#however having my own space and with a decent amount of adult money

[ano-po]

The canon event where you move out of your Asian household and you realize you can throw your single-use plastic bags/containers because you have glass, ceramic, or woven baskets to keep your things. Your mind says "what if there is a new thing you must contain?" but you answer with "I don't have much to contain anyway." You have one eco bag that also works as a tote bag sometimes. It's holding on. It's very sturdy. You use it for books and groceries and gadgets. It's only one and you don't feel the need to buy another. You throw away the batteries (safely) that are empty, because what's the need to keep them around, only to be forgotten? Most of your things are solar-powered and rechargeable anyway. You don't buy clothes that you think you'll use somehow. You only have 5 sets of carefully thrifted clothes or heavily saved long-lasting designers. They're all adjustable. You accepted that the human body is ever flunctuating. You realize you don't have to keep that scrap of fabric. You bought one microfiber cloth you use for every kind of surface. You can squeeze it and it's all dry, not staying in the kitchen wet and slimy. You realize you can throw away the sticks you found in the woods NOPE NOPE I NEED THESE STICKS HERE thaNk you very much these are good sticks see KALI-KALI SIZE WOW nope these are staying!

[localdryadfaggot]

Hi! I've been wanting to get snails as pets for a while now and I was wondering if you have any tips for people just starting? I think your snails are adorable and I love the way you describe them 💜🐌

First of all, thank you so much! 💖 I’m going to put this post below a break for everyone’s sanity since it is quite long :) it will include different sellers information, general information on both aquatic and land snails (more so land snails since those are the ones I’m personally familiar with), terrarium information, snail care & diet, and links to external sources I found helpful!

Hope this helps and I’m so excited that you are interested in joining the snail brigade!!

I’m sorry in advance for anyone who accidentally clicks more 🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌

Okay so, aquatic snails

I’ll start out with the basics of actually acquiring the snails! Most snails you are going to find are going to be aquatic snails. They are amazing at cleaning up extra food, eating excess algae, and just overall keeping the tank clean! For aquatic snails, I can’t give you overly too much information as I don’t care for them myself, however they do make amazing pets and there are loooooaaaddsss of resources out there for you!

I highly recommend looking into any local aquatic store if aquatic snails interest you as big corporations such as Pet Smart or PetValu (or whatever the US equivalent is) often abuse their animals, have unsafe working conditions for (often underage) employees, and in general create a very unsafe environment overall.

By supporting local stores, you not only put your money directly back into your local economy (Yipee) but also are being given advice directly by someone who is likely an industry expert, rather than a teenage making 15$ an hour.

If you are unable to find any local stores, there are many reputable stores online that will ship directly to your home. Personally I’m in Canada so the websites I use may be different to yours if you are in a different country but there are many Reddit threads willing to help.

Alright, back to land snails

So I’m a florist and the snails I own come in through our floral shipment rather than being bought, but I looked around and found a few reputable snail sellers for you. I’ll link them at the bottom of the post.

Ground snails typically live between 2-3 years on average. Most snail seller (or snellers hehe) will raise them for a year before sale in order to make sure they are healthy and strong enough for shipment.

There are a pretty large variety of snail types available by online snellers so I linked a resource below that gives specifics on the different species and care guides for each specific type. Depending on type, prices can range from 10$ to upwards of 75$, though a decent chunk will have to go towards shipping and handling fees. Be prepared as well for possible customs fees as snails are live creatures. Just budget an extra 50$ if possible just to be safe.

I recommend starting with a smaller snail such as the Milk snail or the Garden snail as they are most commonly sold and overall have the most information available on the internet. They also have a slightly more varied diet overall which can be helpful when first starting out.

Terrarium Info (Jazz hands)

When choosing a terrarium, it’s important to remember that this will not just be a temporary holding area for your snails, it will be their HOME. Would you be interested in a home that’s cramped, stuffy, and with not a lot of places to explore? Probably not lol. Snails are fairly active creatures and giving them a good amount of space is important for their health and happiness.

Personally, I use a glass reptile terrarium for my snails which I believe is 10 gallons. I have 6 snails (five adult and one baby) so I opted for a slightly larger tank. If you only plan to have 1-2 snails, a five gallon should work well!

Make sure you get one with an enclosed lid or your snails WILL escape. And that wouldn’t be fun for anyone.

For inside the tank, there are a few things you’ll need. For the bottom I use a combination of sphagnum moss and coconut husk both rehydrated. This gives a soft moist base that allows the snails to dig around, fall off the walls without cracking their shell, and provides external moisture which is important for the snails as that is how they live.

Typically I change this out once a month. Just remember, you want it to be moist, not soggy. You shouldn’t be able to ring it out with your hands and have a bunch of water come out. Aim for how your hair feels after you towel it down after the shower. If you ring you hair out after towelling, a few drops may come out but it won’t be a stream of water.

I buy my moss in dried packs then rehydrate them in a bowl of water. You can find these at pretty much any pet store or dedicated house plant store. (NOTE: NOT a local florist. The moss at a florist is slightly different and often contains pesticides that wouldn’t be good for your snail.) always aim to shop local. Many of the sellers I listed below also sell limited amounts of moss.

I mix in coconut husk as it provides a bit of extra fluff and my snails enjoy monching in it when I’m late to feeding them :)

I would also recommend getting a small feeding tray so that your snails food doesn’t get spread out across the tank and so that when bits of the produce go bad, it doesn’t spoil within the tank and make it smelly. It is optional though if you are using a smaller tank.

Snails as well LOVE to climb around so I recommend getting them a branch of driftwood to place vertically within the tank just to give them that extra place to climb on :)

Lastly, give them a place to hide under. For me, that’s the little bridge in their terrarium. In nature, snails hide underneath objects to avoid predators, lay eggs, and sleep. Giving them that space is important to recreating their natural habitat!

If you are able, avoid anything with sharp edges such as plastic plants, as they can cut the snails body. Also avoid hard stones if you can as your snails could drop from the terrarium ceiling and crack their shell.

Circling back to the moss bedding, (and I’ll go over this is more detail in a later section) but snails typically burrow down into the moss in order to lay their eggs. Because of this, it is important to give them a thick enough layer that they can burrow, but not so thick that you won’t be able to spot the eggs.

I recommend as well getting a smaller plastic terrarium for travel, or if you need someone to watch over your snails etc etc. just add a small layer of moss from your main tank to keep the bacterial balance in check and you’re good to go 👍

Monch Monch, food time

Snails can eat most produce. I personally find with my snails that they love lettuce, carrots, celery, and bok choy the most. Though every snail is different and has a different appetite, it’s important to refresh their food once every day or two. If you wouldn’t eat the produce, you shouldn’t be feeding it to your snails.

Produce MUST be uncooked and unseasoned. Salt is deadly to snails and frozen veggies are typically pre-cooked so unfortunately unavailable. Onions and any other types of alliums are also not safe for most snails (or really like any pet for the most part lol).

It’s important as well that your snails have a source of calcium in their tank. I personally use cuttlefish bone which comes in a solidified powder. There is plenty of debate among the snail community on how the cuttlefish bone should be administered. Personally, I leave small (very small) chunks around the tank, and occasionally sprinkle some as a powder over their food and around their tank. This seems to keep them happy and healthy.

Other snailers argue that you should not put any near their food as it can cause the snails to OD on calcium. I’ve heard of people every couple weeks mixing it with a bit of water until is becomes a thick paste and leaving it in their tank for them to consume that way, but I don’t really see how that would prevent them from ODing compared to the other methods…

There is also snail food available which comes in a powder and when mixed with water into a thick paste acts as food for the snails but lack some of the key nutrients they get from fresh produce. It is great however if you are travelling and require something compact and temporary.

I personally stay away from anything too citrusy as I’m not 100% sure how they’d respond to it.

Day to day care

Day to day care is relatively easy. Personally I most their tank twice a day with a spray bottle and also have a humidifier that I occasionally run (it’s kinda bulky and takes up a lot of their tank so I don’t use it often). Keeping the tank moist but not soggy is important to maintaining your snails health. You’d be surprised how quickly a tank can dry out. Keep them away from windows as direct sunlight speeds up the drying process and can also burn your snails when the sun shines through the glass.

Switch out any old food after a day of two and replace. You don’t want their food bowl to be empty as snails run on a different internal clock than you or I so they may eat during the night when you aren’t looking.

Eggs, eggs, eggs!!!

The hardest part of being a snail owner is absolutely dealing with their eggs. Snails are androgynous creatures. They can switch their sexual organs at their convenience or even have both at the same time. There is no real way to tell them apart as their sexual organs are mostly internal. What this means for us is that they can fertilize and lay their own eggs asexually. They do also mate with other snails (more info below) but they aren’t required to.

When healthy, snails will lay eggs in clusters 1-2 times a month. They lay eggs in clusters that look like white pearls by burrowing in the moss or on the underside of surfaces (another part to why having hidey spots is so important to recreating their natural habitat).

Since snails are also simply built different, they can store fertilized eggs within their bodies so even if they haven’t mated with themselves or other snails, they still have the possibility of laying eggs.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU CULL THESE EGGS. You may think that not all will survive, or that you can leave them for a day or two but you honestly can never know how long the eggs have been there. On average, snail eggs take between 10-25 days to hatch. If you do not cull these eggs, you will be overrun by baby snails.

It. Will. Not. Be. Cute.

So, how do we cull eggs then? The most ethical, cost efficient and easiest way is the freezer method. Gently scoop up the egg clutch (they will usually separate in your hand, you aren’t doing anything wrong) and place into a ziplock bag. Remove that section of moss into a separate bowl and look through to see if you missed any. Then look under any surfaces and the edges of your tanks lid to see if you missed any. If you find any already hatched babies, you can also put them in the ziplock bag.

Then, place the bag into the freezer and allow to fully freeze for at least 12-24 hours. Once frozen, the eggs and any escapees will be put to sleep and be incapable of feeling any pain. At this point, you can roll a rolling pin over the bag to crush the eggs and any baby snails. They will not feel anything and it is the most ethical option for snail culling.

I know it may be tempting to just throw the eggs away but there are several reasons to avoid this. For starters, there is a chance that when you come across the eggs, they may be at the end of their gestational period and right about to hatch. I can assure you, you don’t want to have dozens of baby snails hatching in your trash can.

Say they make it to the landfill, they are then sentenced to a life of being stuck in a hot garbage bag filled with rotting food until they die. If they do escape, they are now an invasive species doing likely detrimental damage to local ecosystems. Same goes for flushing them down the toilet.

Freezing them is the most ethical for both the snails and the environment. If this is something that makes you uncomfortable, DO NOT GET PET SNAILS.

Just needed to emphasize that so you don’t get overrun by snails or introduce an invasive species to your surrounding area.

Other stuff!

If you snails shell cracks, don’t panic! As much as we love to take as best care of our snails as possible, they can be kinda dumb and sometimes they can take a tumble that cracks their shell. This doesn’t mean that they are dead though!

Though they can typically survive on their own, to help the healing process along, provide extra calcium, and shield the injured spot, you can take the thin membrane of an eggshell and apply it over the injured area. When it dries it will act as a bandage and some of the nutrients will be absorbed into the shell, making it stronger. You may want to consider placing your snail into a separate container if you have other snails as snails enjoy climbing over each other.

Snails can also hibernate for upwards of a week without movement or feeding. During this, it’s best to just leave them alone. They will often hide underneath a surface or attach themselves to the terrarium wall and simply vibe for a while. Why do they do this? Idfk I just live here.

To find out if your snail is alive, you can lift the shell and look inside. A living snail will have a little bit of body showing. If you can’t see this, wait a while before throwing your snail away as they may just be acting moody. You can typically tell if your snail is dead by the weight of their shell, bleaching and other discolouration of the shell, and hollow appearance if you shine a flashlight on the shell itself.

If you want, you can choose to crush up a dead snails shell to provide extra calcium for your still live snails. I don’t do that though because I feel bad but you do you boo 💖

Snail mating looks kinda freaky af. They will look like they are fully eating each other but I can assure you they are just boning. Do not try and remove the snails from each other if they are in the mating process and it could result in injury or death to the snails. They latch on pretty tight. Typically the snail will lay eggs 4-6 days after mating but they can store eggs for a pretty long while if they feel like it.

Thesis, body, conclusion

So yeah! Those are the main aspects of snail care!! If you have any other questions or concerns feel free to ask me!

I know the about of info I gave may seem kinda overwhelming but snails are truly such a great starter pet and pretty low maintenance once you know what to look out for! They just require consistent care and love on a daily basis and the occasional snail-bortion 💖 I love my snails and I’m sure you will as well!

Links!

These are some helpful resources but be sure to do your own research into local snellers and varieties before making any decisions! 💖

Snail types

Snellers

https://landsnails.org/en

Terrarium sellers

https://www.abcplants.com/the-plants-store?page=2

(There are plenty more terrariums on Amazon and I’m sure available locally, I just linked a few small businesses)

[squeemcsquee]

TFCon Chicago 2022: Saturday

Saturday started with @shbumi​ and I off to the Exhibition Hall and @lechevaliermalfet​ off to get an autograph from Peter Cullen. Now, despite not being a huge Transformers fan, I won’t lie – the dealers there have some super impressive stuff. Like, I completely understand why people drop a lot of money on some of the Transformer stuff on display. And the artists there are just as talented as at any other con.

