic circles into your skin. “Better?” he asks with his face still buried in the crook of your neck.

“I don’t think so.” Coherency becomes increasingly difficult to achieve; you’re too focused on the sizzle of electricity thrumming within your veins, spidering from where he touches you.

“How about…” His hand glides up your thighs, skimming over your underwear and underneath the baggy shirt until they come up to rest on your hip. “Now?”

You’re sure he kisses you this time, on that sensitive spot below your ear, and you bite your lip to stop yourself from making a sound.

“Still nothing,” you whisper, strained. “As hot as ever.”

There is no second guessing anymore: something wet and hot darts out behind your ear, and Loki’s lips press a firm, lingering kiss there as his hand skims to the center of your stomach. You suck in a shaky breath, your eyes slipping closed at the spark you feel.

“And now?” he questions, just by your ear. The conspiratorial tone and the volume he uses makes you clench in anticipation.

Instead of answering, you shift on his lap—purposefully grinding a little bit on his evident erection. You hear Loki’s breathing change just slightly, his fingers curling on your stomach.

You think he’s about to do something to break the sexual tension and turn it into something tangible, something you both can actually do to ease the ache you’re sure you both feel, but you know the God of Mischief enjoys his games. He enjoys acting unaffected when in fact he is, and you intend to play that to your advantage. Somehow.

“I’m not sure I’m feeling anything,” you say as nonchalant as possible. A plan quickly brews in your mind, and you pretend to notice something on the dashboard. You wriggle in Loki’s lap, making sure to rub him in all the right places as you tell him you swear you saw something whiz past.

The way Loki tenses underneath you brings you a small bout of satisfaction.

“Perhaps,” he starts, his voice clearly strained as you begin to rotate your hips ever so lightly against him, “perhaps a nap is what you need.”

“But Loki,” you say, exaggerated and almost whiny as you lean back against his lean chest, feeling the full extent of his arousal against your lower back, “who’s going to see if the asteroid comes back?”

You yelp as Loki stands, one arm hooked under your knees and the other around your waist. He’s carrying you, the thought floating through your muddled brain.

“Stark will handle it. Like you said. Trust him and his technology, or something like that,” he says, voice a little rough. “It’s bed for you.”

Loki lays you down with surprising gentleness, smoothing the covers around you. You think you might be able to sleep a little now that a little pent up energy has been released, but you only become shell-shocked when Loki climbs into the cot beside you.

It’s not a very large bed, mind you, which means that you’re trapped between his body and the wall of the ship. There isn’t much room to lay on your back when Loki’s in it with you, so you settle on your side while he does the same.

Loki pulls your back to his chest, completely flush against his body. “Relax,” he murmurs. “Try to sleep.”

Yeah, as if you can with something very hard poking into your backside.

For the record, you do try to sleep. You let your eyes drift closed with Loki’s arm draped over you, but even when you reach that half asleep state you’re focused on his erection behind you and his arm slowly making its way under your shirt again.

And somehow, whether it’s of your own doing or your body on autopilot, your hand slowly makes its way behind, reaching between you and placing it flat against his erection.

It’s like time stops. There’s nothing but static in your brain, the only sound the ever-present hum of the ship. As if neither of you dare to breathe. Loki’s fingers rest on your hipbone, where the garter of your underwear rests.

Neither of you move. You stay like this, for how long you don’t know, until Loki exhales a little, pressing his length against your palm.

“Can’t sleep,” you whisper, shifting to ease the budding strain in your arm. “Still hot.”

“So am I,” Loki replies softly.

You don’t think you can tense up further, but your body surprises you. “Maybe…” You don’t know why you’re allowing your question to form and where you’re getting the boldness to ask. “Maybe you should take something off.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and you don’t turn around to face him. The sound of the sheets rustling and the mattress shifting is enough to tell you that he got up. Cold dread begins to replace the delicious fire that was coursing through your veins—have you scared him away? Offended him?

The mattress dips again, and Loki’s pulling you against him, in the same spooning position you were in earlier. Only… only he’s shirtless, you realize when your back hits his chest.

Shit, you really want to turn around and take a good look at his gloriously naked chest first.

You’re not sure your heart can take any more when Loki slowly guides your hand back to the evidence of his arousal. Once he places your palm on his erection, his hand is sliding over your skin underneath what you’re wearing, resting just underneath the swell of your breast.

“You know, mortal, you are very pretty,” he admits quietly, his finger dashing against your skin. “And your company is… tolerable.”

“Yeah, you’re not too bad yourself, Reindeer Games.” It comes out rushed, breathy, and a small moan of pain (or is it?) punctuates the end of your sentence as he drags a nail over your skin.

“Do not call me that. Or I will have to punish you.”

When did you decide to court danger?

“Are you threatening me with a good time?”

“Perhaps I am threatening you with the absence of one.”

Fast as lightning, Loki removes his touch from you. “You are still feverish. Perhaps you should take off your shirt.”

“You mean your shirt.” Your heart thumps loudly against your ribcage, your hands now toying with the hem of the fabric. The tone between you two has shifted so drastically, the tension so thick it’s almost suffocating. You sit up, twisting to see Loki lying on his side, his eyes dark and half-lidded.

You maintain eye contact as you grip the end of the shirt, slowly pulling it as it exposes, bit by bit, the upper half of your thighs, your underwear, your stomach, your breasts, until you pull it over your head and toss it to the side. Loki stares at you all the while, a hungry look in his eye, but does nothing.

“Lie back down,” he commands, running a finger over your bare side. “Perhaps now you will be able to cool off.”

He twirls the ends of your hair around his fingers as you do as he says, the warmth of your center now the focus of your attention as it thrums.

Loki props you against him, on your side again, his fingers dancing across your midriff, moving up until he’s tracing the tops of your breasts and ghosting over your nipples.

Your back arches almost unconsciously, pressing into him where he meets you with equal pressure.

Experimentally you gyrate over his erection, making sure to keep your movements slow and agonizing. His hands skim over your breasts until he takes one in his hand, rolling your nipple between his fingers until they pebble.

His head falls onto your shoulder as you keep with your tantalizing dance over his hips, his breathing growing ragged. He tweaks and pulls at your nipples, squeezing and palming your breasts until it’s the only thing that clouds your mind.

“Are you—are you still warm?” he asks, evidently trying and failing to keep his composure as you buck your ass against him particularly hard.

“You tell me.”

He flicks over your breast in response, your head falling back with a barely held back moan.

“Maybe you should take off your pants,” you suggest with a sigh.

“Maybe I should take off yours.”

“I’m not wearing any, remember?”

Loki stills, which makes you do the same. He shifts, gently guiding you to lie on your back. The confusion must be clear as day on your face, because Loki stares at you with those intense green eyes of his as he climbs on top of you.

Your faces are level, his eyes scanning every inch. You’re not sure where this is coming from; one minute he’s all over your breasts and the next he’s quiet and on top of you. He buries his face in your neck for what feels like the millionth time today, setting off a reaction that sends another wave of want to your core.

This time he sucks on your neck, and you gasp. Your hands move to bury into his hair, but Loki pins your arms to the sides by your wrists. You writhe underneath him as he marks you with tongue and teeth.

He peppers kisses around your neck, your throat, your collarbone as he grinds into you. Letting out a small groan, he moves to hover over your lips.

“Tell me to kiss you,” he whispers hoarsely. “Do it. Now.”

The grip on your wrists has slackened and you take the opportunity to pull Loki’s face to yours. Hungry and passionate is what the kiss is: his mouth moves quickly, in sync with yours, as though to make sure every bit of this is real and not just a fever dream. You savor it, the taste of him, leaving you dizzy and delirious with every swipe of his tongue and graze of his teeth against your lips. It’s almost rough, the way he kisses you, but it fits the urgency you feel. You don’t want to have it any other way.

He travels down until he’s suckling at your breasts, and you do everything in your power to hold in the moan that rises in your throat. All you can feel is heat and slick and the pulsing of your blood, overcome with the need to be filled to the brim by him.

You’re about to fumble with his pants when he trails a path of kisses down your torso, stopping when he reaches between your legs.

You’re practically trembling with anticipation now. Seeing Loki in between your legs, a wicked grin on his face, has you wetter than you’ve ever gotten in life. He spreads you apart, settling between them, and feathers kisses over your inner thighs.

“Loki,” you say through gritted teeth, your pussy clenching as he nears your sweet center. “Stop teasing.”

He shifts forward, kissing your hips, your stomach jumping underneath him. Then, with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he bares his teeth, scraping over your skin and biting down on the fabric of your underwear.

He slides one side down, his mouth dragging over your thigh, your underwear between his teeth; he does the same to the other side, and again he goes. All the way, pulling your underwear down with his teeth until they’re around your ankles. He discards it lazily, adding it to the growing pile of clothes, and at this point you’re nothing but a whimpering mess.

“So this is the source of your sweet smell,” he mutters as he lowers his head between your legs. You’re shaking lightly, wound tight from the excitement, and when Loki inhales the scent of you, long and drawn out, you almost want to cum right there and then.

“Absolutely divine,” he comments. Then he’s placing his tongue flat against you, your head falling back against the pillow, unable to hold in the moan that spills from your lips.

It’s like an explosion of little lights, you think distantly. Little stars bursting from one touch.

He lifts his head from your cunt with a mischievous grin. “I like that sound, little one. Let’s see how many times I can make you do it again.”

The feeling of Loki’s head between your legs, his mouth inside you, is incomparable. He dives into your cavern, his dexterous tongue causing you to sigh praises that seem to only spur him on. It’s a steady, swirling motion that drives you insane, your pelvis arching.

Then he’s moving up to swipe over your clit, and every nerve ending in your body sizzles and frays, another loud moan of his name ripped from your throat. With a grip of steel, he holds your thighs down, parted wide, as he assaults your clit with sucks and nibbles and licks.

“Loki,” you pant, hips bucking against his mouth. Your insides begin to coil in preparation, your walls clenching around Loki’s tongue. “Loki, I—”

He hums, almost like he’s questioning you, and the vibration on your sensitive parts is enough to send you over the edge.

The orgasm that overtakes you is powerful, pulsing through every part of your body as you whisper his name like a prayer. Only Loki doesn’t stop—he licks up every drop that leaks from you, and it’s enough stimulation for another powerful orgasm to build.

His lips latch onto your clit, sucking rhythmically, as his tongue swipes and swirls around the bundle of nerves.

“Loki,” you try to say, only it comes out a breathy whine, “I want to go down on you too—ah—”

He plunges a finger deep within you, curling against your G-spot in time with his sucks.

“Fucking hell, Loki,” you grind out, your fingernails digging into his scalp as you rotate your hips on his face. You can feel the steady climb to another precipice of an orgasm, as well as the tiny smirk that plays on Loki’s face against you.

Your grip tightens on his hair as he speeds up his movements; rapid, quick swipes on your clit, his fingers pumping in and out of you shallowly. Your walls begin to clench at the splinters of release—

“Not yet,” he says, removing his lips and fingers from you with a dark grin.

Frustration wells up within you, but it’s shadowed by the undeniable thrill that shoots towards your center. If you’re understanding Loki right—which you do most of the time—he isn’t finished with you just yet.

He crawls on top of you like a prowling animal, the pure lust in his eyes mirroring what you feel. He captures your lips in a kiss, languid and seductive, his hands cradling your face.

The juxtaposition of the entire situation hits you like a freight train. He’s gentle when he’s holding you like this, like you’re made of glass, but the urgency with which he grinds into your naked mound detonates another explosion of emotions. One action is delicate, the other rough. Contrast bolting through you at the same time and colliding into one as pleasure.

“You’re amazing,” you sigh into his mouth, and you can feel Loki suck in a breath, pausing at your words. Spotting your chance, you roll on top of him, straddling his waist with a smirk.

Loki’s eyes open, a ghost of bewilderment etched onto his face at the sudden shift, and then when he sees your expression he transforms his own into his usual confident half-grin. As though he’s merely amused by this whole situation—but he isn’t fooling you.

“I didn’t think you had it in you, little one,” he drawls, sliding his hands up your sides.

You grab his forearms, pushing them down to his sides as you rock against the clothed tent in his pants. Loki could easily overpower you, you know that, free his arms from your not so vicelike grip, but he lets you. Lets you pin his arms to his sides just as he did to you.

Lowering your head, you run your nose along the expanse of his chest, up to his neck where it’s your turn to inhale deeply. He smells just like the shirt you were wearing, only ten times more potent, and it sends a fresh wave of heady arousal to wash over you.

“Not yet,” you echo his words from earlier, your grip tightening on his wrists as you grind down into him. You can feel Loki about to respond with a snarky remark, so you silence him by suctioning your lips on his neck. Your one track mind has only one goal: mark him with bruises that are of your doing. Claim him as yours.

You lift off him with a little pop; not a very sexy sound, but Loki seems to enjoy it with the way his hips seem to be moving of their own accord. You kiss across his throat before suctioning again on another spot right below his jaw.

This time, you play a little rough.

Loki’s hips jerk upwards as your teeth rake over his skin, his breath fanning over your hair. “Little minx,” he utters, groaning a second later as you push your center against him with a harder bite to his neck.

“Pants off, Loki,” you whisper.

He frees one arm from your grip and haphazardly waves his hand, and your swollen sex comes in contact with the flesh of his hard and heavy cock.

Just as Loki’s about to jerk up and into you, you lift your hips off of him. It kills you to do it, but the teasing, the foreplay, causes you to feel a smidge of power.

“I said, not yet,” you say, sliding down his body until your face is level with his cock.

His length throbs in front of you, and somehow, somewhere in the deep recesses of your mind you think you’ve never seen a cock as beautiful as his. Curious, you lick a stripe down the underside of it, from the base up to the tip.

Loki masks his hiss, turning it into a cheeky exhale, folding an arm under his head. “Go on then. Impress me.”

Whatever intimidation game he’s trying to play, feigning nonchalance, it’s not going to work on you. You take a moment to examine the bead of precum that leaks from his slit, your fingers at the base of his erection, and drag the tip of your tongue over it before sliding your lips over the blunt head.

You don’t bob up and down; unmoving, merely suckling and swirling your tongue around the head of his cock. His hands fist into your hair as your hand and mouth begin to pump up and down his shaft, and just like that promises and praise fall from his lips like wine.

You chance a glance at him, and are utterly pleased by the sight. Loki’s eyes are scrunched shut, barely containing his pleasure, breathing hard through his nose. To have him, a god, reduced to his most carnal needs at your ministrations fills you with gratification. You take him further into your mouth until you can feel him pulsing with almost release, and then you lift off him with a sly grin.

“Not yet,” you repeat in almost a teasing, singsong kind of way.

Loki glares at you, but it’s hardly threatening. You manage to laugh as you level your faces, kissing him hot on the mouth and guiding your slick entrance to his throbbing cock.

You hover over him, not fully seated, his cock just stretching you the slightest bit. Your self-restraint cracks with every passing second you remain unmoving, until Loki takes your hips in his hands and brings you down on top of him, seating you on top of him.

He stretches you in a way you can only describe as full. You lean forward, planting your hands on his lean chest, and rock against him, eyes closing at the feeling.

It’s nothing you could ever conjure up in your wild dreams—he fills you, grinding in time with you and sending you into a barely controlled frenzy. But you keep your movements slow, relishing the way you can feel him throb inside you. Everything feels so new, a first you’ve never experienced: each touch, movement, kiss, no matter how small seems to be amplified in the small ship. It fills you with an unfamiliar, delicious kind of fire, boiling inside you.

“Not—not bad,” Loki grunts, unable to maintain the once casual tone he used before. “For a mortal.”

You swivel your hips and rake your nails over his chest, and Loki’s mouth parts lightly. “Not bad,” you remark, squeezing your muscles around him, “Reindeer Games.”

It’s Loki’s turn to seize his opportunity, it seems, because his eyes fly open, a wild, hungry look to him as he flips you underneath him, his cock still buried in you. The shift in position drives you a little mad, your pussy clenching unconsciously around him.

“What did I say,” he asks dangerously, plowing in and out of you with slow, agonizing strokes, “about calling me that?”

“You’d punish me.” A delicious shiver runs down your spine as the words come out.

“Wonderful that you remember. Because you’re about to forget everything except my name.”

And with that promise, Loki brings your wrists over your head, pinning them above you with a firm grip, his mouth seeking yours as he begins to rut into you more senselessly now. He swallows the moan you make when the tip of his cock hits a particularly sensitive spot inside you, making sure to angle it right where you’re most sensitive.

He doesn’t cease his movements when he latches onto your breast, roughly biting and sucking until you’re whimpering soft cries and pleas and praises. His other hand caresses the curve of your hip and ass before he presses on your clit.

If you were seeing stars earlier, right now you’re seeing entire galaxies explode behind your eyes. The sensations are overwhelming, your legs spread wide open, and just when you think you’ve felt it all, Loki takes you by surprise and pulls you both into a kneeling position. He bounces you on his cock with unrelenting speed, and your arms find their way around his shoulders as you approach orgasm yet again.

You subconsciously flex your walls around him, biting down on his shoulder to prepare you for an orgasm—only Loki slows to a stop, gently laying you back down on your back.

The release that built inside you ebbs away, and you clench around Loki, a silent signal for him to continue. Only Loki pulls himself out of you, resting atop you with his face buried in your neck, suckling another bruise into your skin.

“Loki,” you breathe, his hand cupping your breast, “Loki, please.”

The god has the nerve to smile against you, you feel it. “What did you say to me earlier?”

“You said it to me first, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Loki lifts his head, his eyes boring into yours, blown with desire and yet… something has shifted. Something else is there.

“You are extraordinary,” he tells you, brushing hair away from your forehead. “You have always been the object of my attention, ever since you walked into the board room on your first day.”

