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frustratedpoetwrites · 4 years ago

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when Lily’s normal route home from work is closed she has to find a new way, and discovers a cute little bakery with a viewing window into the kitchen.

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Lily Evans had no problem walking around London. Her flatmates would always tell her to be careful, take the train, the bus, or even an Uber. Like she could afford to take an Uber every day for goodness sake. Lily had a plan to pay off her student loans before she was thirty, and a tight budget to meet that goal. So she walked nearly everywhere, no matter the weather or the season. That’s what waterproofs, big coats, and good shoes were for.

Her favourite was the walk home after finishing a night shift at around 5 am when the sky was just waking up. Not that a person could see much of the sky when walking through the built-up areas of London. The streets would be free of nearly everything but the vans delivering the first edition papers to the newsstands, or the milkmen doing their rounds, milk bottles clinking as the electric carts trundled past her. She hadn’t even realised milk was still delivered this way, not since she was a child growing up in the long narrow streets of Cardiff could she remember collecting milk from your door.

She always walked the same way. Turn right from the hospital, then keep going straight across three traffic lights until she came to the rather grand looking Empire Hotel. There, cross the street and take the diagonal alleyway down to the underpass. Putting her foil-wrapped packet of leftovers from the night shift into the outdoor sleeper’s donation box, then up along a collection of grubby shops around the kids’ play park and then home.

That had been her route for months, it was the shortest she had managed to find. She never worried about muggers or strangers, she knew how to look after herself if anyone did try. Fourteen years of Thai-Kwon-Do training did that to your confidence. But even despite that, wearing her NHS ambulance uniform was like wearing an extra layer of protection anyway. So walk that way she did, every single time without fail. Until one day the alleyway was blocked by a great big orange barrier, stopping her halfway along.

Lily grumbled thinking they could at least put a sign up by the entrance and not make her walk all the way up here first. She disliked the idea of backtracking too far so she got out her phone and let it find her location. The maps on her device were notoriously inaccurate, usually putting her in the general direction of about three different streets, but this time it pinged her straight away and gave her a dotted line to follow. Just a little further down from the blocked off alleyway was another little side street, this one brighter and more welcoming than her usual route. There was also a fantastic smell of baking bread emanating from one of the buildings.

Normally at this hour, the only shops with any sign of activity were the 24hour convenience shops with their harsh strip lighting, lino floors, and soulless self-checkouts. As soon as she saw the front of this place she wished she had found this route sooner.

It looked straight out of a Dickens novel with its small square glass panelled bay window, the outside woodwork and door painted British racing green and with a swinging sign in the shape of a mushroom-like chef’s hat. She read the name of the place written in golden cursive lettering, Too Hot to Handle. She nearly laughed out loud. As she stepped closer wondering when they opened she spotted the small side window into the kitchen, where the baker was busy making bread.

Was there anything in the world more satisfying than watching someone knead dough? The way the shoulder blades slid underneath the thin t-shirt, biceps bulging and contracting. Strong hands gliding the dough, fingers sprinkling down the flour.

Perhaps Lily was a little obsessed, perhaps not everyone thought the way she did about bread. The smell alone was making her mouth water, but perhaps if they also happened to walk past a bakery that had a viewing window into the kitchen they would find it equally mesmerising. The muscled back in question that had first caught her eye never faced the window, never even lifted their head from the task. She stepped away reluctantly, promising herself to come back when they were open.

The next morning she had to walk past the bakery once more. She was pleased to see it hadn’t been a figment of her overtired brain. The swinging sign and golden lettering were a welcoming sight to her. Once again her footsteps slowed as she approached the window peeking into the kitchen, she let herself stand a bit closer this time, breathing in the delicious smells coming from the extractor vent. Was it the same baker as yesterday? He still didn’t seem to notice her looking at him, his methodical movements were efficient and captivating. He was making rolls, two at a time. A figure coming into the kitchen broke her stare and she looked away from the baker to see a woman standing in the doorway to the shop looking curiously straight at her. Guiltily she stepped back like she had been caught peeping at a changing room and rushed off up the street, her heart beating.

For the next few days, Lily’s mind kept going back to that little street. She was on her rest days so had no reason to just randomly walk past. She would actually have to stop and buy something. She had not had a properly made crusty roll from a bakery in so long. There was nothing in the world as comforting as freshly made bread. She remembered her dad making some every Sunday as a treat until his arthritis made it too painful. She had already started to fantasise about what it would taste like, what kind of bread would she buy? It wasn’t that she had a problem, of course she didn’t, but back when she had been training more, it had become a staple to stop at the bakery on her way home from the gym and buy herself a doughnut. She still remembered the way her sister had always commented on it, making her feel like she should be ashamed of eating anything at all.

Luckily for Lily and her mental health she had stopped listening to what her sister thought of anything at all long before that moment, in fact, it would make eating the sweet treats taste that much better. She wondered if they did french pastry too? Unfortunately, she was still too mortified about being caught sneaking outside to go in. Even the next couple of times walking home in the early hours, she made sure she took the detour past but refused to let her feet linger, telling herself the smell was enough.

There were no leftover sandwiches when she walked into the break room at the end of her shift. There were always leftover sandwiches. It wasn’t really that big of a deal, but on top of everything else that had happened this shift, it made Lily almost feel like crying. She had been on an emergency call trying to keep them calm, willing them to keep talking to her until the ambulance arrived. She had stayed on the line with them well past the end of her shift, not wanting to leave even after she heard the paramedics arrive and she was supposed to hang up, she had listened to them working to stabilize them enough to transport. It was only when the line went quiet that she disconnected, knowing they were on their way to the hospital, to the best possible care. Being an emergency call operator was never an easy job, but some days were way worse than others. Lily had just wanted to sit in the break room for a few minutes to settle herself and eat something sweet to feel better. But the staff room that always had snacks of varying levels of freshness was looking extremely clean and bereft of anything apart from coffee. She sighed, thinking she would have to brave the Tesco on the corner of her street before she went home, being unable to rely on the contents of her own fridge. She hated that supermarket, especially when she was already past the point of regular tiredness. It was going to be a slow walk home.

She thought that until she walked past the little bakery. The bakery that was not closed. The smells of baking, more intense than ever with the shop door propped open by a statue of a round fat man in a similar chef’s hat to the one on the sign. It had been over a month since she had been seen at the window, surely enough time had passed for her to no longer be embarrassed.

Inside the shop was just as pretty as the outside. Shelves lined with wicker baskets filled with so many types of bread covered the back wall. Glass fronted display cabinets filled with colourful dainty cakes, pastries, meringues, pies, and biscuits, made a barrier between where she was standing and the server. There was not a great deal of space where she stood, even less behind the counter, it was small but every part of it had been maximised to its full potential, the selection was astonishing, considering she was pretty sure all the work was done by hand. Lily had no idea how long she stood there astonished by the selection. It reminded her of the fancy cake shops she had seen on her school trip to Paris as a teenager.

When Lily finally tore her head away from the displays long enough to look at the server, she recognised them as the same women who had spotted her at the window. She looked to be in her sixties Lily guessed, her short grey hair was kept neatly in place by the white hat she was wearing, her intelligent eyes were watching her with polite interest. And her smile was warm and welcoming. Lily tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and looked back down at the display.

“Two sourdough rolls, and three Pain Au chocolats’ please?” she asked shyly. The ladies’ smile broadened as she turned to fill a paper bag with two intricately scored round rolls from one of the baskets behind her. Lily glanced to the side door, she could hear the sound of dough being slapped against the table, but wherever they were standing they were not visible from her position.

She paid for her goods contactlessly, grabbed the paper bag as it was handed to her, and practically ran out of the shop.

She unfurled the top as soon as she was out of view, unable to wait until she was home to eat the pastry. She was so hungry she didn't waste any time but bit about half of it in one. It was sweet and buttery, with a softly melting chocolate centre, she had never tasted anything that came even close since that same Paris trip. She was just finishing it off, licking her fingers unashamedly when she reached the underpass. Because she was later the usually unidentifiable lumpy sleeping bag was a person sitting up. She did not hesitate at all before handing them the other pastries still in their smaller paper bag, hoping they wouldn’t be disappointed.

“No leftover sandwiches today I’m sorry,” she told them, not waiting around for a reply. She was beginning to feel a rather welcome sugar rush, pushing off her fatigue for long enough to keep her legs moving and back to her flat.

When she finally got home, she sat down hard at the kitchen table, contemplating just going to bed instead of trying to eat anymore. But the sugar from the pastry was wearing off and she knew she would wake up famished, and sooner than she wanted to if she didn’t. Wearily she lifted herself back up and looked in the fridge. There wasn’t a huge selection to go with her bread, but there were some cheddar slices and still a little bit of her dad’s homemade chutney.

The first bite made her make a noise she had never uttered outside of her bedroom before. The way the crispy crust broke making that wonderful crackle as her teeth sunk through to soft inner bread, the flavours of the cheese and pickle mingling perfectly, she was in complete heaven.

“My god, Evans I thought you’d brought a bloke home!” Marlene, her flatmate, exclaimed walking out of her bedroom already in her scrubs, blonde hair tied back severely into a bun. “You’re home late, bad shift?” Lily just nodded and took another bite, swiping the crumbs off her chin with a finger, “Do you want to talk about it?” Lily shook her head and moaned again. “Jeez Lily, why don’t you take it to your room? What’s in that sandwich?”

“This is the best thing ever, you have to try it.” Marlene looked sceptical but nevertheless took a bite out of the roll and her eyes rolled backwards. No words were needed Lily just nodded her agreement.

Lily didn’t think about the little bakery until she was standing outside it again the next morning. She should have just kept walking, she knew it would be closed. Why had her feet even come this way at all? But her feet wanted her to have a closer look at the treats on offer, and perhaps a peek at who was making them.

The dark-haired, broad-shouldered guy was there again, his back to the window, hands and arms busy working the dough on the table in front of him, she thought he was making some kind of small pastry, his fingers were deftly twisting then placing on large greased trays. He was wearing black and white check chef’s trousers today with the same long sleeved, tightly fitting, white T-shirt she remembered from before, his shoulder blades danced underneath the cotton, the ribbon of his apron crossing tightly around his neat waist, and a red and black bandana covering his head.

She couldn’t make out his face. Not even in a reflection, as every surface in that room was stainless steel or wood.

“Good morning,” came a female voice from right beside, making Lily jump out her skin and turn like she had been caught with her hand in the sweetie jar.

“Hi, sorry,” she gave her a nervous smile, “ just looking at your wonderful cakes.” She felt the heat rise up in her cheeks at the obvious lie. She was at the wrong window.

“Did you enjoy the rolls yesterday?” she asked next, making Lily stop.

“Yes, thank you, they were wonderful,” she replied, impressed. “You must have a good memory, I’m sure you get loads of customers every day”

“True,” she replied with a twinkle in her eyes, “ but not normally as early as you.” Lily shrugged looking down at her shoes.

“Yes, I’m just going home from my shift, I finished a bit later yesterday so you were actually open.”

“Oh, we are open now, if you would like to buy something. Not quite as much is ready yet, but we have croissants just out of the oven.” She started walking back into the shop as she was speaking so Lily had no choice but to follow her in. Lily’s mouth was already watering at the thought of the buttery flakey pastry.

“Just out the oven?” Lily asked in a delighted almost whisper.

“Oh, yes. How many would you like?”

“Four?” Remus had thrown a strop yesterday when he’d discovered she’d gone to a bakery and hadn’t brought back anything for him so she would make sure she did today.

“No problem, I’ll just have to go get them. They might still be a little hot but I’ll put them in a box for you.” Her voice trailed off as she went into the kitchen leaving Lily to stand and wait. “JAMES!” She heard the woman shout from another room. “Where are the..? Oh, never mind, I found them.” She came back carrying the kind of boxes that were normally reserved for delicate cakes and placed it on the top of the glass for Lily to take.

“May I ask, do you make everything by hand?”

“Well not me personally anymore, I help a bit but it’s mainly my sons who do all the work,” she stated proudly. “Would you like anything else?” Lily shook her head.

“I would love too but I don’t have the time to burn it off anymore,” she confessed and the lady smiled politely. She paid for her pastry, went to leave but before she reached the door the thought struck her.

“Did you open just for me?”

“Oh, no my dear we just decided to open a little earlier today for no reason at all.”

Lily arrived back at her flat to find Marlene and Remus already sitting at their kitchen table expectantly. Remus was hugging the biggest mug they had and the smell of roast coffee was thick in the air. Marlene was wrapped up in her fluffy pink dressing gown, her hair in rollers. Lily remembered her saying she was going to spend today with her girlfriend, the doctor. Lily thought she might have been here already. Dorcas often spent the night, especially if they both had the rare occurrence of a shared day off the next day. It was a little cliche for nurses and doctors to date, but understandable as who else could understand the demanding schedule of hospital staff. But it seemed that Marlene had made plans to meet her later. Where Marlene looked like she was on her way to being ready for her day, Remus looked like he had barely woken up.

“Wow Remus, what’s the occasion? I don’t normally see you out of your room before noon?”

“Marlene and you were rhapsodising about those fucking rolls you had yesterday. I just had to try for myself, so hand them over.”

“Who says I want to share?”

“That box you are holding,” he replied with his hand out, with an exaggerated sigh she placed the box in his hand and went to make herself some tea. She smiled to herself as she saw the teapot already sitting with a herbal tea bag inside.

“I would have poured it already but I know you don’t like it over brewed.” Marlene told her with a smile, and she was right. Lily hated the bitter taste if it was left too long. Coffee was her favourite but she would never sleep if she took any now.

“No cakes?” Marlene exclaimed sounding slightly disappointed, taking a croissant out the box. “These do look good, though.” Lily tried not to roll her eyes at her friend who had the sweetest tooth, Lily, on the other hand, didn’t quite so much, she liked chocolate but preferred it more on the dark side. She was the type of person who would eat the rich fruit Christmas cake but leave the icing.

Remus picked up one for himself. “They’re still a little warm!” he exclaimed with joy. Without being asked Lily took the jar of chocolate spread out of the cupboard and placed it with a knife in front of him, he didn’t say anything just smirked at the jar.

“Oh my fucking god,” Marline said her mouth full, she moaned leaning back in her chair looking up at the ceiling. Remus and Lily both watched her, slightly stunned by her reaction. Remus pulled a piece from the end and popped it in his mouth. His reaction wasn’t quite as extreme but his eyes closed as he savoured the flavour nodding to himself as if agreeing with Marlene.

“Good lord, can you two get a grip on yourselves?” Lily complained before sitting down and taking a bite of her own. She thought she knew what it would taste like having already tried a breakfast pastry just yesterday. The outside flaked but not enough that you were left with a mouthful of crumbs, the inner layers were soft and pale yellow, with almost a lightly toasted flavour.

“Huh?” she said amazed.

“You need to tell me where this place is. You can’t deny me this, you have no idea,” Remus told her earnestly.

“Do you and these need to get a room?” Marlene giggled, looking in the box for more.

“Says the woman who was moaning not two minutes before.” Remus glanced at the single crescent moon left in the box, then at her. Lily took a long sip of her tea before placing it down with a sigh.

“You two can fight over the last one or be adults and share it. I’m going to bed.”

“Lily, where is this place?” Remus called to her pleadingly

“Buccaneer street,” Lily replied with a yawn closing her bedroom door, and blocking out her two best friends.

Lily awoke to a quiet house. This was not unusual, Marlene was often on the opposite shift to herself and Remus tended to spend most of his awake time doing whatever freelance photographers did outside the house.

Sleepily she stretched and put her slippers on, shuffled back to the kitchen hoping they had refilled the coffee machine for her. She had left her phone on the kitchen table and the screen lit up as she sat down.

Two texts from Remus and an Instagram notification.

Remus: I found your bakery.

Either I need to start going to the gym again or find a man who likes my dry wit and stunning

personality.

Remus: The baker is HOT. Like OMG are you kidding me hot!

Having that viewing window into the kitchen is genius.

I could have stared at that arse all day.

Lily rolled her eyes as she tapped out a reply.

Lily: Haha I knew you would love the place, it's cute isn’t it?

Lily poured herself a large cup of coffee and was settling down to drink it when her screen lit up again.

Remus: Update. So I got talking with the owner and said she would be happy for me to take a few pictures to help promote their business.

Apparently, they’ve not been there that long.