But because I’m not the target audience, I probably burn out in there faster than in the dealer/artist space at anime cons or general pop culture cons. That’s not to say I didn’t find stuff – I did, over our multiple visits to the room. With my first purchase being energy drinks. I think I was feeling caffeine-deprived at the time and when you add it subtle pressure to buy from a polite but persistent pair of vendors…yeah. They actually taste pretty good though, so I might grab some again if I see them at another con. We’ll see.

I did find some other stuff, of course - my favorite purchase of the weekend was a page from one of the MLP/Transformers crossover comics.

After that first trawl through the available merchandise, we went to a panel on G1 Transformers with Sue Blu, Paul Eiding, and Ron Friedman. 

I missed a chunk of what was being said thanks to the guys sitting behind us who were having a very active discussion on photography. And no, they didn’t bother shutting up when I politely let them know they were being too loud. *sigh* I get that not every moment of every panel is going to be fascinating to all attendees – but in that case, if you must talk to kill time, whisper. Or just message each other on your phones in silent mode, if there aren’t rules against phones in the panel. Better still, walk out. Let someone else have your seats.

Yes, I was very grumpy over this.

I did walk out of that panel with a greater love for the character of Arcee though, so there’s that.

We took a food break after the panel. @shbumi​ headed to the autograph area after her lunch, since she also purchased a ticket for Peter Cullen. Compared to the reasonably well-organized experience @lechevaliermalfet​ had in the morning, @shbumi​ reported clusters of people, line confusion, and delays during the afternoon session.

@lechevaliermalfet​ and I opted to check out the costume contest that afternoon. It started a little late but otherwise was just fine. Just like with their panels, TF Con had video monitors up and filmed contestants as they entered, so that as many people as possible would get a good view, no matter where they sat in the room. We were actually seated right on the edge of a row, which was an excellent view – even if I also occasionally got a wonderful view of other people’s phones and cameras while trying to take my own photos.

The energy for the cosplay contest was pretty good – a very appreciative crowd. And the MC also kept things going at a decent pace. As is usual with costume contests that have age categories, the kids went first. The highlight for everyone was the youngster whose costume allowed him to actually transform between robot and car mode.

Among the adult contestants were a Starscream and Megatron who stole the crowd’s affection easily. You had your small handful of folks cosplaying the human characters, but let’s face it – folks are there for the ‘bots. The last contestant, cosplaying Ratchet, was nearly forgotten – and wisely noted that you’re screwed if you forget your medic!

A note on the emcee for the event, though – I was entertained by what I took to be over-the-top sarcasm and lighthearted jabs at characters. However, there are also those who viewed the commentary as being too mean and also leaving contestants awkwardly trying to determine how to respond. I can’t say which side is right – since I’m far more casual within the fandom, it’s possible I missed some subtext in what was said.

There was a small amount of downtime in the dealer hall after the cosplay contest and then it was time for Peter Cullen’s panel. Or rather, it was time to get in line for Peter Cullen’s panel.

TFCon does do a tiered badging system, which meant there were concerns that many regular attendees like us would be left out in the cold and unable to access Peter Cullen’s panel. After all, hotel ballrooms can only hold so many people, and we figured with such a high-profile guest, most of the seats would be taken by the VIP and Premium badge holders. So we were in line roughly 50 minutes before the listed start time of the panel.

The line got shuffled around and moved between three and five times before anyone ever got into the panel. There were issues with the sheer number of people in line causing blockages for the dealer’s hall. And allegedly the line stretched through the hotel and toward the doors out to the parking lot.

We were lucky enough to make it into the panel and get relatively good seats. And all I can say is, Peter Cullen is a treasure. He seems genuinely touched at the love the fans show him and eager to return it. He’s an excellent storyteller and made us all laugh several times during the panel. Especially during his reenactment of the moment he discovered Optimus Prime dies in the 80s movie, during the script read.

TFCon has the entire panel on their YouTube page and I highly recommend it.

After Peter Cullen’s panel, we were done with official TFCon events for the day. But @shbumi​ managed to drag us to a room party that night. Which is greatly outside the norm for us, but it was a fun experience. There were a few games, including a Madlibs-style bad fanfiction. 

The hostess had set her bathroom up as a mini-bar and was mixing drinks up – I tried a couple. Neither were exactly what I would order for myself normally but I’m glad I tried them.

 They were strong! Our hostess was mixing drinks for free, though tips were happily accepted and we all made sure we tipped for the night. All in all, I spoke with some cool people, had some laughs, and it was a good couple of hours.

 Oh, and @shbumi​ got a 3D-printed tiny robot dick.

All TFCon Chicago 2022 Coverage

Friday

Saturday (current post)

Sunday 

[inkofamethyst]

July 26, 2023

Today I finished moving out of my apartment. Also my last day in a classroom in my undergraduate uni. The apartment thing actually feels weird. That room.. I mean it never quite felt like home, exactly. But it was my safe space on campus. For two years it was mine. And now it's not.

I.. I think there's a good chance I may stretch myself a little thin during my phd. Like, I discovered this thing at my uni where I could essentially get a minor alongside my Big Degree. And they have lots of really cool, interesting options (classics! medieval! archaeology! so many others!!) which I would totally consider if I was an undergrad but I'm getting close to the point where my luck may start to run out so it's probably a good idea for me to go for something more applied, right? I looked at compsci because that's the big button topic right now, but they also have data science which seems to be a bit more social-sciencey in its approach which I vibe with, and it could/would be good additional training for just like, ~being a scientist~ generally. But it's like,,,, several extra courses (five) which I mean yeah I could complete it slowly, one or two at a time, over the course of the years following my first two, but I just don't know if it'd be a good idea. If it'd be too much of a distraction from the Big Degree. And then on top of that I was already considering doing a brief internship or two. And then maybe (though this idea is significantly less well-formed) doing an exchange program one term through the program my uni offers, and that's not even mentioning all the cool workshops they have going on all the time that I want to take part in,,,,,, it's just that, I mean sort of like when I entered undergrad I'm seeing all of the offerings and want to take advantage of it all. It's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but I do actually want to get through it. Healthily.

Anyway I haven't mentioned any of this to my advisor lol. Can't show too much excitement too early. Just an appropriate, adult amount (whatever that means).

I think the important thing to remember will be that all the extras are nice, but my eyes need to stay on the prize.

Over the past several years, I've pretty successfully (and, perhaps, quite dramatically) limited my firsthand/fast fashion pieces, partly due to having a better grip on my spending habits (now that I'm spending my money) and partly due to moral convictions. However, I've recently come to recognize that there are several pieces in my wardrobe that, while looking "pretty good" for being secondhand, may not be particularly becoming for a person who looks like me and who is entering the grad school environment. My mother is pushing me to get rid of some of those items (as well as other fast fashion pieces that I've owned since high school), and I somewhat begrudgingly agree. She's also pushing me to look for suitable replacements, mostly firsthand, mostly fast fashion. The only way I can honestly feel comfortable reverting a little bit is by recognizing the fact that I genuinely attempt to take good, long-term care of my clothes. So even if I buy something at Old Navy or Target or TJMaxx, there's a decent chance it'll last me through the next six years or more, especially if they're basics.

My mom and I did get into a disagreement (it was silly and out of love but we still disagreed) about my wardrobe recently though. She complains that I don't have any color among by blacks and browns and creams. This is factually incorrect, and I reminded her that I've got greens and am constantly on the lookout for more. She told me that my hunter (and forest and sage) greens didn't count because they were muted. I told her she was being picky. I also told her that I would be receptive to adding lilac. She said I should be more open than just that. But I couldn't explain at the moment that I'm trying to build a wardrobe that is mostly modular so that I can add in whatever colors I want and not have to worry about whether I have anything to wear with them. I'll already have several potential outfits with some random piece I get on a whim one day. Anyway I needed to buy new cases for my devices and decided to get them all in lilac out of spite (admittedly, the black/gray theme I did four years ago was, perhaps, a tad boring and uninspired, but now they're dreadfully cute (I would've gone with green, but my sister is also going through a green phase, and we've already been through a period of us having the same phone and case, plus I don't think commitment to any ~~~aesthetic~~~ has to be all that deep)) but my mom says that doesn't count because they're not wearable. She also said (again) that I dress like an old maid and I had to remind her that spinsters were women who, historically, made their own money and choices for themselves, so I'm not particularly ashamed to be associated with them.

Today I'm thankful that my Enterprise-D came in good condition!!! I haven't taken it out of the box yet, but it (and its stand) appear to be in the original, unwrapped packaging. Just lovely. I also finished off a gift card by grabbing a card game and some posters, one space-based and one botanical, both vintage-looking, so decor is coming along.

I don't really care to tell most people where I'm going for graduate school. It sets a lot of expectations that I feel like I'm not always able to live up to. So when they ask "well what's next" I say "oh just grad school" and then only open up if they ask for specifics. But today, an older Black woman asked for specifics and I told her and she seemed so excited for me. I was a little bashful, but it felt good. There was a.. a unity in that interaction, something we didn't have to say aloud but it was there. Some people seem proud of me in almost a selfish way, I feel like. And that feels.. not good. But today's interaction was different in a good way. I only just met her today, but I hope I can make her proud.

[victorluvsalice]

Sims Challenge Wednesday: Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines!

Hi all! We’re putting the usual Newcrest Adventures updates on pause for a week because I recently finished a little project I’ve been working on for a little while now -- doing Sims 4 challenges for two of my other favorite video games, Vampire: the Masquerade -- Bloodlines and Fallout 4! Yes, I’ve mentioned wanting to do this before on the blog, and now, finally, I’ve completed the initial drafts of each challenge! And I figured, who better to share them with than all of you. :) So let’s start off with the VTMB challenge!

(Oh, and note -- yeah, I just saw in the tags that someone’s actually come up with a VTMB-inspired Legacy challenge for The Sims 4. Mine’s a completely different one-generation challenge, but I am intrigued to see what’s going on with the Legacy version!)

VTMB SIMS 4 CHALLENGE

Premise: It all started out so well – a night out at the clubs, a flirtatious wink across the dance floor, a trip back to a seedy hotel room to get it on with your new partner. . .and then suddenly, in a mix of pain and pleasure, you find yourself lacking a heartbeat. And then some other people storm in, and you find out that:

A) you have been changed into a vampire

B) the person who changed you did not have permission to change you into a vampire

Your “sire” is put to death for disobeying the laws of the vampire underworld – but the rulers of your local city decide that you can be allowed to live. So long as you run a bunch of errands for them, of course. . .your only way out? Make some allies, make some money, gain a ton of power, and keep your head down until you can kick every one of these people’s asses personally. That is, if you (un)live that long. . .

This is a challenge loosely inspired by the experience of being the Fledgling PC in the video game Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines. The goals are to become a Grand Master Vampire, graduate from a shitty apartment to a decent one, and defeat a bunch of other vampires in duels to prove yourself.

Packs required: Vampires, Get Together, City Living, Eco Lifestyle, Island Living, Cats & Dogs/Cottage Living

Your Sim: Create your “Fledgling” in CAS. Your Fledgling should be a Young Adult. You may start them out as a vampire to start the challenge immediately, or start them as a human, make a sire for them, then have them changed in-game to gain a few days to build skills and enjoy sunlight. (Remember that the sire must be killed after your Fledgling starts their change! I recommend locking them outside in the sunlight.) The challenge starts the moment the Sim transforms fully into a vampire.

Each Fledgling vampire in Bloodlines belongs to one of seven clans – Brujah (clan of rebels and brawlers), Gangrel (clan of loners and animal lovers), Malkavian (clan of mentally ill people and oracles), Nosferatu (clan of warped looks and computer specialists), Toreador (clan of lovers and artistes), Tremere (clan of magicians and scholars), or Venture (clan of leaders and those of rarefied tastes). Pick one clan for your Fledgling and assign them an appropriate personality trait –

Brujah – “Hot-Headed”

Gangrel – Either “Cat Lover,” “Dog Lover,” or “Animal Enthusiast”

Malkavian – “Erratic” (you may sub in a custom trait for mental illness if you have one)

Nosferatu – “Geek”

Toreador – Either “Art Lover” or “Music Lover”

Tremere – “Bookworm”

Ventrue – “Snob”

Optional: Also assign your Fledgling the “Kleptomaniac” trait as, in the original Bloodlines game, you do end up stealing a lot of stuff to sell to vendors for quick cash.

Optional: If you’re strictly following how vampires work in Bloodlines, leave your vampire’s Dark Form identical to their normal form except for their fangs (except if you’re playing a Nosferatu – then instead customize the Dark Form to look like their post-transformation Orlockian-self (think Straud’s Dark Form) and have the “regular” form be the disguise they wear around humans to fit in). However, if you really want to do a custom Dark Form, I’m not going to be the one to stop you.

Their World: Set up the rest of the save file according to the below guidelines:

Your fledgling must live in a terrible apartment in either San MyShuno or Evergreen Harbor. This apartment must have a low-quality bed, a low-quality kitchen, a small low-quality bathroom, a TV, and a desk with the cheapest laptop. It must also have at least the “Filthy” lot challenge. Upon moving there, set their starting money to $100 (this is the amount they got for expenses).