Your throat closes with the genuine admission, and you swallow the lump in your throat. “Yeah, well, I always thought you were pretty neat. Maybe we can talk later and finish what we started?”

Loki chuckles, his eyes crinkling, and presses a kiss to your lips. “Smart woman.”

It’s almost as if the tender moment doesn’t happen at all, because Loki’s arms snake underneath you to bring your hips closer to his, plunging into you and reaching a deeper spot that makes both of you groan in earnest. Whatever just happened, you can probably mark it for later with a good sit-down conversation. Right now your focus is on his cock inside you, and you don’t hesitate to tell him how good he’s making you feel.

“Hands above your head,” he commands.

You oblige, and his head immediately dips to your breasts. He’s kissing, licking everywhere he can reach, while your hands tangle in his hair, his shoulders, his muscled back. Your back arches, his cock thrusting mercilessly into you, burying himself to the hilt and brushing against that sweet, sweet spot over and over.

You don’t know how you’re ever going to come back from this. Loki buried within you, your cunt stretching to accommodate him, perfectly slotting into each other. His fingers rub against your clit, adding to your already overloaded senses and fuck, it’s as if all the effects from the foreplay and your heat come crashing down in one big tidal wave.

The speed at which Loki’s pounding into you is almost ungodly, unreal. Your mouth hangs open, your orgasm building with extraordinary intensity—

Almost as quickly as it builds, you’re tipped over the edge, a broken wail of his name accompanying the spasms in your lower body. You’ve never had an orgasm as shattering as this one, your cunt fluttering around Loki even as you slowly come down from your high.

“That’s it,” Loki says, jaw set. “Very good, little one.”

He doesn’t stop, doesn’t even slow down—he continues to wreck you, the sounds of your coupling obscenely filling the air. You want him to feel the seismic pleasure you just did—so you clamp around him, rotate your hips in little circles in time with his thrusts.

“You’re absolutely amazing,” you tell him, watching how he slowly unravels with every new praise. You tell him how good he makes you feel, how good he is, perfect and incredible and oh, the things you would do to—

Loki bends down and kisses you ferociously, licking every part of your mouth and biting on your lips as he bucks, going rock hard and cumming inside you. His movements slow, just a fraction, as you let him ride out his high.

“Glorious woman,” he mutters, his eyes still closed as he kisses over every inch of your face.

You’re about to return with a compliment of your own, but are cut off when Loki grinds into you again.

“A-are you still hard?” you ask, a giggle rising to your throat whose tail end turns into another moan.

“I’ve lost count how many times I’ve made you make that wonderful sound,” he says, hips stirring back to life as you feel a fresh bout of slick moisture gush down your legs. “I think that’s quite a success.”

And then he’s flipping you over, on your stomach, pulling your ass up and sliding his still-hard cock back into your dripping folds, reaching depths you didn’t even know you had, evidently ready for another round.

Through your half-lidded eyes, you make out the faint outline of stars—whether they’re from the pleasure you feel or actually there, you don’t know.

-- -- --

You’d think overstimulation would best you, but your entire afternoon—evening, morning, you can’t really tell, space is just completely dark—has been you and Loki all over each other all over the ship.

You can’t tell how long it’s been, but you can feel the ship beginning to descend into Earth’s atmosphere.

“Hey. Hey, Loki—ah, yes, there—”

You’ve also lost track of how many orgasms you’ve had.

You writhe underneath him, searing hot ecstasy blistering in your core as Loki sucks on your clit, his teeth just lightly scraping over it, his fingers smoothing over your inner thighs.

“You taste so sweet, little one,” he murmurs against you, licking through your folds.

“Don’t distract me.” You swat at his head weakly. “I think we’re here.”

“Haven’t touched the ground,” he says, shrugging, making to dive back into your well-spent cunt.

You stop him before he can seduce you into letting him taste you again, and again, as he’d been doing all day.

Whatever warmth you were feeling earlier has completely subsided from your body, and even your mind feels clearer. As soon as you came down from whatever it was, all that was left was a blissful afterglow that you still feel until now.

Surprisingly, you and Loki haven’t had any awkward, dead air—granted, he has been buried in your thighs and yours in his most of the trip. You thought maybe as soon as the strange fever subsided, you’d both be back to whatever it was before this, but apparently not. It seems to have opened up a door, an opportunity, one you both mutually want to walk through together.

“We still have time,” Loki purrs, caressing your folds with his thumbs.

“You’re insatiable,” you sigh, and Loki takes this as a sign to delve back into your warmth, his tongue gliding into you for the umpteenth time today.

“You love it.”

You and Loki disembark the Quinjet, you with shaky legs and him with a sort of spring in his step. You’re not sure what to tell the others when you see them, a tinge of worry sneaking into your bubble of sexual satisfaction.

As soon as you walk into the board room, you’re met with the expectant eyes of the Avengers, studying the pair of you with varying expressions.

And then Loki’s sliding his arm around your waist, bringing you closer to him, and the room erupts into shouts of “Called it!” and “No!” and you can’t help but laugh at the raucousness of it all.

“I’m glad we couldn’t take the Bifrost coming back here,” you tell Loki quietly.

“As am I,” he whispers back.

“Yeah, about that,” Stark cuts in, stepping forward, “yeah… you totally could have used it.”

#by belle #smut #loki x you #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki smut #loki imagine #yeah... yeah this VERY long #tom hiddleston imagine #sex pollen

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therappundit · 4 years ago

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Top 10 Rappers of 2020

The finish line of this long, surreal year is finally upon us...which means that it’s time for me to throw down the gauntlet in the ‘Best of 2020’ frivolous list race! 🙌

*Just to be clear*: this is a list of MCs who I believe turned in the best overall performances in 2020. ***This is NOT a list of the my top 10 favorite MCs***, or even who I believe to be the best MCs in the world at the moment...these are simply dope artists that put forth the strongest, most consistently interesting and important (to the genre) high-quality work in the perilous year that was 2020.

If you think your favorite MC was slighted....well, Michael Jordan is the greatest to ever play the game of basketball but even he didn’t win MVP every year, right? I encourage you to write your own list - it’s a cool way to dap artists that are too often overlooked by industry websites, and share the music you enjoy with others that may not have given the record a spin otherwise.

Even if 2020 didn’t bring you the “instant classic” you had been hoping for, I think it’s hard to deny that this year really had impressive depth when it came to showcasing some of the most diverse music that the genre has to offer. I can’t speak for music in general - sadly I’m just The Rap Pundit, not The Music Pundit - but I can say that it has been an impossible task to keep a playlist less than 500 songs deep at a time, because for every truly great release in 2020 there seemed to be 30 very good releases. 👌

So how did I come about these 10 MCs (and Honorable Mentions)? Before you get huffy about who I snubbed (and that is pointed directly at my jury of older head peers that consider themselves tastemakers, but also haven’t opened their minds up to any new takes on rap styles since the year 2000)...here are the five chief pieces of criteria that I put into finalizing my list:

- quality (whatever lane you’re in, how often did you ‘own it’?)

- quantity (at least 10 very good-to-great songs released, and 3-4 verses that stand out as a ‘must-hear’ for any rap music fan)

- consistency (not just 4-5 great features and a few forgettable solo tracks, will I want to keep at least 7 or 8 of your own new songs released in 2020 in my rotation for 2021?)

- impact (are you so vital to the type of rap music you make that if you stopped rapping tomorrow, there’s no one else in the game that could fill that void?)

- “it” factor (are you carried by a co-sign or an elite production team, or did you bring a style/talent to the table that could carry a record in and of itself?)

Got it? Then here we go...

1. Conway the Machine

I hope 2020 was the type of year that Conway the Machine had been hoping for since he first began his journey with rap music. After years of scraping and hustling towards music industry recognition (and not just cult figure status), at year’s end we see Griselda’s top Lieutenant holding down a rare balancing act: champion of underground hip-hop, and most requested feature by any mainstream rap star looking to add some tough-talking muscle to their album.

While much of Conway’s content has always been driven by surviving an attempt on his life in 2012, much like 50 Cent, Conway’s way with words and perspective manage to elevate the quality of his material to a higher tier than most. And where - at least in his heyday - 50 Cent benefited from an indestructible super-villain persona, Conway’s success can be greatly attributed to a larger-than-life heart. With every braggadocious act of gunplay, there are moments of gratefulness to still being alive to share success with his brethren, as well as a painful longing to be with close allies that are no longer with him (at least not in the physical form).

Above all else, in 2020 Conway the Machine did what he has always done throughout his career: delivered well written, passionate bars about coming up in an impossibly challenging environment and coping with loss...only now his craftsmanship and understanding of how to channel all of those feelings into a more polished final product have yielded the most well-rounded solo project of his career in From King to a God. Progress is a slow process, but the long and winding road has finally taken Conway a step closer to that G.O.A.T. status he will hopefully continue to reach for...

Best Evidence: FKTG, and a countless number of scene-stealing verses alongside rap acts ranging from deep underground to household names

2. Freddie Gibbs

I don't use the word "sauce" all too often (this may actually be the first time), but if there was any MC guaranteed to bring sauce to any rap record right now, it's Freddie Gibbs.

Forever existing somewhere between gritty gangsta and syrupy old soul, the flavor that Freddie brings to every verse is malleable enough to work on virtually any type of record, which was certainly proven in 2020. Anyone foresee a Gibbs & Alchemist Grammy nomination heading into 2020? It’s a testament to how high quality work, through consistent reliability and dues paid, can elevate a project from underground niche following to critical acclaim. While his work with Alchemist may not reach the lofty levels of his heralded collaborations with Madlib, Alfredo represents the best that “quarantine music” can offer...two talented friends saying one day, “hey we should finally drop a full tape together, why not?” - and then BOOM, it happens.

Too many fail to remember that Gibbs already has a long accomplished body of work behind him...so the fact that he may just be entering his prime now, is scary.

Best Evidence: Alfredo, Machinedrum’s “Kane Train”

3. Boldy James

Comeback MC of the year, and no it is not close (but big shout-out to Grafh, another dope MC who had an amazing year).

I'm old enough to remember when folks like Roc Marciano and Ka were seen as sleepy, monotone rappers with little hope of reaching permanent rap icon status (flash-forward to today, and they are widely consider geniuses). For some, the quieter, less hook-dependent approach to making rap songs, was....well, not great rap music. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now, but similar to how the coolest, smartest cat in the room is rarely the loudest, it can take some time and patience before everyone learns what’s what. Time is what is required to appreciate Detroit’s Boldy James, a veteran that has been through it - both in terms of the ups and downs of the music business, as well as the streets through which he draws his stories and inspiration.

Boldy makes it seem all too easy, rapping his verses with the cool, casual tone of telling old stories to a close friend over drinks. Dropping multiple projects (with one still to come) in one year can often lead to over-saturation. Even the most dedicated fans/stans can begin to feel less enthusiastic about new releases when they have already received a healthy portion of more of the same...but most rap fans are not necessarily Boldy James fans. Boldy fans (much like Roc Marciano and Ka fans) are already aware that knowing what type of material to expect from your favorite MC can be a blessing if that MC takes pride in the execution of the final product, rather than the noise leading up to it.

The beauty of his collaboration with The Alchemist (big year for that guy, huh?), The Price of Tea in China, is that it celebrates the more subtle nuances of boom-bap, proving that great MC and producer chemistry can trump the “shock & awe” of more uptempo rap music. The shock in Boldy James’ lyrics sits within the detailed descriptions of the cold world he grew up in...so monotone or not, how can any music could be more gripping than that?

Best Evidence: TPOTIC, Manger On McNichols, a long list of consistently perfect feature verses

4. 42 Dugg

I would say this is more of a longterm investment rather than the celebration of a rapper already within rap’s inner circle, but 42 Dugg didn’t just steal the show on every feature this year, he also displayed maturity in his ability to craft well-rounded, high quality rap singles. I’m talking joints that work just as well on the street tape level as they would at the radio level. That is especially rare to see from a rapper that is still relatively new to national conversations.

So much more than just a co-sign of Lil Baby and Yo Gotti, the Detroit eastsider has already proven that he can craft a full solo album with the swagger of a far more seasoned MC. 42 Dugg combines a Boosie-esque, "oh you think you’re better than me??” chip on his shoulder with the unpredictable bombast of Lil Wayne. What he may lack in punchlines he makes up for in musicianship, his voice bringing one of the most nimble touches to trap music that I have heard in a long time. 42 Dugg music is hard and soulful, with the natural hunger of a rapper that knows me might be one smash away from superstardom. By this time next year, I’m betting he will be.

Best Evidence: Young & Turnt 2 (Deluxe), features on high profile records like Lil Baby’s “Grace” and “We Paid”, and a growing stream of attention grabbing solo loosies

5. Rome Streetz

In 2020 it was almost impossible to be an underground MC with a great project unless you landed a Rome Streetz verse.

Rome has been bubbling for a while now, but in 2020 he unleashed an onslaught on the game. At times he seemed like the hardest working MC in underground circles, busting his ass to not only make as many appearances as possible, but also to own any song he guested on. He raps like every verse might be “the one” that gets him a huge contract, and that’s a level of hunger and consistency that will likely land him more than one huge contract someday. In spite of that laundry list of strong features, the young Brooklyn MC still managed to release multiple dope solo projects, all flashing a rap style that feels at once a throwback and the fresh voice NYC rap needs.

Rome is clearly from the same school as many of the New York City greats, because he has the capacity to deliver dark, potent bars with the sharp intellect of a Harvard lecture (think AZ before “Sugar Hill”). While he sounds most at home when he’s rhyming over instrumentals that run more coldblooded than a horror flick, it’s easy to picture him popping up in more places in 2021...if that’s even possible.

Best Evidence: Noise Kandy 4, Kontraband, The Residue, and at least 50 incredible features with a who’s-who of the underground’s finest

6. Stove God Cook$

No one saw this coming....well, maybe Roc Marciano, Lord Jamar, Busta Rhymes and a few more NYC heads in the know - but I guarantee you, no one else saw the Stove God coming!

Bar for bar, no MC owned more rewind-worthy rap quotables in 2020 than Stove God Cook$. Dropping a solo debut with VERY little fanfare and zero features (apart from the steady, reliable guidance of Roc Marciano - low key one of hip-hop’s most reliable producers), a slow bubbling word of mouth campaign on social media eventually got Stove God verses exposed to more and more high profile ears. Such a grass roots campaign is rarely seen...I mean, a rap album slowly becoming a critical darling simply off the strength of more and more random folks discovering the music and Tweeting about it, as opposed to the buzz being calculated before the product??? It feels almost too good to be true these days, as early reviews of Reasonable Drought typically lead with something along the lines of, “hey, have you heard of this album? I have no idea who this is, but it is 🔥🔥🔥”

It has often been said that Roc Marciano has a lot of “sons” in the game, implying that Roc Marci gave birth to a style that a whole generation of underground MCs run with today. So it’s ironic (or perhaps highly appropriate?) that the next level of progression for Roc might be to have a protege, a young Jedi to carry on the tradition on Roc’s own terms, and become the next new star to be embraced by the old heads. But Stove God isn’t a clone of Roc, or anyone else, he’s simply one of the most exciting artists to hit the NYC underground in a generation. Everything from his word choice, to his fresh references and sense of humor, to his delivery and the way he structures his verses, feels like a collection of “firsts”, there’s simply no one sounding like him. And if his work in 2020 is any indication, he will continue to be in a league of his own for years to come.

Best Evidence: Reasonable Drought, spotlight snatching features alongside Roc Marciano and Griselda’s finest

7. Lil Baby

Once viewed by some as just another “Lil”, Lil Baby had been rollin’ coming into 2020, but by the end of 2020 it’s clear that he has arrived at the forefront of rap music’s most reliable hitmakers right now.

A must-have feature on any rap album reaching for max exposure, Lil Baby’s dexterous flow, charisma, and pen that is significantly sharper than early reports indicated, made him one of the few shining stars in 2020 to consistently deliver good rap music to what in any other year would have been considered smash hits in any club.

What makes Lil Baby’s music standout is that he could easily be a “cookie cutter” MC, phoning in verse after verse just to get another check, but instead he continues to bring it - trying to squeeze in an extra catchy lyric, maybe flow in a way that breaks up a verse to make it stand out from the pack a little more - and even when he is featured over cookie cutter beats that sound like every other trap inspired beats that came before it, Baby seems eager to prove something. I think that’s what I like about him - he’s on a short list of mainstream-bred Young Thug disciples that seem to really want to put the work in to becoming one of the greats.

Best Evidence: I mean...did any rap star have more songs in circulation this year? Dude was everywhere, but “The Bigger Picture” got his name officially into the lyricist conversation (even though personally I don’t even think it’s one of his more impressive records - at least not stylistically)

8. Westside Gunn

No one denies that the Griselda Records team had a banner year, yet somehow the vocal leader of the group managed to drop a handful of dope projects without receiving credit for being a great MC in his own right. Great artist, great album curator, great business man - sure, but great MC?? That credit is rarely given to the FLYGOD. He might not even understand how natural he is as a solo MC, waxing unpredictable flows and half-bars that stick in your mind in place of catchy hooks or predictable song structure. He might call himself an artist first, but I still call him one of the most prolific rappers today (regardless of whether he retires after the ball drops).

I can’t believe I have to tell rap fans this in the year 2020...but......you all know that message and punchlines are just part of the art of rapping, right...and not the only thing that defines who is a dope MC and who isn’t?? Play any solo cut from Westside Gunn and filter out the “doot-doot-doots” and stream of conscious hooks and what you are left with is one of the most distinctive voices in rap music, attempting off-kilter flows and phrases over some of the most impressive production in rap music today, and to me that sounds like my kind of rap music. What the Buffalo floor general lacks in diversity of subject matter he makes up for with a relentless imagination.