I’ve already taken a few snaps for my insta.

Lily exited her text messages and opened her Instagram and selected Remus’ page. It was always full of an assortment of fabulous pictures of all sorts of things, normally related to current events. But all of them today were pictures from that beautiful tiny bakery. Her breath caught when she viewed the last picture. The grey-haired lady who had served her both times without the usual white hat and apron, wearing a cornflower blue dress covered in tiny white flowers, standing smiling proudly, an arm around the two men standing at each side of her with their backs to the camera completely dwarfing her. They were wearing matching bandanas and T-shirts but instead of the usual plain white she had seen every time, these were dark green and both said Too Hot….? across the shoulders. Euphemia Potter with her sons: James and Sirius Lily read. At least now she had a name for each of them but still not a face to the bakers. Which one was her baker?

Lily: Your skills are slipping, Remus. Are they so ugly you had to save us from seeing their faces?

Remus: They wanted to promote their brand and not their faces, which I am so upset about. They are both extremely handsome, but Sirius (the one with the sleeve tattoo) is so hot I almost dropped my camera.

Lily looked a bit more closely at the photo and spotted the arm with the intricate sleeve work. Unfortunately, this still wasn’t much to go on. They both had dark hair the majority of which was hidden under matching bandanas and the same build, was one a little shorter?

Lily: Did he show any interest back?

Remus: Sort of. I’m not sure, I’ll tell you about it when I get home. Are you working later?

Remus, as it turned out, was hopeless when it came to making a first move, and had no additional information to tell her beyond the fact that when he had told Sirius he liked his tattoos, Sirius had complimented his camera and touched his arm. This to Lily was a ringing endorsement of interest at the very least, but not to poor Remus who couldn’t even say for sure he knew he was gay.

This just made Lily shake her head at her poor clueless friend, and decide she would have to do something about this herself. The way Remus was talking about him she just knew this had to happen if it was at all possible, she owed it to Remus as his best friend.

Going back to the bakery for the third day in a row, Lily’s budget was really starting to take a bit of a battering. She wasn’t sure if she could keep this up. Buying things in London was expensive, buying handcrafted artisan food in London was enough to make you consider your life choices. She would sacrifice her budget, just this once.

It was not exactly the day off she had originally planned. That day had included wearing her pajamas all day, a scorching hot bath, a bottle of wine and not leaving the flat at all. But here she was, dressed in her best fitting jeans, midnight blue top, long grey oversized cardigan, and ankle boots, standing outside the little bakery waiting her turn. She had never been in the middle of the day before so had never had to que. This did not bode well for her plan at all. She couldn’t be charming and funny and ask for his number for her friend if she was holding up the line. She just couldn't do that, she hated people who did that. Well, hate was a strong word, she would get mildly disgruntled if she had to wait behind chatty customers when she was in a hurry.

The first barrier to get over of course would be Mrs Potter, perhaps if Lily could get her inside help? But the relationship between sons and their mothers was a tricky thing. She would have to tread carefully, she had grown far too fond of this place to have to stop due to a misunderstanding with the owner. The line got closer to the shop and she could now see inside the kitchen. The stainless steel table was bare and wiped clean, no evidence of the usual industry. She tried to suppress her disappointment, feeling more than a little guilty for objectifying whoever it was she had been looking forward to watching.

The que ahead was going down quickly now, and just before she reached the door a customer came out clutching a large paper bag to his chest.

“We’re sold out folks.” Lily heard a strong male voice call out to the waiting customers, who immediately started moving away, with less grumbling than Lily would have thought. This must be a regular occurrence.

“Knew I should have gotten here sooner, dang it.” The man behind her spoke, before heading back up the street in the direction of the Empire Hotel and the main road. Lily watched him go and noticed she was now the only person left waiting, seeing this as a perfect opportunity to strike up a conversation without holding up any customers she stepped inside. The man who had spoken had his head down adding numbers to a large notebook as she walked in. She tried to look for any signs of tattoos but his arms were covered by the same style white coat that she’d seen Mrs Potter wearing. But where her coat had a large golden E on it, this coat had an ornately scrolled S.

“I’m sorry if you didn’t hear, but we’re all sold out,” his voice trailed off as he looked up from his task, her heart gave an involuntary flutter as he shot a lopsided grin at her while dropping his pen. He wasn’t wearing the chef’s whites, but Lily was pretty sure this must be Sirius. He was incredibly handsome, dark eyes regarded her behind dark framed glasses, that rested on a bold but not over large nose, his strong jaw had a hint of stubble that suggested he had either missed shaving that morning or was someone who needed to shave more frequently. A green and white check bandana covered his head showing very little of the dark hair underneath apart from at the nape of his neck where a few strands had escaped and were curling. He flashed another smile at her showing perfectly straight white teeth. “All I’ve got is coffee. Would you like some?” The way he asked wasn’t the usual seller to potential purchaser tone. It sounded to Lily like he was offering her a friendly drink.

“How much is your coffee?”

“Oh no, it’s not for sale, it’s just I’m going to have a cup, so if you want some too you can. It’s not good enough to sell to customers.” He flushed slightly and shook his head. “I’m sorry. Mum usually does the customer side. I need more practice. It’s not terrible I promise.”

“The coffee or your customer service?” she replied with a twitch of her own lips.

“Both could be better,'' he replied. That lopsided grin was back again as he adjusted his glasses and made his way over to the only plastic thing in the shop apart from the till. He looked at her expectantly as he held two empty mugs.

“Eh, yeah sure. I’ll have a cup. Milk and one sugar if you have it.” Lily was trying her best to stop admiring him. She had never found herself attracted to someone quite as quickly before, especially not someone who Remus was hopeless about. Lily determinedly squashed down her attraction, her friendship code wouldn’t allow that. From what Remus had told her she was pretty sure Sirus wouldn’t be interested in her anyway. Remus might not be sure, but Lily knew that he had a tendency to get rather flustered around attractive men, and miss the most obvious of signals. “I hope your mum’s okay?” she asked, taking the mug quickly as he was holding the handle out to her.

“Oh yeah, she’s fine, just her day off.” He waved his hand casually before grabbing his own mug. She took a sip of the coffee as she tried to think of a way to bring up the whole reason why she was here. He was right, the coffee wasn’t good enough to sell. It tasted like the stuff she occasionally had to drink from her work’s vending machine. She tried to hide the grimace at the taste.

“I have a friend who was here yesterday, he said you’ve not been open long? But you must be doing well to sell out so quickly.”

“We’ve been doing okay,” he replied modestly, giving a shrug and rubbing the back of his neck. “We normally have more made, but on the days my mum isn't here it’s more difficult to keep up, you know?”

“Yes, I understand, that must be so difficult to manage. Did you relocate far, because it doesn’t seem like you're new to this?” Why was she interviewing him? This wasn’t how it was supposed to be going, but she just wanted to know everything about him. It was incredibly charming, the way his eyes would meet hers then drift away like he didn’t want to be caught looking too intently at her.

“We had a place in Brighton, it did pretty well but just didn’t get the foot traffic. A developer offered to buy the whole row of shops well above the market value, so mum decided we would try our luck in the city instead.” He seemed to be relaxing into the conversation, resting a hip against the back counter, his free hand holding onto the edge. Lily found herself clinging on to every word he uttered, he had a very calming tone to his voice. He was so fascinating to her. Oh, it wasn’t fair that someone could be so attractive and so unavailable.

“Oh, I love Brighton, me and my mates would go all the time when I was at Uni, there are some really great bars and drag shows, it’s always a fun night,” she told him earnestly. “There is such a good scene in Brighton you must miss it.”

“Maybe a little but honestly it’s been a long time since I went out regularly, and the bars were never really for me. Bakers have to be up too early in the morning to spend all night out drinking.”

“The hours must make it difficult to spend time with your boyfriend,” she asked him, trying her best to sound casual. He choked on his coffee.

“Boyfriend?” he spluttered, making her shrug.

“I just thought a handsome guy like you, no way you’re single?” She smiled at him warmly, he was clearly a little shy talking about this as his cheeks flushed slightly. He even looked attractive when he did that.

“That’s nice of you to say, but sadly I am definitely, extremely single. What about you? Anyone special in your life? Did you come to my shop to buy sweet treats for them?” She shook her head in reply.

“No, I’m just as single too. I guess we’re both as bad as each other?”

“Eh yeah, I guess we are. It’s a nice change when someone comes in and isn’t mad we have sold out of food. ” He took a long drink from his coffee, his eyes watching her intently over the top of his mug. It would have made her blush if she thought he had any interest in her.

“Yes I can imagine.” She really could sympathise, her own work took up so much of her time, a social life beyond the occasional night out with her friends was pretty much beyond her. “Well if you ever get a day off and want to go drink better tasting coffee than this I know a few places, one not that far from here in fact.”

“You do?” he asked, sounding surprised,.“I’d like that. It’s my day off tomorrow actually, it’s probably too soon…”

“No, tomorrow would be nice. Shall we meet here around this time?”

Remus was sitting at the kitchen table once more when she got home, various piles of chopped vegetables arranged before him in neat piles. She loved it when she was home for Remus’ cooking, it always made her feel like they were their own little family. She walked up to him and hugged his shoulders as he continued to chop mushrooms into four.

“You seem happy,” he observed, “did you have a nice day off?”

“It was nice actually,” she replied, releasing him and grabbing a slice of pepper, “I’m off again tomorrow we should do something.” He shrugged and nodded in a maybe kind of way. Which was as close to a yes I’d love to as she was likely to get.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Oh, nothing in particular, we could just go out for coffee, or whatever.”

“Lily, you constantly complain to me that barista coffee is overpriced, to be fair you complain that most things in London are overpriced” his eyes squinted at her suspiciously. “What are you up to?”

She took a bite of the pepper and tried to look innocently back at him. “Why do you think because I want to do something nice with my friend you immediately think I’m up to something? It’s outrageous.” She finished her pepper before giving a dramatic yawn. “Well, I think I’ll take a little nap before dinner is ready, unless you want some help?”

“No, I’m good thanks. Pretty sure I can manage to make pasta sauce without your assistance, I’ll wake you when it’s ready.”

Lily was enjoying walking with Remus, they didn’t do it nearly often enough. Normally when she walked it was by herself, with a purpose and normally at a brisk pace, but not today. Today she was strolling casually with one of her best friends, back down to the street where the bakery was. Her arm was linked through Remus’ who, as always had his camera slung around his neck making him look more like a tourist than someone who had lived in London their entire life. Freelance photographers lived for that perfect image that would make them, they also never took a day off. Lily had given up trying to get him to part with it for at least a day long before now. But it seemed today he was content to leave his camera at his side.

Either Remus was no longer suspicious of Lily’s motives to go for coffee with him , or he had decided to play along. He was looking very fine in chinos and a coral v-neck jumper. He had styled his sandy locks, and it was flopping over to the left side of his face in a perfectly casual way. She was pretty sure the reason why he was so nicely dressed and no longer asking questions was because he had sussed out her cunning plan to set him up with Sirius the fit bakery guy. Especially as he had not even commented when there were a dozen nicer coffee shops much closer than the one she had suggested.

“Can we please stop pretending that we aren’t going to the bakery now? I’m pretty sure you are setting me up in some way here, and by the direction we are going, it has to be with that delicious baker boy,” Remus said finally, making Lily chuckle slightly.

“Why do we have to stop pretending? I was having so much fun watching you silently holding back your questions.” He didn’t respond at first just compressed his lips into a thin line and continued their walk in companionable silence.

“You may as well tell me, we are almost there.”

“Well okay, yes, but you have to pretend to be all shy and surprised to see him, I want my matchmaking skills to be on full show.” She hugged his bicep briefly, making him shudder at the contact. Lily loved when Remus was slightly off balance it made her feel a bit more normal about her own insecurities.

“Lily, there will be no need to pretend, I’m already in danger of sweating through my jumper,”

“But you look so handsome,” she replied looking up at him adoringly making him smile a small pleased smile. “Sirius isn’t going to know what hit him.”

“Oh, I hope you’re right.”

Lily spotted him before Remus did, standing outside his bakery, talking to another man, who Lily assumed was a customer by the familiar paper bag he was carrying. At least she thought it was the same guy who had offered her a coffee yesterday. She recognised the smile first, and his laugh as it drifted towards them. Lily had thought he looked handsome before in his white coat and bandana, but it was nothing compared to how he looked with his hair set free. He had so much of it, how on earth had he kept it all under that piece of fabric. He was wearing jeans and a short sleeved shirt. Lily looked curiously to Remus when he stopped walking, a funny little half smile on his face. Sirius walked over to them smiling and raised his hand to shake Remus’ own, his forearms clearly visible, without a single tattoo. Lily’s heart began to hammer slightly as the reality of the situation dawned on her.

This wasn't Sirius.

This must be the other brother, the one that Remus hadn’t said much about at all. He could have warned her how disarmingly handsome he was. Remus shook hands with him enthusiastically, looking more amused than disappointed at Lily’s mistake. “Nice to see you again.”

“Yeah, you too,” not Sirius replied, with a sidelong look at her. Lily crossed her arms and squinted, this was not how this was supposed to go.

“Lily, have you met Sirius’ brother James?”

“Not properly, no,” she said slowly he offered his hand out to her and when she took it she had the strangest sensation, almost like pins and needles shooting up her arm. “You knew I was going to bring Remus, didn’t you?” She asked him letting his hand go probably a little too quickly but she felt so completely off balance.

“When you said you had a friend visit the shop the day before and then asked if I had a boyfriend I kind of guessed. It was flattering actually to be mistaken for him, he’s normally the one who gets all the attention.” Lily wanted to say that she found that hard to believe but she was struggling with the ability to form coherent sentences.

“So Sirius, is he?” Remus asked, taking advantage of Lily’s silence and James smirked.

“He told me he wasn’t sure if you were picking up his signals, he felt off his game without his hair to flip around.” He played with his own hair for emphasis, Lily’s heart gave a little flutter. Remus reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s his turn in the window today,” James continued, “it does draw in the customers.” He was watching her again, his hands in his pockets, trying not to be too obvious about it but every time she caught him looking at her it was like she was under a heat lamp. How could she have been so stupid yesterday not to see?

“I’m sorry I thought you were your brother, even though I’ve never met him.” He smiled at her again giving her both barrels of his dazzling white teeth.

“Oh, you will meet him soon enough, he’s just cleaning up. Mum said she’d close today, the customers never argue with her.” He took a step backwards in the direction of his shop still looking at them. “I’m just gonna go see if he’s ready.” James turned sharply before trotting over and disappearing down the small gap between the bakery and the next shop. As soon as he was out of sight Lily’s knees felt weak, and she grabbed onto Remus to hold herself steady. Remus turned to her, his face looking concerned.

“Lily, are you okay?”

“I’ve made a complete idiot of myself, what’s he going to think? This is terrible and he’s so cute. How did I not notice?” Remus looked at her astonished. She took a couple of breaths as Remus steadied her with a hand on her waist.

“And you say I’m an idiot when I see an attractive man. Lily, he adores you, I could see it clearly.”

“No, he was just being polite about the mix up!”

“He was trying to be polite, but he couldn’t keep his eyes away from you.”

“You really think?” She tried to get a grip on herself, she knew in herself she ever saw Remus or Marlene behaving this way she would tell them to do just that and probably be a lot more blunt about it than Remus was being.

“Yes I do, so stop thinking like you’re an idiot and let's go have a really nice time with two really nice boys, okay?” As much as she didn’t particularly relish the idea of going on what would be a double date with Remus, in this moment she was glad he was there. He had talked her back from the edge.

“You’re right, okay.” She closed her eyes and exhaled fully to expel the last vestiges of her anxiousness . “So do you think this is like a double date? He’s not exactly asked, and he knows I wasn’t exactly asking him. So is this a date?”

Remus rolled his eyes at her and threw up his hands. “You need to stop, you need to catch your breath and stop overthinking this.” He rubbed her arm. “He wasn’t mad or offended, he said he was going to get his brother. He was giving you full on smouldering eyes so badly.”

“He’s so lovely, what do I do?”

“Lily, I know it’s been a while, but you’ve had a coffee with another human being before.”

He looked up then and his cheeks started to flush slightly, she followed his gaze to see James returning with the person who could only be Sirius, and now she understood what James had meant about Sirius always getting the attention. He was the type of person that drew every eye , even without trying. He flicked his long black hair over his shoulder as he walked towards them, already smiling confidently.