Make or download at least three or four other vampires (depending on if you want to use the premade Vladislaus Straud or not) and make sure that they live in nice apartments/houses and are at least Master rank (cheats are totally allowed for this). These vampires must all be part of the same club (your choice for the name), with one chosen as the leader – this is the club that “rules” over all the local vampires and is making sure your Fledgling doesn’t step out of line. Set them up to meet regularly either at one of their homes or at an appropriately-kicking nightclub. Club activities are at your discretion, though remember – if they’re in public, they shouldn’t break the Masquerade by showing off powers or drinking plasma!

Make one “Independent” vampire and set them up however you wish, though they must be at least Master rank as well. They may be important to your Fledgling later!

Make sure you have at least four nightclubs (obviously they don’t have to all be in the same world) for your Fledgling to visit on the regular.

Goals:

Your Fledgling is looking to complete the following:

Become a Grand Master vampire, with all the power and perks that entails

Complete the Master Vampire aspiration (they may work on other aspirations as well)

Earn at least $5,000 simoleons

Move into better digs (either a better apartment or their own house)

Defeat all the members of the ruling club of vampires in Vampiric Duels

Rules:

Your Fledgling is not allowed to get a normal job, as per the rules of the council. Your Fledgling is only allowed to earn money by selling items they have made or found (or swiped, if they have the right trait) to other Sims, or by doing Odd Jobs. Any Odd Jobs that your fledgling finds that come from the ruling council (that is, if you see their picture by the job description) must be prioritized.

Your Fledgling may drink from plasma packs both purchased and homemade, but cannot use plasma fruit while the challenge is ongoing. (This means no doing the Good Vampire aspiration until you’ve completed your goals!)

Your Fledgling may drink from Sims, but must not break the Masquerade in doing so. They must either isolate the Sim they choose to drink from and compel them for a drink; or they must isolate the Sim and flirt with them at least five times before asking for a drink (to make it seem like they’re asking to make out or woohoo instead of drink their plasma). Either way, they must not be seen feeding by other Sims. The Fledgling is allowed five slip-ups – after that, the challenge is failed and they are put to death.

Your Fledgling must get to know the ruling vampires – a friendly relationship, however, is very much not necessary. They are going to be battling them sooner or later for the right to live life on their own terms!

Your Fledgling must follow the rules of their clan when purchasing powers: All vampires may purchase the Garlic Immunity, Vampire Creation, and Child of the Moon powers. Brujah vampires may purchase the Detect Personality, Vampiric Strength, Vampiric Slumber, Supernatural Speed, and Influence Emotion powers. Gangrel vampires may purchase the Bat Form, Vampiric Strength, Vampiric Slumber, Dampened Emotions, and Beyond The Herd powers. Malkavian vampires may purchase the Cast Hallucination, Command, Irresistible Slumber, Deprive Needs, and Influence Emotion powers. Nosferatu vampires may purchase the Eternally Welcome, Vampiric Strength, Irresistible Slumber, Odorless, and Mist Form powers. Toreador vampires may purchase the Eternally Welcome, Vampiric Charm, Mesmerize, Supernatural Speed, and Influence Emotion powers. Tremere vampires may purchase the Occult Student, Command, Manipulate Life Spirit, Deprive Needs, and Immortal Pleasures powers. Ventrue vampires may purchase the Detect Personality, Command, Mesmerize, Dampened Emotions, and Beyond The Herd powers. No vampires may purchase the Sun Resistance or Tamed Thirst powers.

Your Fledgling must also follow the rules of their clan when it comes to weaknesses: All vampires must purchase the Withered Stomach weakness – human food is indigestible to them. Brujah vampires like to rebel and fight – they should get into a fight with another Sim at least once every three days. They may fight the ruling vampires, but it doesn’t count as “defeating” them until they do it in an official vampire duel. They are also encouraged to purchase the Sloppy Drinker or Insatiable Thirst weaknesses. Gangrel vampires prefer open spaces and animals to being around people – they should have at least one pet (probably a cat or dog, although if you think you can fit a chicken coop or animal shed into their final home. . .) and prioritize socializing with that pet over socializing with other Sims. They are also encouraged to purchase the Uncontrollable Hissing or Undead Aura weaknesses. Malkavian vampires must deal with their madness – they should indulge their whims as much as possible (no matter how little sense they make – hell, the less sense the better), and you’re encouraged to let them do their own thing as much as possible as well (full autonomy on, people!). They are also encouraged to purchase the Uncontrollable Hissing or Fitful Sleep weaknesses. Nosferatu vampires are all warped by their curse into visions of pure ugliness – they should stay in their Dark Form as much as possible and only “put on their human disguise” to go to a club – and even then, they can only “keep up the illusion” for four hours. Being seen on a community lot by a large group of mortals in your Dark Form is a Masquerade violation, so keep track of the time! They are also encouraged to purchase the Dayphobia or Undead Aura weaknesses. Toreador vampires are mesmerized easily by what they personally consider beautiful, and are also a little more sensitive to the fact that they’ve become undead monsters – they should spend as much money as they can on beautiful artwork for their homes every three days, and spend most of their time admiring lovely objects and/or Sims when they’re out and about. They are also encouraged to purchase the Guilty Drinker or Eternal Sadness weaknesses. Tremere vampires are insular and ill-trusted by other vampires, and are so focused on their scholarly pursuits they lack physical fitness – they should not bring any of their relationships with other vampires up above “Acquaintance” (barring the Independent, see below), and should not improve the Fitness skill (or any other physical sport-related skill) above 5. They are also encouraged to purchase the Sloppy Drinker or Dayphobia weaknesses. Ventrue vampires may only drink from certain kinds of people – they should pick a distinguishing feature (hair color, eye color, personality trait, etc) and then only drink from Sims with that trait. They may drink regular plasma packs, but cannot drink ones made from fish or frogs. They are also encouraged to purchase the Guilty Drinker or Insatiable Thirst weaknesses. Optional: Your Fledgling can take the Thin-Skinned weakness no matter their clan, but I actually wouldn’t recommend it – while it fits with the World of Darkness lore, your Fledgling is going to have to be active during the day for their Odd Jobs most likely. Basically, take that one at your own risk!

Your Fledgling may befriend your Independent vampire – in fact, this is encouraged, as the Independent vampire can teach them a new power! Upon becoming friends with the Independent vampire, your Fledgling may learn one “out-of-clan” power that does not conflict with any of their weaknesses.

Your Fledgling must visit a nightclub once every three days to socialize, dance, and generally pretend to be human. If they can find a way to make money at the club or discreetly feed, even better.

Your Fledgling must “officially” defeat all members of the ruling vampire club in Vampiric Duels in order to break their hold on their unlives. Once this is accomplished, they may get a Freelancer job or sell things direct from inventory instead of to other Sims to pay the bills, as they are no longer under the club’s thumb.

Optional Hard Mode – Four Factions: There’s not one club, there’s four – and none of them like each other! Make three extra clubs, each with at least four vampire members, to represent the four main factions of the original game – the Camarilla (the “official” vampire government, kind of stodgy), the Anarchs (rebellious and looking for more freedoms), the Sabbat (want to revel in their monstrous nature), and the Kuei-Jin (Asian “vampires” who are trying to take over the area; feel free to make them a different kind of occult altogether!). Your Fledgling may choose to join any one of these clubs, or none of them. If they join a club, they have to defeat the leaders plus one member of each of the other clubs in Vampiric Duels to earn their freedom; if they go Independent, they just have to take down all four leaders.

Optional Hard Mode – Limited Map: Your Fledgling can only travel between the worlds of Evergreen Harbor (Santa Monica), San MyShuno (Downtown L.A.), Del Sol Valley (Hollywood), and Mt. Komorebi (Chinatown – it’s the closest we’ve got, just stick to the more city-like neighborhood). Their initial bad apartment must be in Evergreen Harbor, and they must upgrade to one of the best apartments in San MyShuno.

Optional Hard Mode – The Sequel: Your Fledgling is actually the protagonist of the ever-in-production Bloodlines 2 – aka, they’re a Thin-Blood, and their Embrace was REALLY illegal. Adjust the rules as follows:

Thin-Bloods often don’t show signs of any clan, but they are generally hunted and killed just for existing. If you have StrangerVille, I would recommend the “Paranoid” personality trait, but otherwise, customize them as you see fit.

After buying their shitty apartment, you must set their starting funds to zero – they did not receive anything for expenses, because. . .

They’re not under the thumb of the ruling vampires, they’re on the run from them. To be caught is to be killed, so your Fledgling must avoid their notice. Do not attempt to interact with them before you’re powerful enough to take them on, and avoid any Odd Jobs that come from them. (They may still talk to the Independent vampire, who doesn’t care about the politics.)

Their lack of clan means they may choose from almost any of the available powers (aka, anything but Sun Resistance and Tamed Thirst), but must have double the points needed to buy them before they can purchase them (due to their weak vampire blood). They also cannot sire new vampires, so they cannot take Vampire Creation. Befriending the Independent vampire allows them to purchase one power for normal cost.

[foilfreak]

Headcannons for my favorite One Punch Man rarepair: Golden Ball x Spring Mustachio

Both joined the Hero Association around the same time and knew of each other in passing, due to living in the same city, but didn’t officially meet until about 8 months in, and as a result of that, these two did NOT like each other at all during those first 8 months. Spring Mustachio thought Golden Ball was just another crass and reckless delinquent using heroism as a legal outlet for violence, and Golden Ball thought Spring Mustachio was an entitled rich boy who was probably paying his way up the hero ranks. When the two heroes were finally forced to formally introduce themselves to one another at the first annual Hero Association banquet, or some other equivalently pointless publicity stunt the Associacion probably put on at some point or another, they were shocked to find just how wrong their initial judgments of one another actually were.

Despite Golden Ball’s appearance, what with the bleach-blonde hair, slightly baggy clothes, tall, muscular frame, and the lollipops that Spring Mustachio correctly guesses are a substitute for cigarettes, Golden Ball is actually incredibly intelligent, having earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering (this particular headcanon is inspired by @batneko) from a highly prestigious university (currently considering going back for his PhD if he can save up the money), and all of his signature weapons are his own personal inventions. Likewise, Spring Mustachio, despite having the appearance and persona of someone who grew up having everything handed to him on a silver platter, had long ago rejected the escalator to success his parents had offered him in the form of taking over as head of their family business, in favor of going out on his own to explore the world and everything it had to offer, mastering the art of swordsmanship and opening his own restaurant (where even after hiring a decent sized staff, he still took up menial tasks such as washing dishes and serving guests) along the way.

After getting to know each other at that first meeting, the two heroes became surprisingly fast friends, their personalities mixing rather well together on top of having many shared interested, and even began hanging out outside of their hero duties, where they already spent a considerable amount of time together considering how frequently the Association paired them together for missions. Most of their time outside of work was spent at Spring Mustachio’s restaurant, engaging in casual, slightly teasing conversation over onion rings and a couple rounds of beer after a long day of hero work. Later on into their friendship however, it became much more common for Golden Ball to also come into the restaurant during the day to bother the older man during his shift, not that Spring Mustachio minded the company one bit, especially if it meant having a couple of extra hands available to dry the dishes he’d just washed. It eventually got to the point where it was pretty much common knowledge throughout the city that if Golden Ball wasn’t out on a patrol or sent away on a mission for the Association, the first place you ought to check if you’re looking for him would be Spring Mustachio’s. Likewise if it’s Spring Mustachio you’re looking for and the restaurant is a no-go, try your hand at getting ahold of Golden Ball, cuz wherever he is, chances are that Spring Mustachio is standing right next to him. Its a wonder how the whole city doesn’t start assuming the two are dating when they begin referring to each other as ‘Gold’ and ‘Spring’, during hero work, and exclusively by their first names when off the clock.

The two heroes remain nothing more than close friends for full year after their first meeting, and while both had developed more-than-friendly feelings for one another over that time, neither were planning on doing anything about it, not wanting unrequited feelings to potentially ruin the incredible friendship they’d formed, among the other internal struggles that come with accepting that you’re attracted to other men in a society that, although no longer criminalizes homosexuality, definitely still doesn’t view it in a positive light by any means. Spring Mustachio has been in the closet his whole life and plans to keep it that way to avoid the potential social backlash. Golden Ball on the other hand didn’t realize he was bisexual until grad school and has since only managed to work up the courage to come out to his (thankfully incredibly supportive) family and closest childhood friends. Needless to say neither of them were in the headspace to even think about confessing, especially when they had so much to lose should it not go well, and both heroes were content to simply let their feelings die out over time if it meant that their friendship would remain intact.