That’s why it’s not all that surprising to me that Westside Gunn enjoyed more mainstream attention in 2020 than he ever has before. All he needed was a window of exposure and he certainly capitalized on it, pitching his sound and his vision in all the right places, without compromising his style or vacating his lane. So strictly as a MC, I would consider him the Young Thug of the east coast underground scene, and if 2020 does turn out to be his final year of recording solo projects, I am thankful that he already has a long list of quality projects with high replay value to revisit again and again. But don’t wait - give this man his flowers now.

Best Evidence: “Euro Step”, “Rebirth”, “327″, “Shawn vs. Flair”, “Michael Irvin”, and YES he even had a more than worthy verse on “$500 Ounces” alongside Freddie Gibbs and Roc Marciano

9. Benny the Butcher

Who else is more reliable to deliver a dope feature verse than Benny?

By now you must be muttering at least a few things about me, so let me just make two points: YES, I am a big fan of Griselda records, but NO I do not consider that an unreasonable bias because even on paper according to a large variety of sources, it’s clear that Conway, Boldy James, Westside Gunn and Benny are true specialists when it comes to the quality of the work they distribute. Its not a fluke or a trend, they’re just that good at what they do...I have been saying this for almost 5 years now, but in 2020 the rest of you sleepy heads finally just stopped hitting snooze.

Benny the Butcher already possesses the writing capacity, attention to detail, and skills of observation/personal reflection to put himself within special company as one of the nicest pens in the business today. But in 2020, he dialed things up even higher...or perhaps word of mouth just finally caught up with the rest of his peers? The tribute to the classic Roc-A-Fella era that was his Burden of Proof project with Hit-Boy helped expose Benny to a much larger audience, and it has been beautiful to see so many more folks quoting and sharing his lyrics on Twitter, because I recall when he had about the same amount of Followers that I do, because it wasn’t all that long ago (I just hope they go back to experience all of his prior work - I’m still partial to his incredible verses on “Shower Shoe Lords” and “Pissy Work”)!

In my not so humble opinion, I do think some of the more dramatic pomp and circumstance on the BOP album was more suited to a Rick Ross or Meek Mill than Benny, so I’m actually more excited to hear what Benny has in store for 2021. He truly sounds at his best over more minimalistic production that lets his lyrics fill the spotlight...but still, tracks like “Timeless” and “Legend” do remind me of some of my favorite moments from old JAY-Z albums...blasphemous, maybe, but true.

A shot to the leg last month seems to have done nothing to slow his momentum, so if you didn’t board the bandwagon by now, you are inexcusably late.

Best Evidence: Burden of Proof, mercilessly slaughtering every verse on every Griselda projects, and a ton of show-stealing features

10. Drakeo the Ruler

What a journey it's been for the L.A. rising star.

Flexing a penchant for placing local slang into his music and delivering dark verses with a clear sense of humor, it's easy to see the appeal of Drakeo's style. If Thank You For Using GTL was an inspiring attempt to do anything possible to keep his buzz going (in that case, recording his verses over a prison phone), the quick release of We Know The Truth shortly after he regained his freedom seems to have given him a 50 Cent-esque teflon aura at the moment.

But this is about more than just Drakeo himself, it’s about what he represented before incarceration, and what he represents now. As one of the more visible forces in a new generation of west coast hip-hop, Drakeo was a few key features away from exploding onto the national scene. Now after surviving his ordeal, likely with a great deal more to write about, his ceiling has only been raised - and along with his growth potential, so rises the potential for the current rap scene out in L.A. right now. Mark my words: by this time next year Drakeo’s flow will be one of the most flagrantly jacked flows in rap music coast to coast.

A sincere welcome home from the rap world, Drakeo the Ruler. Hopefully the worst is now behind you. 🙏

Best Evidence: We Know The Truth, Free Drakeo, Thank You For Using GTL

*Honorable Mentions*:

Che Noir, Ka, Ransom, Billy Woods, Royce Da 5′9″, Jay Electronica, Fly Anakin, Curren$y, Lil Uzi Vert, Roc Marciano, Skyzoo, Black Thought, Tee Grizzley, Your Old Droog, Flee Lord, Lil Wayne

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hale-13 · 4 years ago

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Trapezius

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 27 Prompt 27 - Injured

Peter gazed out over the harbor forlornly, twisting his mask into knots in his lap. Normally he would really enjoy the view – the sun was setting in a clear sky turning the normally disgusting water a soft orange and painting the area with a soft warmth. The peaceful view was marred by the emergency vehicles, Coastguard boats and police and news helicopters which made Peter’s gut clench with anxiety. He just… he tried so hard.

Words: 2123, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, May Parker, Helen Cho

TW: Injury, Poor Emotional intelligence

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

The sound of repulsers approaching made Peter tense and he mentally put his walls back up. He couldn’t afford to let Mr. Stark see him as a kid right now. They were colleges when he was Spider-Man, peers. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it puff out through his clenched teeth.

“Previously on Peter screws the pooch I tell you to stay away from this instead you hack a multi-million dollar suit so you can sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you not to do,” Mr. Stark’s sarcastic voice said and Peter held back a flinch, keeping his expression blank as he cautiously looked back over his shoulder. His back was killing him and felt hot and swollen from his Hercules hold of the ferry earlier – he had definitely felt something tear – but he couldn’t afford the weakness right now.

“Is everyone okay?” He asked instead, keeping his voice monotone and trying not to tense his back.

“No thanks to you,” the Iron Man voice made Mr. Stark’s snide tone sound slightly metallic but, more than that, it made his blood boil and he whipped around to face the man.

“No thanks to me?” He took no precautions as he lifted his lefts over they side of the concrete tower and jumped down on the other side making his shoulders throb. “Those weapons were out there and I tried to tell you about it and you didn’t listen. None of this would have happened if you had just listened to me!” His voice broke and he could feel blood rushing to his face but he did his best to push down the embarrassment. “If you even cared you’d actually be here.” He threw in boldly.

It took him by surprise, therefore, when the armor opened in from of him and Tony Stark stepped out, a grim look of disappointment on his face that made Peter stumble back a could steps, unable to hide his wince of pain but playing it off as shock instead. “I did listen kid. Who do you think called the FBI huh?”

Peter dropped his gaze, unable to make further eye contact, only interrupting to correct his age and flinching again at Mr. Stark’s yelling. “I’m sorry,” he stammered, but he could tell the platitudes were only making his idol angrier so he said instead, with the most sincerity he could push into his tone “I just… I just wanted to be like you.”

“And I wanted you to be better,” Mr. Stark said back in a weary voice before asking for the suit back. Peter heart sank further but he got it. Mr. Stark was right – he didn’t deserve to be Spider-Man if all he did was hurt other people.

The car ride back to his apartment in Queens was silent and awkward, broken only by Mr. Stark and Happy leaving the car and throwing his a pair of hideous Hello Kitty pajama pants and an oversized New York tourist shirt. It took more effort than he would care to admit to slip the suit off of his painful muscles and lift his arms up high enough to pull the shirt on but he managed it.

Happy slipped back into the driver’s seat a moment later and raised the partition but Mr. Stark didn’t return as they pulled away from the curb and Peter’s heart sank further when he realized the man had probably taken the armor back to the Tower because he couldn’t bear to be in the car with Peter another minute. His eyes were burning but he refused to cry here – he’d already proven to be a problem and he wasn’t going to cry about his well deserved punishment.

The car stopped in front of his apartment and the locks on the doors popped but Happy didn’t roll down to partition to talk to him or offer any direction so, without a backward glance as his poorly folded suit, Peter slunk out of the car and upstairs.

May was not happy with him for skipping school and not answering his phone and, with the pain of his torn muscles ratcheting up and the emotional trauma of the day weighing down on him he collapsed onto the couch and tearfully confessed to his aunt that he had lost his internship, wanting to bring his arms up to return her tender hug but physically unable to do so. His only relief was that she directed him to take a shower pretty immediately because he smelled like garbage,.

And, yeah, he probably did.

The piss poor water pressure of their dingy shower was actually a blessing today but Peter could still barely stand with his back facing the hottest water possible hoping that the heat would relieve some of his pain but he was still just as painful when he forwent his sleep shirt a few minutes later.

He healed fast. This was fine – it would all be resolved in a few days.

———————————————

“Fuck,” Peter muttered, keeping his right arm tucked close to his stomach as he wrestled with the leukotape he had bought at the pharmacy. It kept sticking to itself and the wall and his hair and basically everywhere but where he was trying to stick it and Peter groaned, balling the piece up and throwing it away.

It had been a few months since dealing with the Vulture. A few months since turning down Mr. Stark’s offer to be an Avenger but accepting his offer to become his personal intern and Peter couldn’t be happier.

Well. Except for his shoulder that is.

His left arm had healed fully after straining his muscles holding the ferry together but his right had just gotten worse and worse and it was interfering with his ability to not only be Spider-Man but also to just perform everyday tasks. He hadn’t been able to lift much with that side or even put on a shirt normally in weeks and it was starting to grate on his nerves. After spending hours watching videos on YouTube Peter decided to try some strengthening exercises and taping.

Neither was working very well.

“Fuck,” he said again, with feeling, as he bent forward at the waist to rest his head on the cool counter top of his bathroom. He was supposed to get picked up by Happy in a few minutes to go and spend the weekend at the Tower with Tony to work on his suit and there was no way he could hide this anymore. He couldn’t even lift his arm up to chest level. His phone vibrated on the counter top and he moaned, answering it without looking at the caller ID. “Hey Happy.”

“Nope, guess again,” his mentor’s voice said and Peter jerked up, letting out a strangled grunt as he jostled his shoulder. “You okay kid?”

“Why are you calling me?” Peter said instead, deflecting.

“I’m picking you up,” Tony said. “Now are you okay?”

Peter waffled for a minute but one look at his duffle bag made him ache and he let out a sigh. “Not… really I guess.”

“What’s wrong?” His mentor’s voice was sharp and he could hear the sound of his seatbelt smacking the window of his car and the door opening and closing as Tony got out of the car.

“It’s not a big deal,” Peter said, going to the front door and unlocking and opening it just as Tony left the elevator, they made eye contact and hung up their phones.

“Well you look to be in one piece and there’s no blood everywhere,” Tony said as he joined Peter in the living room of his apartment and looked him over. “So what’s going on kiddo?”

Peter nibbled on his bottom lip and gripped his right hand into his shirt tightly for just a second before releasing it. “Remember the ferry?”

Mr. Stark was silent and attentive as he listened to Peter ramble and sighed deeply at the end of his story, reaching one hand up to massage his eyes. “You really don’t half-ass anything do you?”

“Do you actually want me to answer that?” Peter asked confused and his mentor rolled his eyes, grabbing Peter’s bag from where it was resting in the hallway.

“Come on then, you have a date with Dr. Cho and the MedBay.” Peter whined but didn’t overly protest when he was directed out of the apartment and down to where Mr. Stark had illegally parked in the fire lane in front of his building.

It was just some muscle straining right? A week or two of meds and resting it and everything would be okay.

“Well its not a strain,” Dr. Cho told him just over an hour later looking at the images of his radiographs and MRI on a holotable. “You’ve torn your rotator cuff and continually re-injured it to the point that its basically just a mass of scar tissue.”

“Oh…” Peter said, a little dazed from the small dose of painkillers he had been given so that they would be able to manipulate his arm for the images. “What does that mean?”

Helen gave him the same disapproving look she had been giving him since she had taken his history and had learned that he had been putting massive amounts of pressure and g-force on an injury that he had never allowed to fully heal. “It means Peter,” she said firmly shutting down the table, “that you’ll need surgery to repair the tear and clean out all the scar tissue. And you’ll need to give it time to heal and go to physical therapy if you plan to ever use your arm to its fullest extent ever again.”

Peter’s mind went a little blank at that. “Surgery?” He asked, a note of panic creeping into his voice. “But Spider-Man–,”

“Will be taking a break,” Tony told him. “Your health always comes first Peter.” He turned his attention back to Dr. Cho. “Can you tell his aunt all of this later? Also when can we do the surgery.”

“I’ve already got him scheduled for tomorrow morning with a specialist I’m bringing in from NYU,” she said. “And of course! Just let me know when she gets here.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Peter groused from his spot on the exam bed but both adults ignored him and he rolled his eyes. “What if I don’t want surgery?”

“Then you’ll be dealing with chronic pain, pion and needles, weakness and continuous tearing for the rest of your life and you’ll need a shoulder replacement in less than fifteen years at the rate your going,” Dr. Cho said, typing notes into his chart. “So I’ll see you in the morning for the surgery.”

Peter glared at her but, at the twinge in his arm when he adjusted in his seat, he grumbled “fine”.

“It won’t be that bad Underoos,” Tony said later as they sat on the ridiculously large couch in the penthouse living room watching Brooklyn 99 while May spoke with Peter’s medical team. “You get to skip school for the next week while you recover and I bribed Bob Igor to give me the next season of the Mandolorian early for us to binge.”

“But…” Peter gnawed at his lip, hating the taste of blood that filled his mouth as he broke open the tender skin again. “What if this doesn’t fix it?”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Tony said with a smile. “Cho is the forefront in development in regeneration. If anyone can fix you it’ll be her. And May and I will be there the whole time. You have nothing to worry about okay?”

“You’ll be there?” Peter said, fiddling with a loose thread on his shirt and refusing to look up at his mentor.

“Of course I’ll be there!” Tony said warmly with a squeeze to his good shoulder. “You’re my favorite intern.” He teased.

“Thanks Mr. Stark,” Peter said sincerely, reading the unsaid bit and relaxing a little back in the couch. Between his pain meds and his full stomach he could feel his eyelids drooping and he decided to relax more fully into Tony’s side – there was no where he felt safer.

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump27 #Prompt: Injured #irondad #spider man #Summer of Whump 2021