Lily understood perfectly why Remus had found this man so attractive, he was clean shaven with strongly defined cheekbones and a slightly sharp chin. He was perhaps an inch shorter than his brother but you could only tell if they were standing side by side like they were now. Seeing them in person she saw they were not that alike at all. Sirius was wearing skinny jeans and a tucked in dress shirt with its sleeves pushed back above his elbow, the top two buttons were undone leaving it open at the neck revealing some braided cord necklaces. His eyes were pale and they looked at Lily with warmth as he reached out to take her hand, his intricately tattooed forearm clearly visible.

“So it’s you I have to thank for setting this up then?” He tilted his head and looked at her admiringly. “I was annoyed at myself for not being more obvious and asking for your friend's number,” when he said those words his gaze turned to Remus and then never left. “James can tell you I haven’t stopped talking about him ever since that day.” Lily watched her friend react to such an intensely obvious stare, he looked a little taken aback at first, but slowly the edges of Remus’ mouth curled up and his eyes met the others blushing slightly.

“Sirius, you say it like it’s been weeks, it was only two days,” James piped up with a smirk, drawing Lily’s attention, she smiled back at him enjoying this shared moment. “But yeah it’s true.” Sirius returned his gaze to her and took her hand once more to quickly place a kiss upon it.

“Thank you,” he said then gestured to his brother. “And James thanks you too. If nothing else than stopping me from being a -- what did you call me? ‘A mopey arsehole?’” He let her hand go and turned his full attention back to Remus, who was standing very still and looking like he was totally captured by the magnetism of Sirius and his smile. “Shall we let these two get better acquainted?” He asked Remus, offering his arm.

“Er, yeah okay.” he managed to reply, a bright smile appearing on his face. Remus took his arm and they started walking off together already talking to each other like this was more than only the second time of meeting.

“That went well, I think,” James said as they both watched them walking away, heads close together. “If you don’t want to - I mean it’s totally fine- I understand if you didn’t really.” His sudden insecurity made Lily’s own nerves fade a little. He was just as nervous as she was, she noticed as he raised his hand and rubbed the back of his neck.

“No, I would love to. As long as you do? I really want to go have a drink with you,” she looked down at herself, and tried not to sigh. “I just wish I’d made more of an effort to make myself look presentable.”

“What I’m seeing you look pretty perfect to me,” he replied, which made Lily snort out a loud laugh.

“James, that was quite a line,” she chuckled, making him blush and look down at his feet. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I liked it.” She took a step towards him and lifted his chin so his eyes would meet hers again. She glanced over to where Remus and Sirius were now standing facing them, Remus had his camera up to his face and Sirius was casually resting an arm on his shoulder. “They look like a couple already, how is that possible?”

“Sometimes things are just meant to be together, like tomato and basil, or hazelnut and chocolate,” he suggested offering his hand to her. When she placed her hand into his, fingers sliding along his roughened palm she knew exactly what he meant.

#jily fic #jily muggle au #one shot #baker james #wolfstar meet cute #jily meet cute #ambulance operator lily #jily fanfiction #tj writes #baker sirius #family business #jily fanfic #jily

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currywaifu · 4 years ago

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𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: pink hyacinth 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: settsu banri/reader 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: sfw 𝐰𝐜: 2.5k words 𝐝𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨: alyssa ✨, natasha, kat

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: flower shop part-timer banri and friendly competition between him and the reader. might make part 2 if i feel like it. 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫: this work is a part of the flower shop event, a series of unconnected flower shop AU one-shots

As the flower shop grew more popular, the more difficult it became for you and your boss to manage everything by yourselves. Even though it wasn’t the holiday season, the orders seemed to increase every week— plus, managing the till while making a last minute arrangement and simultaneously giving people flower recommendations? It was no easy feat, that was for sure.

“Let’s hire someone to work part time alongside you,” your boss finally decided one day as she flipped through the accounting ledger book, “it’s not always the both of us will be at the store at the same time. We need the extra help.”

You hummed in reply, not thinking much of it at the time as you continued taking inventory. As long as they weren’t overly cold to you, you couldn’t foresee any problems. Well, except for maybe one, little thing.

“My salary won’t be lowered, right?”

…

You were expecting the new hire to be the stereotypical soft, sweet, fluffy looking person of whom grandmas would be drawn to. Instead, he was a guy wearing a purple, leopard-cheetah-whatever animal print bucket hat with a luxury brand logo right smack in the centre.

Aha, it really put the statement in the term statement piece. It certainly gave him a lot of impact.

You wanted to do something in between laughing and crying, but your boss probably wouldn’t appreciate either one. With some restraint, you introduced yourself with a bright smile, handing him a work apron you hoped was his size.

“If you ever need any help, just let me know,” you offered, leading him to the staff room so he could store his belongings somewhere and take off that dumb hat. “It might take you a while to get used to some things, but I’m sure you’ll get a hang of it soon!”

“I’m a quick study, don’t worry.”

There was something about the way he phrased it that made you intrigued. He said it in a pretty nonchalant manner, even his expression remained relaxed, but the moment your eyes met his you found yourself growing excited. There was a certain glint there that you recognised pretty quickly, and you had a feeling he did, too.

“I think we’ll get along well, Banri-kun,” you said, grinning in anticipation of the next few weeks. It would be an undeniably nice break from the usual routine work brought upon you.

There’s a visible upwards stretch on his lips, too, and though he replied to you with a “who knows?” something in your gut told you the feeling was already reciprocated.

…

Settsu Banri wasn’t lying one bit when he told you he learned things fast. On his first day he took the time to observe you first, watching you go about the different tasks for the day— from how and for how long you watered each plant, to how you went about choosing flowers to add to a bouquet, to how you interacted with the customers and how you subtly managed to convince them that yes, they did need that new and slightly pricey fertiliser.

The way he was able to pick up on the way you did things pretty quickly was something to be envied. Although he still lacked a lot of the stock knowledge and experience you had, he easily made up for it with his skill in… literally everything else.

He wondered what your reaction would be— would you be pissed? That wasn’t really his intention but he was pretty self-aware that some people found that annoying. Though he wasn’t overly concerned of what people thought of him in the first place, it wouldn’t sit right with him either if his co-worker on one of his first jobs didn’t like him.

You stood behind him, your critical eye peering at the way he arranged his flowers. Pink ranunculus and hyacinth, as well as some other filler flowers, laid out atop the worktable. With his choice of an off white Kraft paper, the assortment of pink decorative sheets, and the silver lace ribbon, it was clear that he was a natural— or at least he had a good eye for colour scheme.

“All this fit the customer’s price range, yeah?” he asked. Truly, he already knew the answer. It was easy to estimate the amount of wrapping needed for a bouquet of that size, and the price labels per material made things even easier. He even skimmed the flower language guide printed out to make sure his flower choices were optimal.

In fact, the real question he meant to ask wasn’t even whether it fit the budget or not.

Despite his confidence, he turned his head around if only to gauge your facial expression. You stood still in your spot for a few seconds; then you quietly moved from your station behind his back to beside him, your arm brushing against his as you took a closer look. He didn’t tense up from the contact, but he’s not completely numb to the sudden closeness, either.

Though he was planning on it already, his awareness of you definitely grew as he watched your reactions from the corner of his eye.

A normal person would’ve taken one look and end up deciding then and there if it was nice or not, but as he watched the narrow of your eyes and the way the pads of your fingers felt the texture of papers he knew not a single detail was going amiss with you.

He could respect that. There was something pretty admirable about someone completely dedicated to their craft.

“Yeah,” you replied, “right down to the choice of going for a thicker ribbon instead of something thinner. It’ll turn out pretty,”

As he was about to soak up your praise and reply in stride, you ended up surprising him as you followed up with another comment.

“Though I think your flower choice could be… better,” you commented coolly.

With an eyebrow raised, he couldn’t find it in himself to be offended at all— just plain curious in what you have to say.

“The customer asked for a non-rose bouquet to tell someone they’ve fallen for them because they’re so charming, so ranunculus and hyacinths best fit the criteria,” he explained, curious of how you’d critique his decision.

“The ranunculus was a good choice, but lowkey makes the guy seem shallow?” you pointed out, a shrug soon following. “Also, I wouldn’t go for pink hyacinth— the bouquet ends up implying the guy’s just playing around with the girl. If you went with blue, it’d show that he’s sincere about his feelings.”

Banri let out a little exhale of breath, crossing his arms as he leaned against the table to look at you properly. “Sense, doubt whoever’s getting this is gonna go as hard analysing as you though.”

You rolled your eyes before mirroring his actions, “You never know with these things, but… maybe you’re just upset you didn’t make the perfect choice?”

He huffed, but a smirk rose to his face just as yours did. Were you challenging him? He can’t say he particularly hates it, not when he’s steadily growing more and more interested in you.

“And maybe you’re just paranoid I’ll catch up to your skill level quickly,” he teased, amused when you don’t back down from his provocation. He initially wasn’t serious about it, but if you were down— “I’m sure I can make you admit to my skills in a span of a week, maybe even tomorrow.”

“Oh I’m too nice for that, I’ll give you the rest of the week to make it easier on you,” you cooed playfully, before ultimately coming to a conclusion, “wanna bet?”

“With what?

Your eyes flitted away elsewhere, looking a little too pensive for such a trivial matter. “I mean, I’m broke, but just betting for the sake of pride is boring…” you trailed off, and Banri couldn’t help but helpfully supply his two cents.

“Don’t people in shows usually ask for a favour or some shit with these kinds of things?”

You stared at him blankly. “I… I get what you mean, but not gonna lie, using the word favour makes it sound wrong—“

“Oi oi,” Banri interrupted, “don’t make me out to be some kind of fuckboy.”

“Sorry, sorry,” you let out a laugh that was light, laced with a hum of amusement at the matter, “but like, we don’t have to decide on anything now? Let’s just go with the flow. I’m sure I’ll eventually think of the reward I’ll get~”

“That confident?”

You shrugged, “not really, just optimistic… so, you game?”

…

Honestly, neither of you even set any rules or guidelines for your little competition; it was just a matter of you having fun competing with Banri over numerous things.

Who could convince more people to purchase gardening products they may or may not actually need were hesitating on buying (6-9 in Banri’s favour).

Who could recommend the better flowers (8-4 in your favour).

Who could compute and double check accounting and inventory faster (5-6, you told yourself you’re making it even today).

Who could create the better bouquet arrangement (somehow, a tie. Even with his fashion sense, he was pretty good at coordinating colours and patterns. You did have to stop him from using two animal print papers in one go, though).

Occasionally your boss would walk in the two of you bantering and critiquing each other’s work. At first, you worried she’d tell off the both of you (or maybe just you, since you were technically Banri’s senior in terms of experience), but she deemed it as ‘productive noise’ and let the two of you continue, even chiming in with her own opinions from time to time.

With her encouragement, neither of you held back.

“Oh, you accidentally cut too much ribbon— what a waste,” and “you missed a row in your calculation. Let me show you,” were amongst the common statements you said to each other.

A work relationship that was neither vile nor overly friendly, teasing at very least and strangely productive at most. You were quite satisfied with this turn out, a good way to stave off the boredom work could bring, but life had other things in store for the two of you.

Beyond either of your expectations, your dynamic would soon enough evolve into something beyond little comments exchanged between one another and one-upping each other.

…

There were always hints that beneath both of your competitiveness, there was a lot of thoughtfulness as well. Helping each other out under the guise of “showing them how it’s done”, or “I can do it faster”. Neither of you ever expressed it out loud, but gratefulness didn’t have to be said to be known.

It became less about playfully competing and more about just enjoying each other’s company in your own way.

“Hahh… it’s finally over!” you exclaimed, plopping down on a chair as you began fanning yourself with the closest piece of paper you could pick up. Even in the air-conditioned room, you found yourself sweating, your body unused to the physical exertion normally not demanded of you during work. Even your co-worker seemed exhausted— if the grunting noise he made was to be taken as a telltale sign.

Banri strode over beside you, looking just as exasperated as you felt.

“What kind of dumbass—“

“—decides to buy a bunch of pots,” you continued, halting your fanning motions as your fingers began aching again, “in the evening? What the fuck would you do with 12 plant pots?”

“‘xactly? Shit, didn’t realise those clay pots were gonna be that heavy…” Banri said, your eyes immediately drawn to his fingers. Ahh, he did end up doing most of the heavy labour.

“We didn’t even have to charm anyone into buying things this time,” you commented, before moving to the real thing you wanted to ask about, “by the way… are your hands okay?”

“This much?” he put his palms up, “is nothing~ had a lot worse.”

You don’t say anything in reply, merely staring at the small blemishes newly formed. It was minimal, pretty much shallow scratches, but it was there.

“Y’worried, babe?”

It was a slip of the tongue on his part, but neither of you seemed to mind. It rolled off pretty smoothly, and if asked about it he could easily say it was just a joke between the two of you— a little ‘affection’ to show how close you’ve gotten as friends.

Well, he thought, it wouldn’t be that much of a lie.

“No, not really,” you replied, mind too carried away elsewhere to pay any mind to the new pet name, “but you should still put on a band-aid or something.”

“Already said I was fine,” Banri replied, his eyes following your sudden upright movement as you headed inside the staff room. As he took the initiative to finish cleaning up so you two could head out for the night, the sight of you coming back out empty-handed had him befuddled.

“What’d ya even do in there?”

“So apparently we don’t have any stocked up,” you explained, quickly doing one last glance at today’s revenue, “so let’s stop by the convenience store later to get some… seriously, what if one of us gets pricked by a plant or something?”

If he decided to be honest, he would’ve told you that he already had one in his bag. A certain mother hen had forced him, Taichi, and Hyodo to carry one around and he’d learned a long time ago to not resist Omi over trivial things.

Still… it was pretty cute how you impulsively decided to go buy something because of him. There was no harm in hiding something to see this side of you more, right?

“Y’want me to come with?” he asked.

You turned around to give him a look. “Obviously? Then there’d be no point of buying it tonight rather than tomorrow.”

“Then take inventory faster… or do ya need my help for that, too?”

“Banri-kun~ you totally forgot to water the hyacinths, or do you need my help for that, too?”

Both of your comments are left hanging in the air, an, oddly enough, peaceful silence encompassing the room until,

“Might as well walk you home after this,” you turned around to face him in surprise, “it’s getting pretty late.”

“Already taking me home without even buying me dinner?”

“We’re going to the convenience store anyway, I’ll buy you something, whatever cold sandwich or fruit cup salad you want— my treat,” he joked, peals of laughter bursting from deep within as your eyebrows furrowed in incredulousness.

You rolled your eyes at him, but the smile on your lips betrayed your undeniable amusement. “Awww so sweet of you, but I can’t have you one-up me there. I’ll buy you the themed plasters— how does having hello kitty’s face around your fingers sound?” you retorted, easing yourself into laughter as well.

As the two of you walked along the sidewalk, side by side, you couldn’t help yourself from saying what’s been on your mind for the past week or so now.

“What we have is nice.”

Banri released a small huff, the corners of his lips stretching upwards. Even with its vagueness, the meaning rang clear.

“Yeah, I like what we have too.”

There was no need to rush into anything.