Things change however, when Golden Ball’s place gets totally trashed in a monster attack, and the younger man finds himself staying with Spring Mustachio at his house until it can be repaired. Now not only do both men have to deal with their budding feelings for one another, but they also have to deal with their budding feelings for one another while also figuring out how to coexist in the same space, made even more interesting by the fact that Golden Ball has two pitbulls, Gizmo and Tonka, and Spring Mustachio isn’t the biggest fan of dogs (spoiler: Spring Mustachio falls in love with the sweet little puppers and spoils them absolutely rotten, much to Golden Ball’s amusement). Over the couple of months it takes for Golden Ball’s apartment to be fixed the men learn several things about each other that never would have come to light in any other context, including, but not limited to: Spring Mustachio’s extensive collection of alcohol bottles from all the drink’s he’s tried over the years (and of course all the stories that come with those bottles), Golden Ball’s horrific nicotine addiction being the result of an undiagnosed anxiety disorder that got BAD toward the end of undergrad and was forced to come to an end when he had a heart attack at 25, the tumultuous relationship Spring Mustachio has had with his family (specifically his parents) since breaking away from the plan they had created for him, the fact that Golden Ball is easily the biggest nerd that Spring Mustachio has ever met (and probably the smartest too), the brief run Spring Mustachio had as a competitive fencer in his early 30s that Golden Ball thinks he should get back into, the adorable way Golden Ball talks to his dogs when he thinks no one is listening, and so much more.

These things of course only cause their feelings to worsen and the situation just continues to spiral out of control from there. Im torn over whether I want them to actually get together in like a nice, mature way, like they ultimately end up talking abou their feelings to just get them off their chests, you know like adults, or if i want them to confess after getting into a huge fight, like maybe one of them got really hurt and some things they didnt actually mean were said and so they didn’t talk for a bit but then they end up tracking each other down and confessing after the tension finally snaps or something like that. I’ll leave that up for you all to decide but what i will say is that they get together just as Golden Ball’s apartment is finished being rebuilt, but with his lease being up at the end of the month and having already settled rather comfortably at Spring Mustachio’s place, he decides not to renew the lease and just stay where he is, much to Spring Mustachio’s delight.

As for their families, Spring Mustachio tells only his older sister and younger brother, who are confused, but ultimately supportive and happy that their brother found someone he truly loved and wanted to be with. His parents end up finding out somehow and while they aren’t exactly thrilled about it when they first learn that their eldest son is dating another man nearly 20 years his junior, they are, to their credit, polite and avoid making any inappropriate comments on the rare occasions he and Golden Ball do agree to visit the estate for dinner. Golden Ball initially only tells his parents, but things rarely stay secret for very long in his family, and not even a week goes by before his grandparents are calling asking if he’ll be bringing his new boyfriend to the cookout at the end of the month. Spring Mustachio has a fantastic time meeting the plethora of grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and close family friends that make up Golden Ball’s wonderfully lively family, though he does end up getting thrown into the pool by Golden Ball’s older brothers at some point, as is custom treatment for “new members” of the family. He doesn’t seem to mind all that much, especially when Golden Ball’s mother finally breaks out the baby pictures and he gets to coo over how adorably plump his boyfriend was as an infant, much to said boyfriend’s growing embarrassment.

For professionalism’s sake they decide to keep the relationship on the dl and though the two are rarely seen apart, they save the more intimate moments and actions for behind closed doors. No need to give the press an excuse to start shit.

Let me know what you think of my headcanons and what your headcanons are for this rarepair if you have any!!!

[msatlantathickdream]

Greetings to you! On this Mirror Manic Money Making MANIFESTATION MONDAY!! October 11, 2021.

So,I am doing some adjustments to my pages especially my Facebook “the beast”account. I have been studying this beast and its algorithm for awhile now, and I have taken notice how it has affected my following too.

Most of the individuals on my FB (ms.atlantathickdream) are people from the lifestyle, some are my Spiritual folks, and then there is the actual bread breaking-money spending consumer of mine. Men who were either on my adult streaming platforms and found me on the “beast” or men who just stumbled upon me from scrolling. 

The majority of these people are also on my Instagram(ms.atlantathickdream)-the cousin of the beast(FB). When IG was created,the app probably suggested that they follow me there since they were also on my FB page too. Many of them clicked “add friend” only to increase how many friends that appeared on their profile...some of them were NEVER interested in my work...my energy, and were most definitely not considering doing paid business with me. So..this explains a lot...or does it??!!

Yes and NO--it does not explain why when I was doing FREE live positive vibe motivational FB post I had a decent amount of people participating in engagement(but barely did I receive any paid private booking consultations for readings and intimacy/confidence coaching). And when I chose to show up to do my live “Chitty Chats” dishing on my “End of The Day Thoughts”..people showed up for those..I guess to hear me run my mouth or to see what the fuck I was wearing and what I’ve been up to---oh---and to see if I’d possibly bust out and do a little TWERK/dance break for them.

See---after yesterdays lesson...I begun drastically trimming my FB “friends list”. Yesterday evening, I got in my feeling’s kinda deep about my Raphael the Masculine post, where I shared my snippets of me acting as my Masculine side. I did it for (drama therapy) healing, comedy reasons and creative expressive purposes too..shit-to showcase my acting talents! I also later posted the same thing on my YouTube channel (atlthickdream) and my Twitter (atl_thickdream) but I chose to premiere it first on the beast(FB). I even went so far as tagging certain random “friends” in the comments (like some people do me,who want me to support their post)...well-that was a fail...the views on the post was low. 

Now THAT was the final straw for me because as a (for profit) content Creator and a expressive being---the ability to do multiple creativity post is important. I felt (unsupported and misunderstood) YUP-boxed in..but the thing about me when I feel that way I take gasoline and light that bitch up!  

Yes I was somewhat “hurt” that people I tagged-most had not taken the time to engage with my post, but I see them popping up on MY timeline. Yes I was also somewhat “hurt” that someone who has met me in person, a Spiritual “friend” commented “huh” then “chiillee”. Why was I hurt? Because as a Artist and a Creative being who has struggled with people in her personal life accepting all sides of ME-I’ve been doing tons of inner work and healing that I’ve shared and allowed others to witness my growth...plus shared my career desires privately to some as well (some close individuals who happened to be tagged on the post too). So you fucking right...I was feeling some way last night. This was another shake I needed to get myself out of spaces where I am not understood and genuinely supported. 

Last night I started removing people until my eyes got heavy. And soon as I hit the floor this morning, I started back up again reducing my “friends list”. I dedicated my day or however long it took me to chop down the beast list. After almost an hour of removing people-the BEAST bites back and restricts my account!!! The beast disabled me from unfriending on my OWN PROFILE!! Wow!! Yall..this is crazyyy..I know...but a TRUE STORY! I waited a few hours to see if the block would reset...nope! The feature was not restored! The beast was not having that action..the beast trying to keep me down and tied down to what it thinks is my “friends”! What the hell people?! I did message the help center on “the beast” but of course no response at all. 

Listen Dear Reader--its not like “the beast” doesn’t know that I am Public Figure it owns the cousin IG..where I am listed as a Public Figure there AND I have several like pages&a FANPAGE on Facebook too..so it knows I am there for business not leisure. Shit..I feel bad for the people who actual try to downsize their pages on the only day of the week they had off..they would be screwed. 

Lastly, I want you the reader to know this...I do also believe that I have been shadow banned slightly on IG because I have been out networking and folks had major difficulty finding my page and on another occasion my bestie couldn’t find my IG even when she searched me. I had to DM her in order for her to get directly linked to me. I wouldn’t be surprised this is what is going on with the beast/FB because I rarely post on it. And these two apps are known for making the self promotion job of Colored sexy creatives difficult (to be seen and heard).  

Anyway...I’ll continue to reduce my list on FB, once this feature is restored. I shall WIN against the BEAST! Followers can follow me still but I will not answer “friend” request. 

Hugs to you,

~Dream~

[popculturebuffet]

Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Restrospective: The Raider of the Copper Hill! “You Got Rich Son”

Hello all you happy people! And welcome back to my retrospective of the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck! It’s been far too long, almost three months since we last checked in with Scrooge and frankly I feel i’ve been spacing these entries out too much for this one and for the retrospectives that aren’t paid for in general. So expect at least one McDuck adventure a month till I finish, possibly two when I can swing it like this month. 

Now i’m done beating myself up, when we last left off a younger more naive, more optimistic and less experienced Scooge took up a career as a cowboy for  Cattle Baron, gained his first sidekick in the form of his Horse Hortense, and took out some cattle thieves with the help of Teddy Fucking Roosevelt. 

This chapter marks the end of the story’s first act. The first act is about a younger and far nicer Scrooge: still onrey and still a cheapskate, but still a good kid and far more outwardly friendly and welcoming, a far cry from the bitter untrusting man we come to know. This chapter is one of the reasons why, as Scrooge learns a hard lesson about wealth and success, the sacrifices one needs to make for family and about sticking your hand in a lightbulb while it’s plugged in. So join me under the cut as Scrooge meets another valuable mentor, one of his greatest enemies, and about 50 feet of barbed wire. 

We begin with the end of Scrooge’s time as a ranch hand and cowpunch. With homesteaders moving in and dividing up the land, Murdo simply dosen’t have the space for cattle baroning anymore and has to let Scrooge go and head back to texas. We do get a great bit of Scrooge wrapped in barbed wire, having gone to cut some down so Murdo could move the herd out. 

So with his Job done and parting on good terms with his old boss, Scrooge sets up his own homestead on some land near the Anaconda Silver Mine, trying to make it as a prospector, starting on the path that would eventually lead him to riches.. in about a decade and a half.

 So Scrooge bemoans his rotten luck over Dinner with a stranger, Marcus Daly owner of said mine... who just.. randomly sat down to have dinner with a 17 year old. 

Marcus belays his own woes: While Scrooge has failed at what he tried to do, having gotten into both steamboating and cattle punching too late to go anywhere with either, Daly has a silver mine that’s full of copper: decent amoutns of it but still not what his investors wanted. 

Both however find their fortunes reverse in an instant in the weirdest way possible. The light goes out at their table and Scrooge tries to adjust it only to electcute himself. To his shock...

He finds out it’s running on electricty, which is starting to become widespread.. and requires vast amounts of copper wiring. Scrooge is back in the game but finds trouble getting equipment as the local seller naturally is a jackass who jacks up the price. Scrooge instead sells the gold teeth his dad gave him to the nearest gentleman after talking him into it. . And i’ts not even the weirdest transaction i’ve seen this week. 

For the record those weird things are the guy on the left’s skinflakes, his power is to make naked golems of himself out of his dandruff and skin flakes and what have you, while the guy on the right is paying for a mutant with a star for a head. So yeah a scottish cowboy selling his ancestor’s dentures to pay for mining gear is refelshingly tame after all of this. 

So we get the comic equivleant of a montage as Scrooge starts his work at prospecting, making a portable homesteader shack as a miner owns any land he lives on, and moving around to try and find it, but he runs into a problem: with his last two careers he had mentors to help him learn what to do: Pothole taught him riverboating and Murdo helped him learn to ride the trails. Here he has no one and while you can self teach a lot of things prospecting isn’t one of them. 

He end sup finding one though as a rich gentleman asking about the mine happens to wander by: Howard D. Rockerduck. If that names sounds familiar it should as he’s indeed the father of exactly who your thinking of and we meet a young 10 or so year old john who asks him to stop dealing with a grubby workman. We also find out whose responsible for him turning out ot be such a piece of work as his mother’s response to his father telling him “I used to be a grubby workman is well... word’s cant’ do this amount of classist bulslhit justice. 

Seriously his unnamed wife is so odious it hurts. And how the fuck did an honest, kind man like Howard end up with this bitch? It’ sbaffled me every time i’ve read this: did he marry for money? is he a gold digger? go down gold dig get down? Is she just THAT good in bed? Did he just make a horrible mistake one night? Did she lie to him about who she was? Was she replaced by a skrull? I have questions no duck comic has properly explained.. and if they have please tell me.  Also it does tickle me we’re getting a bit with a duck named howard though sadly he wears a top hat instead of a nice little bowler. And if you don’t know who howard the duck is.. shame on you. And if you’ve seen the movie.. my deepest sympathies. 

While Howard laments wanting to horsewhip his son, this was a century ago with change mind you standards were different and also John sucks. Howard crticizes Scrooge’s techqniue after introducing himself, and Scrooge and him get into a bit of a tizzy, with Howard offering to teach him for two cents.. but the hostility quickly desolves hours later as Scrooge realizes Howard was right and he’d been doing things completely wrong and the thrill of hard honest work again has washed away any ego driven competiviness. 

I”ll get more into Howard in a second but he does eventually strike copper, and while the vein is full it’s also thin. But Howard has one final trick and takes Scroogey for an ore test. I tried to find more on this but just found a lot of ways to do it yourself and what not. I”m now really intrigued how they did this and found the content of minerals. I know it’s a dull subject but i’m curious how they did it with the technology of the time. Did they just use acids like I found? If so how’d they get them? I do say this is one of the great qualities of Rosa’s works: he makes you want to learn more about history. I looked up more about TR after the last chapter and now I want to know how the hell metallurgy worked in the late 1800′s. 

We then get an intresting interacton as Scrooge.. warmly greets the townsfolk and vice versa.. yes the same Scrooge who as an adult would be introduced proclaming...

Is warm, optimistic and wholeheartedly belieives...

As you can probably tell by Howard’s reaction and what Scrooge becomes.. this story’s all about shattering that notion and is the first of two to shatter the poor kid’s trust in people and make him into the bitter old sod we know. 