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efosa123 · 7 years ago

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Passive Income: How I make $40,000/year doing nothing (software engineer edition) Passive Income: How I make $40,000/year doing nothing (software engineer edition) Video Transcript ▼ okay all right okay how's it going I think I'm getting all settled in here welcome back to another episode of the tech lead I am the tech lead and today I'll be the tech lead not to start off we actually have a sponsor today so let's go to that right now right now my name is the tech lead and I am the tech lead I hope you're enjoying the show but don't forget if you like the content we also have available for you tech weed season one complete HD for the low price of 1995 with this you get 28 additional episodes and nearly three hours of additional content check it out in the description link below everyone who has bother have left rave reviews saying that it has been well worth it for them they'll do it for me give it a like and subscribe and back to you tech lead thanks tech lead today I wanted to talk about passive income and about how I'm generating about $40,000 per year just on site income and this is income where I'm basically just not doing anything I'm just sitting around and each day I'm getting about low over $100 just for doing nothing now I wanted to talk about this video not actually because I think it's important for software engineers to build additional site income streams I would say that even $40,000 per year isn't really going to be that meaningful necessarily but but I would say it's a very fun happy to have it can help you get deeper into software engineering as you're building these side projects it can help build up your resume and what I hope to do is tell you about the ways that I generate aside the income and I'm not really sure if all of these are going to be completely useful for you because it may be difficult to replicate what I've done but it can help inspire you maybe give you some ideas so for me most of my side income comes from for projects that I'm doing now the first one is this photography software that I created it's called pan elapsed 360 comm check it out it is for time-lapse photographers and this project is a very niche project that I began when there was a big time-lapse boom like there were time lapses all over YouTube and I was into time lapses as well and people needed a way to add special effects to these time lapses to process the time lapses and there weren't many good time lapse software's so I looked into it there was one software that was retailing for over $200 and I thought you know that's really expensive and that I could build something better not the software I built did two things the first thing it would do was it would allow you to add motion to your time lapses using actually perspective correct math and this involved really understanding the math behind lenses like a 24 millimeter camera what does that actually mean in terms of field of view and what's like a hundred millimeter camera and this was very fun for me to learn and figure out and find the exact math behind it and I also applied some of my computer graphics skills to get this going I built the software using Adobe ActionScript which is like Flash technology now it's pretty funny because ActionScript is not a very popular language these days but the great thing about it was it was cross-platform across Windows and Apple and I wanted to make sure that the software I wrote could target both platforms and they needed to be desktop software because I didn't want users to have to upload their photos just together processed on like some web software so I've looked around for the appropriate technology for this and I could have chosen either Java or Adobe AIR ActionScript and I really wasn't keen on getting back into Java and it seemed to me that ActionScript and Flash technology could be something interesting it's something that I had already been doing a bit of and I was able to just build out the software pretty quickly it took like two weeks or so to build out I noticed at the time that a lot of time-lapse photographers were try to add motion to their time lapses using very expensive hardware rigs that would be based on timers and it was slowly like rotate the head and I realized that you didn't really need these Hardware timers and rotational motorized heads to do other stuff like you could do with or in software using perspective correction and just a bit of math and image distortion there was a very small niche messageboard community of time-lapse photographers I was part of it and I knew that if I built a software I could just go there announce it and everybody would see that message so that's exactly what I did and we then the first day or two of me launching the software I was already getting like five hundred dollars every day in sales over the years I continued to build up features into the software another big feature was allowing you to capture time lapses across sunset or sunrise when the scene exposure would change quickly and and for this I would use math to calculate the exposure of a scene based on the exposure triangle which is based on aperture ISO and shutter speed and using these three pieces you're able to calculate how bright a scene is and then interpret what Brenton is each frame should be as the cameras changing exposure quickly to try to capture the scene I also added some other interesting features like I had the support to do fish eye time lapses which is a very unique and strange effect and it literally took me like a month to work out the calculations for how to do a fisheye projection and then build like fisheye geometry into the program so I'm not sure if this was that well-received so I'm I don't know if it was a really good use of my time to spend the whole month building out this feature but it was really fun for me to do at least and I had to get into like GPU shaders to actually do it so I had to teach myself that stuff anyway the software something that I'm still maintaining these days I sell it for a pretty high price about $80 a piece and I think that's actually a very worthwhile price and also I just think that the economics is that for desktop software you can just charge more and I was pretty happy that I did not make this like an iPhone app where the standard is every app needs to be like $1 or $5 like like here's an app time selling for $80 but I still managed to make about one sell every day and it also helped when our managers to translate the whole web site into Japanese and the software became quite popular in Japan as well so that's one side project there's another side project that I've been running for the past 10 years or so it's called human pets comm it's kind of a social network and this was very popular back in the day like there were 2 million users and it was generating like $2,000 everyday or something for a while these days the website has lost a lot of popularity from its heyday it's still pushing out about say $100 per month and the way it generates money is generally through memberships take off these shoes so I feel like I probably should be charging more for membership I charge like 6 dollars for a monthly membership which is probably too low when you become a member you gain a bunch of additional features and another great thing about this that added was that you could buy or give to memberships to other people so a lot of people will be doing that because often people seem to treat others better than they may treat themselves I also run some Adsense on the site the ads don't really make much money it's like $60 a month but this site has been operational for the past ten years or so and it's just been spilling additional income for me the whole time so that's great the third project was a set of iPhone games web RPG apps really where people could just progress a character through a game and there would be levels a storyline to push the player through many items to collect monsters to fight and you just click buttons and kind of move your character through I think the key to this was there was a storyline that was just very engrossing for it to player and the other thing was I had high limits for purchases like you could buy items that were like $20 in the game there's a statistic that 90% of your income will come from the top 10% of players for in the game and those players are concerned with their whales they're basically people who have either a lot of money or don't mind spending a lot of money on gaming and so I think that was one mistake I made with my first website which was unlimited so that you can only pay a maximum of about 6 dollars per month for membership and after that it didn't matter how much you loved the app or game it was kept at that amount and what I wish I did was add higher thresholds for spending now the fourth project I did was very interesting and this was actually photography and you can sell stock photography or stock videos now stuff photography doesn't pay very well because it's so cheap like one photo the most you could get is like 25 cents or something like my best selling photo was a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge a New York just happens to sell very well because it's so iconic and this photo so about 1,500 copies and each copy was a dollar so me just standing there taking one shot with that was like a fifteen hundred dollar shot right there with video it's even better because each video you can sell for about $50 a piece or so and these days I think people are looking really for 4k video like they need to be extremely high quality my videos that I sold really well were videos of Japan there was actually the shrine called fushimi inari in kyoto with a bunch of red gates this was actually relatively unknown when I visited and there were very few people but it's funny that now if you go there's tons of people and I think it's because I helped popularize it you know I had this video and sold over a thousand copies of this video and usually it's travel agencies that buy these videos and then they use these to try to sell that that's a nation tours packages and they take tours there so it's kind of shame now that this place is now completely overrun with tours and I probably helped contribute to that mess and then I also did videos of Iceland the ice caves and Northern Lights and each of these videos generally brought in like $1,000 so in the end my photography work brought in about twenty thousand dollars over four or five years or so the other great thing about the photography work was I actually got sponsorships so I was able to work with a selling company and they offered us $10,000 catamarans and sailboats in exotic locations like the Bahamas or Phuket and we were able to just take these sailboats around and this was kind of unique because I knew how to sell and I'm a photographer so as I was able to take week-long sailing vacations in the exotic areas worthy lodging and that boat would be free so it was pretty great when you add it all together we're looking at about thirty six hundred dollars a month or forty K a year and the great thing about citing income like this business income is that you can actually deduct expenses on this so if you buy a laptop you can deduct against that anything i buy that may have some business purpose would be like about thirty percent off or something like that now one funny consequence of this is i don't actually do much github open source contributions because a lot of what I work on I sell like I wanted to be commercial software so I don't actually want to open source things so one time I had to recruit her asked me like hey what's your github and I was like I don't do open source you know I actually make money from her projects and they're just like that yeah that's I would say though that another way I generate a lot of site income so to say is I just live with my parents that's saving me like at least $3,000 per month on rent and the funny thing about this is you calculate that as post-tax income so it's equivalent to about 4 K per month in income you might earn at a job that's like 48 K savings right there's so I don't know what I'm gonna do with all this money I'm saving but maybe I'll give it to my kid or something like that so the last thing one says when I look for a project there's a few things I'm looking for so the first thing to look for is timing like why now and everything I've done that has succeeded I think there was a reason that timing made sense like like there were certain trends in user behavior or technology that signified that it was at that moment that it would be ripe for some project to succeed the other thing is I look for things that are scalable so running a restaurant I think is not very scalable it's I think what you're really looking for our scenarios were you can affect far more many people and that's usually done through the internet and that gets the last thing is using coding to automate these systems such that you don't have to do anything and then the system just automatically takes care itself that's when it becomes really passive but yeah that's pretty much how I've been looking at generally the inside income I think in the whole scheme of things it's not much compared to say the salary that a software engineer is able to generate but I think it's really fun sometimes you're actually able to strike gold in certain areas and make a lot but there than that I think it just makes the Hobby that much more interesting and overall just push your craft to a higher level no matter what you're doing so there you have it that'll do it for me if you liked the video please give it a like and subscribe it really helps grow the channel and that we'll see you next time bye

#business #coding #computer science #earn #money #passive income #programmer #side #software engineer #tech

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freshthoughts2020 · 21 days ago

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From the deli to the court, this one’s a must-have. Bodega Kat is more than a tee—it’s a vibe, a statement, and a piece of New York. Get yours today and level up your rotation, beloved. 🏀💼

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iloveyoupittsburghpirates-blog · 7 years ago

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We Have Reached A Crossroads, Pittsburgh Pirates

My Dearest Pittsburgh Pirates,

It was the biggest week of the season and when it was all said and done you basically ended up right back where you started. Your eleven-game winning streak ended on Wednesday against a first place team, the Cleveland Indians, and then you split four games with a last place team, the New York Mets, which led you to a 4-3 week. That leaves you six games out of first place and four games out of the final Wildcard spot. Today is July 30th which means tomorrow is the trade deadline. With no game today, that means when the deadline hits on Tuesday, the most you could be out of the final Wildcard spot could be 4 ½ games. That puts you in a very interesting position. Milwaukee has the first Wildcard spot sitting 1 ½ games ahead of Arizona, who currently has the second Wildcard spot. Colorado is 3 ½ games ahead of you, Atlanta is 2 ½, and you’re the third team out of the Wildcard. You’re very much on the outside looking in as far as the playoffs go, but you are absolutely in it, so you need to act like it. Splitting a four-game series with the last place Mets at home didn’t exactly leave me with the highest vote of confidence but taking two out of three in Cleveland was rather impressive. These next two days will be very interesting and could in a lot of ways help shape the next three to four years of the franchise.

This week didn’t go quite as planned and that might mostly be because of the onslaught of injuries to your best hitters. In the midst of your lineup being the hottest in baseball, three of your four best players got hurt this week. The scariest, and what turned out to be the least severe, happened when Starling Marte took a pitch off his hand in the first inning on Wednesday. Initially the fear was it could be broken, but it fortunately turned out to be just a contusion. Marte missed the rest of that game plus two more. You lost two out of those three games. Before that, Corey Dickerson pulled his hamstring running to first base on Tuesday. You tried to wait out the injury but you finally put him on the DL on Saturday retroactive to July 25th. That means he should be available to return on August 4th. Then when it seemed like it couldn’t get worse, Josh Bell felt discomfort in his side running to first base on Friday. That turned out to be an oblique strain that landed him on the DL. Polanco has been on absolute fire, even through the Mets’ series, but your next three best hitters are Dickerson, Marte, and Bell. Marte returned Saturday, but not having Bell and Dickerson was probably a big reason for the brutal 1-0 loss yesterday. These injuries couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time but if you can survive this week then you might have your full squad back to make another run next week.

The trade deadline has basically arrived and it seems like one thing is very clear: you can't sell. It seemed like a foregone conclusion a couple weeks ago that you would trade Nova, Cervelli, Freese, Mercer, JHay, and Dickerson, but it doesn’t make as much sense especially given that you couldn’t get any value back except maybe for Dickerson and Nova. Now that you have won 15 of 19 games, it seems to change the whole opinion of this team, not just this year but moving forward. The two positions that are most of need are starting pitching and another reliever. Any trades you make shouldn’t focus on rentals, meaning someone who will be a free agent at the end of this year. There’s enough doubt that exists that it doesn’t make sense to go all in this year. Trading away prospects for two months of a player doesn’t make any sense right now. Controllable starters like Kevin Gausman and Chris Archer have come up in conversation but neither of those seem very realistic as of now. The most likely scenario seems to be adding a relief pitcher, which would still be worthwhile. With the emergence of Santana, Rich Rod, and Crick mixed in with the dominance of Vasquez, adding another upper level arm to that bullpen could make it one of the better ones in baseball. That could be essential for a team that can’t afford to pay top-tier free agents which means relying on winning close games. Your close enough that selling doesn’t make sense and doing nothing feels equally as apathetic. You have two days to figure it out and I will be extremely disappointed if you stand pat.

I think the main take away from getting back into this Wildcard race is that you might be a contender sooner than you think. On top of that, you might actually have a window that is closing. The dominance of Polanco, Marte, and Bell over the last month has been a revelation. The rotation has been better especially with Taillon pitching extremely well over that time and you have a dominant back-end of your bullpen. In the NL where there’s seemingly only two dominant teams right now (Cubs and Dodgers), it makes it seem believable you could be competitive between now and the end of 2021, when Marte will be gone. That’s why adding controllable players to this roster before the deadline makes so much sense because they could help you next year or in the years to come. That’s also why extending Corey Dickerson and trying to trade Austin Meadows for pitching makes sense because you need to be in the win-now mindset. I’m also not terribly high on Meadows at this point (.712 OPS in Triple-A this year), so I think selling high on him before his value sinks too low makes a lot of sense. The depth in your minor leagues has disappeared and now you are a top-heavy organization without many elite prospects coming in the future. There doesn’t appear to be anyone of the caliber of Cutch, Polanco, Marte, Bell, or even Taillon in your entire organization except maybe for Mitch Keller and Ke’Bryan Hayes. They are two of your four top 100 prospects and the other two are your first round picks last year (Shane Baz) and this year (Travis Swaggerty). They’ve proved nothing and they don’t even rank in the top 75 prospects according to most publications. You have the youngest staff in baseball and if you add to it, it could be good. You have a potentially really good offense if Marte, Polanco, Bell, and Dickerson continue at this level. You potentially have an elite bullpen especially if you add to it. The one thing this winning streak has taught me the most is that you have a three to four year window now. You need to take advantage of that like you didn’t the 2013-2015 window.

Things are about to get much more difficult. You have had a hell of a run, but the month of August has the potential to be brutal. This week is light as far as games but not as far as importance. After a day off on Monday, the Cubs comes to Pittsburgh for a rare two-game series. You face Jon Lester and newly acquired Cole Hamels, two lefties, which makes Dickerson and Bell’s absence a little more digestible especially when you consider you have another day off on Thursday. The St. Louis Cardinals come to town for the weekend, who are a game behind you in the Wildcard. As a matter of fact, with the Cubs and Cards on the docket this week, that means 28 of your next 30 games are against teams that are either ahead of you or are within two games of you in the playoff picture. The bad news is these are good teams, but the good news is that you have a chance to overtake some of these teams if you can beat them head-to-head. This run of games will be very telling as to the legitimate chances you have this season. If it’s not realistic, it does seem like there is a formidable team that’s a couple pieces away from potentially being a force. I hope that this streak showed you what’s possible. There is some legitimate talent on your team and there is no guarantee when players of that caliber will come along again. Do what needs to be done, whether that’s now or this offseason. Five huge games this week. Let’s see what you are made of. Good luck!

Looking Forward To The Future,

Brad

P.S. stands for Pretty Standard which describes the clutchness of David Freese in his career. Freese single-handedly won a huge game on Friday night driving in all five runs in a 5-4 victory including a walkoff single in the bottom of the 9th. Freese has been on fire the last month and it makes you wonder if you should pick up his six million dollar option and keep him around next year. With this team showing they might be able to compete, doing something like starting rookies Kevin Kramer and Kevin Newman up the middle next year seems crazy. Maybe you pick up Freese’s option to give you depth at third and right handed option at first. Maybe you pick up JHay’s option or resign Mercer so that you’re not starting all rookies and then you rotate Newman, Kramer, and Kang at the other position depending on who is healthy and hitting. With this surge, it just seems like losing all of your veteran experience is now a really bad idea and David Freese provides veteran leadership as well as anyone.

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beachandtmusic · 7 years ago

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Top 10 albums mid year

By Nick Beach

I’ve been ranking albums mid year and at year’s end for four years now and I’ve been writing on and off for about five years now and this had to be one of the toughest pieces I’ve ever written. 2018 has been a hell of a year for music and on top of that I like to be timely with things. I waited until mid July to publish this because I struggled so much to come up with my 10 favorite albums so far this year and to properly order them. Hey I tried here it is.

1.ye - Kanye West: I was puzzled even with the number one spot but yeah it goes to Kanye. I may be in the minority on the Internet with my opinion that Kanye’s run of short GOOD Music albums spanning over May and June was a good decision. ye has multiple songs I could legitimately see myself returning to in 10 years. No Mistakes and Ghost Town are generational songs that have still given me chills on every listen. I also think this minor run of people that are still hanging on to Kanye’s mainstream popularity playing Yikes and All Mine on the radio and in clubs is extremely fun because it makes me feel like a kid and Kanye’s talent hasn’t changed despite his public perception.

2.My Dear Melancholy - The Weeknd: Sticking with the short album route I think Abel produced one of the best albums of the year front to back. Try Me, Wasted Times and I was Never There seems to be the three song stretch I’ve returned to most this year. A stellar live performance also helped me make this decision but in terms of blending high level singing with high level production not much has matched My Dear Melancholy so far this year.

3.Kids See Ghosts - Kids See Ghosts: I think the shorter album typically has a much higher probability of every song being good not having as many potential skips on a full listen and Kids See Ghosts is a perfect example of that. Reborn has grown on me bigtime with the way Cudi changes his voice on that final chorus. Kanye’s verse on Cudi Montage is also my favorite verse of the year and it rivals Ghost Town for the song that induces the most emotion for me. Feel the Love is also so much fun and the screaming will make this an awesome pump up track for years to come.

4.Wide Awake! - Parquet Courts: Parquet Courts is a rock band from Denton, Texas residing in New York making some of the most creative music out today. I found the record from a positive Fantano review and wasn’t a huge fan after my first listen. After giving it another listen it really started to grow on me as some of the instrumental pallets and punk rock singing are so catchy and hard to stay away from. I see Parquet Courts as a band I’ll be listening to for years to come and they’ve really helped me get me rock fix in thus far in 2018.

5.Knock Knock - DJ Koze - Hats off to Noah Simpson for recommending this album to me as a good study album. Instead I used it as a packing album while moving out of my apartment when my school year was over and it’s been in rotation ever since. This is some of the most relaxed yet entertaining electronic music I’ve heard in a long time. Pick Up, Muddy Funster and Bonfire are definite highlights for me. It’s a long album you’ll never get sick of due to how versatile it is. It can be played in just about any atmosphere and brighten the mood on a dime.

6.Harder Than Ever - Lil Baby: I was a little late to the game with Baby as I started listening shortly before this record from the Atlanta emcee was released. He has now vaulted to hip hop stardom off his hit single Yes Indeed but Harder Than Ever has so much more than that. Cash, Life Goes On and First Class have some of the most catchy lyrics of the year and Southside is a certified banger from trap music’s best producer. The album is full of trap heat and Baby brings back the feeling of being an early Young Thug and Future fan as they began to gain far more recognition from the hip hop community a few years back.

7.Daytona - Pusha T: Now that the tears dry and the pain takes over, let’s talk that payola. This opening line to Push’s Santeria is a laid over my favorite beat in the run of Kanye produced albums for the GOOD Music camp. Daytona is an extremely memorable album full of hard production and gritty street rap from the longest running trapper of the year. The beat and vocal change in the middle of If You Know Your Know is so hard and the fact the song Infrared has become a squad wide joke and still manages to be a good song is pretty impressive.

8.Freddie - Freddie Gibbs: This is an album that could potentially vault higher on the year end list with more listens but the quality is surely there. The song Triple Threat is classic Gibbs delivering hard bars over a banger beat. The album is littered with classic Freddie Gibbs which I think was a huge hope for his fans after his last release You Only Live 2wice was a bit underwhelming.

9.Activated - Tee Grizzley: I initially expected to be higher on my list but with time I’ve realized it’s not as easy to get through the whole album as it is to my favorite tracks on it. Tee is still one of the best out at going from relentless rap to emotional singing and making it sound good with the snap of a finger but overall the project isn’t as good as its highlights. Jetskii Girzzley, Bag, Too Lit and Robbin are all stellar tracks however and remain firmly in rotation.

10.Culture II - Migos: I had to do it. No I know the album isn’t that great overall but it still has some of my favorite hip hop tracks this year that I will never stop going back to. This album has created countless jokes amongst my friends and me and has produced I couldn’t even tell you how many instagram captions and comments once our excitement for Huncho Jack died down. Supastars, CC, Too Much Jewelry, Open It Up and Movin’ Too Fast are amazing tracks from the Migos and you can’t discount their talent and ability to make fun hip hop despite their poor decision to make a 105 minute album with a ton of fluff.

#alec do you have bread?!#hey uh Zane bought me a free dinner

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therappundit · 6 years ago

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November 2018 -*PlayLi$t of the Month*

The underground sound ain’t playin’ around in 2018.