“ thank you for your hard work today at the flower shop! here, feel free to take home this pink hyacinth with you~ ”

【 hyacinth 】 games and sports, rashness 【 pink hyacinth 】 play

“ maybe you’d like some more flowers before heading home? ”

-ˋˏflower shop masterlistˎˊ- | -ˋˏfic masterlistˎˊ-

#a3!#a3! act! addict! actors!#banri settsu #settsu banri #a3! x reader #a3! banri #cafe: dessert menu #nathya's flower shop #a3! actor training game #a3! game

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ribcagecarnival · 4 years ago

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NO. 4 (Obama the Gleek)

Glee premiered in May 2009. I was about to transfer to a new middle school and Obama was four months into his first term. At just shy of 12 years old, I considered that pilot episode to be the best episode of television I’d ever seen. In seventh, eighth, and ninth grade, my mother and I watched the show religiously every week. In 2010 and 2011, we attended the concert tours—at one of them, we foolishly purchased VIP tickets that gave us virtually no perks, but through a cracked door, we saw Cory Monteith, and he waved at me before security shuffled him away to what I presumed was the actual VIP room, where he would participate in a real meet-and-greet. Monteith died in July 2013, the same day that George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin. By 2015, when the show ended, I hadn’t watched for years, and Donald Trump was entering the presidential race. And now, in early 2021, two more members of the original cast have died, Trump went from joke candidate to fascistic president to twice-impeached private citizen, and the entire world is in the throes of the worst viral pandemic in just over a century. Obviously I spent part of 2020 rewatching Glee. All art is a product of its time, either reflecting it back to us directly or functioning as a vision of what’s to come. Glee belongs firmly in the former camp. The progressive aspects of the show would not have been possible in the conservative pre-Obama era of American media, but plenty of premises and plot lines that passed for merely transgressive at the time would be shut down by contemporary cancel culture. Kurt’s coming out storyline in season 1 was a heartfelt, tender portrait of teen sexuality and coming-of-age that felt unprecedented and nuanced in 2009. But having an able-bodied actor play a wheelchair-bound teen (Kevin McHale) would have brought the full force of the online mob if it happened a decade later. A moment that has come under scrutiny on Twitter and TikTok comes from season 1, when Mercedes (Amber Riley) asks Mr. Schuester (Matthew Morrison) if the club can perform more Black music, to which Rachel (Lea Michele) snaps that it’s “glee club, not krunk club.” There are countless memes joking that in spite of the dizzying number of romantic pairings on the show, the OTP of Glee is Mr. Schue and jail—his bizarrely intimate relationships with his students were only ever called out by the show’s antagonist, Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), and it was always played for laughs. The most heartbreaking episode of Glee is Season 5, Episode 3, “The Quarterback,” which is a tribute to the late Cory Monteith. But it is arguably more difficult to watch a moment from the following season, in which a group of McKinley alums crash an adolescent Tea Party Patriots meeting in order to recruit members for the rebuilding glee club. The episode is from 2014, but the remarks made by the student attendees are downright depressing when you know that 2 years later, Donald Trump would be the president-elect of the United States. In season 4, when a new cheerleader named Kitty (Becca Tobin) is introduced, she makes remarks about the “lame stream media” that are snuck into a litany of insults as rapidly as machine gun fire. The audience never has a moment to meditate on the significance of these jokes, because pre-2016, we didn’t have to. At the time, having characters parrot the fringe commentary of Sarah Palin and Fox News commentators was a shorthand meant to indicate that said characters would either undergo a change of heart or be permanently vanquished. Glee’s run spanned Obama’s time in office, and the Hope & Change candidate’s ascent did not make room for the victory of villainy. We had entered the Liberal Gilded Age. One thing I forgot about Glee was how often it mentioned the failing economy. As we all know, Obama inherited a broken economy from his predecessor, and the entire country was wracked by home foreclosures and unemployment. But as a preteen, all those references were lost on me in favor of glittery show choir competitions and the Finn/Rachel romance. The constant mention of budget cuts seemed more like an arbitrary plot device than a grasp at historical accuracy. Watching the show as an adult, however, the economic currents underpinning the show are impossible to ignore. Sue Sylvester often mocked the glee club for having a warped, rosy, show-biz view of reality, but they always prevailed. Even when they were temporarily down, they would rebound, and they would eventually win. But Sue, the comically evil opponent to the superficially valorous glee club, was right. You could not fix the evils of the world by simply celebrating diversity, accruing celebrity guests, and singing a feel-good song. Yet this has been the Democratic establishment’s strategy since 2009. And it hasn’t worked for a long time. The secondary characters, much like real American citizens of the time, were desperate for real change and real solutions. This is not an Obama Exposed essay—of course, he made progress on certain issues. But most of what the country got were charming late-night appearances, secret concessions to conservativism as the Democratic establishment shifted further to the right, and an increasingly divided populace that left both the progressive wing of the Democratic party and the growing alt-right movement increasingly agitated with the state of the union. I loved Barack Obama when I was a teenager. But over the course of the Trump presidency, I became radicalized. I saw the flaws in his administration that wreaked havoc both domestically and internationally, and that ultimately enabled Trump to carry out much of his hateful agenda over the last four years. Just as I have outgrown the version of myself that watched Glee uncritically as an adolescent, I too have outgrown the fractured politics I parroted before I was of voting age. Glee characters are prone to flights of fancy, acts of supposed altruism that often wind up harming themselves or others, and inspirational speeches that are ultimately meaningless. Mr. Schuester is offered the opportunity for a transgender student to have private access to a single-stall bathroom in exchange for a moratorium on student twerking. At first, he refuses. It takes the full length of an episode for him to realize that this thing is not worth fighting for. And even then, it’s seen as some huge sacrifice for the club! This, to me, is a perfect allegory for the Democratic party—an institution that is purportedly invested in betterment and equality, but in reality was more concerned with optics and symbols. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Mr. Schue would have wept seeing BLACK LIVES MATTER murals being unveiled, and likely would have said that instead of looting the protestors should’ve just knelt and sang a Journey medley to the cops. Rachel Berry would have gone to a protest for a photo op while carrying a sign that said IF HILLARY WON I’D BE AT BRUNCH RIGHT NOW. I know this as deeply as I know that Spongebob Squarepants is gay and Daffy Duck is Black. Some things are just TRUE. In 2009, simply having queer and PoC characters centered on television was groundbreaking. In 2020, this is no longer enough. Simply acknowledging that marginalized people exist is not sufficient activism. In media, we deserve nuanced and complex stories that don’t subject them to even more of the stereotyping we’ve been experiencing for decades. And in politics, we deserve more legitimate structural change—reparations, secure voting rights, anti-discrimination laws, a livable minimum wage, universal healthcare that includes access to safe abortions—and less empty virtue-signaling. Glee is a tremendous way to escape from the horrors of our current state of affairs. But it is not merely a camp masterpiece. It is a cautionary tale. The circumstances that gave us Glee—an Obama presidency, decreasing voter turnout, the rise of the social internet, increased representation for queer and PoC and disabled people—are the same circumstances that gave us Trump. We don’t merely need our lives to be visible, we need them to be viable. We need to weaponize our passion and empathy against tyranny. We need to rebuild the world for the versions of ourselves that first loved Glee, without reverting back to who we were when it first aired.

#ribcagecarnival #ribcage carnival #glee #obama #trump #biden #jensen mcrae #jensenmcrae

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foolgobi65 · 5 years ago

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Mahabharata (any characters or pairing) + college au + meet messy + “alexa, play wonderwall.” (at this point im just picking things at random lol)

play wonderwall : you’ll see lol basically used this as an excuse to write a version of the scene u and i both acknowledge as our favorite. the single most iconic scene in the entire epic, bar none. for our sake, i really hope that you like it!! also the “meet messy” is basically random people in the crowd meeting this trainwreck of a family in all of its glory. also i think rhea’s modern au krishna goes by shyam yadav??? i tried to use a different first name at least but none of them sounded as nice so i gave up lol sorry rhea.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

It seems like the entire university is gathered on the front lawn to watch the swearing-in ceremony of new Union President Dharamraj Kuru after what many reported to be the nastiest student election season perhaps ever seen. Jarasandha Magadh, after years of refusing to graduate, had at the last minute been put in the hospital and, apparently, sustained injuries so extensive that it had effectively argued that his already completed coursework should be all that was counted when factoring in his final mark.

“Especially given said student’s...extensive history...with this institution,” Shyam had apparently said when arguing Jarasandha’s case to University Administration, Jarasandha himself completely unaware and apparently furious when he was brought out of his medically induced coma.

Jarasandha’s party’s hastily promoted candidate Sahadeva was wildly acknowledged to be weak, young, and meant to be nothing more than a rubber stamp on business as usual. Dharamraj, whose upstart campaign effectively communicated how poorly “business as usual” had treated the student body, was suddenly flooded with factions of students seeking an alliance so that their respective organizations might be allocated larger portions of the budget everyone assumed Dharamraj would soon control.

Everyone was right. Dharamraj won in a landslide, and now here everybody is, watching him deliver his maiden speech as their new President.

“Shisupal,” Dharamraj sighs, “what exactly is your problem?”

“My problem,” Shisupal shrieks, walking up to the dais from where Dharamraj stands, surrounded by his friends, family, and his girlfriend Yagna. “You’re asking me what my problem is, Brother?”

“Brother?” someone in the crowd asks, too low to be heard at the front.

“I think they’re related on their mother’s side,” someone else responds. “Both their mothers are sisters, but Pritha was adopted out to a friend of her father so was never close to her biological siblings.”

“Jesus,” another laughs, “are they all just cousins?”

A wide assortment of Kurus stand on stage, jubilant after so many years of them trying and failing to win elections at the university their fathers had once ruled. Yagna, from a prominent family herself, at Dharamraj’s side. Shyam Yadav, whose sister Subhadra is in love with Dhananjaya and whose father was like a brother to Pritha when she was lonely in Kuntibhoj and Vasudev not imprisoned with his wife.

Yes, they really are all just cousins.

Vrikodara steps in front of Dharamraj, arms crossed and looming nearly half a metre taller than Shishupal. Yet, Shishupal is not cowed -- though many men more intelligent than he would have been.

“I’m not afraid of you, asshole. Everyone knows you’re just the gun in Dharamraj’s hand, and your brother is a pacifist. You won’t touch me.”

“You would be surprised,” Dharamraj says mildly, smiling slightly as the crowd laughs at the thought of violence from the slightly frail Dharma, always seen in the library or sitting under the tree outside it, smoking cigarettes as he argues with professors twice his age about obscure legalities and wins.

“You wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Shishupal spits, “you’re too much of a coward to hit a person when they know it’s coming. That’s why you’re just stabbing us in the back, selling us out on the first day when we put our reputations on the line to back you for President.”

“Shisupal!” Vrikodara roars, Dhananjaya striding to stand next to him, Suyodhana and Radheya on either flank despite what is rumored to be their own tensions with Pandu’s sons. The family is closing ranks at this attack from one their own, it seems, but then what is University politics if not a way for people to find some entertainment from other people’s drama.

“What,” Shishupal retorts, “you expect us all to shut up while you commit to sinking half of the budget into that wastrel’s pathetic fund? You plan on just giving our money away to anyone who spins a sad life story and begs for cash?”

Well, University politics is about this too -- the eternal question of which students should be helped, and how much. The fund in question is the brainchild of Shyam, a way for individuals to apply for rapid monetary relief in response to uncontrollable circumstances, and be granted what they need with almost no questions asked.

“Shisupal,” Dhananjaya steps forward, sensitive as always when his best (and only) friend’s name is brought up. “We’ve let you get away with more than we should because you happen to be our mother’s nephew. If you continue to embarrass us in public it won’t end well.” Shishupal laughs. “For you or for me? As far as I can see, you’ve all been duped by that street-trash pretending to be Vasudev Yadav’s son.”

Dhananjaya glares. “Uncle Vasudev is more our mother’s brother than your mother is her sister. Slander his name at your own risk.” Again, Shishupal refuses to cower despite what the crowd acknowledges as fierce odds -- Dhananjaya doesn’t actually attend the University, only visits frequently from the Indian Air Force Academy to spend time with Shyam, and his brothers sometimes as well. The man is licensed to shoot a gun, for god’s sake, but Shishupal continues to stand firm.

“Even now, you’re all standing in front of him,” Shishupal taunts, “Dancing to his tune and protecting his reputation when you know as well as I where he came from. He didn’t even speak English until he left that shithole after killing his own uncle, and you idiots are planning to sink my money into his scheme? Not on my watch.”

“No,” a voice comes from the back of the group on the dais, “there’s no need to make that face. I can fight my own battles, Dhananjaya. Especially against an absolute clown, like Shishupal.”

“A clown,” Shishupal shouts, “you’re calling me a clown?”

Shyam rolls his eyes, having pushed his way to the front. Behind him Vrikodara is grinding his teeth, Dhananjaya’s fingers hovering at his own waist as if wishing for a gun.

“Well I could have called you a motherfucker,” Shyam shrugs, “but I’m quite fond of your mother. In fact, she was the one who’s begged me to forgive you every time you’ve done something like this.”

Shishupal snarls. “My mother doesn’t beg, street-trash, and she certainly wouldn’t lower herself to beg from you. People like you are only demanded from.”

Shyam shrugs again. “Suit yourself. But consider this your last warning -- say another word, and I won’t let you go like I did before.”

“Before? Before?” For some reason, Shyam’s threat has only made Shishupal angrier, face turning purple where it was red. “Before, as in that time last year, when you stole my wife from the wedding hall at gunpoint. Is that what you mean by before?”

The crowd goes still at the reminder of the biggest controversy to rock their collective social circle.

Shyam raises an eyebrow. “The whole point of that was that she wasn’t your wife when we left.” His lip curls in a sneer of his own, eyes suddenly cold. “You were treating her so poorly that she asked what to her was a complete stranger to kidnap her on her wedding day. I wouldn’t talk so loudly about before.”

Nearly a year ago, Shishupal was to be married to Rukmini Bhoja after years of forcing her to stand attendance at his side during all campus events, despite her not actually being enrolled as a student. Both of their families were rich, well connected, and sought increased prestige through connection with the other. It was, people remarked, on paper the perfect match.

Of course, Rukmini was intelligent, witty, kind, and one of the most beautiful women most people had ever seen. Shishupal passed classes off of sheer intimidation, threw rocks at the college cats, and supplemented these qualities with his insistence on growing a patchy, horrible, beard and kept his oily, stringy hair long. Worse, there were rumors that Shishupal was even meaner drunk than he was sober, and that once Rukmini had been seen walking away from him clutching her arm and had returned with a scarf wrapped around her shoulders to cover where otherwise might have been a visible pattern of bruises.

The wedding, everyone had agreed, was to be a tragedy, and would only serve to make Shishupal even more insufferable. When the nightly news had aired the extraordinary report of a young woman staging her own kidnapping, apparently begging one of the groom’s family connections to attend her wedding and hold a gun to her head as they walked out, it was widely agreed to be answer to their prayers, and above all a job very well done by the erstwhile bride to be. When it was revealed that the “kidnapper” was Shyam, well, that just made the whole thing even funnier.

When classes restarted, Shishupal prowled with a whole new look -- clean-shaven, and short hair. Rukmini Bhoja was noticeably absent from campus events, but a few months in Shyam had been seen getting off the bus at the station near campus and kissing someone who looked just like Rukmini goodbye.

It seems the rumors about that last bit had found Shishupal too. “Stranger,” he scoffs. “Is that what we’re calling it these days?”

Shyam’s entire body, always loose, always slightly in motion, goes completely stiff. More than Dhananjaya, more than Vrikodara, it is Shyam who now suddenly looks like an apex predator. The crowd, not even the one facing Shyam directly, finds itself taking a step back.

“What exactly is it that we’re calling,” Shyam asks softly -- sound only heard because it’s being picked up by the microphone on the podium awaiting the rest of Dharamraj’s long-forgotten speech.

Shishupal rolls his eyes, sneering. “I’m glad that bitch made such a spectacle of herself when calling off the wedding. I wouldn’t have wanted to marry a whore, you know. Why take seven rounds to get something she sells, no?” He smirks, as the entire group on the dais -- the whole horrible writhing mass of Kurus and their assorted friends and family -- advance as one. “Or, I guess she was the one who was buying,” Shishupal laughs, looking at Shyam who appears to be frozen in place, his face a perfect picture of overwhelming rage. “She paid you to take her, didn’t she? Poor bitch didn’t even think you’d fuck her for fr--”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

Shishupal’s eyes immediately roll up into his skull, as a result of Shyam Yadav’s fist colliding with Shishupal’s jaw. No one bothers to catch the body.

Silence reigns for entire minutes as everyone watches Shishupal, crumpled on the ground. Watches Shyam Yadav, standing over him wild-eyed, with his right hand still in a fist.

“Oh Alexa,” a gentle female voice calls out from the crowd. Everyone turns to stare, open-mouthed, at Rukmini Bhoja standing in the front row, absolutely grinning at this turn of events. She gazes back at them, turning towards Shyam again and laughs. “Alexa this is so sad. Play ‘Mmm Whatcha Say.”