The sample comes back 55% positive... which leaves Howard rushing to get Scrooge to a court house. As it turns out there’s an old, very real for the time, mining law called the Law of Apex: whoever owns the land closest to where an ore vein is on the surface owns the whole thing... so legally Scrogoe owns the ENTIRE ANACONDA COPPER MINE, which at this point as detailed in the time skip has gone from struggling to utterly thriving and sucessful. Whoever owns the land at the time the Judge rules it gets the mine.. and Scrooge’s friends, who seconds ago were concerned about him being dragged into court.. are now all scrambling to take his fortune, something Howard dosen’t seem at all suprised about. 

But while this may be a kinder, more naive Scrooge McDuck, it’s still SCROOGE MCDUCK. His response is to cut a nearbye power wire and swing it tarzan style over to hortense and ride her back ahead of the mob... with the electric wire slapping her rear and causing her to go extra fast.. and also quit. So Scrooge stands alone but manages to take out some of the ruffians with his shack while John and the Judge rush to the site. As for Scrooge well... you want to see what a McDuck family beserker rage against an ENTIRE angry mob of opportunistic assholes look like? 

And this isn’t even the most badass thing Scrooge will do this series. Or even in the next few issues. That’s how awesome this series is: fighting an angry mob SOLO with simply his pure rage and whatever he can grab and throw. And he WINS. He’s exausted and passes out, falling out of the sky on his final opponent.. but he took out what was at the LEAST 50 men, and ONLY passed out because one of them threw dynamite in his out house.. and even THAT didn’t kill him or put him out, simply casuing him to land on said dynamite throwing idiot and wins. 

We find out Rockerduck actually was one of the mine’s owners but helped Scrooge anyway: he has more than enough money and all it’s going to do in the end is go to a greedy brat. Marcus Daly shows up and while he’ll get the law overturned eventually, he still has to shut down while that happens and finds the right officials to bribe. And this is the 1800s... you gotta go by train to do your bribes. You can’t just do that shit over email and hidden bank accounts. Daly offers him 10,000.. but given what Scrooge could earn even before he got his mine back, Scrooge turns it down. 

However this victory is bittersweet as Scrooge warmly greets his friends.. only for one to cuss him out and the other to tell him to get loss. We then get one of my faviorite exchanges in this story.

This whole Panel is a masterwork. The sheer INNOCENCE on Scrooge’s face, almost looking like Donald, desperately wondering what he did, when as Howard points out.. he did nothing wrong. He simply got successful and they resent him for it. 

This has been a hard paragraph for me to write as I want to tread carefully. People do have good reasons to scorn the rich or celebrtiies sometimes. Some rich people or those in the media are genuinely terrible. Jeff Bezos, Tucker Carlson, Mel Gibson, Louie CK, Joss Whedon and even someone as low on the totem pole as Doug Walker is odious. And of course we all can think of one odious example of rich bastard i’d rather not think of, especially when thinking of John D Rockerduck and what he’l lbecome as an adult that i’m not giving a pleasure of the name drop but came to mind. 

But even for good people becoming succesful puts up a barrier between you and other people: Fans of yours will admire you or write fanfic or what have about you without even knowing you, i’ve been on that side, and some people will hate you just because without valid reason, especially in this day and age. Success breeds resentment and even people you trusted and loved can sometimes turn on you. It’s the double eged sword of achieving your dreams: You get what you wanted but you often loose what you had. 

And it was no diffrent two centuries ago, with Scrooge’s friends only being friendly as long as it suited them, turning on him first to steal his chance at glory and then to scorn him for daring to achieve it. Some people.. are only there for you as long as your not above them. And sometimes you can be happy. Look at Tom Hanks, who has a lovely family and a long and storied career. Or Linkara, a youtuber who has been at this for over a decade, has tons of fans, a loving wife with her own succesful channel, and just recently got contacted by his childhood heroes. You CAN be happy and successful.. it’s just very hard to make it that far. 

One of the central points of life and times is that’s often not the case: You can get what you want but it comes at a cost. And it’s how you pay that price that will determine how happy you are. Another central point intertwined with it is it’s not the journey but the destination, and i’ts how Scrooge takes that journey that ultimately leads him where he ends up good and bad. And we get an all to telling all too foreboding hint in how he takes everyone he knew for at least a year turning on him overnight. 

When faced with his first real loss on this Journey that wasn’t material.. he dosen’t care. He has his money and riches and that’s enough. And as we’ll see that attitude will cost him greatly. Howard is irate for a moment, hoping he wasn’t wrong in trusting Scrooge.. and indeed, for now, turns out to have placed his faith in the right person as Scrooge gets a telegram: his family needs him. And while he could stay, turn his back on them, and earn MILLIONS.. he tells Howard  to tell the owner he’s taking the deal. For now when given the choice between his family and his fortune, SCrooge will choose them. Sadly.. that won’t hold true forever. 

With this being the end of his time in the story, as he has a still insufferable John buy him a horsewhip for horrific but darkly funny reasons, as John brags about how rich his father is not realizing he’s buying his own whupping tool, i’d like to touch on Howard D Rockerduck and how amazing he is. Rosa managed to pack a throughly interesting, throughly engaging character into only 8 pages. While Rockerduck DID show up earlier in of ducks dimes and destinys, he wasn’t really fleshed out or named and only showed up for one page so still 9 pages total. 

But in those we see a kind and noble man whose easily what Scrooge COULD have been, kind, noble, generous, hardworking and willing to give up money to help people. He’s a good man.. but even he’s seen the sacrifice Money brings. He’s clearly lost friends, lost a sense of peace, and married the wrong Woman, whose poisoned his children into a spoiled brat who will only grown into an even more spoield adult in both continuities.. if raised quite a bit earlier in the 2017 cartoon as he was made scrooge’s contemporary there rather than a child, but semeantics. Point is Howard hismelf isn’t wholly satisfied with his success.. and that’s what he and Scrooge will forever have in common, with Scrooge, likely as a result of meeting the Rockerducks, fearing an indadiquate inheritor and someone squandering what he worked hard for. Though his reasons for not taking up a wife as we’ll see eventually, if outside the main 12 part story but I intend to cover the subchapters in their own time, aren’t entirely motivated by avoiding goldigging but a broken hard and his own stubborness. 

For now though we bid Howard and america adue. Scrooge however for once ends an occupation with less bitterness. Unlike his last two ventures where he made it out with only enough to get to the next one here he made it out ahead: he now has a decent suit, likely bought for him by Howard given he hasn’t cashed the check yet, I know this as it’s a major plot point for next time, 10,000 dollars.. and experince. He may of not gotten all the money he was due on this venture, but he learned more valuable skills and he feels with a land like america, the next opportunity to earn some dough is just waiting for him to get back. And as the chapter ends he muses that maybe the country could use a symbol of this countries boundless opportunity...

Final Thoughts for the Raider of the Copper Hill:

This chapter is one of my favorites. It’s nicely paced, something Rosa himself admits was often a struggle as he had to cover years at a time, has a wonderful new mentor for Scrooge, and sets up a lot of the tragedy to come in the last act beautifully. It’s a nice closer for our first act, showing Scrooge has come out of his first trip to america wiser, more experinced and more hopeful, but at heart still the same kind and noble kid he left Glasgow as. The next act is about the change of that boy into a man, how he will finally find his fortune after some more adventures.. and how the last viestges of his kindess and optimisim towards others die at the hands of a certain fake scotish gentleman. 

Next Life And Times: As is tradition for this series act openers, Scrooge returns home.. and just in time to get his castle back, fight a duel and go to heaven and back. So an average McDuck tuesday then. 

If you liked this review follow for more. And if you liked it a lot join my patreon so I can keep making these and hit my stretch goals. Even at just the 2 dollar level you get access to my discord and your pick of shorts whenever I do a series of them and with Goofy and Donald’s birthdays being the next ones to be celebrated you can’t pick a better time. patreon.com/popculturebuffet See you at the next rainbow. 

[softly-savage-mint-yoongi]

Allotrope

Genre: Idolverse Pairing: Kim Junmyeon (Suho) x reader Warnings: one night stand smut? It gets angsty and fluffy and more smutty as the plot continues. Chapter 1 Words: 9k.

The first time you met him, you knew who he was.

Or rather, you thought you knew.

You knew him as a leader of a group of younger brothers. A teller of Dad Jokes and generous giver to his members. A man who knew just how devastatingly handsome he was but somehow, didn’t let it go to his head.

You knew him only as Suho, not Kim Junmyeon. He told you as much during your first conversation.

You tried to prove him wrong. He wanted to hope you were right.

A typical Friday night. Where most might consider the hour ‘late’, you thrived. Nearly eleven thirty as your feet worked quickly and gracefully, weaving between other staff members. Friday nights had a love hate relationship with you.

You loved them because it was the easiest night to make bank, with the wealthy coming out of the woodwork to perch themselves daintily at the best restaurants in the city. You made good money working here any night, but you could easily walk away with a few hundred more on Fridays. Especially during the holidays.

You hated them because with the wealthy came the pompous, and you hated their attitudes. Too entitled to care how busy you are with your life and assuming that just because you work in a restaurant, you’re never going to amount to anything. The degree you’re so busy finishing when you’re not waiting tables will mean nothing.

If they weren’t pompous, they were egotistical. Men and women, all too giving with attention and cheesy, whispered promises of a good time that made you swallow bile and cringe. They paid well, but the money always felt gross.

As a veteran, having worked this gig the entire duration of your college career thus far, the celebrities didn’t phase you anymore. You were not here for them.

The giddy excitement of greenhorn servers working high profile tables is what set them sinking before they knew it. It went to their head. Not for you. It was dull enough that you simply did the job. That isn’t to say you didn’t generally enjoy the atmosphere when you served someone famous that was a decent human being. Sometimes they would tell you how much they enjoyed you treating them like they weren’t famous, too.

They appreciated how real you were, and you appreciated that they said so. You always tried to see that there is more to people than what they showed on the surface.

Why tonight was any different wasn’t something you had been expecting. When your manager came to you about a group of idols coming to dine in thirty minutes, nothing was nothing new. It wasn’t unusual for larger groups to ask for a private space, which your restaurant could certainly accommodate.

The time of their arrival was just the same as every other. You had hosted and served many groups over the years, but couldn’t ever really recall serving EXO. Perhaps, if they had dined here at all, it was while you were away.

With a fellow veteran and your closest friend, you greeted them. Easily, they appeared tired but happy, wearing comfortable oversized sweatshirts and athletic pants. Various hats or none at all adorned their heads, and their masks were removed once they finally settled into their seats.

Their manager sounded kind, apologizing in advance for any trouble the rowdy men may cause prior to taking his seat at the staff table in the room. You assured it was no trouble at all and got to work.

As someone heavily influenced by music, you knew who they were. You might even say you were a fan, but not die hard. Being a die hard fan lost its glimmer when you’ve been disappointed often enough in how little humanity is left in too high a percentage of people with just as much money and power as them.

So why did this feel different? Not unpleasant, but a persistent buzz in the back of your head making you pay more attention to them. Their leader, stage named Suho, was lounging at one corner of the table, fingers tapping lazily at his temple while he watched his younger brothers taking jibes at one another with a smile so fond it made you look twice.

He didn’t seem to notice and you carried on, bringing their copious drinks and appetizers. The largest one, Chanyeol alone seemed to devour an entire plate of wings before asking you politely for another with stars in his eyes.

When their meals arrived, Junmyeon looked up to your face with a phrase of polite thanks on his tongue, but it seemed to die as his brows rose and then his forehead creased.

You caught the way Sehun snickered beside him. Something funny you weren’t attuned to. Fearing embarrassment, you ignored them, briskly completing the delivery of their meals.

Taking Soohyun, your partner, by the arm, you turned away.

“Is there something on my face? In my teeth?”

He frowned, brow furrowing deeply as he leaned around to look at your face more critically, inspecting further when you showed him your pearly whites.

“No.”

“Oh.” The air was pregnant with words you didn’t say.

He laughed a bit at your response, “Why are you frowning suddenly?”

You huffed, tapping the end of your pen against your lips, “Just confused. Junmyeon acted like there was something on my face when I set his food down. Sehun laughed, too.”

“Y/N.” he said sternly.

You didn’t bother to look at him, instead losing yourself in your thoughts and absentmindedly checking your watch.

“Hey.” he said again, gently shoving his elbow into your arm and laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Don’t hit me, okay?”

Rolling your eyes, you placed you hands on your hips and raised a brow at him.

He sighed in defeat, “I don’t think he expected someone so pretty.”

The sound of your garbled revolt at his pure and utter bullshit was loud enough to make one or two pairs of smokey eyes flick toward you curiously. The two more observant of the group, Minseok and Kyungsoo, turned their eyes back to their meals after briefly meeting yours to confirm nothing was wrong.

“I’m serious, Y/N! You’re very pretty, almost too pretty.” Soohyun said.

He deserved the playful punch to his ribs, “Thanks for the backhanded compliment.”

The older man only continued laughing. Having your answer that it was in fact, not you, approaching the table again was normal.

You took a second Soju order for Chanyeol and Baekhyun, but a cool finger stopped you before you could leave. Normally, you would feel upset that someone physically touched you without asking. Something about the gentle touch sent a shock up your arm. Something warm and light and peaceful and not gross at all.