Over the last few weeks, The Alchemist has received even heavier play than usual through these headphones of mine (I just got the wireless buds from my in-laws, I think I dig them!). That’s thanks in no small part to his fantastic recent contributions to Westside Gunn, Schoolboy Q, Curren$y and Freddie Gibbs. October closed with a powerful flurry of new rap releases, both of the underground and mainstream variety, so I am here to share my favorites on this especially stuffed edition of my PlayLi$t of the Month...

1. “Echo” - Swizz Beatz feat. Nas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMINMawUzow

(Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: this song is *vastly* superior to anything on that ill fated Nasir album with Kanye West. Whatever Swizz whispered to Nas to get him to snap back into Nasty mode, it should stand as further proof that the Ruff Ryder maestro’s status as a cultivator of hits is hall of fame worthy. Hearing the Queensbridge legend spit bars about old New York City life, watching karate films at dirty Time Square movie theaters, watching flashy cars drive up and down Steinway Street in Queens - there’s just no one better than Nasty Nas when he’s off to the races on a wave of nostalgia, thanks to his high attention to detail. DJ Scratch deserves just as much recognition for this sweet soulful back-drop, one of two strong Scratch showings in heavy rotation this month. “Echo” might be one of my favorite rap songs of the year, this is classic Nas.)

2. “'The Blow” - The Alchemist, Curren$y & Freddie Gibbs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA4dPwtthZU

(Yeah we gotta talk about this FETTI project. The chemistry between Spitta, Gibbs and The Alchemist is off the charts, and that much has been clear since Covert Coup’s “Scottie Pippen” first rattled through speakers back in 2011. So needless to say, this FETTI album bangs top to bottom. My favorite cut off the album might not even be my favorite cut by this time next week, because the whole tape is staying in rotation for the foreseeable future.)

3. “Fork In The Pot” - The Alchemist feat. Conway, Westside Gunn & Schoolboy Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPMgi0bSB0Q

(More Uncle Al, you say? What the hell, why not!? Before FETTI dropped on Halloween, this was the stand-out Alchemist leak for the month. The eagerly awaited B-Side to last month’s “94 Ghost Sh*t” A-Side that was teased on IG some time ago, “Fork In The Pot” is another incredible contribution to the growing ALC & Griselda canon, helped by a dope verse by Schoolboy Q that is sure to build hype for his upcoming album. Will it drop in 2018? All speculation at this point, but I say YES.)

4. “Saturday Night Special” - The Alchemist, Curren$y & Freddie Gibbs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sv1psKaIgU

(More than any other track on FETTI, this one feels like classic Alchemist. A smokey loop like this one does indeed paint the perfect image of slowly cruising through the neighborhood on a late Saturday night, perhaps with a Saturday night special somewhere in the vehicle...or so I imagine - I myself have never lived that life, but the music is vivid, and the mood set by The Alchemist is palpable. What a great example of how the best producers don’t just make beats, they paint audio portraits. And like the lyrics themselves, the instrumental is, well, instrumental in telling the story.)

5. “N***as In Puerto Rico” - Westside Gunn feat. Lord Flee & Benny

https://soundcloud.com/westsidegunn/niggas-in-puerto-rico-feat-lord-flee-benny?in=westsidegunn/sets/hitler-wears-hermes-6

(Folks, I really didn’t plan this, Alchemist is just that damn good! My favorite song off of Westside Gunn’s Hitler Wears Hermes 6 - wow, I can’t believe he’s up to 6 now - shows exactly what happens when these lyrical barbarians from Buffalo lock themselves down with The Alchemist in Puerto Rico for a while. Look out for the beat switch-up, as both instrumentals suit this gathering of MCs particularly well, making me that much more excited about what Al may have cooked up for Benny’s upcoming Tana Talk 3 album.)

6. “Something Dirty/Pic Got Us” - Swizz Beatz feat. Jadakiss, Styles P. & Kendrick Lamar

https://pitchfork.com/levels/swizz-beatz-something-dirty-pic-got-us-new-song-listen/

(While it might not pack the level of punch that fans hoped it would when Swizz first teased it live on stage a few months back - or even have an actual verse from Kendrick - Jadakiss & Styles P’s appearance on Mr. Beatz’ new Poison compilation remains one of the tape’s finer moments. Hearing Jada & SP pass the mic back and forth never seems to get old, plus this AraabMUZIK beat is still absolutely bonkers.)

7. “Willie Lloyd” - The Alchemist, Curren$y & Freddie Gibbs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-7h0Dkz6b0

(It has felt like too long since I have shouted out an Alchemist joint, am I right? "Willie Lloyd’s” ominous instrumental makes for the ideal palette to have Gangsta Gibbs flex over, and flex he does, making it one of many stand-out verses on FETTI.)

8. “John Bena” - Westside Gunn feat. Lil Eto

https://soundcloud.com/westsidegunn/john-bena-feat-lil-eto?in=westsidegunn/sets/hitler-wears-hermes-6

(Yikes, this beat is pure menace music! And who produced it? None other than The Alchemist’s mentor, DJ Muggs, who has had quite an impressive year in his own right. Let the record show that both Westside Gunn and Eto do their thing on “John Bena”, which is no easy feat considering how overwhelming this instrumental could potentially be to weaker MCs. Furthermore, I feel like it needs to be said at this point that Westside Gunn is a VERY dope MC with his own style, traits that are not easy to come by in today’s biz. He raps his ass off on HWH6, so don’t think for a minute that WSG is carried by beats, he is not a replaceable presence on any track. So go cop that HWH6.)

9. “Location Remote” - The Alchemist, Curren$y & Freddie Gibbs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUAawyYs0uk

(A tape like FETTI warrants a cool, but eerie, intro track...and this fits the bill perfectly. I love the whole project, but I love this specific song more and more whenever I hear it. “Call the chiropractor” indeed, Mr. Gibbs - this joint is heavy.)

10. “Flipmode Squad Meets The Conglomerate” - Busta Rhymes feat. The Flipmode Squad & The Conglomerate

https://www.vibe.com/2018/10/busta-rhymes-flipmode-conglomerate-reunion-single/

(Remember when I mentioned DJ Scratch earlier? Well this massive posse cut is part of this month’s 1-2 punch of Scratch production, lucky us! Here he channels classic Busta vibes for not just one, but two of Busta’s rhyme crews to slap around for a bit. What I really like about this song is that they all sound like they’re having fun here, which is not as common as I would like it to be in today’s posse cut starved rap market. Hopefully this means DJ Scratch will make his presence felt on that upcoming Busta album!)

*Bonus - Honorable Mention [extended edition]*

“Niagara Cafe” - Westside Gunn

https://soundcloud.com/westsidegunn/niagara-cafe?in=westsidegunn/sets/hitler-wears-hermes-6

“Tapatio” - The Alchemist, Curren$y & Freddie Gibbs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJHxFVZfAC0

“Grim Seasons - Homeboy Sandman & Edan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umff7Hael9k

“Skeleton Piñata” - HAZE & SPNDA feat. Puffy

https://dutchmastered.bandcamp.com/track/skeleton-pi-ata-feat-puffy

“Militant Exercise” - Knowledge The Pirate feat. Roc Marciano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIlyUJ7Oyb8

“REDBLUE” - Rapsody feat. J.I.D

https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/jid-and-rapsody-face-the-conundrum-of-choosing-up-on-redblue-new-song.1981003.html

“Hooters” - Tee Grizzley

https://soundcloud.com/tee-grizzley/hooters

“Money” - Cardi B

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj2cK8wymIA

“Man Law” - Masta Ace feat. Styles P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5RFSInEKvE

“Say Na” - Moneybagg Yo feat. J. Cole

https://soundcloud.com/moneybagg-yo/say-na-feat-j-cole?in=moneybagg-yo/sets/reset-46

“Feels Like Summer” - Vince Staples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc6hdQEm_h4

“Lottery Games” - Styles P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVmZX5Y6-mw

“Don’t Come Out The House” - Metro Boomin feat. 21 Savage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPOzqeHynZw

“Roses” - Rapper Big Pooh feat. Ab Liva

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54GnYccxgHM

“Last Memory” - Takeoff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyVVOcpKpHA

“Picasso’s Ear” - Action Bronson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vFwOE4DTmA

Have a Happy & healthy Thanksgiving weekend with friends and/or family, all...🙏

[ICYMI: Last month’s list below]

https://therappundit.tumblr.com/post/179287574271/october-2018-playli-t-of-the-month

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blog-concrete-paver-molds · 3 years ago

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A Purchased Concrete Paver Molds Production

He provides that he finished far rapidly than he expected and that the stroll maker is easy to scrub afterward. A reviewer also states that the concrete path kind works exceptionally well and that he made a 400 ft patio with it without encountering any issues. He extremely recommends it as the best stroll maker obtainable. If you're searching for a method to make a stone path rapidly, you may contemplate this stroll maker offered by Quikrete. Users love the standard of the mildew, however some do notice that the form arrived broken. The Kenley authentic path maker measures 17” x 17” x 1.6”, and it contains a weight of 2.9 kilos, 9-stone patterns for patios and driveways, and a PP resin development see the full article.

You can play with this by including water to help mute the colour. Blend these colors into the stone and into one another the means in which you might with a watercolor painting. If your pigment is a powder, then combine some water in with it. In addition, for every colour you've, you should also have one cup of water, plus you may discover it useful to have another further cup of water. Round them somewhat, and push them inward to create extra of a curve if you'd like. Now go ahead and add the charcoal colorant to the remaining mix you had separated and blend it in nicely.

Creates an effect of cracked concrete paver molds ice on concrete paving slabs. Choose a concrete combination best suited for replica of your stepping stone and properly combine it. We had some SureCrete Xtreme Concrete Mix laying around our store, so we used it for the purposes of this demonstration. Carefully pour the rubber into one corner of the mould box and permit it to flow across the mannequin. Pour rubber into rubber; avoid pouring rubber instantly onto the model. Do not scrape the edges of the bucket as you pour as unmixed materials tends to cling the sides of the blending container.

A purchaser also states that the Kenley mould is made from high quality materials and that it works perfectly. However, some prospects have complained that the Quikrete mold is overpriced and that it’s messy to use it. Some customers additionally noted that an eighty lb bag of concrete was too much and they advise that you simply use a 60 lb combine.

Though we now have many forms of concrete molds, can also produce it by your requirement. Creates a cobble design in 4 rows of 4 on concrete paving slabs. Creates a small cobble design in 5 rows of 5 on concrete paving slabs. Creates a crazy paving design on concrete paving slabs. Creates a diamond cobble design on concrete paving slabs.

Shop a wide selection of mold making materials, including latex, silicone, and more. One reviewer advised us that they added coloring and mortar mix in order that the completed patio would have enhanced traction- and even supplemented with some glass beads for a sparkling appearance. The producers say that you do not actually must lubricate the mold previous to pouring in cement, in contradiction to other reviewers who've ceaselessly suggested that that is the case. However, some clients have complained that it’s not very straightforward to use the random path for and that it’s onerous to maneuver.

Of course, you don’t should make concrete stepping stones that look natural. You can comply with much of this tutorial and make regular round stones, using the same stepping stone mold I used for these. If you make a concrete stepping stone mildew after which install them separately you’re going to should level the bottom first. This is because the underside of the mould would have been flat.

Diy Driveway Garden Pavement Brick Mildew Cellular Paving Stone Mildew

Concrete Success options a extensive variety of mildew shapes to create interlocking patio stones as nicely as stones for backyard paths. With so many molds to choose from, you are certain to search out one which matches your backyard. Since adding stones and pavers takes time and effort, and the outcomes aren't simply moved as quickly as they're put in, take your time to pick out the proper appear and feel on your garden. In right now's world of huge field home and backyard shops and smaller specialty garden centers, you may marvel why utilizing a mold to make concrete pavers is better than shopping for ready-made pavers.

As properly, when you solely want to use one square part of the mold, you'll have the ability to add the concrete simply to that using a small carton like a espresso can. A professional contractor informed us that after the entire concrete has set, it's a good suggestion to do some stress washing on the finished stone patio and apply some semi-transparent stain. You'll wish to fill-in any gaps and crevices between the stones with sand and use some black weed block previous to laying within the concrete to guarantee that weeds do not become a nuisance. Concrete is porous and is vulnerable to stains like leaf stains.

If you feel a reference price is inaccurate or deceptive please report it with the URL for the listing to report- Whether you need a driveway cutter, hydraulic side skirts, adjustable side partitions, or even changing profiles, Miller Formless can design a mildew to swimsuit your slipforming needs. These molds can be utilized tons of of occasions if cared for per instructions.

Tap the mildew together with your hand to eliminate any air bubbles.

In most situations, controlling the moisture, rather than the mud, is much extra desirable.

The path was already there however was coated in pebbles, so I shoveled all the unfastened pebbles out the areas I would be placing the stones.

Color the concrete and mould it into the form of actual fieldstones or flagstones. [newline]A main side to the manufacturing of concrete pavers or blocks would be the durability of the mildew being used.

Immediately after pouring, spray Pol-Ease 2300 Release Agent throughout the floor of the liquid rubber to assist take away surface air bubbles.

The distinctive mould manufacturing technology utilized by Lammers leads to concrete molds which last longer and constantly produce the highest quality products. The most likely place to make use of concrete pavers is the garden pathway. Choosing pavers for walkways provides a sublime contact to backyard pathways. Depending on what sizes, shapes and colors of stepping stones and pavers you choose, you probably can add an air of ritual or nation charm to the backyard path.

For an attractive natural-stone stroll, do this DIY information exhibiting you the means to build a bluestone path. Watch along here as Roger walks you thru developing a brick patio. For most of his patio design ideas, This Old House landscaping contractor Roger Cook favors 1 ½- to 2-inch-thick bluestone, a tough sandstone quarried in New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Mankind has called the hearth home for the centuries, it's true, but today persons are going ultra-retro and getting their warmth from stone-walled pits set into the earth. On cool summer time nights, you presumably can soften marshmallows and nibble s'mores when you lounge in an Adirondack chair, ft propped up on the rock ledge.

Established in 2000, PIM plastic mildew firm provides design of plastics, contract plastic mildew making, and customized injection molding service. It employed 15 people with a 500 sq. meters plant in Huangyan, a so-called Chinese mold town with over three thousand Chinese plastics firms and manufacturer. The final reusable concrete walk mold we examined is the Scepter Pathmate mildew. It supplies a random sample engineered to allow contractors and amateurs alike the power to shortly layout attractive-looking pathways, guaranteeing random designs for curved walkway paths.

Keep the trowel at a slight angle and just sweep it backwards and forwards. If this is easiest for you then go forward and simply pour it directly into the mould. It will most likely be best should you combine what you suppose you’ll need for the entire stone, but separate a piece that would be the prime ½”.

Our High Pick: The Quikrete Walkmaker

The Pathmate Paving Stone Mold provides an ideal approach to mold a walkway in a yard with pace and effectivity. It's constructed of a plastic material that is out there in black colour. This paving stone mildew options various shapes and sizes so you will get artistic together with your pavers. It can be reused after cleaning so you could make as many as you need. This concrete paver mould permits you to design your own path with numerous colors and designs.

The concrete paving mildew measures 17.12” x 17.12” x 1.57”, and it features heavy-duty, plastic development. This nation stone sample stroll maker is a Chinese-made choice designed to create engaging patios, courtroom yards, and walks. All you should do is fill the mould with a concrete combine, easy the floor and then remove mould. Such as plastic paving molds, plastics grass brick molds, curb stone molds, slope safety molds, concrete slat molds and so forth.

Paver Molds For Concrete, Lot Of 14 Interlocking Octagon Patio,walkway,Backyard

Suzerain Ltd is a provider of high-density polypropylene paver moulds and accessories used for paver brick manufacturing. Allow the concrete to set for a maximum of five minutes, then rigorously take away the mould. For the following stretch, rotate the mildew a quarter-turn and place it beside the paver simply accomplished, angling barely when you're creating a curving pathway.

To simplify my quantities, I figured I had the equivalent of 9 giant stepping stones. The strategies are actually fairly easy, however since the concrete is heavy to cope with and this project would require a lot of crouching and squatting on the ground. If you’re not satisfied about making your personal stepping stones, then take a glance at my article discussing all the pros and cons of constructing stepping stones vs. buying them and having them put in. A reference value is supplied by the seller of the item . Percentage off and financial savings amounts are primarily based on the vendor's reference price. The reference value can give you an indication of the worth of the product butsome shops might promote the item for lower than the reference value.

As we previously mentioned- when you have a large project to do, you may wish to rent a cement mixer quite than hand-mixing the concrete. Buyers advise to purchase multiple of these walker maker molds at a time to make the job go easier- laying out multiple molds at a time. So the subsequent most efficient method of blending the concrete combine is to make use of a bucket and a drill with a particular concrete mixing bit. The info on the bag of the concrete mix should provide this info, but when not, you probably can often find that info on the manufacturer’s website. And be sure you do a check patch first to ensure it doesn’t change the color or darken the concrete stones in any undesired means.

In general, customers are extraordinarily happy with the functionality and usefulness of the Pathmate random stone mold. A purchaser feedback that he made a 16 ft path very quickly and that you have to wait only two minutes earlier than eradicating the frame. He also says that the form is sturdy and light-weight, and he recommends that you buy two for comfort.

Our paving stone molds are made out of the liquid rubber that hardens to mould and recreate all pure stone texture and grain detail. The first stepping stone mould we study is manufactured by Quikrete- it is a Chinese made walker maker designed to build out patios, walks and courtyards. All you want to do is fill the mold in with a concrete mix, smooth surface, after which remove the walker maker mold.