#ok i will say that the idea of rukmini basically organizing her own kidnapping/hit job where she hires krishna to attend and kidnap her at g #thats chefs kiss to me #i cant believe i never thought of that before its t ha t funny #mahabharata #also the mm watcha say gag was too good to not include when he gets clocked the fuck out at the end sorry lol #also i decided to make vasudev only brother-like for kunti #so that subhadra/krishna arent arjuna's cousins lol #also she seems even in canon to be closer to vasudev than her other siblings so we're rolling with it #anyways i hope u like it!!!!#these are all being churned out like stream of consciousness and then i hit publish lol so i have no idea if theyre any good at all #but thank u for the opportunity to put a version of this down on paper #maya writes #avani008 #also lol i used none of their traditional names because i thought it would be funnier to give them all long pretentious names that flowed ni #*nice

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crystalnherbwitch · 4 years ago

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Effective Marketing Strategy Ideas for Businesses

With a growing number of businesses turning to online marketing to maximize their business visibility, it's crucial for a business to have effective business plan suggestions to create its online marketing strategy a success.

Every business would have a marketing plan in place in terms services and products it provides, its pricing, the target market, the competition and the marketing tools that it uses to advertise the product. Therefore, it's simply a matter of adapting this strategy towards online marketing and synchronizing all attempts with it.

While taking a look at effective business strategy tips for online marketing, the first area to look at is the site of the business. A site provides the client his initial impression of the business. Consequently, it's necessary to have a well laid out site that's free of clutter and appealing in design, so that it attracts the client in and keeps him interested.

Part of having a great website is to have good content. Well written articles serves the purpose of subtly marketing the services and products of the business by giving information to the client. Another important step would be to have an efficient mechanism like shopping carts and payment gateways set up for processing orders and payments.

Another important part of doing business online is to work out ways to get your website on top of search listings based on keywords related to your services or products. While online advertising is 1 alternative, small businesses may not have sufficient budgets to pay for this expensive choice.

Article marketing is a fantastic alternative for promoting your business online as it puts your articles on online directories from where webmasters can use it for their websites by offering a link back to your site. This assists in multiplying leads to your site, a proportion of which could lead to conversions.

While one option is to create an in house team to write your articles and manage your own web page and post marketing, for smaller businesses who can't incur additional overheads, using an article syndication service ought to be part of their successful marketing strategy thoughts as it assists in getting articles about their business forwarded to hundreds of online publishers and directories, leading to high traffic generation to their site.

Developing effective business strategy tips for your online business is simple enough if you understand how to go about doing it. As an alternative, you could hire a professional web solutions company to do it for you.

Strategy - Seven Ideas To Help You Choose a Business Strategy

It can be difficult to select among many different possible approaches for your business. It's easy to imagine that we will need to do them all at one time, or work a intricate business plan that involves 20 to 30 tactics. Many business owners overwhelm themselves with complex strategies, and expect themselves to reach ten years' worth of tactical effort during the next year.

They are not realistic about the time they have available, their ability, or what their business needs most. If you're fighting to choose among many options and create a plan for your business, here are a couple of ideas for you personally consider.

1. Keep it simple. You don't need to create an empire this season. Your business empire could be built over time. Start simple. Do not get complicated. Concentrate your attention and effort on a single place. You may add to it your department or plans out later once you've had success with your initial simple business strategy.

2. Be realistic. Consider your actual time constraints, ability level, energy available, and priorities. What matters is consistent good progress over time - not setting the world on fire and burning yourself out trying to get everything done NOW.

3. If your business strategy has to be complicated, lay it out in stages. Separate tactics out into short term (six months to a year), mid-term (two years), and long-term (two decades and more). Maintain your focus on the short term, except for those longer range activities where you have to start prep work ahead of time.

4. In case you have several competing tactical ideas, consider these factors into account in your decision-making. Which approach can increase business revenue the quickest, simplest, easiest, with least disturbance? Which approach would you find most enjoyable? Which approach engages your strengths? Can you feel a powerful attraction for a single business plan over another? If you answer these questions and follow your own feelings, then you will inevitable come up with the best working solution for your business.

5. What is your vision for your business? What market do you need to capture? How large would you like to grow? What do you need to be famous for? What evolutionary process do your picture for your business? By answering these questions, you describe your vision and can select those strategies that align with that vision.

6. Are you selecting the perfect strategy for your business for today to get the outcome that you desire? What level of certainty do you have regarding the success potential of your business plan? Have you covered all possibilities? What skills must you get? If so, how can you fit in the skill acquisition? What can you do to feel 100% sure of success? Be honest with yourself about the answers to those questions and you'll discover it is significantly easier to ascertain the perfect strategy for your business.

7. Is your time-line realistic, given your existing commitments? What time alterations must you make? Is it the ideal time for this strategy? Will the market be there for what you are creating? Have a fair and searching look in your time-line. Back off of any competitive and naturally time"crunches". You must live too!

#business ideas #business #business strategies #business tips

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onbeatbot · 5 years ago

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Injury

The Palma residence is my favorite aspect of summer. In the lonely heat of southern Arizona, it is easy to lose yourself to time. This is especially true if you are a transplant, which I am, one who resides in the 14th ward of Oimech (budget housing) in a studio unit of one of about 50 closely packed tenement towers that stretch into the clouds, all identical, each just topping 2000 feet. So, you can imagine the appeal of the tiny, white, one story house, which is nestled with 20 or 30 other 30’s style cuboid residences on the western edge of Oimech’s bustling business district.

The 200 mile trip here from home means a daunting 60 minute subway commute, but babysitting is the only work I have between April and July, so I make it over by 5:45 every Tuesday when Ms. Chu leaves for her weekly yoga class. She will be back at exactly 8:10. Ms. Chu is a single mother nearing 50, and a neurotic homebody, but she has a strange, commanding poise. Her kids, Mono and Callie, are surprisingly well-adjusted, but do not meet the mirroring standards of the Arizona public school system. Both of them have rapidly filled each inch of intellectual growing room from the moment of conception, and so have surpassed or failed to reach this and that developmental benchmark that would have allowed them to join their respective age groups in Standard Learning. I love Mono and Callie, if not for their energy, for the unique characteristics that set them apart from the other children I watch as a licensed caretaker, and from the students I meet as a math tutor during the school season. And, of course, their house.

A block from their street, I press the stop button on my armrest and exit the subway car, pushing past the waiting area and up the stairs into the dry air. Rounding the corner of their grey street, I instinctively look at the right side window of the house, where I meet Callie’s eyes, causing her to jump away. She opens the front door, calling my name, “Rebecca!” I hustle to meet her with a hug.

“Where’s little Mono?”

She smiles, “Aw, he’s still sleeping.”

“At this hour?” I reply with mock surprise, but Callie is already bored of the exchange, and has run to lay on her back in front of the TV, which is playing Nat Geo on mute. Ms. Chu exits her bedroom, one of two in the 2BR/1BA, and embraces me. “I’ll be back shortly, Rebecca,” she is always visibly glad to see me, “Callie has big plans for you this evening. I know you two will have a good time.” She gets her phone from the kitchen counter and with a warm, pointed glare at Callie, then me, she nods and departs.

I sit on the white sofa and put my feet on top of Callie as if she were an ottoman. She doesn’t move, but tells the TV to turn the volume on low. On the screen divers are swimming slowly near a bleached stretch of coral reef. The narrator is explaining that a certain species of shark inhabits this area, and the divers aim to tag them because their population is greatly depleted, threatened by pollution. Callie begins to fidget, pulling and twisting her short brown hair. She is a restless 7 year old. She is afraid to go outdoors, and so is very pale. This used to worry me, but I gave up those thoughts because I am not her Mother. That took some time.

When the commercials come on, Callie silences the TV and I stand up to check on Mono. Their bedroom is at the end of a white hallway to the left of the living area. Everything in the house is white. Somehow the sparse, modern decor augments the comfort of the small home. It is hard for me to wrap my head around. I crack the door, and see that Mono is buried and unmoving on his twin sized pallet beneath a pile of comforters and throw blankets. “How long has he been out?” I ask Callie, loudly.

“Since about 9AM.”

“Goodness.”

“Yeah,” she walks up behind me, “and he finished the Cheerios.”

“I can’t say that surprises me,” he only eats Cheerios.

Callie spins me around by my waist so that I’m facing her. “Rebecca,” she says to me with a blank expression, “We have to bake a cake.”

That is just fine with me, “OK. Do you have cake mix?”

“We’re making it from scratch,” she replies, “the only thing we are missing is salted butter.”

“And Cheerios.”

She smiles, “Yes. And Cheerios.”

There is an auto supermarket right around the corner, a large, bright green box with a cashier’s window and a pickup station. You have to order everything you need before you get there, as machinery inside sorts through thousands of items, rapidly picking out items on your list, and the list after yours, and the list after that. I sometimes wonder what it looks like inside an auto supermarket. Very few people make contact with the guts of automated businesses and services, as repairs are ordered and executed by robotic equipment that’s all included on the inside. It would probably be anticlimactic to peek at the inside. It is most likely grey upon grey, like most things in the city.

I toss Callie my phone so she can place our order. “Pay cash?” she asks.

“You know it.” Very few people keep physical money around. I myself certainly do not, but I enjoy interacting with cashiers, and so keep my card handy.

I head out; it is only about a 15 minute walk round trip. The wide sidewalks and seamless streets do not present a single soul other than myself. The sun is setting, and the sky is painted with purple and peachy hues. I arrive at the green wall, and step cheerfully to the cashier’s window. She is in her early 20’s, about my age. She is an expressionless type, which is a let down, though I understand. She scans my card, “You know nobody really carries their card with them,” she says as she returns it to me. “Yes.” I don’t know what else to say. She hands me a paper bag, and I walk, less leisurely, back to the Palma’s.

Callie is not at the window when I approach the house. This is off, as I know she would be done preparing the dry ingredients by now. My heartbeat quickens and I knock on the door with five hard raps. Thirty seconds pass without a sound, and I dig my phone from my pocket to pull up my key. I step in and call Callie’s name. I walk to the kitchen in the back of the room to see the ingredients set out neatly, as I expected. “Callie?” I call again, throwing the grocery bag on the counter. The oven is preheated. Something feels very wrong.

I rush to the kid’s bedroom to find it just as it had been. I knock on the bathroom door and open it without waiting for a response. To my great relief, Callie is sitting on the floor surrounded by what looks like Band-Aid wrappers.

“What the hell, Callie.”

She looks at me, slightly wounded, “I said I’m in here,” she wrinkles her nose for a second, “Sorry.” Taking a deep breath, I survey the bathroom.

“It’s OK, you just scared me,” there isn’t a drop of blood to be seen, “What happened?”

“It was the weirdest thing!” Her tone brightens, “As I was measuring the flour, a yellow jacket flew out of the bag and stung me,” she presents me her arm, which sports an asterisk of at least 6 Band-Aids arranged over the same spot.

“Ah,” I choke back laughter, “I see.”

“How was your trip?” She asks me, picking up the trash from the floor.

“Just fine. Got everything we need.”

It is now 6:45. I help Callie to her feet and we return to the kitchen.

#story story #creative writing #future #dystopia #robots

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wigginsblevins4-blog · 6 years ago

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Dash QT Wallet

Digital Cash as well as DASH is preferred by simply users to make instant, individual payments online. It may be a value-focused cryptocurrency plus offers an improved level of anonymity to the users. dash core version 0.12.2.3 comes using a low swap amount and provides quick proof time. It uses PrivateSend technology that is written into it in typically the protocol level. Many transactions are merged into one expert transaction which is autographed by each sender prior to being broadcasted to the circle. This makes that extremely complicated to ascertain which input resulted in which will output. Since it�s a person financial transaction that everyone signals, the idea is not attainable to discover with certainty which in turn fernsehsender sent the payment to which recipient. The lieu released the strategy of masternodes. Nodes grow to be masternodes right after meeting selected requirements from the network, that upgrade the central servers. 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DASH makes use of the X11 formula of which a miner must eliminate to earn a new coin. As a reward intended for their hard work, the miners are given with this new currency expression which usually they have created themselves. Typically the CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT of a normal computer system at house can do the exploration of cryptocurrency but GRAPHICS offers much better full speed because it has multiple canal for predictable information which can be commonly required in order to be done throughout the mining. X11 ASICs make PROCESSOR and GPU exploration uneconomical as there is the increased difficulty of hashing due to an increased hash charge. dash core version 0.13.2.0 , DASH mining will become more secure against attacks by way of hackers. DASH Wallets Bankers store balances on a good private ledger, but cryptocurrencies are securely stored under a unique address on a new distributed public journal. This specific safe-keeping mechanism is acknowledged as a a digital pocket where cryptocurrencies and cryptocoins are stored. The wallets and handbags can only be launched utilizing a Private Key.

Dash3 DASHBOARD Core Wallet, also sometimes known as QT Budget, since that uses typically the QT program framework, is the official wallet regarding safe dealings in SPLASH. The pocket book comes along with many helpful functions just like: InstantSend PrivateSend Masternode Endroit control and fee handle Wallet security QR Computer code generation and diary Governance Masternode commands in addition to voting Automated backup Debug console To use this budget, you will need to be able to down load the entire blockchain. That is currently appropriate for use on Mac OPERATING-SYSTEM, Raspberry, Linux, and Microsoft windows. This newly-installed wallet usually takes a while to start right up as it has in order to sunc its copy of the blockchain with this network. Once this kind of match-up process is completed, the best wallet balance will become shown and you might use all it has the features in full and with relieve. Some other wallets supporting the cryptocoin storage and even orders include things like: DASH Electrum pocket book: The idea features strong alternative web servers to index typically the blockchain and safely and securely protected the private take some time on your personal computer. Android and iOS cellular wallets: They let you to send and receive cryptocoins through mobile devices. The purses have a recovery seed allowing with regard to quick healing period regarding cash in case your portable gadget is stolen. Equipment wallet: These allow to get the secure storage space regarding the keys on the devices and simple orders through some sort of web software. Paper pocket: These allow the user to come up with, encrypt, and secure important factors upon the clean laptop or computer not connected to the online. Internet wallets: These command typically the private keys in your behalf, to remain a new balance for you. In addition , third-party wallets provided simply by Exodus, Birkan and Jaxx can also be used for DASH purchases. Exactly how to buy DASH A person can buy and then sell this kind of cryptocoin in many methods, while described below: Swaps: Exchanges offer the most popular and effortless way to trade cryptocurrencies. dash qt version 0.13.1.0 will find two broad categories of trades. These are: Deals that accept national currencies as well as fusca currencies. Trades that facilitate trading together with purchase inside cryptocurrencies. These kind of are also known like crypto exchanges. We also have centralized and decentralized exchanges. first � Centralized exchanges usually are operated by way of a single company and regulated by the jurisdictions associated with the region wherever many people operate. 2 � Decentralized exchanges typically have bigger escrow requirements, as this traders deal in the peer-to-peer multilevel, not using a trusted financial enterprise like the banks. 3 � Instant Exchanges: You don�t need to journal in at instant trades to buy and sell off altcoins. You may exchange other cryptocurrencies with DASH at these types of exchanges. 4 � Peer-to-Peer: Advance peer-to-peer service providers feature their particular services for a charge to ensure the visibility of transactions and prevent cheating between your two get-togethers, who have never ever met. At other internet websites supplying this service, you need to help to make an offer to the sale/purchase of DASH, together with wait until someone contacts a person. ATM There are several ATMS where you can exchange this cryptocoin with regard to cash or help to make orders by card. SPRINKLE against. Bitcoin DASH coders have unleashed a new blockchain protocol to overcome the inherent weaknesses of the Bitcoin blockchain. It is the world�s very first self-governed and self-funding blockchain standard protocol, allowing for instant obligations through a network of incentivized Masternodes. Here is how DASH scores around Bitcoin in some essential aspects: 1 � In contrast to Bitcoin, it features InstantSend and introduced Masternodes to incentivize the users. Masternode providers are incentivized along with 45% reward for each and every block that is definitely mined. only two � Even though the Bitcoin�s wedge propagation usually takes around 15 minutes on average, which might stretch to upto an hours for large purchases, the InstantX Masternode attribute permits DASH to comprehensive this transaction within secs. 3 � While pseudonymous transactions of Bitcoin may be followed to the original user, PrivateSend purchases by way of DASH offer you full privateness to the customers for their transactions. four � Unlike Bitcoin exactly where contributions by developers will be certainly not incentivized and intentional, DASH promoters are paid for his or her contribution. five � Likely to successful system to solve manufacturing in addition to human problems that make cryptocoin�s local community a extremely functional one. 6 ~ There are fewer fees if in contrast with Bitcoin. Dash2 SPLASH in the information Whilst the primary digital foreign currencies including Bitcoin have recently dwindled in cost, DASH has made massive benefits. Around mid-November 2017, it increased from $319 in order to $520 showing a boost involving 60% within just the course of 12 time. The developers have as well started its running method, which will boost the stop size to 2MB. So , the designers is going to not have to have separate programs to make payments, alternatively they will use these kinds of extra-large boxes for this kind of purpose. The upgrade can result in the elimination of transaction fees and speed upgrades, the advantages of new purses and even security defense, among a lot of others. Price: At enough time of writing, DASH had been trading for 1, 178. 27 USD. Future forecasts The experts have predicted a rise in DASH�s value and it may move upward to $1950 in typically the next year, and may possibly then further appreciate to be able to $5100 in the next five decades. It may possibly be a profitable choice for long-term investment connected with at least one season. A five-year investment may get you a give back of around 345%. Therefore , your current investment involving hundred buck in this cryptocurrency may get you all-around $445 by the conclusion of the year 2022. SPLASH technical analysis With investors learning about even more uses for this currency, DASH achieved a new $1 billion market hat in May 2017. The growth rate has also continued outstanding, and the coin has shown remarkable gratitude in its price since creation. The growth has exceeded of which of Ethereum in a few aspects. Part of this particular sterling growth could end up being attributed to the shortage involving DASH gold coins, as compared with to Ethereum which has a great limitless number connected with Ether gold and silver coins. The coin is likely to visit a further appreciation in value, with additional investors recognizing it has the truly worth. Moreover, the or maybe is the preferred choice to get the medical marijuana business, which is also on typically the rise. Summary Unlile other crypto gold and silver coins such seeing as BitShares, Cardano, Ding and many other, DASH ranks for the reason that six largest cryptocurrency with regard to total market increased at this time. The idea has displayed considerable resilience, and rarely been out the Top 12 Cryptocurrencies club since it hit the scenes a few decades ago. Masternode agents and even improved governance device include had a positive effect on its long-term flexibility. As the endroit ages, there is plenty involving scopes for it for you to establish its own industry. Instead of picking the overall winner, it will be important for the option traders to look for the right fundamentals which make the cryptocurrency thrive plus become successful. On this variable, SPLASH has all that that takes in order to maintain, grow, and debut. The SPRINKLE ecosystem was created to benefit all people every bit as and proportionally in accordance to the contributions built and risks are consumed. There are no legal rights or perhaps loopholes. This can be associated by the full client voting system. The company has envisioned a future with regard to transparent, verifiable, and unbreakable contribution by the stakeholders to achieve the widespread goal of decentralized governance by blockchain. The developers have also imagined the sustainable and decentralized cryptocurrency network to carry added in value service to typically the investors, which is constructed to outlive its first users.