“Um, excuse me.”

You whirled, finding the man who had lost his words earlier staring up at you kindly.

“What can I get for you Mr. Kim?” you asked politely, pen at the ready against your leather notepad. You put on your best air of nonchalance.

He paused briefly, “You know who I am?” he inquired.

You nodded, “You’re Kim Junmyeon.”

Simple, was the way you said it. As if that were the truth and the only truth that mattered to him. The stare he fixed you with was unusual, and you couldn’t place the intent of its depth.

He recovered, dropping the intensity and falling into his charm, “Don’t you mean to say Suho?”

You were not here to take the bait, but you took it anyway. Something in his smile told you he was genuinely interested in your answer.

“Well, Suho is part of who you are as a whole. As Junmyeon.”, you clarified with a pout.

He nodded, sweeping a hand through his hair. He challenged you, “I see, I see...”

Immediately you took that as a bad sign, “I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

His eyes snapped back to yours and holding the warmth of his stare was easier than looking even your parents in the eyes.

“Not at all, but I’m afraid you only know Suho. Not Junmyeon.” His tone was teasing.

What were you supposed to say to that? It would be too easy to agree, but you didn’t do easy.

“Everyone can have their own opinions. Agree to disagree.”

He laughed. Genuinely, he barked out and it touched his eyes. Enough that Sehun turned away from his food to watch.

“Fair enough. I’m sorry I’ve kept you from work. I’ll let you get back to it.”

“My work is to serve you right now, so I think you’re fine.” you assured with an honest smile of your own. Nothing about his presence or demeanor set your alarms off. You had never experienced someone with this much influence that didn’t give you alarms of ulterior motives.

With that, you parted to take care of the drink orders several of his members had placed.

The next hour continued on this way. Taking care of their tables with Soohyun by bringing drinks and Chanyeol’s endless love and appetite for chicken. The louder boys, the Beagle line, were all several drinks in and entertaining the table.

It might be a white lie to say their antics were not also entertaining to you whenever you were present, but the way Junmyeon kept catching your eyes with his own was quickly taking over your down time at their table.

Now, you liked to think yourself someone who enjoys others company. You’re a consenting adult and have had your fair share of experiences, both good and bad, both relationships and one night stands because you understand that your life is incredibly busy and you deserve to have some fun.

However, you had never considered even entertaining the idea of sleeping with someone you met on the job. You had never met someone who’s advances were not ultimately unappealing or downright creepy while being here. It was quite strange, how natural it felt. How obvious it was that he seemed to be struggling to put this gravitational pull into proper thought as well.

There was something trusting and warm about the way he watched you.  Almost protective, like the guardian angel his name was true to. The way he appreciated your presence was tender and not exactly unwelcome. Perhaps a bit unexpected, but you didn’t mind it. He would go on his way once he and his members were finished dining anyway and then you might never cross paths again.

You were aware Junmyeon was extremely smart. Smart enough to realize it was going on one thirty and the restaurant patrons were dying off. Smart enough to let you catch his subtle tells. Tells such as you watching him chewing his lip while he looked up what time your establishment closed with his phone on the table.

Tells such as the way he seemed to lean toward you or ask you specifically if he needed something but respecting you enough not to touch. Anything to engage you specifically in conversation. Tells such as the way his eyes seemed to bore into you from across the room, or the way he visibly bristled when Jongdae a little too obviously checked you out from across the table while you took an order for cake from Yixing.

You noted he hadn’t had a drop of liquor the entire night. Opting for water through the meal and hot tea toward the end. Happily shocked, you smiled delightfully when he snuck out his black card and handed it to you, asking if you would please put their bill on it.

When his members whooped and hollered with thanks to him, he took it well. He didn’t do it for show. He did it to treat his brothers as an act of love.

You returned his card with the leather fold for him to sign, smiling. “That was kind of you.”

His charming, joking smile appeared again, quirking a brow at you and letting his fingers intentionally touch yours during the pass of the leather booklet.

“Kind of who?” he asked with a raised brow, the index finger of his free hand rubbing across his bottom lip.

With a playful roll of your eyes, you answered, “I suppose of Suho. I thought you said I didn’t know Junmyeon.”

He smirked at you, nodding in acquiesce.

Parting from him, you began to clear the remaining dishes. The group began getting up, stretching and putting on coats with whines of content fullness and protest at having to move. Proclamations of how tired they were, drooping eyes and full stomachs. A few with their arms draped around one another in camaraderie as they began to file out.

Just as you returned from the kitchen to collect more dishes, they began to say their thanks and goodbyes, following some of their staff out of the room. You bowed to each and every one of them with thanks and the normal phrases to kindly please return.

Sehun and Suho were the last of the line, with Sehun not having said a word more than he had to. Junmyeon on the other hand, with half of a smirk tucked into his cheek, thanked you directly as he left. His eyes, that rich deep brown, bore into yours with something that made you blush. Something that insinuated it wouldn’t be the last time you saw him.

Soohyun collected the check from their table and told you that he would see off the remaining table of their staff while you cleared a bus bin of dishes.

The moment you turned the corner, Soohyun came rushing into the kitchen nearly on your heels.

“Uh, I think this was meant for you.” he coughed, clearing his throat and holding the receipt toward you.

Written on the back were six simple words that sent you into a fit. You noted how pretty his handwriting was.

‘Would you like to find out?’

You flubbered for words, opening your mouth several times but nothing came out. Heat poured from every orifice on your face and you looked at Soohyun with wild eyes.

“He-”

Soohyun laughed, thick arms folded across his thicker chest, “I know.”

“And I-”

“Deserve to have some fun.” he finished for you, leaning his torso forward and locking eyes with you.

The face he was making at you was nothing but sincere and absolutely serious. You were frozen.

“Their manager is waiting for your answer. Go ahead if you want, I can finish up.”

You sat for a moment, thinking. You were still unnerved a bit, distracted by the way you’ve been rendered so completely shaken by the feel of Junmyeon’s stare. As if he were still staring into you. Underneath the feeling of being shaken, most noticeably was the lukewarm feeling you shouldn’t do this because it gets tricky with famous anyones.

Below even that layer, burning like magma beneath the Earth’s surface, was the pure want for him. You were at a loss, trying to remember when the last time was you desired someone so greatly. How badly and how long it has been since you’ve given in to your basic needs.

“Should I?” you ask Soohyun, and his reaction tells you he wasn’t expecting you to hesitate.

He smiled again, one hand coming to rest on your shoulder, “I think you should do whatever you want to and not regret it.”

You glared at him, “That’s not helpful, and shouldn’t you be more protective of me? You’re practically my big brother! Shouldn’t you be upset and telling me he’s a creep?”

At your admission, Soohyun laughed. He often laughed at things. “While most of the time that’s how I feel, I think we both know this time was different. I’ve never seen you so comfortable and electric with someone like that, famous or not.”

The weight in your gut lifted. He was right. Soohyun was typically your go-to friend when you wanted to go out and get drunk and maybe take someone home. He was there to have his own good time, but he always watched your back and got you out of uncomfortable situations.

“Just be safe, and text me when you get home.” he clarified with serious eyes.

“Thank you for this.” you whispered to him before turning to walk back into the private dining room.

True to what Soohyun said, their manager was loitering awkwardly by the door, his attention snapped to you the moment you whirled back around the corner and into view.

“So, how does this work?” you asked, rubbing your arm and looking away. The sound of your own voice made you cringe.

The manager chuckled lightly, “Well, I don’t really know. None of them do this kind of thing very much, if ever.”

You balched at him, “Really?”

He smiled at you, nodding, “Really.”

“Okay, so...” you trailed off, almost more apprehensive. Was he just saying that or was that really the case?

“I think the best way, is to give you my cell number. We go our own ways, assuming you’re leaving work now. When you’re ready, come to this hotel,” he handed you a card before continuing, “and when you get there, text me and take the main elevator to the seventeenth floor.”

“Oh.” you voiced, “That sounds reasonable enough.”

The manager smiled again, “I think it goes without saying that you have to keep this to yourself and anything that happens involving Suho, correct? Lest there be legal matters.” You could tell he didn’t mean it maliciously, but he has to say it to protect his idols. He seemed like a good man with only EXO’s best interests in mind.

“Absolutely.”

“Great. I’ll take my leave then.” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and smiling at you kindly, “Thank you again for taking care of them here. I know they can be chaotic.”

“Oh, I don’t think they were at all!” you chimed pleasantly.

The manager’s face flashed with something sly he wanted to say but instead he chewed the inside of his cheek and said nothing when he left.

_______________________________

Just a little over an hour later, you were nervous as ever when you heard the elevator ping loudly, opening it’s smooth metal doors to the seventeenth floor. The hall was fairly quiet, sans for the ice machine humming in the vending machine niche a few paces down.

A door opened somewhere down the long hallway and you recognized the familiar figure of a middle aged man walking calmly toward you. He had since changed into something more comfortable, wearing a hoodie, sweat pants and socks.

You felt awkward as you stood there in your leggings and oversized sweater and the discreet overnight bag strap suddenly felt like it was digging unbearably into your shoulder.

Your hair was still half wet from your shower, dangling loosely around your shoulders, and you shifted from foot to foot, deciding at the last moment to move toward him. Your were tremoring with every step. Luckily, you could blame it on the cold. “Good evening, miss Y/N.” he said quietly.

“Good evening.” you returned with a small bow.

Further down the hallway a door opened and pretty, boyish laughter you remember hearing a lot at their dinner table rang out before it was promptly slammed shut again.

The manager sighed, closing his eyes momentarily and you stifled a small giggle, the easiest way for you to release some nervous energy. Your trembling fingers remained hidden beneath the paws of your sweater.

“You seem nervous.” he said flatly once the noise ceased, his hands stuffed into the front hoodie pocket.

You smiled, but didn’t try to lie, “I don’t do this much either. It’s always a nervous experience.”

“It’s not because he is a celebrity?” he asked, voice laced with curiosity. He squinted at you, adjusting his glasses, as if your answer would be his judgement of your person.

Lying never got you anywhere. You did your best to always be honest, “With all due respect, I see famous, rich people whenever I work. He isn’t any different in that regard. But most of those people...” you trailed off and looked to the floor as if the words you couldn’t find might have been written there.

“I’ve learned to be a pretty scary judge of character. Junmyeon didn’t give me any of the alarms I usually get from people who possess the same power he does.”

The manager nodded, his lower lip protruding slightly at your remarks.

“I think you’re in pretty good hands then. His room is this way.” You must have been given his seal of approval.

He turned, leading you back down the corridor with the dimmed hallway lights to room number one seven two three.

Before he knocked for you, he cleared his throat, “So if you need anything I’m right there.” twisting to point to a door two rooms down and across the hall.

“Have fun, okay? He’s a good guy.” came his whispered goodbye, swiftly knocking on the door with two firm raps before turning to make his way back to his own room.

You watched him go, and just as the manager’s door closed, the one in front of you opened.

A waft of warm steam gently passed you, catching your attention to see the bathroom was just inside the room, wide open with the light on. Standing right in front of you was Junmyeon.

His hair was wet but combed back and to the side, and he was shirtless. That was all you could assess before he was quickly but smoothly dragging you inside so he could close the door, away from prying eyes.

“Sorry.” you muttered, eyes glued to the floor. You liked to think you could work through your nerves pretty well but the warmth that spread up your arm from where he had your wrist was making it difficult not to lock up.

He smiled prettily, “Hey, it’s alright. You don’t need to be sorry for anything, okay?”

Slowly, your eyes climbed back up from the floor, starting from the tiny dark spot on the carpet where his hair had just dripped.

You noted, much to your liking, that he wasn’t wearing anything more than an untied pair of fitted sweats. There was a towel around his shoulders. Making eye contact again must have assured him in some way that you weren’t going to run.

He moved away, “Make yourself comfortable, I’m just finishing up.” The towel became a frenzy at the back of his head while he scrunched it over and over, trying to soak up the moisture.

Removing your shoes while you observed him going back to the bathroom, it dawned on you. The back of his neck and his ears were red. You weren’t the only one who was nervous.

It made you laugh, in a burst a bit too loud, considering the buzz of the music he was playing was far too quiet to elicit such a reaction.

The light in the bathroom flicked off just as he emerged, a boyish grin tucked into his cheek, “What’s so funny?”

You let yourself sit on the bed, rubbing your face with both hands, “Nothing.”

He wasn’t having it, laughing gently along with your smile, “Oh come on, I feel like I’m missing out.”

Junmyeon was stepping closer now, standing and looking down at you with a soft smile that put a crease in his eyes.

“It’s just... it feels ridiculous to be nervous about this. I was taught that laughter is best for combating nerves.”

“Hm,” Junmyeon hummed, “Whoever told you that must be very wise.”

A tiny pang of sadness flickered across your face before it disappeared, “He was.”

Junmyeon caught on immediately, his smile fading to watch you intently, stepping closer still.

“Who?”

You smiled up at him, “My Dad.”

You had to admit, part of Junmyeon’s charm was how attentive he was to others empathetically. Instead of being unnerved about it, you felt as if his ability to see into you was a source of warmth and comfort. He never looked away from your face.