In addition to being highly sturdy, stamped concrete doesn’t include any gaps or grooves that pesky weeds can development by way of, making your path safer and more aesthetically pleasing. Stamped concrete walkways are relatively maintenance-free, only requiring sealing every few years to take care of the color and texture of the walkway. Stamped concrete is also significantly less prone than other materials to the frost freeze cycle widespread in colder climates. We use actual stone molds to give your walkways the same look and texture solely present in nature, and can customized colorize to your choice. Stamped Ashlar Pattern Walkway with Brick Stamped decorative concrete patterns pair properly with other hardscapes, such as brick, and can be colored to enrich your exteriors.

Instead of wearing a path into the grass, join spaces purposefully with a stone walkway. Watch TOH landscaper Roger Cook work with a home owner to make a flagstone walkway in a day’s time. For a patio well price the view, let a fence, hedge, or facade function a wall, and a pergola, tree cover, or wide umbrella as a roof. Then furnish your outdoor room for eating, entertaining, or gathering around a fire. With all the brilliant thing about a well-manicured garden however without the maintenance, a stone patio makes a sublime addition to any home.

It may be washed off with water after the mold making course of. If you've a very porous mannequin, like the one in this tutorial, you may have to use a couple of coat of Poly PVA Solution. We applied two coats of this sealer, waiting for it to dry (~ 1 hour) in between coats and earlier than transferring on to the next steps.

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la-liga-zine · 7 years ago

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A Country Named Mother

I wasn’t very conscious of my ancestry until around middle school and I wasn’t really interested until college. While some kids wanted the new Samsung Sidekick, I wanted blue eyes and a French sounding name (and the Sidekick too, honestly). I can’t say it’s for lack of representation - no, there aren’t any Cuban Disney princesses - but I was raised in Miami where quinceñeras are a weekly event and that’s pretty damn close.

Every year I’d get the same question that only reinforced disinterest in my ancestry. Teachers asked “what makes you special?” and “where are you from?” In an age of misguided philosophies on confidence building, asking me to share my background was supposed to make me feel special; instead it felt like a popularity contest where I got front row seats to watch the interest fade from my classmates faces as I started to pronounce “Cuban.” My conflicted feelings over my ancestry created a blockade to self acceptance. While these issues might seem trivial now, as a middle schooler, they were a memorable source of shame over identity (or lack thereof).

Up to that point in my life, I never felt tied to my identity in any meaningful way, Cuban culture was practically an all-encompassing part of my daily life -- if scientists ever want to study the effect of daily cafecitos and pan Cubano, I’m the first volunteer. I could imagine the small homes, barely able to contain their inhabitants; the hot sun that you were told to hide from lest you grow too dark. It was through shared memories that I spent a small part of my own childhood in my mother’s past; sharing her childhood home, joining her walks to school, briefly inhabiting a different life than my own. I had never visited her birth country, but it was simultaneously as real and imaginary as any other fairy tale. The bedtime stories I grew up on were not only of sleepy Germanic princesses, but of kids growing up on an isolated isla communista.

There were people in my family stories that lived only in memories recalled. Family members that I knew existed, but had never seen nor spoken to I became curious about mis raíces. Reaching a level of security within myself gave me permission to dive into my own history. I wanted to know what my own personal link to my heritage was, something that couldn’t be measured and deemed common. With my upcoming trip to Cuba, suddenly all the stories my family had told me became possibilities. Where were they now? Could I meet them?

The day of my flight, I anxiously rushed into the airport, doing that belabored half jog, half crumble-under-the-weight-of-my-suitcase gait. All wasted energy as Havana Air left an hour and a half late. Nobody seemed to care though, we were on Cuban time now. I had taken many trips before to countries whose entire population is only a fraction of my city’s, countries that were 12-hours-in-the-same-chair away, yet the anxiety I felt about this trip wasn’t related to the traveling itself, but because I would be meeting family who until just a few weeks earlier, were cemented in my mind as historical figures of the past. I had only glimpsed a few pictures of the family members I’d be staying with; pixelated 300x300 Facebook photos, the type that makes you question the validity of a profile. This family and this country that existed only in my mother’s recollections of her youth were now real and they’d be picking me up when I landed.I walked out of the airport worried I wouldn’t recognize my relatives, but they were already in front of me. They’d picked me out of the crowd like they’d seen me every day for years.

Riding from the airport in one of the iconic vintage cars Cuba is known for, I noticed a little bump of emotion building up inside me. Every direction I looked in, Cuba looked back. Giant trees let a hot sun stream through their leaves and onto my face, buildings begged for my attention in blends of color that looked like ice cream, bright and summer-y. We headed for La Habana Vieja, where my family lived. A small 1 bedroom apartment shared between 3 people and sometimes 4 when abuela visited, now shared with 5 since the addition of myself. No A/C, just a rotating standing fan that became an alter I was more dedicated to worshipping than any religious deity prior.

Sitting in a humid living room while the heavy equatorial sun cooked the building, conversation floating in and out like the flies we mindlessly swatted at - just 5 strangers who were family. The idea of family evolved to me now, as I stood in the center of this radical experiment. I observed my new family, and tried to soak up years in the few days I had. My tía’s dark, gentle eyes brimmed with a power to calm through just her gaze. She resembled my mother, like the result of an alternate storyline where my she didn’t leave Cuba. A tired yet determined look marked her—the look of a woman playing the role of two parents. You could tell she depended on herself alone, and bore the weight of sustaining her entire family. Her daughter was melting candy; pure sugar and stuck to me at every chance. She had long, thick and wavy black hair, like Rapunzel da La Habana. All my family had much darker skin than me and my new abuela was the first to point it out, almost excited by our differences. Her own skin was a rich reddish brown, a tone that almost radiated back the hot sun it had soaked up.

Though my mother was born in the city of Guantanamo and my abuela is from the rural town of Mayari, I am Cuban-American and my primo (who was my age) showed me the weight that hyphen carries. He had been sitting on the couch, with a level of tension boiling in him that could be felt from every part of the tiny room we were in. Four people sharing a one-bedroom apartment with no air conditioner and no running water in the summer is a challenge by any standard and I could feel their shame in knowing what was normal for them was rough for me.(some countries lack A/C because they experience a mild climate, others are simply lacking; Cuba is the latter). I was about to take a shower and my tía asked if I wanted her to heat the water in the bucket I’d be using. I declined, partially out of politeness and partially out of being covered in sweat

My primo jumped up and went on a tirade. He angrily reminded the family that I was not like them. That I wasn’t used to this situation. I wanted to melt into the couch under the weight of this searing shame he must’ve been quietly carrying since I arrived. He continued, wondering aloud why the family wouldn’t get it through their heads, “where she’s from there’s air conditioning and the water comes out of the shower head.” He shouted a last time, “Somos animals aquí. Compared to what she’s used to, we’re animals.” The intense frustration and bitter resentment born out of a stagnant present and a stillborn future is sharp and current, like a wound in reverse. While my mother’s Cuba lacked TVs and even a magazine was a treasured luxury, Cuba today has TV, magazines and even WiFi access in certain places. Of course he felt this way. Cuba was an island, not a cell block, as some might have you believe.

On the living room TV, my primos were watching the same high materialism, low substance music videos that I try to forget exist in the US. No one flaunts wealth quite like someone who never had it so Cuban hip hop is an arms race of boasting. While I can brush the ugliness of consumerism off from the comfort of the US, it’s not so easy to identify the futility of materialism when your food is rationed and your mattress is sweat stained. Yet who is more vulnerable to the poisonous sense of emptiness that chasing happiness via consumerism infects you with than one who’s never even been allowed to participate?

Most of my time in Cuba was spent chasing and consuming every piece of familial history in any form it might take: stories, photos, standing in old buildings and plazas where my own mother and her mother had stood decades before me. I almost want to ask the buildings I saw if they remembered my mother. Did they remember my abuela, who walked on this cobbled path for decades? Silent pieces of concrete, soaking up bits of all the lives around them and selfishly locking these memories into themselves. It was never the buildings I wanted to see so much as the air I wanted to feel. What did it feel like 40 years ago at this exact moment as my mother walked through this plaza?

Traveling to a country when you’re part of its diaspora is more of a journey and less of a vacation. The souvenirs you bring back are in the form of emotional connections that weigh far heavier than any checked bag of keepsakes. Out of the stories of my tía Marta’s cigarette smoking and late night dancing, I found her best friend, who she was unable to contact for over 13 years. Out of the stories of my abuela taking two planes while smuggling a box stuffed with a live chicken meant to feed her hijas, I found her niece, who used to care for those daughters while my abuela struggled to support them. Out of the stories of my mother and her prima who entertained her as a child with an old guitar, I found my tia, who welcomed me into her (now guitar-less) home. I existed in the middle of this surreal web of family ties, aged and stretched almost slightly beyond recognition.

My trip to Cuba revealed a long line of women who were full of life, strong despite the harshest circumstances, deeply rooted trees sustaining all around them. My tía Marta (less formally known as Yaya), came from Cuba, with its slow pace and state of constant lacking, straight into New York City, as a political exile. She’s now one of the most independent women I know with a mouth of candela who maintains herself as a sought after tarot card reader. My grandmother left everything she owned, her friends and even her husband behind, to raise 3 successful daughters as a single mother who spoke no English in the US. My own mother, who had to leave behind her father and integrate herself in a foreign and often hostile country at the confusing age of 15, completed a master’s degree in her second language and now teaches that adopted language to kids born and raised in this country.

I’d uncovered a line of incredible women spanning across generations, recalling the matriarchal Taino societies buried under colonialism, but not quite buried deeply enough. These women and their relentless and determined personalities left me in awe. I’d found a new love for my Cuban heritage when I realized that the value in my identity was not in its uniqueness or in how other people viewed it. The love for my ancestry is born out of the incredible experiences of the family members who made me the person I am. They are my ancestry. My mother’s passion, my abuela’s independence, my tia’s boldness, my primo’s ambition; this is my heritage, something so much more personal and valuable than I could understand as a child. Something that flows from a much deeper place than any hollow nationalistic slogan could convey.

My trip ended like all my previous trips: a ride to the airport and lots of waiting. My new-found family stayed with me until the last minute. It turns out family is a kind of magic word - a word that can conjure a genuine love born of nothing more than shared genetic material. What I keep with me isn’t the effort my family made trying to provide the food and comfort they could barely secure for themselves, but rather what they expended no effort over at all. It was only when the time came to turn my back to them and walk away that I realized how final this moment was. As I lifted my arm to wave goodbye, the simple thought that I’d never experience this particular moment again wouldn’t leave my head. With the volatility of the American-Cuban political relationship, so much could change before I returned. Most goodbyes are not truly goodbye, but more of a see you later; it feels different. This was goodbye.

The difficult part about following the thread of your ancestry out of the diaspora and into the motherland are the ghosts you bring back, more detailed and louder than the sparse figments you had previously only dreamed up based on a patchwork of family stories. The weight of a history extended and imbued with real breathing life: something you would never wish to be without, but always carrying with it new complexities. Even now, as I sit writing in a city and state I’ve never seen, the most assumed parts of my identity are pulled out for display. There’s nothing like leaving home to make you realize how much of your home is twisted up, inseparable from the person you are.Through the acceptance and love my family showed me, I was finally able to pick up my ancestry and, like a missing button, sewed it back on my dress and felt whole after so many years.

Salomé Luna Gemme writes about life and how to live your best one at LunaGemme.com. A Cuban-American nacida y criada en Miami. Orgullosa as hell. She’s shy but you shouldn’t be; find her @salomegemme basically everywhere.

#Cuba #Travel

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drroybstoller · 4 years ago

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8 Ways to Expand Your HAIR Faster | Hair transplant ny

Do you want to expand your hair much faster?

It's a known reality of life: Women are constantly transforming their hair. They grow it out for many years, just to realize that they want their hair to be brief. After a week of brief hair, they realize that they miss their long hair and begin the cycle around once again. Really, in today's world of the "Justin Bieber Hairdo," a great deal of men are even trying to grow their hair faster.

Hair transplant ny

Well, personally, my hair is still recovering up from a negative haircut. It was essentially sliced into a mullet and also has never totally recuperated. Due to the fact that I want to expand my hair long much faster, like you, and also I am unwell of placing in my expansions daily, I am going to instruct you ways that will properly aid your hair expand quicker.

1. Try To Maintain Your Hair From Damaging

The very first thing you can do to aid grow your hair quicker is to eliminate resources of damages.

Just so you know, I am the * queen * of harmed hair.

I can't also count the number of times I have actually tinted my hair black, just to bleach it back to platinum blonde once more, as well as backward and forward.

Fue hair transplant new york

The last time that I colored my hair platinum blonde, I devoted to keeping it that way. I attempt to go as long as feasible in between hair shades to give it time to heal. Individuals ask me constantly just how my hair is so healthy, soft and also shiny, despite the fact that I bleach it. I am frequently replacing it in between colors. I really like the It's a 10 Miracle Hair Masque. When I go to home, doing tasks, I'll place some conditioner in my hair, put a plastic bag around it, and leave it. Sometimes, I will certainly even sleep with it in my hair. I additionally attempt to maintain my flat-iron usage very little. If you do flat-iron your hair on a daily basis, do make use of a protectant/ conditioning spray, like the HealthySexyHair "Soya Want Apartment Hair Flat Iron Spray", which infuses your hair with healthy protein as you use it. I likewise use protein shampoo/conditioner usually. Foolish Blond by Bedhead is my favorite. Bear in mind that your hair needs greater than simply healthy protein. I reside in Nevada, where there is usually concerning 0% moisture, so from time to time I utilize a Moisturizing Hair shampoo. My preferred is Bedhead Urban Antidotes Healing Level 2. To learn more about keeping blonde hair healthy, click here. You'll never be able to grow your hair much faster, if you are creating continuous damage. Okay, now that we comprehend exactly how vital it is to keep your hair healthy ...

2. Trim Your Hair Every 6 Weeks

A lot of individuals do not assume reducing your hair will certainly aid it expand quicker. As well as although, it doesn't make it expand much faster, it will certainly eliminate split ends, which could bring about shorter hair. The very best analogy I have ever heard, is to think about your hair like a piece of rope. When rope begins to fray, you have to shed the item that is frayed, otherwise it will continue to battle royal further up the rope. If you have split ends, and you do not cut them, they may remain to split further up your hair, triggering breakage. Breakage implies much shorter hair. We can not have that if we are attempting to grow it out faster.

You don't need to cut a great deal of hair off. Just be extremely certain to reveal to your hairstylist that you only wish to trim the ideas of your hair because you are attempting to grow it out, as well as desire the split ends cut off. Also make certain to let them recognize not to remove greater than a quarter/half-inch. The much better communication you provide to your stylist, the much better he/she can comprehend what you want as well as supply it to you.

3. Take Vitamins

You possibly constantly hear that prenatal vitamins make your hair grow much faster. I have looked into that topic a whole lot in the past, and it ends up that an abundance of hormones generated while expecting is what truly makes your hair expand, not the prenatal vitamins.

Here is a hair lesson: For normal people, at any kind of given time, 90% of their hair is in the growth stage, while the various other 10% is in a relaxing stage. This is why your hair grows irregular after a hairstyle. After the resting phase, your hair roots prepares for the losing phase. It is normal for any person to lose concerning 50-100 hair strands each day.

The enhanced level of estrogen present in expectant females causes Every One Of your hair to stay in it's expanding phase. As a result, you are not shedding any hair (which provides the impact that your hair is growing much faster). Hair structure and shade have also been kept in mind to change during pregnancy. Currently bear in mind, before you hurry out to get pregnant, that expectant females shed a LOTS OF hair after they have a child. This is because the estrogen degree hangs back down to typical, and also they shed all of the hair that they didn't shed while they were expectant.

So even if prenatal vitamins are a bust, there are still various other vitamins that aid your hair expand much faster. Vitamins rich in B-complex are known to help your hair expand a good deal. Vitamin B-complex contains biotin, folic acid and also insositol which assist rotate the development cycle of your hair quicker than it did before. There is also vitamin B-complex hair shampoo that is stated to aid your hair expand much faster. It is claimed that flax-seed oil, vitamin E, as well as vitamin A all additionally help expand your hair faster. Directly, I have actually made use of the Nioxin Vitamins that are designed for growing hair, and likewise "hair, skin and also nails" tablets, and have seen favorable effects with both of them.

4. Remove aspects that hamper hair growth

Remember, that every thing you place in your body appears via your hair. Various sorts of drugs trigger various responses to your hair. Sometimes, medications will certainly trigger a shade or perm to not take, and additionally some can make your hair fall out. Your hair will certainly not expand quicker if you are constantly losing hair. Common types of medicines that trigger loss of hair are Acne medicines, antibiotics, antidepressants, contraception, anti-clotting pills, cholesterol reducing, medicines that suppress the immune system, epilepsy drugs, substance abuse in breast cancer, high-blood stress drugs, hormonal agent replacement, state of mind stabilizers, steroids, weight-loss medicines as well as thyroid medications. It does depend on what dosage you take and also just how sensitive you are to them. I do not know much regarding the wellness sector, so I would suggest talking with a physician concerning what you take.

Now medicines are a tough point to deal with because a number of us require our medicines. Yet an additional point to keep in mind is that if you are unhealthy, so is your hair. Consuming much healthier food, drinking a great deal of water, not smoking/drinking alcohol are all factors that figure in hair growth.

Another large problem is tension. Stress and anxiety acts of dreadful things to your body yet can additionally set off loss of hair. It's simpler said than done occasionally, however attempt to de-stress if you desire your hair to grow faster.

5. Boost your scalp

There's an old better halves tale that mentions if you comb your hair 100 times every evening prior to you go to rest, it will certainly make your hair expand faster. Not only is that not real, however cleaning your hair is in fact negative for your hair. The bristles obtain caught in little tangles as well as normally tear hair out, creating our adversary: breakage. When your hair is damp, you ought to brush it with a wide-tooth comb to assist eliminate damage.