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pannimanagementteam · 2 years ago

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Darling Romery Positioned For Progress And Efficiency With Sage X3

NetSuite ERP by Oracle is a single resolution for all areas of enterprise. It consists of many options that improve and clear up key business needs like automating and streamlining processes; instantly gathering and presenting correct, real-time data; and on-the-fly managing of inventory and supply chain modifications. Deploy all or part of the Sage X3functions — finance, gross sales, CRM, manufacturing, purchasing and inventory administration — according to your particular enterprise strategy and requirements. All features are built-in into the system; merely activate them as you want them, without having to begin a model new project from scratch. Manufacturers of perishables products require software functionality that tracks expiration dates, ensures compliance and reduces manufacturing waste. Learn how software constructed for the business might help your food and beverage company streamline operations and handle growth.

We could generally present hyperlinks to different websites, which if you click on on them may gather personal information about you and direct you to those web sites. The data practices of these third-party websites linked to our website are coated by the third party’s personal privateness statements and we encourage you to learn those. Feedback and scores info company sage x3 you provide to us such as customer survey suggestions and product critiques you write. Feedback from our prospects, regulators, industry or different stakeholders. Special Considerations for California ResidentsAs a California resident, you have sure consumer privacy rights which you'll be able to find out about and exercise as described right here.

Inventory management is absolutely user-definable on every website with the appliance of the multisite, multi-warehouse and multi-location administration. Gain real-time visibility into your operations with software program constructed particularly company sage x3 for manufacturing. Streamline operations, automate labor-intensive processes like stock administration and workflows, and grow your revenues by choosing an answer designed for your business.

We’d be joyful to answer any questions you might have about knowledge integration for Sage X3 or some other sort of Sage ERP software. •Identify buyer's existing technical needs and suggest options. There aren't any extra expenses, however the problem is that you must purchase a further supporting system corresponding to a budgeting system. You will have to implement the combination and keep two methods.

The inbuilt analytical tools assist you to ensure quality, plan purchases and ordering, and schedule supply dates. Optimized stock methods take into account the unique parameters of every item stocked. Sage X3 factors-in important characteristics such as pricing, shelf-life and gross sales frequencies to help your company effectively manage stock. Inventory is dependent upon the demand in addition to the provision chain supply time.

Given the risky nature of the market in which many producers and distributers operate, regulatory commission oversight and enterprise process will largely affect how you select the right tool for the proper job. If your business is heavily burdened by compliance and high quality control mandates, Epicor ERP 10 may ultimately be a better match. The cause Epicor 10 leads a class of ERP instances is the depth, breadth, and precision of its build out. It has a strong providing that is highly versatile and could be configured to drill down to even essentially the most minute transactions made by machine or man. Effectively, it pin factors finite contingencies that otherwise may go unnoticed and snowball into one thing worse.

However, should you function in an business the place revenue is closely dependent upon seasonality and requires long run planning for economic oddities such as; petrochemical, Sage ERP X3 could also be a more viable enterprise answer. Unlike the compliance heavy Epicor 10, Sage ERP X3 has been built-in with a formidable BI software inside their financial management suite. BI instruments are especially helpful for inventory management, capacity configurations, and demand planning.

Chemical The chemical business requires specific performance, and the flexibility to react to the changing enterprise situations to remain aggressive within the face of those tough challenges. With a confirmed observe report in the business, Sage X3 integrates all features of your corporation in a robust chemical trade ERP. Businesses can enjoy a rise in sales by reaching new clients on-line and in addition take pleasure in price reduction of sales by streamlining sales processes. Manufacturing Management suite is designed to ship manufacturers with the instruments essential to achieve product and course of consistency, whereas scalable to match customer demand. I would recommend that corporations guarantee to include it in their RFP course of.

Upgrading to newer variations are very simple, and the fixed development ensures the software program retains getting higher all the time. Complete integration with manufacturing, stock, purchasing, sales company sage x3, and finance offers a 360-degree understanding of all buyer exercise. The 7-million-square-foot Plant Spartanburg was established 30 years ago and produces up to 450,000 autos annually.

Where Sage X3 fails, Epicor has succeeded, spending a lot of their development hours on compliance, mobility and application integration—the three most urgent wants of today’s modern workforce. ERP selection at all times comes down to choosing the proper device for the proper job. The info above should correctly allow you to lay out which best fits your group. Sage X3 has numerous totally different pricing variables relying on whether you choose the On-Premise or Cloud version. It's additionally priced based on the amount of customers and any third celebration add-ons required. In 2005, Adonix was acquired by British software vendor, Sage and the product was renamed to Sage X3.

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cloud9technologies2 · 3 years ago

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Why Deploy An ERP System In Manufacturing Industry?

Any goods you buy was made somewhere on the planet. Although service industries are receiving greater attention, manufacturing remains an important component of every expanding economy. The manufacturing business will require Enterprise Resource planning software in the long run, as this blog explains.

ERP for Manufacturing

Improving productivity is one of the primary issues that the manufacturing industry faces. By combining all-important company activities into a single platform, a PMTRACK ERP system can improve overall efficiency, reduce expenses, and increase productivity. Furthermore, many manufacturing organizations struggle to share production-related data with employees and outside parties. A shared database is essential to an organization’s success. ERPs can help bridge the gap between departments, vendors, and distributors. A generic ERP system is capable of providing the following benefits and more: • Inventory management • Production Scheduling • Financial Management • Operations Management • Fixed Asset Management • Customer Relationship Management • Order Management • Materials Requirement planning • Quality Assurance control

Is ERP essential for Manufacturing?

An ERP system can show a variety of system flaws in a seamless manner. Control your cash flow, streamline your processes, and deliver a single version of the truth about what’s going on in your company. Here are some examples of how an ERP system might help a manufacturing company: 1. An ERP system can serve as a consolidated hub for all of your operational and financial data, making data administration a breeze. 2. ERP gives you a complete picture of your supply chain activities, including warehouse management, transportation, and inventory management. 3. ERP systems also enable a variety of production methods, such as make-to-stock, make-to-order, and just-in-time. 4. Advanced ERP solutions, such as Oracle Net Suite, provide a faultless framework for managing organizations all over the world. Having a complete picture of all of your locations can help you gain more awareness inside the company. 5. Another important benefit of an ERP system is the ability to make offers and discounts based on real-time data. Some ERPs can assist with material planning, which reduces waste and delays. 6. Have a complete picture of your manufacturing process and control it from beginning to end. 7. Streamline operations by allocating work according to the availability of machines and labor. 8. By scanning and storing products, you can keep track of inventory levels in the warehouse and make items more accessible. Checkpoints are also used by ERPs to assure the quality of final goods.

How to Determine the Right Time for Implementing ERP?

Businesses may not even recognize their expansion has been stifled until it is too late. Here’s a brief checklist to help you figure out what your company’s problems are. • If your company is having trouble managing all of its diverse data sources. Consider investing in an ERP system to ensure that all of your data is kept safe and secure. • Existing legacy systems that are ruining your IT budget with updating and repairs. Move over to a Cloud ERP system and eliminate unwanted maintenance costs and updating. • Diminished customer experience because of the lack of an effective customer management system. • For a quickly growing company, the flexibility to scale according to business needs is critical. A cost-effective cloud-enabled ERP system is perfectly capable of making such a change.

Reasons to select ERP

Keep reading to learn more about the various advantages of ERP in manufacturing.

1.Manufacturing:

Any ERP system’s main goal is to boost operational efficiency and return on investment. In order to do this in the manufacturing industry, the corporation must keep track of several operations such as product planning, forecasting, and ensuring product quality. Another key component of ERP systems is automation, which assists businesses with tasks such as planning, scheduling, and delivery. Automation, on the whole, leads to better time management and fewer downtimes. Quality control features and end-to-end audit processes are included in a number of ERP systems.

2.Operations:

To get a rapid picture of the complete production process, managing your supply chain is essential. This entails managing all aspects of your product’s flow, from manufacturing to fulfillment through returns and refunds. Customer satisfaction will improve as a result of having a broad concept of availability, pricing, and delivery. It’s possible to cut expenses and beat the competition by efficiently managing your supply chain activities.

3.Inventory Management:

Inventory management is an important part of the manufacturing process. ERPs can help with managing inventory as well as provide reports on warehouse operations and inventory levels. This greatly reduces waste and non – value costs.

How PMTRACK ERP Helps Manufacturing Industry?

Here we will look into some of the unique features that PMTRACK ERP provides the manufacturing business

Engineering:

PMTRACK ERP enables easy connectivity with applications such as CAD, resulting in better product design and Bill of Materials management. By integrating LIFO, FIFO, and other costing strategies with PMTRACK ERP, costing becomes more efficient.

Service:

PMTRACK ERP Companies in Pune make it simple to streamline and manage case management, warranties, and other customer service requirements. It’s feasible to priorities support tickets based on client email addresses by automating case management. Escalation can be configured using customizable parameters and a priority system.

Financials:

PMTRACK ERP allows users to create fully customizable dashboards that display numerous functions such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, and reports. Various revenue statements and balance sheets can be compared side by side. Taxes, invoices, and finance costs can all be generated automatically.

Order Management:

PMTRACK ERP gives you a complete picture of the order management process. Orders, delivery, and other trends affecting order management are all included. Drilling down to the last detail is also available with PMTRACK ERP with a few clicks.

Supply chain Management:

PMTRACK ERP combines superior resource planning with seamless supply chain management. By examining historical data, trends, and seasonal variances, improved demand planning aids in better understanding inventory levels. For enhanced corporate visibility, PMTRACK ERP Company in Pune identifies data trends such as important spending and SCM metrics.

If you’d like to learn more about how PMTRACK ERP can help your manufacturing company, then fill out the form below. On our dedicated blog, you can learn more about PMTRACK ERP for Manufacturing Companies. If you want a quick demo, contact PMTRACK ERP for a customized demo and quotation.

#erpformanufacturingindustry #erpsystem #erp development services #erpsoftware #erpsoftwarecompanies

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outrowings · 7 years ago

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five ways to say “i love you”

(my gif)

description: the one where taehyung learns about love

genre: fluff with lil tidbits of angst, best friend!au, friends to lovers!au, high shoool!au, college!au

pairing: reader x kim taehyung

word count: 4,306

warnings: brief mention of blood

inspired (oddly enough) by this fic by @lthyl ; (i’m not entirely sure how, they’re completely unrelated, regardless u should read that fic its amazing!) special thanks to @lyselena for helping me edit and for her love while i was writing this

1. band-aids

Your foot caught on something. Most likely it was a bit of raised tarmac on the uneven playground you spent nearly every day of your summer on. You landed hands and knees first, the ground scraping your skin and the sun heated blacktop searing you. You felt tears prick your eyes before you felt the pain in your limbs.

“Are you okay?”

Taehyung stood over you at 3 and a half feet tall and 7 years old, but the concern in his eyes and his voice was far beyond his years. Your game of tag was long forgotten, though you half expected him to poke your shoulder with a cheeky grin on his face and speed away from you.

You rolled onto your butt to survey the damage to your knees, but before you could so much as glance at the wounds, a terrified gasp left Taehyung’s mouth.

“Stay here, Y/N! I’ll get our moms!” he yelled with urgency and ran off just as you had expected him to, but with a much different purpose. You could taste iron in your mouth at the sight of your bloodied knees. Glancing up, you saw Taehyung sprinting to the other side of the park where your mother and his were taking a stroll. For one day this summer, you were thankful that your best friend was a fast runner. The other days that you spent playing tag and chasing each other rather than wounded on the ground, not so much.

The tears streamed freely down your cheeks as you saw the two adults hasten on their way to you, Taehyung dragging them by the wrist. Your mother pulled alcohol swabs and band-aids out of her purse and you grimaced at the materials, familiar with the sting that the medical supplies indicated was imminent. Taehyung saw the look on your face and his seven year old mind told him that his best friend was scared.

With all the grace of your own fall, he dropped his butt on the hot blacktop beside you and laced your fingers with his own. Taehyung gripped your hand as fiercely as he could, hindered only by having the strength of a child, but aided by his need to see you unafraid again.

Your mother dabbed at your knees with the swabs and your grip on Taehyung’s hand tightened, your knuckles turning white along with his. But it didn’t hurt Taehyung. What hurt Taehyung was seeing the tears stream faster down your face and not being able to do anything about it. Taehyung didn’t understand love, not completely, not yet. But he knew that love was the concern in your mother’s eyes when she saw your scrapes. He knew love was the way his own mother looked at you with sympathy as if you were her own daughter. He knew love was being unable to see his best friend hurt.

2. baskets

The scoreboard was lit up in red, as if the sheer size of it on the gymnasium wall and the fact that your team was losing by a point with little time left wasn’t discouraging enough. Seven seconds on the clock and you stood in a huddle with your teammates and coach as he ran you through the strategy to winning the semifinal round of the middle school basketball playoffs.

Your sweat held your jersey to your skin and you resisted urge to pry the itchy material away from your body and rip it off. The broken air conditioner in the old gym didn’t help your situation. Neither did the fact that you were at your opposing team’s school with most of the crowd cheering for them.

What did help was seeing your best friend, your mother, and his mother in the fifth row of the bleachers cheering for you and your team. Taehyung held a sign that read “#23 is my best friend” in messy writing with a giant heart beside the word friend. The sign itself was in an obnoxiously bright orange color and he waved it around reminding you of the crossing guard you always saw on your way to school. It was almost as bright as the smile on his face, visible to you even from the court.

You moved to take your spot at the baseline, the timeout being called to an end, but not before hearing “Go Y/N!” and “Go Wildcats!” in the voice of your best friend. But you were much too worried about the bright red numbers on the scoreboard telling you that you had seven seconds to score two points to make it to the championships, so you couldn’t be embarrassed by Taehyung’s enthusiasm, even given that you were playing on an away court with a crowd of aggressive parents cheering for the other team.