“I’m sorry.” he whispered, his fingers hesitantly reaching to tap against the top of your thighs softly.

Your smile broadened, “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

There was a pause where you watched his fingers quietly, tapping innocently against the tops of your legs to the beat of the music.

“Y/N.” he called you, and it was beautiful hearing him say it so pleasantly.

“There are a few things I want you to understand, but it is best that I tell you directly instead of it coming to you through my manager.”

You froze up, immediately thinking something bad, “Okay.”

He looked down at you, leaving his fingers splayed against your leggings but no longer moving, “First, let me say I never do this kind of thing. I don’t have the time to get involved with it, let alone attend to my own needs. There’s a lot riding on my shoulders and it’s just really getting to me and I wasn’t really looking for anything like this but you just came out of nowhere and I-”

You put a finger up to his lips, “Junmyeon, stop. It’s okay, I get it. Me, too.” You were giggling again.

He sighed, taking your hand in his from his lips and holding it.

“That leads me to the next thing I wanted to say. You are in no way required to do anything. Just because I asked you to come here and we’re intending to r-release some... frustration, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” he quipped, brows knitted together again.

His skin was painted in a pretty blush. Your eyes remained glued to him, fascinated in watching it slowly creep down his neck. It pained you to look away from his abs when you replied.

“I appreciate that. I suppose what I’d like to say is we’re both adults and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. I’ll admit I don’t do this often either, between work and class I don’t have the time to pay attention to my own needs.”

Your smile was wistful as you spoke, and Junmyeon with his thumb, caressed the back of your hand he was still holding.

“I think it’s pretty obvious there is mutual attraction. We’re just acting on it.” he murmured against your palm. You swallowed thickly, nodding.

Something heavy festered between you as the last of the words faded away with finality. Subtly, the hand remaining on your thigh tightened it’s grip, your knees touching against his legs.

Junmyeon looked at you with that penetrating stare again, but your light melted his gaze into a different kind of intense. You stood your ground by focusing on how nice you thought he smelled, fresh from his shower.

“So what is there for us to be nervous about?” he whispered, taking the advantage you gave him to step closer by inching your legs apart for him.

His face was close and you could smell his mouth wash. You realized he was waiting for an answer.

You tilted your head toward him, your lips barely breathing the word ‘nothing’ before he was on you.

He placed your hand against his chest and it felt as if you were touching the Sun. His skin was scorching beneath your fingers, the delicate blush still blooming across him like a rosy sunset.

His mouth felt warm, balmy. Wonderful yet cautious. He was taking his time, just sampling your lips slowly, gently, perhaps waiting for you to stop him. Inwardly you might cringe at how awkward this was. As if it were a first kiss with a crush playing seven minutes in heaven during a high school party. Except... it didn’t feel like that at all. You were both experienced, only new with one another.

A new song came on his shuffle and you both smiled, nearly laughing into each other’s mouths when you recognized it as one of his own songs.

You took the opportunity to separate from him, hauling the strap of your bag over your shoulder. He politely took it from you and placed it on the chair near the foot of the bed before coming right back to you.

Not so hesitantly this time he stepped into you against the bed, pulling your thighs around him. Every touch seemed to quell the strength of this force between you. It wasn’t perfect, by any means, but you felt better touching him than not. There was no awkward placement of hands upon one another’s body like a virgin experience would be.

His kiss was passionate this time. Slower, but deeper, with his brow furrowed, he tried to find what you liked and you stumbled through finding a pace and a style that you both liked. Not too much teeth or tongues. He pulled your lip gently between his and the tiny sound of surprise from you fueled him further.

Making out, let alone kissing, was never perfect between a pair for the first time, and your head was swimming with how attentive he was to figure out how you liked to be kissed. What made you breathless. You hoped he could feel you were trying to do the same for him.

The tame swipe of your tongue against his lip created the opportunity to go further, tangling his tongue with yours in such a way that pulled a quiet moan from his chest. Now you were getting somewhere, just feeling and not thinking.

Junmyeon’s hands were urging you backwards, up the bed. He almost smacked your nose with his forehead trying to keep connected, kissing you while he climbed onto the plush linens after you.

He smiled, mumbling an apology while extending one well sculpted arm toward you, catching your leg and leaning over you. He sank down, dark eyes trained on you lips.

Your legs automatically separated to make room for him. He pulled the one in his grasp up to his hip while you let the other match it.

The feeling of his erection pressing into your center sent a soft moan from your lips. His own, plush and red from kisses activity dropping open and his forehead creasing.

“Junmyeon.” you whined. You hated to admit it, but kissing was always one of your favorite things. With any partner, if they were a good kisser, you were putty in their hands.

“Huh?” he cooed, trying his not to show you how much this affected him, too. You were just two people who had neglected your needs for far too long. Two people who were doing something about it. Two people who conveniently had a free schedule for the next six or more hours.

You said nothing in return, instead pulling him down to have his lips working against yours again. Taking note how he nearly purred with your fingers in his hair at the nape of his neck, you tugged delicately.

It only seemed to fuel Junmyeon further, shuffling closer on his knees and adjusting the angle to roll his hips against you.

You moaned against his mouth, that felt too good. An explicit pleasure to you both, he did it a second time, moving his lips to your neck to stutter out a groan.

“Can I take this off, please?” he begged, fisting the huge sweater surrounding you. He seemed personally offended by it clearly wanting to be in the way instead of where he thought it belonged, on the floor.

Before he pulled it up, he checked with you, and it made your heart flutter at his kindness. He was making sure you both felt like equals in this space, even if sharing this kind of thing was temporary.

Junmyeon helped you to sit up, taking the hem of the pink sweater and pulling it over your head. He was too busy tossing it toward your bag to notice what you were up to. His eyes were wide but in awe when he turned back to you with one arm twisted behind your back.

Then suddenly you’re sliding the black fabric down your arms and tossing it away, only to throw yourself back down against the soft bed. Junmyeon was lost, with his eyes hooded and his tongue poking out to wet his suddenly dry lips.

“You’re so pretty.” he commented, letting one palm slide up from your hip over your stomach and further still, catching the underside of one breast and giving it a moderate squeeze.

You relished in the attention he gave them, leaning his head down to lick. You hissed through your teeth when he pulled back slightly to blow coolly against the wetness he left behind. The soothing relief of his molten mouth against it was immediate and he made you arch into his face further when he brought his other hand to your side and ran his fingers teasingly over your ribs.

He couldn't help the groan spilling from his lips when you put your hands in his hair again and ground your hips up into his. He switched his attention to your neglected nipple, biting before releasing it, smacking the flesh of your breast lightly, in awe as it bounced softly.

You hissed, “Ow, you bit too hard.” with a pout, which he promptly kissed away.

“I’m sorry.” Junmyeon whispered, a sheepish grin splitting his lips.

It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t unpleasant. With a hand gripping your hip tightly, the dark haired man rolled into you further, emitting a growl that only fueled him to grind harder against you by your soft moans.

Your fingernails scraped down his scalp and further, across the top of his back as far as you could reach.

“Fuck.” driped from his lips in a strained voice and you blushed, certain the word has never sounded so sexy to your ears.

He released your breast, too focused on the attention you were giving one another through your clothing. His brows were knitted together again, lips open prettily as he sat up to pull your hips flush against his crotch.

“I can feel how hot you are even through all these layers.” he purred, fingers tracing down your center but avoiding where you wanted him most.

All you did was whine in response, instead reaching out to dip your fingertips into the band of his sweats.

He moaned, “You want it?”

“I want you.” was your reply, biting your lip and running your fingers over his abs appreciatively. His stomach twitched beneath your butterfly fingers.

He grinned, cocking a brow, “Want who? Suho? Junmyeon?”

You grinned back at him, “Whichever one is going to let me take all his stress away.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he began, understanding painting his face, “I don’t think I’ll last enough for that right now, but I’d really like to taste you.” The moan that left you at his words alone whipped a wolfish smile onto his face.

He broke away to move off the bed briefly. Pulling a box of condoms from a convenience store bag, he set them on the night stand before curling a finger at you with a smile.

You were awash with lust as you watched him, unmoving until his voice, gravely with want, broke you from your reverie.

“C’mere.” he plead.

Finally, you obliged him, moving to lay at the side of the bed. Your hips rose easily to aid him in removing your leggings, your panties right along with them, and Junmyeon was moaning before your legs were even free of them.

He sunk to his knees, his warm palms gentle but firm in their parting of your thighs for him. You mildly protested, fighting him just a little because you could and you wanted to.

“Sweetheart... please. I can practically taste you from here, don’t tease me.” he asked, laying his cheek against your folded knees.

You laughed, loosening your muscles to let him have you. He took his time, and somehow, you found you were not surprised. Everything about him was gentle and sweet, even for a one night stand. He was not overly eager just to get himself off, and the thought sent heated butterflies through you unexpectedly. You couldn't imagine him being anything but wonderful to anyone he shared a bed with, no matter how long.

His lips were pressing chaste kisses against your inner thigh and you gasp when his fingers were suddenly there, slowly running through your folds. You whimpered, hearing him speak something softly but not sure of the words.

Junmyeon hummed happily at the feeling of your arousal so easily coating his fingers. He used two skillfully, parting you and running the flat of his tongue up to your clit.

Your body melted and a cry sprung from your chest. His assault was not slow, lapping at your nerves and living off of the sounds you were emitting, put on a platter for his delightful tongue to indulge upon.

He twisted his wrist, slowly sinking one finger into your heat and you absolutely keened. The coil in your abdomen tightening suddenly and you were panting out “Yes, please, more.” before you even thought about the words.

A dark chuckle reached your ears from between your legs and  Junmyeon fingered you with just the right amount of curl to his fingertips. Somewhere in your pleasured bliss, the thought that he was in no way even moderately inexperienced floats in your mind. It wasn't your place to care, but you were glad that he knew what he was doing.

The sound of his mouth on you had you inching closer and closer to paradise already. He pulled his hand back and slowly concentrated on adding a second, pleased to find you were ready enough to take both easily.

“Such a good girl.” he praised, sucking your clit harshly.

You cursed, “Junmyeon...” You were hyper-aware that your face was on fire. Is it even possible to feel yourself blushing in your eyeballs?

You could feel him smile against your core, his hair mussed from your fingers. He hummed in response, increasing his pace just to hear you whine loudly.

“So close, Junmyeon...” you huffed, your thighs on either side of his head beginning to tremble. You felt impossibly tight, abdomen curling in on itself with your fist in the linens at your side.

The handsome man between your legs never stopped, only pausing to praise you further when he feels your walls beginning to tighten around his fingers, “That’s it. Come on, sweetheart.”

It was all it took when he stood up and braced one arm on the bed to lean over you. His thumb replaced his tongue on your clit and the awed expression on his face put you over the edge.

Your voice was a mixture of a cry and a moan, teeth clenched and thighs quaking. Your hand reached out, clasping around his forearm and holding on while his fingers worked you through your orgasm.

“Fuck you’re so fucking pretty when you come.” he growled, kissing the side of your neck and nipping at the flesh.

Once you relaxed, he pulled his fingers from you and watched his own hand with rapt fascination until you broke him from his thoughts.

“Junmyeon...” you cooed, a happy smile on your lips. “Want you,” you clarified when he looked up at you.

“Good girls get what they want. How can I deny you when you say my name like that?” he said, cocking one eyebrow at you and yanking his own pants to the ground.

You had seen your fair share of nicely shaped men with nicely shaped appendages, but nothing quite as nice as Kim Junmyeon. The abs were free for all to see, but his thighs and what was standing at attention between them was another experience entirely.

Not the biggest out there, but for his stature you would definitely call him well endowed, which was more than enough for you. He was flushed there, too, his member a darker shade than the rest of his golden skin. Neatly trimmed hair framed the base.

He reached immediately for the box on the nightstand, tearing one packet off the line of them. “Sorry they’re not fun ones. I wasn’t sure if you were allergic so I played it safe.” he said, focusing on rolling it over himself in one motion.

You didn't mean to laugh but why were you absolutely not surprised that he was the caring type. The type to, while thinking about fucking a stranger for a one night stand, took into consideration a potential allergy while making a condom selection.

“I’m not, but thanks for checking. You’re too sweet.” you said, still a little high from your orgasm.

“I can’t help it. I take care of eight brothers for a living...and I sing once in a while.” his answering smile was sheepish.

You tucked away his statement for later discussion. You knew he was so much more than that, but it would ruin the moment and you admitted to yourself you really just wanted to get lost in pleasure with him.

So instead, you assured him, “I don’t need you to take care of me right now. I need you to fuck me.”

Junmyeon was stunned, one hand holding your hip and the other his cock. His eyes were hooded and they closed as he let out a deep breath, swallowing hard. You had an inkling your words affected him in the best possible way.

“I think I can do that.” he said just as you felt the head of him rub against your wetness, lubricating himself further before pushing in without any further words.

You groaned loudly, a pleasured hiss filling the space between you. “Fuck.”

He was still, biting his lip with his eyes half closed, trained on you. His chest rose and fell in shallow breaths while he fought to remain still.

“I’m okay.” you told him, rotating your hips against him with your lips dropped open.