There is something called "Scientific Brushing" that is stated to aid grow hair much faster however. It is essential that you use a natural bristle brush and also bear in mind, you are brushing it against your scalp, not your hair. You brush all around your hairline initially, then you comb in 1/2 inch subsections throughout your scalp. When you clean, do a rolling movement. The bristles stimulate and also bring blood circulation to your scalp, which motivates hair to grow faster. Do this prior to you shampoo your hair. I would also brush it first to make sure there are no tangles. Scientific cleaning can additionally aid with dandruff.

When you shampoo your hair, really massage therapy your scalp. This does the exact same point as the clinical brushing. Often, it's also far better to shampoo your hair two times so you obtain a far better soap. I would certainly invest a few minutes rubbing your scalp. Not just does it help, yet it additionally feels great!

6. Nioxin/ Invati

Working in the hair sector, I have actually listened to a lots of good ideas about Nioxin. In fact, I had one customer that especially informed me that it was so odd because hair was expanding so much, and also she had a great deal of brand-new development. She could not figure out why it was growing. I asked her what she made use of. She said "Nioxin". I informed her that Nioxin is developed to make your hair grow and also she didn't also recognize that. Now she's hooked on it for life. She will purchase an additional container before she even goes out, so she never ever has to go without it. It works by cleansing your scalp, getting rid of and also counteracting toxins, cleaning the pores, as well as minimizing scalp inflammation. It likewise cleans hormonal agents from the hair roots that triggers male pattern baldness.

It's a controversial subject if Nioxin actually functions or otherwise to make hair grow faster. The solution is it works in a different way on everybody. I've listened to individuals say that they've utilized it for months upon months and also seen no difference. I likewise recognize individuals that advocate it. It is not recognized if it actually makes your hair expand faster or just stops you from losing hair. In any case, I believe it works, as well as the truth that it maintains your scalp healthy and balanced, can't harm. I recognize that the very best outcomes are seen when the cleanser, scalp therapy conditioner, as well as the scalp therapy (which you spray on after you leave the shower) are all utilized. I suggest a starter set like this one. I additionally know that it takes a couple of months to begin seeing visible outcomes. I have listened to individuals state that they think Nioxin dries their hair out, but my own individual experience is that it makes my hair really feel very soft and also moisturized when I utilize it.

Yesterday, it was given my attention that there is a new product similar to Nioxin, made by Aveda, called Invati. I can't actually inform you anything about it, yet it is meant to function well, as well as Aveda goes to trustworthy name, so I would certainly anticipate it to be great.

7. Consume a lot of protein

I recognize someone that is obtaining a stomach bypass real quickly. The physicians instructed her that she needs to eat a lot of healthy protein previously, and also after the surgical procedure. The physician informed her that all the additional protein will make her hair expand faster. It makes good sense, right? Hair is composed of 80% healthy protein. If your body is not getting adequate healthy protein, it might not have sufficient to offer your hair roots, and also therefore your hair will grow slower.

8. Rogaine

If all else fails, there is constantly Rogaine. Rogaine is the only FDA accepted, over the counter topical drug that is actually confirmed to make your hair expand quicker. Minoxidil is the active ingredient in Rogaine, and precisely how it functions is unproven. It was initially a drug used to treat high blood pressure, yet it turns out that it works much better for growing hair than keeping blood pressure down. A 16 week research study showed that 85% of people using it properly experienced new hair development. Just mild side-effects have actually been reported, consisting of scalp irritation and also itching. I claim its worth a shot!

#Fue hair transplant new york #Hair transplant ny

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megacircuit9universe · 5 years ago

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X-Tech: Never Possible Until it is

THU JAN 02 2020

I just watched the latest video by YouTuber, Isaac Arthur, who I’ve been following for years, and greatly respect, addressing time travel, but while he tried to cover every version of time travel that comes up in science fiction, and in legit scientific discourse... he did not cover the version I talk about in this blog.

I was a bit surprised, but then again, mine (explained in the entry entitled, Time Travel Basics, and fleshed out in some follow ups shortly after it) is basically the John Titor version of time travel.

And over the 13 or so years since I first read the Titor stuff online, I’ve noticed that nobody, either in fiction, or legit discourse, ever does venture anywhere near the Titor model... which is kinda strange, given that so many other, clearly unworkable models pop up all the time.

It’s not as though the Titor model is just so ridiculous that it’s not even worth considering... because, well... plenty of very ridiculous models for time travel are given very serious consideration, in our movies and science fiction novels, if not elsewhere.

Still, the original message boards where Titor appeared, to talk about how he was a time traveler, and explain what he knew about how his military issue time distortion unit worked, were forums for physics students and physics enthusiasts.

And what always struck me reading the back and forth on those forums was that nobody ever challenged his technical explanations. Everybody seemed to agree that the physics part of his story held up.

But that part was way over my head at the time, so I was very curious to understand why the physics seemed to hold up so well.

It took me most of those 13 years, watching recorded lectures and other videos on YouTube, and listening to several audio books on my commutes, dealing with different aspects of both quantum physics and string theory... before it finally clicked in my head, and I could see that Titor’s explanation not only squared with physics, but so did the schematics he’d provided.

Again, go back and read, Time Travel Basics, but, in a nutshell, it’s this idea of using two micro black holes... controlled by manifolds that inject electrons either into them, to increase their spin, or at angles across their event horizons, to slow the spin... to create two nested bubbles of frame-dragged spacetime, the inner one with positive time, and the outer one with negative time.

I won’t get further into it than that here, except to say that the one thing Titor talked about that always stumped me were the gravity sensors.

Inside his two nested bubbles of spacetime, he was essentially in his own tiny universe, outside the main universe, but was able to maintain a lock on the Earth’s movements backward through time (rotating backward and revolving around the sun backward as the whole solar system revolved backward around the center of the galaxy) thanks to gravity sensors that would give feedback to the manifolds, telling them how to maneuver the two micro-singularities to stay with the GPS coordinates on Earth’s surface, from which he had departed.

I finally got my answer one morning in the car on the way to work, listening to an audio book on string theory, when the author explained how, unlike light, gravity could be felt between branes (or membranes) of space time.

It’s one possible explanation for why gravity is such a weak force on our own brane, compared to much stronger forces like electromagnetism... because gravity leaks out into the greater, “bulk,” of the multiverse.

He didn’t know it, but he’d told me that Titor’s gravity sensors could work... which was the final piece of the puzzle.

Everything else, from creating micro-singularities in particle accelerators, and capturing them magnetically, for industrial use... to manipulating their spin, mass, and attitude with a manifold of cathode rays (such manifolds were how old color tube TV sets worked)... to the nuclear powering of the device... to the many worlds theory... all passed, for being physically plausible. So when the gravity sensors checked out too... well, that’s when I knew Titor was probably telling the truth.

So why am I so alone in this belief, in 2020... and why has the whole Titor model pretty much vanished from the conversation?

Well... this is what you might expect to happen when a person with a working model of something tries to explain it to people from the past who just aren’t there yet.

Imagine going back to the year 2000, and explaining on a serious tech forum how a typical smart phone from 2010 works... it’s a got a touch screen, and a bunch of gyros and sensors packed inside, and a lithium battery and... bla bla bla...

Even though they are all well versed on the subject of tech, and are only about seven years away from the first smart phone... it’s likely that nobody will take your strange new idea seriously.

Some will point out how certain features are just too far away... and the internet infrastructure couldn’t support such a thing... and the level of miniaturization isn’t realistic... and the batteries would be volatile and prone to explosions.

Others will argue that even if such a device could be Frankensteined together, nobody would want one device to do everything. Nobody wants to watch TV shows on their alarm clock, that is also their flashlight!

Why would they be like that? Well... you know how people are.. when they consider themselves the experts and the vanguards of a given field.

Who are you anyway? You’re just some rando who claims to own one of these so-called, “smart phones,” and you don’t even know how it works.

You’re just a fanciful futurist describing some fanciful vision for a thing that would be nearly impossible to make, and totally impractical, probably, and that nobody asked for. Get out of here!

My other example would be explaining how a modern airplane works, to scientists in... say... 1875. Even if you were spot on with your description of a typical 737... with its wings, aelerons, flaps, jets, etc... its hydraulic control tubes and its aluminum body... fueled by a petroleum based liquid stored in its wings...

They would counter by explaining to you why none of that would actually work, and even if it could... nobody would ever convince a hundred regular civilians to climb into such a death trap and “fly” from New York to Los Angeles... in “hours.”

Get the fuck out of here!

My argument here, about experts and vanguards rejecting working ideas from the future... is kind of borne out by how far off the mark they always are, when asked to envision future tech.

Such visions are always hilariously wrong, because they are always clearly based on exactly what they know in the moment... plus what little they know about a few experimental things going on.

But they never think about the unforeseen breakthroughs, both large and small, that can help make seemingly ridiculous things like the Boeing 737, or the IPhone 4, possible, practical, and marketable.

The above two analogies are not perfect though, because in John Titor’s case, he was in the military, using a military issue time machine. It wasn’t a tech civilians even knew about, necessarily... and also, as I said earlier, there really wasn’t any push back from the nerds on his forums about the physics.

They agreed it was theoretically sound enough not to bother attacking, and instead focused on his descriptions of the future... his past... all the world events to come later in the 2000s, 20-teens, and beyond.

And, while he answered honestly, he also explained that his appearance in 2000 meant they were all now on a different world line, that would not play out the same way.

His recollections were framed as predictions... and when the predictions didn’t come to pass... Titor was considered by most, debunked.

Some argued for a while... correctly, that they were never predictions, because he explained that we were on a different world line than his. But... others countered, by pointing out how this argument makes his predictions unfalsifiable... which, in logical terms, means they’re garbage.

The whole discussion ended there... without ever really touching the mainstream consciousness. John Titor was considered, by those who knew about him, to be just a fun hoax... and, like any other meme... fell out of fashion and was forgotten.

But my point is... he had schematics! He had sound explanations for how the tech worked! Screw the predictions... or arguments that the predictions are unfalsifiable! The tech holds up! Look at that! Talk about that!

Look at the rather flawless descriptions of how it came to be invented, what it was being used for, and what it was like to operate a time distortion unit, from the perspective of the guy in the driver’s seat.

It really irks me that everybody has both ignored and forgotten about that very tangible, testable part of Titor’s story... and then come back today with those same tired old arguments like, “If time travel were possible, we would have heard from one of them by now!”

Oh, really?

“If it were possible, we would have time tourists all over the place, and always would have, since Ancient Rome.”

Really? Cuz... what if it was just a military tech not available to the public and what if it only had a small practical range of a few decades... as explained both by Titor, and by my Time Travel Basics entry? Huh?

Huh???

Well... I guess I’m just gonna have to be content with being a crackpot, with no audience. :(

Be that as it may, my model predicts that WW2 is the great historical barrier for time travel... with only a few rogue time travelers daring to go even as far back as the late 1940s... where they could still hope to refill their oxygen tanks, and get some kind of crude repairs done to their time distortion units.

Most only go as far back as the mid 1970s, with a few outliers hitting the 60s or 50s, and probably never finding their way back to anything like the home worldline they came from, after straying that far afield with no way to establish their, “divergence” to any useful degree.

But the twenty-teens were (are, will be) a good pit stop... the Denver, or Phoenix of Time Travel... if it were a coast to coast drive across the U.S... because things were (are, will be) just advanced enough to stop and get your bearings, or resupply, or get repairs done... but far enough away from the home time (which is the late 2030s) to bother stopping.

It’s possible that the 2020s will be the same kind of Denver for time travelers of, say, the 2050s... and that the 2030s themselves will be a Denver for time travelers of the 2080s... but if so... these more sophisticated time travelers from further in the future will probably be a lot more careful about the cybernetic impact of their pit stops in these future decades.

In other words, they’ll be more careful not to turn the internet, and therefore the world around them, into a total circus of unreality, in which all the locals question their sanity every day on a regular basis.

Things should calm down for us, in the 2020s, is what I’m saying... at least in the socio-political sphere. The climate’s gonna be something different, but...

...whereas in the twenty-teens you were saying, “I can’t believe so and so is the leader of my country and so many assholes are coming out of the woodwork, and the rest of us feel unmoored from reality, as if we’ve been sucked into a parallel universe!”

In the 2020s you’re more likely to be saying, “I can’t believe we had a thunder snowphoon in July, and that Lake Eerie is on fire, but thank God the world’s leaders are on top of this, and have the support of pretty much everybody, except for the oldest, shittiest cranks who we all ignore.”

And maybe you’ll also be saying, “Thank God, also for [X-tech] without which everybody would be so fucked right now!”

Man, that was a long ramble!

Sorry.

I’m going to bed.

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artificialqueens · 7 years ago

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Moments (Sashea) - H

AN: Hi again! I just want to thank anyone who took time to read my story, and to those lovely people who even left a comment, I wish I could squeeze you right now! I have been on the longest hiatus ever, this is the first time I’m actually dedicating myself to writing and publishing something in a long time, I’m talking years, so it really means a whole lot, you made my day! I love you a lot, and here is the third part.

Summary: a collection of moments and memories, a journey through Shea and Sasha’s emotions as their relationship develops.

Chapter 3

“And she did”

…

Shea told her the morning right after. Although told might not exactly be the right word.

So many times she had woken up before Sasha and had just stayed in bed watching her, studying her features, mapping out her face with her eyes, and that day was no exception, yet it was different.

A flip had switched upon finally admitting to all of her feelings, the night before, and Shea felt a new kind of hope.

So many times, watching Sasha’s lips, slightly parted as she slept, Shea had wondered how they would have felt pressed against hers, if she would have smiled afterwards, if those deep blue eyes would have sparkled.

Shea kept staring at her, and the more she did, the more she realized how beautiful Sasha really was.

Suddenly, she was overwhelmed.

This wasn’t necessarily a new feeling for her. “The curse of the artist” she had named it secretly, something she only felt when she was with Sasha, something that made the world look so much more beautiful than before.

Sasha would often grab Shea’s hand and hold it as they walked, and every time Shea would feel their fingers entwine the sky would magically look that little bit bluer, the sun would shine that little bit brighter, the air would get that little bit clearer, and it was indescribable, but it made Shea feel whole.

It was as if by just touching her, Sasha could make her see the world under a different light, just like a painting.

That’s how she was looking at Sasha right now, as if she was the single, most beautiful piece of art she had ever seen, and it knocked the breath out of her.

She put a hand on Sasha’s bare chest, feeling it rise and fall under her palm, to make sure she was there, to make sure she was real.

Sometimes Shea couldn’t wrap her head around it, how one stranger from New York could have seamlessly yet fiercely walked into her life, changing her, making her feel things she never thought she would feel, turning her world upside down just by saying her name, holding her hand, smiling at her.

Her heart was on fire, she had a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes, because that one stranger was Sasha, and only Sasha could make her feel such powerful emotions.

She was intense, she was artistic, beautiful, creative, intellectual, and she had seemed so elevated and unreachable at first, it had almost intimidated Shea.

She had been scared of falling for her because she couldn’t help but feel that the level Sasha was at, she could never reach; an underlined comparison she could have never handled, but she had had to realize that it was all in her head and her head only, because it took one look from Sasha, one squeeze of her hands from the bald headed queen, with bright eyes and an even brighter smile, to make her forget the fear and the self doubt, to make her feel safe, happy, no insecurity that could hold her down.

Yes, she had spent many sleepless nights thinking they would never be together, thinking of how she would have never stood a chance, but she would fight anyone who could ever tell her that her feelings should change, because Sasha had stolen her heart, but only to take better care of it, and she was worth it all.

Shea had been so entranced in her thoughts, so immersed in Sasha Sasha Sasha, that she didn’t notice her opening her eyes.

Sasha had been awoken by the sensation of Shea’s hand on her chest, and when she looked at her she could see the tears in her eyes, expression tense.

Whatever it was that she was witnessing, it felt intense, she was almost scared to interrupt it.

“Shea?” she whispered quietly. Had the other queen been just two feet further away she would not have been able to hear it.

But she wasn’t two feet away, she was oh so, so close.

Her body reacted on instinct.

Shea raised her head and kissed her, hand still pressed on her chest.

She was expecting Sasha to hesitate, push her away even, but she didn’t. Without missing a beat, Sasha was kissing her back.

She was expecting fireworks, an explosion of butterflies in her stomach, head spinning, electricity running through her body, just like they said in the movies, but that didn’t happen either.

What Shea felt was something she would be struggling to describe for the rest of her life.

A complete and utter sense of calm and peace, everything falling into place, her thoughts clearing, her heart beating steadily, she felt refreshed and regenerated.

It was as if the world had stopped rotating for a moment, and everything was in perfect balance.

A perfect example of end and beginning overlapping, months of doubts, second guessing and endless questions finally dissolving into a whole new reality, all there for her to discover.

It was the most magical sensation Shea had ever felt.

When they pulled apart, both out of breath, Sasha shot up. She stood by the bed on shaky legs, her cheeks a bright pink, hand pressed on her own chest, right where Shea’s had been just moments ago.

“What is happening?” she breathed out, flustered.

There was no telling if she was asking that question to Shea, or to herself.

“I like you.” Shea blurted out, standing right in front of Sasha, whose focus was now completely on her.

“I really like you, Sash. I’m falling for you, and I’ve been so scared of telling you but I can’t deny it to either of us anymore, what I feel for you is real.” Shea, too, was shaking. “You make me feel good, Sasha, you make me feel like I can be myself all the time, you do things to me that I can’t even explain, but it’s all real. I’ve never felt anything so strongly in my life.”

For a moment everything fell into silence, neither of them speaking, neither of them breathing, until Sasha launched herself in Shea’s arms, and the world started moving again.