The referee handed the ball to you at the base line and you rolled it to your teammate, hoping to preserve as much time as possible. You ran ahead of her to meet your defender on the opposite end of the court. The silence in the gymnasium only aided the deafening tension you felt in your stomach. Your teammate picked up the ball at the half court line and the clock began to run. The chanting of the audience counting down the seconds was drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in you ears.

Six!

Five!

You sidestep your defender.

Four!

You call for the ball.

Three!

The ball lands in your open palms and you turn towards the basket.

Two!

You bend your knees and elbows and launch the ball from well outside the three point line, the shot a risky one that has your coach, your teammates, you mother, Taehyung, and his mother all crossing their fingers and the opposing team expecting a celebratory pizza party.

One!

The ball moves towards the basket faster than you expect. You are not ready for your season to end.

You can’t hear the crowd but you can hear the sound the ball makes when it moves through the net.

Thunk!

You hear the ball hit the wooden floor and the buzzer ring, but both are drowned out by the yelling from your team suddenly surrounding you. You don’t see, but Taehyung gets down from the fifth row of the bleachers in a single leap. He fights his way through your teammates just to place his own hands on your shoulders and pull you into a hug.

“I’m so proud of you, Y/N,” he whispers into your ear so no one can hear, because it’s just for you, his best friend. He picks you up and spins you around, though it’s difficult because you stand half a head taller than him.

Your smile cannot grow bigger.

Taehyung still doesn’t understand love, not at thirteen with a curious and undeveloped mind, but he does understand friendship and he knows there isn’t much of a difference. He knows love is how his mother attends all of your basketball tournaments with him, the fondness on her face obvious throughout each game. He knows love is the way your mother will hug you just as tight whether you win or lose a game and tell you what you need to improve on whether the night ends in victory or defeat. He knows love is the pride that swells in his chest when you, his best friend, scores a basket and demonstrates to the world (or in this case, middle school parents) your talent and passion. He knows it’s when you lose the championship, but he feels the same pride despite the defeat because he saw you play with everything you have.

3. bad dates

The music sucked, but that was to be expected given your school’s low budget and poor taste in DJs. Of course what sucked worse was seeing your date grinding with another girl on the dance floor while you were sitting at a table, fiddling with the cheap white cloth that covered it and sipping water from your tacky plastic wine glass.

He had been a perfect gentleman, dancing with you, opening doors for you, and complimenting you, right up until after the first slow song twenty five minutes into prom. He had removed his hands from where they were resting on your hips and told you (not even asked), “I’m going to dance with other girls.” So here you were, looking pretty and sad in your beautiful gown, corsage on your wrist matching a tie on a boy that was currently nowhere near you. You weren’t crying (yet), but you were pretty close. The only thing holding back your tears was the cheesy summer bop playing that annoyed you too much to allow you to cry.

“Hey best friend,” you heard from beside you and your eyes moved from focusing on a stain on the tablecloth to meet Taehyung’s.

“Hey,” you said dejectedly unable to hide your feelings. "Where’s your date?“ you asked, and by that he knew you meant, "Is your date any better than mine?” and “Why are you hanging out with me when you’re at prom with a girl you’ve been crushing on?”

He pulled out a chair next you, letting you know silently that you looked bummed and that he was here to help. "She’s dancing with her friends because she got bored of me. You know, I think I like her better in my head and also I don’t think she likes me very much,“ he says oddly happily.

"That sucks.” Your monotonous tone had him raising an eyebrow. "I seriously mean it, I’m sorry,“ you try again with a little more emotion.

He sighs. "Nah. I’m mostly okay with it.”

The tears pool at the rims of your eyes. "Hey wanna leave?“ he asks suddenly. You nod as quickly as you can. "Okay let me just tell my date I’m leaving.” You nod again and watch as he disappears into the bodies on the dance floor.

Taehyung reappears within moments and grabs your hand, helping you up.

“Wait,” you tell him, stopping him by tugging on his hand. He turns to look at you, the strobe lights decorating the high school gym illuminating your face in flashes of blue. Taehyung sees the sadness in your eyes and it unknowingly reflects as worry in his own orbs. "How do we get past security? We’re not supposed to leave before it ends.“ you point out to him.

At this, he shows you his signature square smile. "Why m'lady,” he begins, his voice adopting a poorly imitated British accent and his hand pulling you closer to him. You can’t help but roll you eyes at this. "Through the locker rooms of course.“

Taehyung leads you past the dance floor where you catch a glimpse of your date and a girl who was apparently now his date and your heart sinks a little more. But before you know it, you’re in the dark in the boys locker room adjoined with the gym and Taehyung is fumbling with his phone to switch on the flashlight option. He leads you through the cold room dotted with the smell of sweat and out into the night, the stars shining radiantly above you as if to light up the way to parking lot.

You follow him to his dad’s car, loaned to him for the night so as to impress his date. "Are we going home?” you ask.

He looks at you as the two of you climb in the car and fasten your seatbelts. "Depends. Do you want to go home?“ he asks, softly, as if he’s afraid to break you.

You look forward, set in your decision not to shed a tear and voice hardened, "No. Let’s go to McDonald’s.”

The car roars to life, masking his quiet chuckle. "That’s more like my best friend,“ he says to you, as he pulls out of the parking lot.

You eat your chicken nuggets with him in the brightly lit restaurant, talking about nothing and everything, except prom and your date and things of that nature. He knows not to say anything because despite the smile on your face, he can see tears in the corners of your eyes threatening to spill.

His pink tie clashes with your green dress, both now visible in the light, but his black suit jacket, which he places over your shoulders as you are leaving the McDonald’s, matches your shoes perfectly. When he starts the car, the dashboard display reads 11:43, telling you that prom is long over and that you spent almost three hours in McDonald’s, in your heels, full length gown, face full of makeup, hair done, and with your best friend instead of your date.

When he turns to look at you, his face is serious with no trace of his smile left. ”You deserve better, Y/N,“ he tells you in a quiet yet firm voice, as if it is an undeniable fact.

He pulls you into his chest over the center console and comfortingly rubs your shoulder as your tears and mascara stain his dress shirt.

He drives you to your house and follows you inside, sending a quick text to his mother letting her know that he will be spending the night with you. Your mother welcomes him from her place on the couch, but her face expresses her confusion at you storming up the stairs without a word to her.

"Prom kind of sucked,” he tells her and she nods understandingly.

“We can talk in the morning,” she tells him and he moves to the stairs, the routine of your sleepovers familiar to him. Your mother calls out a goodnight to him and he returns it.

When Taehyung is in his pajamas that he conveniently leaves at your house and you are bare faced and in warm clothes, laying on his chest, he can feel your tears wetting his cotton t-shirt. He smooths his hand over your hair again and again until you fall asleep, wishing he could do more to ease your pain.

Taehyung doesn’t fully understand love, not yet. At eighteen, he understands infatuation, especially what he felt towards his prom date, or the idea of his prom date. But he knows love like a sixth sense, like intuition. He knows love is his mother’s smile when he showed her pictures of the two of you throwing up peace signs from what you had dubbed the, “Ultimate Best Friend Prom Outfit Photoshoot Extravaganza.” He knows love is your mother’s eyes twinkling when she saw you in your prom dress when he picked you up for the photoshoot, the look on her face ringing nostalgia from her own days and pride at your beauty. He knows love is the anger he feels towards a boy he doesn’t know because of what this boy did to you, his best friend. He knows he loves his best friend and his best friend loves him and that this is the only love he needs.

4. bagels

The only thing between you and Taehyung is the stupid rule at your university that said boys and girls couldn’t share dorm rooms and a single wall that made you neighbors instead of roommates. That and finals week looming in the near future that has you shut in your room, smelling of coffee, and away from your best friend.

The knock on your door leads you to look up from the floor where you sat surrounded by your laptop, an empty mug stained with coffee, textbooks, loose papers, and various writing utensils, up to your alarm clock that told you in bright red numbers that it was far past your bedtime. "Yeah?“ you answer weakly to whoever was at your door. You suspect it’s your roommate ready to scold you for staying up, but when the door opens you see a face that makes you let out a soft sigh.

"I missed my best friend,” he says with a frown as his way of hello. You can see he looks worried when he glances at the mess around you. "It’s 3 am and you’ve had too much coffee.“ You’re about to refute this statement when he interrupts your scoff, "Your roommate counted the number of times you left your room for a refill. She’s pretty sure your blood is half caffeine right now and you’re like one cup away from an overdose.”

He sits beside you and you admit defeat by letting yourself fall into his chest and allowing your eyes to close for just a moment. "Your breath smells like coffee,“ he tells you and you slap his chest at the comment but smile nonetheless.

"I know. I’m just… I’m so tired, Taehyung,” you tell him. And he knows you don’t mean that you’re just tired in this moment. He knows that you mean that everything feels so heavy and you’re tired.

“C'mon,” he says and stands up, the warmth he held around you disappearing. You look up at him quizzically and you note that his plaid pajama pants look really comfortable. "I know you haven’t eaten yet. Let’s go. I’m buying you bagels.“ You sigh, but oblige, taking hold of the hand he held out to you and hoisting yourself up. Your hand in his, the two of you match in your attire of sleepwear and flip flops.

The 24 hour cafe on campus masks your coffee odor with its own scent, but not before Taehyung says, "It smells like you here,” with a cheeky grin that has you rolling your eyes, but laughing at his poor jab. As promised he buys, four bagels to be exact, “Two each of course,” he tells you, knowing that his own large appetite was a mirror of your own since the early days of your friendship.

You eat your bagels largely in silence, too preoccupied with the way your stomach feels empty and your shock at not noticing it before. You don’t see the way Taehyung is looking at you, scanning every inch of your face, half with fondness and half in confusion. You don’t seem to pick up on the inner turmoil he is suddenly experiencing as you are too engrossed in your bagel.

Taehyung still isn’t entirely sure he understands what love is. He knows it’s how whenever his mother calls him, asking about his health and his grades, she always asks about you as well. He know’s it’s the way your mother’s eyes were filled with tears when she said goodbye to you on parent’s day despite your reassurances that you were only a two hour drive away and the fact that this was her third time doing this since it was your junior year. He knows it’s the worry he feels when he sees the bags under your eyes and the tremor in your voice when you say you are tired. He knows it’s when you were seven and he held your hand because you got hurt and you were scared of disinfectant. He knows it’s his heart swelling when you score a basket in your middle school gym, your jersey clearly uncomfortable and a tad too small, but a smile on your face nonetheless. He knows it’s how he wants to protect you when you cry into his chest in a beautiful green gown, sitting in his dad’s car in the parking lot of a McDonald’s.

But what he isn’t sure of is the way his heart flutters when your cheeks are puffed out, stuffed with the bagels he bought you, and looking content for the first time in weeks. But Taehyung doesn’t have time to understand why this love suddenly feels different from all the times before. He doesn’t have time to think about why his insides feel like a mess when you are just sitting across from him in your pajamas, cramming your mouth with bagels like there is no tomorrow. Because finals are next week and understanding love takes time, and if he couldn’t figure it out in the last twenty years, then he’s not going to figure it out within a week. And he was okay with that because he decided a long time ago that how he loved you and how you loved him was all he needed.

5. i love you

As you turned in your paper at the front of the lecture hall to your professor who was playing Tetris on his phone, you had five thoughts in your mind.

First, your hand was seriously cramping. Second, you weren’t really enjoying the way you smelled in your sweats at the moment. Third, you really needed a hug. Fourth, you hadn’t seen Taehyung in over a week. And fifth, you could really go for a nap.

You stepped out of the hall and the white winter sunlight combined with the sensitivity of your eyes from your lack of sleep was enough to blind you momentarily. In the brief moment that your eyes took to adjust to being outside, you felt a pair of arms wrap around. If they hadn’t been accompanied with the familiar smell of your best friend, you would have been yelling and jabbing at the body that had engulfed yours. Instead you stand with your head in the crook of Taehyung’s neck, absorbing his warmth and comfort.

“You’re done. You made it,” he tells you. You almost let out a laugh in relief, feeling like a weight had been lifted from your shoulders.

Instead you pull away and tell him, “Taehyung, I smell really weird right now.”

“I know,” he says, he lips turning up in a familiar smile. But despite his response, he pulls you under his arm for the walk to your dorm building.

You roll your eyes at him and he can’t help but feel his heart flutter at how familiar the gesture is. "How long did you wait for me?“ you ask.

"I don’t know, like an hour?” he half asks. You can feel his arm around you move as he shrugs. "I finished my last final next door and I remembered you had this class so I just stuck around.“

"An hour? You’re crazy!” you tell him. When you look up at his face to see his reaction, he’s just looking ahead, smiling. "It’s so cold outside! You could’ve have gotten sick.“ You tell him. At this he pulls you closer, but says nothing more. You resign, knowing Taehyung won’t change and definitely will not apologize. Not that you’re complaining wholeheartedly. Leaving that room, a hug from Taehyung was just what you needed.

Taehyung waits for you to finish your shower from where he lays sprawled on your bed playing sudoku on his phone. You return to your room, wet hair framing your face and looking refreshed yet sleepy. You dove into Taehyung’s waiting arms and turned to face the screen he held above his face.

"Hair!” he tells you, his voice muffled.

“Deal with it,” you tell him, tone completely serious, but you move your damp hair away from where it lay covering much of Taehyung’s face. You move around to get more confortable and end with your head on Taehyung’s arm which wrapped around your shoulders, his hand fiddling with your own. You knew his limb would go numb sooner or later and he would complain, but for now you could enjoy it. His other hand held his phone in the air, still moving numbered tiles onto the nine by nine board it displayed. Your free hand moved to stop him from making a wrong move.

“No you already have a two in this row, dummy,” you tell him, moving the appropriate tile yourself. "There,“ you say, having corrected his error.

You can feel Taehyung’s whole body stiffen at that word, his fingers no longer playing with yours, but now locked with them instead.

You still your movements too, unsure of what is happening.

"Y/N…” he begins. He can’t seem to find the right words and resigns himself to saying exactly what is flashing in his brain as you are laying in his arms. "I didn’t really understand love. But I always knew one thing for sure.“ He stops.

Your heart stops too, or it’s beating too fast for you to process. You’re not sure because all you can feel is his body beneath yours, his arm around you, and his fingers tangled with your own.

You look up at him, half expecting to see his eyes closed. Instead they’re looking into your own, more familiar to you than everything else you know. Taehyung isn’t sure if the goosebumps sent racing down his arms are because of the movement of your damp and cold hair with the turn of your head or because of your eyes locked with his.

He looks at you, your face a little red from the hot shower you took, the bags under your eyes dark and matching his own, and your eyes.

In your eyes he sees the fear of alcohol swabs and the pain of scraped knees, he sees the joy of winning a basketball game and the wholehearted love you show anything you do, he sees the pain of a first heartbreak and the loss of innocence, he sees the exhaustion of a college student and the endurance it takes to hold the weight of the world, the weight of his world. In your eyes, Taehyung sees your mother and his mother watching the two of you play as children and grow as adults. In your eyes, he sees himself and the two of you. In your eyes, Taehyung sees nothing but you.

Taehyung can feel you holding your breath just as he is, but he finally releases it. After twenty years, he finally understands.

"I love you, Y/N.”

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myralopez-blog1 · 5 years ago

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What are the benefits and scope of digital marketing?

1. What is digital marketing

Digital marketing is the marketing of product and services using digital technologies basically on the internet or it included mobile phones also.

2. Scope of digital marketing:-

In recent times, there is so much to learn about digital world. The Prime Minister of India has come up with the idea of digital India. And it acts as a promotional campaign for digital marketing resulting in many more job opportunities for youth to a great extent. Hence, there is nothing regional; it’s a national alarm for graduates of India who all are looking for an inviting career.

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Massive job opportunity

Being reliable, eco-friendly, reachable, influential, user engagement and measurable digital marketing is the magic tool for brands and businesses. As more and more entities join the online bandwagon for a wider market-reach, the job opportunities in digital marketing are ever-growing. Unlike other sectors of employment, this arena is an all-season field. It's too inviting to turn a blind eye, folks.!