“Oh my god Shea, I feel the same.” Sasha held Shea’s face in her hands, her star struck expression mirroring the younger’s. “I’ve been drawn to you since the very first moment I saw you, you are so wonderful and you make me feel so free.” Sasha’s mind was going a hundred miles per hour. “I was scared of telling you, too, I didn’t want to-“ Shea stopped her rambling and kissed her again.

They could both feel the other one smiling, soon forgetting what they were even afraid of.

Of course they later sat down and talked about it, holding each other’s hands, happily deciding that being together was something they both wanted, but in that moment they just needed to take time to giggle, kiss and smile for a while, and Shea held it as one of the best memories of her life.

That was only the start of their relationship, and even though the word “love” didn’t immediately come up, Shea felt comfortable.

She knew it was there.

She could feel it in the way her heart skipped a beat every single time Sasha would greet her with a peck on the lips and a sincere smile, or every time she would make up a new nickname for her, and there were a lot.

“How are you doing today, beauty?” Sasha seemed to be particularly stuck on that one, and even though Shea would scrunch up her nose and tell her to stop using it, deep down they both knew she loved it, too.

Being with Sasha was everything Shea could have ever dreamt of, and more, so not saying those three words didn’t leave a void, instead it gave her the chance to really live Sasha and everything that she was even more deeply.

It was just like closing your eyes and slowly letting your other senses give you a better perception of your surroundings; Shea learned how to read Sasha, how to recognize the “I love yous” in the way she would sometimes mindlessly trace little heart shapes on her skin with the tip of her finger, or in the way she would carelessly sing in the car, always and only in front of her.

She learned how to take in the wonderful person that Sasha was to all of her extents, and of course, wherever Sasha was, there was art, so just as she had found a path into Shea’s life, art was slowly making its way in, as well.

So it only made sense that the memory of the moment those three words finally came up, would revolve around it.

It was a quiet, rainy afternoon. The two queens had gathered at Sasha’s place, as usual, to share ideas on their future numbers, now having fallen into a comfortable silence, individually working on their projects.

Shea would spare a look at Sasha every once in a while and muffle a laugh. She was wearing an all black, large hoodie, only the tips of her fingers peeking out the sleeves. She was hunched over the table, art supplies scattered all around her, she would sometimes reach at them without ever taking her eyes off the paper, lightly cursing every time she would grab the wrong one, and she had the most concentrated frown Shea had ever seen.

It was comical and honestly, Shea hadn’t thought much into it, she just closed her eyes, leaned back and kept listening to her music, until she was startled to attention by a lap full of Sasha quite literally sitting on her.

When she opened her eyes and looked at her, the hood had been pulled back and the frown wasn’t there anymore.

Sasha was beaming at her, waving the piece of paper in front of her face.

“You were so beautiful, I couldn’t resist.”

In her hands was one of the most beautiful drawings Shea had ever seen.

It was an abstract version of a woman, lean long legs strewn across a sofa, a pale pink drapy dress covering her chocolaty skin.

Sasha had drawn her

Shea hadn’t even realized she was still wearing the outfit she had previously tried on, she wasn’t aware of any particular position she might have been laying into, yet there she was, translated into a perfect portrait.

She had spent so much time thinking of how much Sasha looked like a piece of art to her, that she hadn’t even considered the possibility of herself being looked at the same way.

It touched her heart in a way she didn’t know was possible.

Her deep emotions must have been showing on her face because the next moment she looked up at Sasha, they both had teary eyes.

“I love you” they both said at the same time.

It wasn’t much more of a whisper, but the way their voices faltered was enough of a sign of how much those words meant to the both of them.

They shared the deepest, most passionate kiss, and that was when the fireworks erupted.

Shea didn’t need to explain to Sasha how important it was for her to be a part of her art, she had read it in the way she had stopped breathing upon seeing the drawing.

Sasha didn’t need to explain to Shea how much love she had poured into the portrait, she had seen it in the beautiful combination of colors that filled the background of the page.

They almost never needed to explain anything, they could see everything in each other’s eyes.

But that was the moment they finally said “I love you” to each other, and that moment, Shea knew right away, was for ever going to be the single best memory she would ever have.

…

AN: So, I kind of struggled with this chapter a little bit, don’t ask me why, and I promise I went throught it so many times, but I just had to post it at some point, so I hope I haven’t made any mistakes. Let me know what you think, I’m sending you all big hugs, ciao!

#sashea #sasha velour #shea coulee #fluff #moments #h #rpdr fanfiction #canon compliant #s9

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sportsloungeblog · 6 years ago

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Grading The NBA Draft

The 2019 NBA Draft is this Thursday, June 20, from the Barclays Center. Later the next day or even later that night, I’m sure you’ll see “experts” give out their grades to each team and who they think WON and LOST the draft before anyone ever steps on the court. Of course, this is a ridiculous exercise to try and predict how the Class of 2019 will do before they play. Like most things in sports media today (TV, radio, podcast, websites, etc.) the idea of predicting how anyone is going to perform is a waste of time and energy. There are too many variables and the team’s themselves don’t have the slightest clue how anyone will turn out; All-Star or bust. It’s no fun to wait five years, at least, until we have some sort of idea how these guys developed. We need immediate reaction. A+ to this team and a D to this team for picking players that we don’t know how they will end up. We can though look back at past drafts and see which players were the best, who were busts and what late round gems ended up as Hall of Famers. It doesn’t take much explaining why Chris Paul was the best player taken in the 2005 draft, followed by Deron Williams, David Lee and Andrew Bogut. For this exercise, we’ll use Basketball-Reference Win Shares. Similar to WAR in baseball, Win Shares is an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player. It attempts to divide up credit for team success to the individuals on the team. It gives you a pretty solid indication of who was a bust or who excelled among their draft class. For reference; Kareem is the all-time Win Shares leader at 273. LeBron is fourth at 226. Jordan is fifth at 214. Chris Paul is at 171, 19th all-time

2000 1. Hedo Turkoglu - 16th overall to Sacramento - 63 WS 2. Mike Miller - 5th overall to Orlando - 60 WS 3. Jamal Crawford - 8th overall to Cleveland - 60 WS 4. Michael Redd - 43rd overall to Milwaukee - 55 WS 5. Kenyon Martin - 1st overall to New Jersey - 48 WS Not a Hall of Famer here in the weak 2000 NBA Draft. Other notables are Morris Peterson and Quinten Richardson, who had some success. The top of this draft did not live up to expectations, even though two of the five best players in the draft were top five picks in Miller and Martin. Stromile Swift (#2 to the Grizzlies), Darius Miles (#3 to the Clippers), and Marcus Fizer (#4 to the Bulls) were all busts, averaging between 8-10 points per game and just under five rebounds. 2001 1. Pau Gasol - 3rd overall to Atlanta - 144 WS - 30th best ever 2. Tony Parker - 28th to San Antonio - 111 WS - 61st best ever 3. Tyson Chandler - 2nd overall to Chicago - 101 WS - 83rd best ever 4. Richard Jefferson - 13th overall to Houston - 83 WS 5. Joe Johnson - 10th overall to Boston - 82 WS Gasol and Parker are likely Hall of Famers that were important pieces to championship teams. Tyson Chandler was still active last season. Chandler turned his career around after a tough start for the Bulls coming straight out of high school. This past season was the first without Joe Johnson and Zach Randolph, multiple time All-Stars. Jason Richardson, Gilbert Arenas, Gerald Wallace and Shane Battier all had their moments too. A solid class with longevity as it had six players play 17+ seasons, Kwame Brown notwithstanding. 2002 1. Amar’e Stoudemire - 9th overall to Phoenix - 92 WS 2. Carlos Boozer - 35th overall to Cleveland - 80 WS 3. Nene Hilario - 7th overall to New York - 73 WS 4. Yao Ming - 1st overall to Houston - 65 WS 5. Tayshaun Prince - 23rd overall to Detroit - 63 WS Without injuries, Yao Ming is the best player in this class and the rare case of the first overall pick actually being the best player. Yao was induced into the Hall of Fame in 2016 and is likely the only HOF of the Class of 2002. Mike Dunleavy and Caron Butler were top 10 picks that finished with good careers.

2003 1. LeBron James - 1st overall to Cleveland - 226 WS - 4th best ever 2. Dwyane Wade - 5th overall to Miami - 120 WS - 49th all-time 3. Chris Bosh - 4th overall to Toronto - 106 WS - 74th all-time 4. Carmelo Anthony - 3rd overall to Denver- 101 WS 5. David West - 18th overall to New Orleans - 85 WS One of the best draft classes of all-time. The three best players made up the two title teams for Miami and Carmelo may get into the HOF. One of the great “What If’s” in NBA history is what Detroit could have done if they didn’t pick Darko Milicic with the second overall pick when the Pistons were already an NBA Finals caliber team. Kyle Korver, Mo Williams, Kirk Hinrich and Boris Diaw all had their moments.

2004 1. Dwight Howard - 1st overall to Orlando - 128 WS - 41st best ever 2. Andre Iguodala - 9th overall to Philadelphia - 96 WS 3. Luol Deng - 7th overall to Phoenix - 74 WS 4. Al Jefferson - 15th overall to Boston - 71 WS 5. Kevin Martin - 26th overall to Sacramento - 61 WS Back-to-back drafts where the best player was the #1 overall pick. Other than Dwight Howard, you have Iguodala and Deng, who combined for three All-Star games. Some may argue for Iguodala in the HOF with a Finals MVP for Golden State and his importance on the defensive end, but he has averaged under 7 ppg, 4 rpg and 3 apg in his five years over his early to mid 30′s with the Warriors. I think Howard should get in the HOF when the time comes. Other than him, there are not a ton of multi-time All-Stars coming from the ‘04 draft. Trevor Ariza, Devin Harris, Josh Smith, Jameer Nelson, J.R. Smith, Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon were all starters that you’d be happy to have on your team.

2005 1. Chris Paul - 4th overall to New Orleans - 171 WS - 19th best ever 2. Deron Williams - 3rd overall to Utah - 77 WS 3. David Lee - 30th overall to New York - 76 WS 4. Marvin Williams - 2nd overall to Atlanta - 62 WS 5. Marcin Gortat - 57th overall to Phoenix - 61 WS One Hall of Fame point guard, an five time All-Star in Deron Williams, two- time All-Star in David Lee and that’s about it for difference makers in the 2005 Draft. The 1st overall pick was Andrew Bogut who had some good years with Milwaukee. I wouldn’t call him a bust, but he was a disappointment considering where he was selected. The ‘05 Draft does have a solid grouping of rotation guys including Lou Williams, Danny Granger, Monta Ellis, Raymond Felton, Channing Frye, Andrew Bynum, Jarrett Jack, Nate Robinson and Charlie Villanueva.

2006 1. LaMarcus Aldridge - 2nd overall to Chicago - 107 WS - 70th best ever 2. Paul Millsap - 47th overall to Utah - 88 WS 3.. Kyle Lowry - 24th overall to Memphis - 86 WS 4. J.J. Redick - 11th overall to Orlando - 58 WS 5. Rajon Rondo - 21st overall to Boston - 58 WS I don’t see any Hall of Fame players from the 2006 Draft. There really wasn’t much talent in ‘06 once you get outside of the 10 best players. The #1 overall pick, Andrea Bargnani of Toronto, was in the not bust, but disappointing category as a string of injuries prevented him from reaching his potential. The top 5-10 in this draft is littered with busts from Adam Morrison, Tyrus Thomas, Randy Foye, Sheldon Williams and the what could have been career of Brandon Roy if not for a bum knee.

2007 1. Kevin Durant - 2nd overall to Seattle - 141 WS - 32nd best ever 2. Al Horford - 3rd overall to Atlanta - 85 WS 3. Marc Gasol - 48th overall to the Lakers - 79 WS 4. Mike Conley - 4th overall to Memphis - 71 WS 5. Joakim Noah - 9th overall to Chicago - 61 WS A good draft where three of the four best players were all selected in the top four. Not much depth as it was a very top heavy draft. Greg Oden will join the long list of injury riddled top picks that will never know how good he could have been. Portland took a gamble on another big man and it didn’t pay off. 105 career games.

2008 1. Russell Westbrook - 4th overall to Oklahoma City - 96 WS 2. DeAndre Jordan - 35th overall to the Clippers - 83 WS 3. Kevin Love - 5th overall to Memphis - 78 WS 4. Serge Ibaka - 24th overall to Oklahoma City - 63 WS 5. Brook Lopez - 10th overall to New Jersey - 60 WS One Hall of Famer, a few All-Stars and a bunch of guys after that. It seems that there might be one HOF level player every year or so in the draft, followed by a couple of guys that will make a handful of All-Star teams, followed by about 5-10 guys that will be a starter. Derrick Rose would be in the top five if not for injuries. 2009 1. James Harden - 3rd overall to Oklahoma City - 121 WS - 46th best ever 2. Steph Curry - 7th overall to Golden State - 102 WS 3. Blake Griffin - 1st overall to the Clippers - 75 WS 4. DeMar DeRozan - 9th overall to Toronto - 60 WS 5. Darren Collison - 21st overall to New Orleans - 49 Now we enter the drafts from 10 years ago or less where guys are right in the prime of their careers. An exceptional top of this draft with two guaranteed Hall of Famers in Harden and Curry. Meanwhile, I would say Blake Griffin has lived up to the hype of a #1 overall pick. The #2 pick in this draft, Hasheem Thabeet, would not. 2010 1. Paul George - 10th overall to Indiana - 65 WS 2. Greg Monroe - 7th overall to Detroit - 49 WS 3. Derrick Favors - 3rd overall to New Jersey - 49 WS 4. Gordon Hayward - 9th overall to Utah - 47 WS 5. John Wall - 1st overall to Washington - 44 WS Rankings can still change here since most of these guys still have some prime years left and may play another 6-8 seasons, so the Win Shares will be fewer than previous drafts. You could also see someone like DeMarcus Cousins, who would rank sixth, end up in the top five at the end of his career. 2010 was a solid draft with most of the top tier talent coming from the top 10 picks, which you like to see. 2011 1. Jimmy Butler - 30th overall to Chicago - 66 WS 2. Kawhi Leonard - 15th overall to Indiana - 65 WS 3. Kyrie Irving - 1st overall to Cleveland - 58 WS 4. Kemba Walker - 9th overall to Charlotte - 48 WS 5. Klay Thompson - 11th overall to Golden State - 46 WS There’s really not any debate to the rankings when it comes to Win Shares until now. I think most would say Kawhi is the best player in this draft and that Klay is better than Kemba. There’s not a ton of stars after the top five, but this is as strong of a top five as any as we have seen. All are high level All-Stars and with a few HOF mixed in. Lots of misses in the top 10, including Derrick Williams, Jan Vesely, Bismack Biyombo and Jimmer Fredette. The final pick in this draft, Isaiah Thomas, has been better than most of the top 10. 2012 1. Anthony Davis - 1st overall to New Orleans - 72 WS 2. Damian Lillard - 6th overall to Portland - 70 WS 3. Andre Drummond - 9th overall to Detroit - 56 WS 4. Draymond Green - 35th overall to Golden State - 43 WS 5. Bradley Beal - 3rd overall to Washington - 36 WS Davis joins LeBron and Dwight Howard as the only #1 overall picks to be the best player in their respective drafts. Draymond Green also joins a short list of second round picks to be among the top five in their draft class. Looking back seven years ago now, this just wasn’t a very good draft. #2 overall Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is the ninth best players in this draft and he has not had a good career with Charlotte. Most drafts end up with at least 10-15 quality players, but not 2012. 2013 1. Giannis Antetokounmpo - 15th overall to Milwaukee - 53 WS 2. Rudy Gobert - 27th overall to Denver - 52 WS 3. Steven Adams - 12th overall to Oklahoma City - 38 WS 4. Mason Plumlee - 22nd overall to Brooklyn - 31 WS 5. Otto Porter - 3rd overall to Washington - 29 WS It says a lot that only one top 10 pick is among the five best players of the 2013 Draft class. 2006 is the only other year we have looked at where there were not at least two top 10 picks among the five best players. I think Victor Oladipo and C.J, McCollum will end up higher than Porter and Plumlee on this list. 2013 is a contender for having the worst top 10 in history. Oladipo has been very good at times and has shown improvement the last two years. Otto Porter has been ok and McCollum has been a good number two option in Portland. The rest of the top 10 has been terrible. Anthony Bennett, the worst #1 pick in history, followed by Cody Zeller, Alex Len, Nerlens Noel, Ben McLemore, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Trey Burke. None of those top 10 are starter level players. 2014 1. Nikola Jokic - 41st overall to Denver - 38 WS 2. Clint Capela - 25th overall to Houston - 31 WS 3. Dwight Powell - 45th overall to Charlotte - 22 WS 4. Jerami Grant - 39th overall to Philadelphia - 18 WS 5. Aaron Gordon - 4th overall to Orlando - 18 WS This should probably be the last draft class that we can look at because even thought it has been five years, a lot can and will change with this top five. Joel Embiid is ranked seventh due to injury, although he has been the best player from this draft. Zach Lavine has had a torn ACL and is much better than his 22nd Win Shares ranking among the Class of 2014. Andrew Wiggins has been a disappointment as the #1 overall pick, It might be surprising that you have to wait at least five years, if not six in my opinion, to have an accurate determination of who ended up as a draft bust or steal or who won the draft. Of the 15 years (2000-2014), 12 of those ended up with at least two of the top 10 players selected in the top five of best players in that draft. 2014, 2013, 2006 being the exceptions. 2013 is one of the worst top 10′s ever, while 2011 gives the 2003 Draft a good run for best of the past 20 years. Just know that as you watch the 2019 NBA Draft, the “experts” and GM’s don’t have any more clue than you watching at home who is actually going to make it and who isn’t. If they did, then Anthony Bennett wouldn’t have been a #1 pick and Giannis wouldn’t have lasted until the 15th pick in the same 2013 Draft..

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