Flexibility

Digital marketing industry celebrates a very open culture. With skills and tools knowledge advancement, empiricism holds a big portion and that pushes you up for being the next level of the marketer. There is umpteen number of sub-branches within the digital marketing field such as SEO analyst, Social media marketing executive, online reputation management executive, digital marketing manager, PPC specialist and so on. And so is the remuneration package range.

Higher paid profile

Digital marketing profession is one of the highest paid job profiles. Google says, the national average salary of the senior digital marketing manager is $95,415 and that in India is Rs 447, 346. Additionally, the average pay tends to defy the principle of gravitation – ever on the rise – by at least 30% .

3.Job opportunities:-

1. Digital Marketing Manager

Digital Marketing Managers should have an experience of 5+ years, and if you have certifications that prove your expertise, then you will be hired easily. The demand for Digital Marketing Job Opportunities for experts is high as the companies are hunting for the same. Responsibilities of Digital Marketing Managers include leading the digital marketing team and reporting to the Vice President of Marketing of the company. They are also responsible for combining different components of digital marketing and making it efficient.

The digital marketing salary package of digital marketing experts ranges from 15 to 20 lacs per annum. Depending upon the experience, it can go as high as 40 lac per annum.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

The hype over Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has made of us well-versed with what SEO is. Those dealing with SEO need to deal with the processes that affect the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s unpaid results. According to the recent trends, using organic SEO techniques along with a PPC campaign, the expected click rate is 25% times more whereas the expected profit rate increases to 27%. As per these trends, the job opportunities with respect to SEO field are immense.

The average salary for SEO Manager is 353,396 per year.

2. Search Engine Optimizer (SEO Executive)

Instead of spending money on Google AdWords campaigns, with good search engine optimization, you can get free traffic from Google. This is the reason why there are tremendous opportunities relating to SEO executive. The responsibilities of an SEO executive or SEO expert involves keyword research, getting pages indexed, user experience optimization, using webmaster tools, managing duplicate content, and many more areas.

Skills required: An SEO expert should be an expert with the usage of various kinds of SEO tools in the market. For example, one of the best-known SEO tools for digital marketers is Moz.com. There are hundreds of more tools which an SEO expert should have a strong hold on to improve the company’s performance on search engines. SEO experts report to the digital marketing managers. However, most SEO expert does not manage a team and are individual contributors.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Jobs related to Social Media Marketing deal with gaining website traffic or attention via social media sites. The aim is to centre on efforts to create content that attracts the customer.

According to Octane Research 2016, social media updates was the most looked after choice for achieving maximum customer engagement (46%). Also, social media tops the list of marketing activities being planned for 2016 with 66 percent.

If you wish to establish your career in Social Media industry, the average digital marketing salary you can expect is 328,300 per year.

3. Social Media Marketing Expert

Social Media marketing is divided into two areas. One of the areas deals with spreading the content through social media platforms. Running paid advertising in Social media is something that requires expertise and experience. For instance, Facebook advertisements are one of the difficult tasks nowadays. With the addition of new targeting options and features added almost every single day, the requirement for a social media marketer is increasing day by day

4. Content Manager

As a content marketing manager, you are responsible for content marketing. Well, obviously. But there are many things you need to manage. This includes managing the blog, drip marketing campaigns, sales page copywriting, ebook publications, guest blogging, video marketing, email communications, and a little bit of PR as well.

If you start to work as content marketing managers then you are supposed to report to digital marketing managers or the head of marketing. however, it is not necessary. At times, content marketing managers can be the only contributors or can be head of a content team.

One of the advantages of being a content marketing manager is that you can work from home without any hustle. Freelancing is one of the options to build career in Digital Marketing in India to them in which they can write content by working from their home or as a part time job.

The expected digital marketing salary for content marketing managers is between 10 to 15 lacs per annum. The experience required for this post is minimum 3 years to 5 years.

Educational qualification: Although there is no clear requirement for qualification, having digital marketing certifications and MBA can help you showcase your content marketing expertise. However, if you have required the set of skills, certifications are not necessary.

5. Copywriter

The job responsibilities of a copywriter are vast. If you have to be a copywriter, you should be ready to work with many people in the digital marketing team. The copywriter can help the content team refine their content for better reception, help the social media manager with posting better words on social media channels, and help the search engine marketer write better ad copy. Amongst Digital Marketing job opportunities in India, content is one of the most sought after choice.

Skills required: A copywriter should be proficient in English. He/She should know how to write persuasive articles in order to fuel the sales funnel.

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is a form of internet marketing that deals with the promoting the websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) with the help of paid advertising.

Search engine marketing is one crucial aspect of digital marketing. It is a broad marketing term that defines marketing through the search engines. Well, keeping in mind the master of search engine, Google, search engine marketing most of the times refers to marketing with the help of Google AdWords.

The average salary for Search Engine Marketers is 468,000.

6. Search Engine Marketer/ Specialist

The tasks of search engine marketer are done by the digital marketing manager himself if the size of the company is small. At times, it is outsourced to a digital marketing agency who will charge a fee for the work done. However, when it comes to bigger companies, they have a dedicated Search Engine Marketing specialist (SEM specialist) along with a team for search engine marketers.

The reporting managers for search engine marketers will be digital marketing managers. The responsibilities of a search engine marketer include targeting the number of leads and clicks from the given marketing budget, analysis, keyword research, bid management, split testing the ad campaigns, and ad copywriting.

Experience required: There is no specific range when it comes to experience for search marketing expert. It ranges from company to company. In small companies, there is a bright scope of digital marketing jobs for fresher’s but some established companies would be needing experts with several years of experience.

INBOUND MARKETING

This is a field that deals with bringing users in, rather than marketers having to go out to get prospects’ attention. It earns the attention of customers and draws customers to the website with the help of interesting content. On an average, the salary for Inbound Marketer ranges from 4 lacs – 6 lacs per annum.

7. Inbound Marketing Manager

The requirement for inbound marketing manager will depend upon the type and size of the organizations. The responsibilities of a content marketer and an inbound marketer often overlap. Responsibilities of an Inbound Marketer is to manage the funnel and conversion at each stage. Conversion rate optimization, drip marketing, and lead nurturing. The difference between content marketing and inbound marketing is that the inbound marketing manager creates a strategy on how to attract customers using content marketing while the content marketing manager focuses on execution on that strategy.

4.Work from home/freelancers

After completing the basic course of digital marketing from reputised industry then you can also work from home or work as a freelancer.Digital marketing gives you the flexibility to do work from home at your ease and earn handsome amount of money.

5.Business opportunities:-

You can start your own business in digital marketing once you are a certified digital marketer ,this will boost your bussiness growth.Digital marketing helps new business to expand internationally or nationally and it also give you the flexibility to work and grow your business online .

6. Career growth with experience in digital marketing:-

Once you get an two to three years experience then it will be easy for you to survive in digital marketing feild and after experince in digital world your career growth will exceptionally grow and you get handsome salary hike with more experience.This option can begin with an entry level position as a digital marketing professional, which can then progress to an online / display advertising professional, to an online/digital advertising account manager and sales director, then finally advancing to the head of online / display advertising.Digital advertising typically involves advertising using Google AdWords, web banners, online ads, eBlasts and more.

Conclusion:-The research and practice of improving with the advancement of technology.The strong visibility of the organization or the brand through digital marketing allows the consumers to develop perceived knowledge about the brand.

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tashaun71-blog · 5 years ago

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skrisiloff · 7 years ago

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Earnings Call Notes: Retail Wasteland

Each week we read dozens of transcripts from earnings calls and presentations as part of our investment process. Below is a weekly post which contains some of the most important quotes about the economy and industry trends from those transcripts. Click here to receive these posts weekly via email.

Earnings season is wrapping up and retailers are the last to report. The environment was described as a "perfect storm" and "hyper-competitive" with no signs of slowing down. Retailers are trying to move into omni-channel and putting on a good face, but "the definition of loyalty in the retail business for the consumer is the absence of the better alternative." Consumers will shop wherever they can find the lowest prices at the greatest convenience. At the moment Amazon is the elephant in the room.

Next week begins the summer doldrums for earnings, so we'll likely take the next two weeks off. Be back again in September.

The Macro Outlook:

We are beginning to see some inflation in food

"after several quarters of lower commodity costs, we are beginning to see some inflation. We anticipate this will curtail some of the hypercompetitive discounting we have seen in recent quarters." --Jack in the Box CEO Lenny Comma (Restaurants)

The transition has been a little more rapid than normal

"the transition from deflation to inflation has been a little more rapid than normal, and there are certainly some categories where we are seeing more than 2% to 3% inflation...I wouldn’t say we are seeing anything out there today that would be overly difficult for our customers to pass along." --Sysco CEO Bill Delaney (Food Distributor)

Millenials are becoming key decision makers in businesses

"Most of our chefs and operators in our customer’s kitchen are millennials. They want different type of equipment." --Middleby CEO Selim Bassoul (Kitchen Equipment)

Financials:

Home Depot feels good about housing markets

"You know we continually look at months of supply, there is 4.3 months of supply in the market of housing availability against a historical norm of six, that clearly is helping to drive improvement in home value appreciation...So, we see this housing favorability continuing as we look forward. And I think the watch out for us is, you wouldn’t want to see affordability become an issue, but that at this point doesn’t seem to be a concern for us at all." --Home Depot CEO Craig Menear (Home Improvement)

Mall rents are falling

"we think real estate prices a couple years from now are going to be less expensive than they are today. We’re starting to we’re seeing that as we renegotiate leases or relocate stores. The rents are coming down in all but the true A malls. So, if you take a look at the true A malls we actually think rents in those malls might actually go up...because they’re going to be in such high demand" --Dicks CEO Ed Stack (Sporting Goods)

Consumer:

The retail industry is in a perfect storm

"The retail market is currently in flux. The environment is highly competitive and dynamic...It’s a perfect storm right now" --Dicks CEO Ed Stack (Sporting Goods)

CEOs are trying to stay optimistic

"I also know that we operate in an environment of intense and disruptive competition, and that our customer has more shopping options than ever, and we need to provide her with a compelling and a unique proposition. So winning in this environment requires us to act with a great sense of urgency to make changes in how we operate and to move faster. And as we do this, I am confident that Macy’s will win again." --Macy's CEO Jeffrey Gennette (Dept Store)

They argue that omni-channel is essential

"The customer is clearly telling us that brick-and-mortar retail continues to be an essential part of the shopping experience and certainly when it is executed right with the right values. All of this gives us confidence in our long-term global store growth potential." --TJX CEO Ernie Herrman (Off-Price)

Out of sight out of mind

"there is an impact on a market when you have fewer stores in it and share of mind is therefore decreased, and as a result, those areas where we’ve closed stores, the rate of growth in our omnichannel business has been a little less...Everything that we’ve learned from that store closure pilot has been that reinforcing the importance of a great physical footprint. And we’ve said over and over again, and we have seen nothing that doesn’t support this. In fact, I think the thesis is growing stronger." --Kohls CEO Kevin Mansell (Dept Store)

But everyone is trying to match Amazon

"I think we are in the time of hyper competition. People are out there trying to get market share. They are doing things that one typically wouldn’t do in a business. I guess, the elephant in the room there, you know who it is, is doing an awful lot of things without regards of the bottom line and is getting rewarded for it. And so there are an awful lot of other people trying to do the same thing. So yes, I think there is margin opportunity. I think we could get there, but I also am very, very aware of the hypercompetitive space that we are in." --Urban Outfitters CEO Richard Hayne (Apparel)

The price competition is impossible to avoid

"We tried to not be promotional. We didn’t want to be the price leaders in the industry. And as things got competitive and somewhat unpredictable, the consumer told us that they felt that we weren’t priced competitively in the marketplace." --Dicks CEO Ed Stack (Sporting Goods)

Retailers are doubling down on promotions

"when you look at the marketing strategy...number one, we’re going to remain very promotional. And what we’ve spent a lot of time on is reducing the overlap of promotions, reducing the amount of overlap of discounts on top of each other. But we’re doing that all the way through the back half and that really is a big focus of ours." --Macy's CEO Jeffrey Gennette (Dept Store)

Consumers are only as loyal as your prices

"We didn’t start the promotion, but we can’t sit around and pretend it doesn’t happen. We need to engage in that. And our customers have told us, you need to engage here in today’s marketplace...I’m a firm believer that the definition of loyalty in the retail business for the consumer is the absence of the better alternative." --Dicks CEO Ed Stack (Sporting Goods)

The competition shows no signs of slowing down

"The pace of change in the consumer and competitive environment doesn’t show any signs of slowing down." --Target CEO Brian Cornell (Big Box Retail)

If anyone can challenge Amazon, it should be Walmart

"We continue to gain traction in e-commerce with Walmart U.S. GMV up 67%...we continue our transformation to become more of a digital enterprise that moves with speed and agility...We’ve seen strong results from the rollout of online grocery...Marc Lore and the team delivered another quarter of robust topline growth" --Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon (Big Box Retail)

Technology:

Home Depot spends half its advertising budget on digital

"Our overall advertising spend is up, lower single digits, but as we’ve essentially made more significant pivot to digital marketing it’s over half our marketing right now. That’s a medium that you can get good insight on the return on your spend and as Craig said, the team just done a great job continuing to increase the return on that spend, so leveraging that low single digit to a much more productive return on overall ad spend" --Home Depot EVP Ted Decker (Home Improvement)

Apple products sold well at Target

"on the Apple comments, they weren’t just driven by tablet, they are driven across the board in categories. And we had really strong showing in Q2 on the iWatch which we worked with Apple on clearly. And we have a lot in our plans for Q3 and Q4 with potential new launches as I have outlined." --Target CEO Brian Cornell (Big Box Retail)

Online video has tailwinds to revenue, but headwinds to profitability

"more and more people are watching online video at longer and longer time, on a daily basis...and at the same time, advertising revenue has been increasing, and there is also an increasing willingness from consumers to pay. So, the subscription number as well as revenue has been increasing quite rapidly. On the other hand, the flip side of this is the cost of content has been increasing, even faster. So, what we see is that over time, we believe the content will continue to increase, but the rates would probably be lower. And the subscription, as we continue to increase, would deliver higher revenue per active user. So, we will get closer to a more equilibrium between cost and revenue at some point in time. But I think unfortunately at this point in time, the net loss of the business is still increasing." --Tencent President Martin Lau (Chinese Internet)

Neural Nets are improving at a double exponential rate

"A neural net in terms of complexity is approximately – not quite, but approximately doubling every year. And this is one of the exciting things about artificial intelligence. In no time in my history of looking at computers in the last 35 years have we ever seen a double exponential where the GPU computing model, our GPUs are essentially increasing in performance by approximately three times each year...And...on top of it, the neural network architecture and the algorithms that are being developed are improving in accuracy by about twice each year...And so you’ve got these two exponentials that are happening, and it’s pretty exciting. That’s one of the reasons why AI is moving so fast." --Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang (GPUs)

The next revolution of AI is at the edge

"The next revolution of AI will be at the edge, and the most visible impactful evidence will be the autonomous vehicle. Our strategy is to build a ground-up deep learning platform for self-driving cars, and that has put us in pole position to lead the charge" --Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang (GPUs)

Industrials:

All in all there was good industrial activity in the quarter

"positives around oil and gas...infrastructure, aggregates, cement positives; seeing positives in machinery OEMs, transportation equipment and paper and food...all-in-all, we saw good activity in the quarter" --Applied Industrial Technology CEO Neil Schrimsher (Distributor)

Materials, Energy:

Dry Bulk shippers are starting to feel more positive

"We’re generally positive about the market from the second half 2017 onwards and we believe that every subsequent year will fare better than the year before...environmental regulations will thereafter not only contribute to a transition towards a cleaner environment, but it will also assist shipping in reducing vessel supply and will therefore lead us to better markets as of 2020 onwards." --Star Bulk Carriers CEO Petros Pappas (Dry Bulk)

Miscellaneous Nuggets of Wisdom:

Take care of your customer on their terms

"What we’ve learned is a customer comes with a return, that’s their errand they have to do, and the more efficient, the faster we are in doing that, the more free time we’re giving back to the customer. And oftentimes, they take that free time and start shopping. So we’re really looking to take care of the customer on their terms, and if they have a great experience in our store with a return, we certainly believe that ends up in good news for us." --Nordstrom President Erik Nordstrom (Dept Store)

Full transcripts can be found at www.seekingalpha.com

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