Your eyes zeroed in on his face, tongue poking out to run across his pretty lips before he slowly withdrew himself from you, only to slide in again.

He repeated the motion, grabbing your leg and hoisting it up, over his shoulder. His arm wrapped around it to keep you against him tightly, and he turned his head just enough to kiss your calf where it rested beside his head.

Junmyeon leaned heavily into you while he thrust, slowly testing which angle is best to bend you for your mutual pleasure. How far could he bend you so you would feel him as deeply as possible.

When he hit the right one, you cried out, pleasure soaking your features. He groaned above you, sinking his cock into your greedy heat with a force that you absolutely basked in.

“Yes, yes, please, just like that.” you begged. His wolfish grin returned, all white teeth and dark brows. Darker eyes, hooded, and pretty pink lips.

The pretty pink blush that paints his skin matched, you thought. You watched him move in pleasure, a vein becoming prominent on the side of his neck. The sight of him like this made your stomach tighten again.

He groaned again, feeling you clench around him. It was in that moment, with his hips digging into the underside of your thighs, that he bent you completely. Large hands pushed your thighs down into your chest and it changed the constriction of your walls around his cock.

“Is this okay?” he mused through his breath. Uncertain if your increase in pleasure was from the angle or happiness at his devotion to bedroom equality, but you moaned regardless, nodding at him. It was too difficult to speak with your chest being constricted like that.

He smiled, whipping some misplaced hair from his eyes. “Good girl.”

You whimpered at his words and your hands wrapped around your own legs, keeping them in his requested position. Now freed, he brought a hand between your bodies. You could feel his palm and fingers splayed against you, your center clenching with white hot pleasure when his thumb pressed into your clit.

Junmyeon didn't slow his thrusts. Instead, his head was turned down, focusing intently on the image of his cock disappearing into the tight, hot wetness of your pussy. His lips were dropped open and his jaw was tight.

His chest and abs were tight, too, heavy breaths pushing from his lungs in a pant.

Suddenly, he sped up. It pulled a moan from you. Too quickly now the orgasm you had slowly seen coming from a distance was closing in, sinking deep into your gut like lead.

“I want you to come all over my cock, sweetheart.” he confessed hotly, increasing his efforts to make you do so.

Your answering whine was a confirmation that he might just get his wish. His hips slowed a little against you. Your eyes caught his tongue poking out as he swiped his thumb against it. It added more wetness against your bundle of nerves when he brought it back to circle repeatedly.

Junmyeon teased you now, nearly pulling himself out all the way so only the head remains, shallowly thrusting into you in a lazy manner. He was grinning down at you, but you could plainly see the battle in his rigid posture that he was enjoying teasing but desperate to be buried back inside your warmth.

Your gut felt heavier, the spiral coiling tighter in your abdomen. “Junmyeon...” you whimpered at him, your core fluttering with how nearly empty he had left you.

“Yes?” he asked, one brow tilting up at you. His eyes pulled up to your face and he smiled genuinely at your fucked out expression.

You tried to speak words but they came out jumbled, a hot mess of incoherent letters that Junmyeon assumed meant you were going to come soon by the way your thighs were begging to tremble just so. You had spread yourself wider in an attempt to welcome him closer to you.

He removed a hand from your leg, letting it carve a scorching path up your body to pluck at your newly freed breast again. He rolled your nipple between his fingers and the yelp you released made him chuckle. You did not mean to blush harder, but his voice stirred the lava in your belly hotter.

Junmyeon bit his lips, groaning, “You’re so sensitive here,” he commented, teasing the nipple again just to hear you cry out, “I like that.”

The pleasure became too much for you to stave off any longer, and you froze up in his arms with a high pitched cry. He grunted, burying himself to the hilt and releasing a long moan. He released your clit from the torture of his thumb.

The pace he set immediately is hard, forcing himself between your walls, releasing tiny pants of breath for every powerful squeeze around his aching cock.

“Fuck, fuck fuck sweetheart. Yes, fuck... yes.” the words dropped from his lips in erotic praise had you twisting, the unbearable pleasure overstimulating your body.

Junmyeon became uncoordinated, grabbing your ankle and opposite hip to keep you still beneath him. “You can take it.” he growled, teeth clenched and moaning between his bitten lips. His brows furrowed hard as he drove into you repeatedly with messy thrusts. He didn't realize he was holding his breath or that there was a tick in his jaw. You realized, as he fought to deny himself his high, he looked angry.

The glutton for punishment in you sighed, clenching once more around him with aftershocks of your own orgasm subsiding. That put him over the edge, spilling all of his breath into the air between you at once. He threw his head back, thrusting one, two, three more times before he went as deep into you as possible and stilled.

Junmyeon’s head rolled forward on his shoulders, those pretty lips open in fucked out bliss. You wanted to kiss him, badly. His flushed chest was heaving and he shuddered visibly, eyes screwed shut in bliss.

Slowly he sunk into your body, curling himself over you as the pleasure peak left his body weak. He wasn't looking at your face, but you were staring at him. You kissed the tip of his nose and smiled, watching as he lifted his head to stare right back with a smile so pretty you could almost blame it on your shortness of breath.

You whimpered when he pulled his softening cock from you, and the full warmth of it with him. Unmoving, you watched him remove and tie off the condom before disposing of it in the waste bin beside the armchair.

He crawled back to the bed, scratching at his chest. Your eyes met and you both smiled. You knew you should leave but was it over? Did he need a few minutes to recover? Did he hate it?

Junmyeon was watching you field these questions in your head, deciding instead to just pull your relaxed body to him.

You began to speak, but he shushed you with a mellow kiss, “Thank you for that.”

“Oh.” is what came out, instead of anything useful. Your bewildered expression made him laugh against you.

“What?” you tried, pouting.

He handled you into a comfortable position, situating your body against his side and pulling your arm over his stomach. Absentmindedly, your fingers felt right at home running softly across his abs. “I don’t think you were expecting me to thank you?” he questioned with a scoff.

“No, I just... well I don’t know. This is always the confusing part. Do I leave, do I stay? Do you want to do it again, will you marry me?” You were both laughing at the ridiculousness of the last question.

“Don’t laugh, I’ve been asked that question immediately after sex before.” you said, digging your fingers into his ribs. It only made him laugh harder.

“I wasn’t going to ask you that.” he hummed.

“Good. I won’t have to break your heart when I say no.”

He balked, feigning hurt, “You would say no?!”

“I mean, celebrity or not, we did just meet today.”

“It’s not a no, though...” you heard him trail off.

You patted his chest with the flat of your hand, giving him your best fake smile, “It’s still a no, sweetie.”

You both laughed again, and he kissed your hair with a sigh, “For now, just rest here with me, if that’s okay?”

There was something in his tone that told you he was lonely, and suddenly some of his earlier comments came rushing back to you. It hurt your heart to think about. You could read between the lines, he was saying he didn't want to be alone.

“It’s,” you paused, looking to the digital clock on the charging station beside the bed, “five eighteen in the morning. I don’t have to be at class until eleven forty.” Suddenly, you gasped, raising yourself on your elbow to stare at him, “Do you think I’ll make it on time?”

Junmyeon lost it, snorting loudly. He pulled you back down and kissed your face before wrestling you to curl against him again.

So you relaxed. Lazily, both too tired to get up or clean up. Instead, you found your eyes closing as you listened to his steady heart beating within his rib cage. Your palm felt the gentle rise and fall of his stomach with his breath. You didn't realize how calm and warm it made you, pulling you deeply into slumber. You hadn't fallen asleep this easily in so long.

You jolted awake by the sound of a notification from your phone. Looking around, you noticed it’s nearly nine in the morning. There was just enough light from the dull, cloudy December morning to assist your eyes. A shiver ran through you when you remembered you were naked. Your eyes snapped to the side, realizing Junmyeon was still sound asleep with one arm behind his head, the other flat against the linens at your back.

You felt like you should go. It was not too early to get a cab back to your apartment and he probably wanted you gone by the time he woke up, anyway. It was just casual sex and a nap. Too bad you didn’t get to have a second go at it.

Quickly and as quietly as possible, you dressed, hunting for each piece and throwing it on haphazardly. Without turning on the light, you checked your hair in the bathroom mirror, stuffing it all into a cap you brought in your overnight bag.

Your phone pinged again. Checking, it’s two text messages, both from Soohyun.

SH: I hope you made it home safe????

SH: I just got up and realized you hadn’t messaged me. I don’t care about the deets, I just need you to tell me you got home, Y/N.

You smiled, keying in a quick reply.

Y/N: I’m fine. I am leaving his hotel now, should be home by nine thirty.

One last look over your shoulder at the sleeping idol sent you on a roller coaster of emotions you normally did not get with such detached partners.

It was a one night stand, nothing more and nothing less. Just two mutually attracted parties releasing their sexual frustration upon one another.

But... you had never stayed to sleep with any of your past escapades, as few and far between as they might be. You had never been made to feel like you were an equal participant. You had never felt so light afterwards that you were comfortable enough to sleep.

You had never been paid so much attention and not just a warm pussy for someone to lick and then stuff their dick into, no matter how good they fucked. You had never been treated like they were generally interested in caring who you are as a person, and you had certainly never connected with someone where it all felt natural. Not in a long time and never with a one night stand.

Junmyeon was different, and you thought about how grateful you were for last night during your ride home. You don’t know why you felt sad. Not for yourself, but for him. It hurt to know, now that it was over, how badly he craved to not feel lonely.

[haddonfieldproject]

1.1.2 HALLOWEEN NIGHT, SAME TIME

<<PREVIOUS ⏺ <<CONTENTS>>

2️⃣

Haddonfield, Illinois

Chelsea Keane heard a noise downstairs. She was pretty sure it was a door slam, although it was so far away in this big huge house that it was hard to tell. She took one more long pull off of the joint and stubbed out the roach in the ashtray that sat on the little wicker table in front of her. Beside the little ceramic disc decorated in scenes of Tijuana—now covered in soot, and the remains of her joint, sat her purse. It was a bag really, one of those reusable shopping bags from McNary’s Supermarket, covered in floral prints and little orange and yellow suns, birds, and bees, and little green leafy vines that formed letters which read: Earth Day 2014.

Chelsea rummaged in the bag, around tampons and makeup cases, the occasional lipstick, chapstick, selfie-stick, and ladies speedstick and found what she was looking for. A stick of Wrigley’s Gum. She unwrapped the foil, popped the piece in her mouth, balled the wrapper up between her fingers into a nice neat silver ball, and flicked it across the space in front of her where it landed between a hot water heater and the Centra-Vac system.

She returned to her purse, retrieving a small glass cylinder bottle of Dimension, the new perfume by Jennifer Love Hewitt, and bathing herself in the baby powdery aroma, thinking to herself of a Halloween, perhaps almost twenty years previous, when she had sat on this very couch and watched the actress run screaming across a square-shaped television screen while being stalked by a hooded man with a hook for an arm. Chelsea brought a DVD case out of her purse/bag. Ripe Blood. She turned it over and looked at the screenshots on the back…and the rating. Rated R for Graphic Violence.

Haven’t come much far sense my VHS copy of I Know What You Did Last Summer, she thought. Well, at least the picture quality would be better.

Hell..it’d be a lot better.

Ellen had her own theater.

Complete with a fifteen foot by nine foot screen, reclining seats, surround sound, and even a little kitchenette to nuke some popcorn and retrieve a few ice cold pops.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous, she mused.

Well, definitely rich, but only famous if you’re into watching people have sex on camera.

And there were plenty of people who were, and they paid good money for it.

What can you say? Sex sells.

And didn’t Chelsea know it too. Hell, if she hadn’t let Zeke Yates knock her up in the VIP room almost eighteen years ago, she’d probably be doing just as good as Ellen.

Well…probably not.

Chelsea tossed the DVD case back in her purse/bag and stepped toward the door at the far end of the room, careful to stay on the plywood flooring that designated Ellen’s “Smoking Loft” from the rest of the attic.

Ellen had been the smartest girl Chelsea had ever known. Chelsea presumed she would have ended up like her older sister Deborah, who also got her start in life as a dancer at the Rabbit-in-Red, although, perhaps not quite like Deborah. She didn’t see her son turning into a psychopath anytime soon and she didn’t see herself blowing her head off in the forseeable future either. Like her sister Deborah however, who was actually her half-sister, and nearly twenty years older than her, she had commited the Cardinal Sin of the biz.

“Don’t lapse on your birth control,” Deborah had told the young Chelsea and Ellen as they stood behind her on their first day at work, watching her attach fake lashes in the dingy mirror in the back haunts of the Rabbit-in-Red. “Better yet..don’t fuck the customers at all. VIP is for dancing, not fucking.”

She had pointed a picture of her kids, taped to the mirror then. “See those.”

The girls had nodded nervously.

“That’s what I got for fucking a customer.”

Chelsea had made the mistake, which hadn’t been such a big mistake afterall. She of course was quite fond of her son Joshua, but it was safe to say that the nine and a half pound baby had tanked her stripping career and any possibility of moving into the Adult Film Industry. Chelsea had packed on over a hundred pounds during her pregnancy, and post-baby had only been able to shake twenty of it. So she had settled down with Josh’s father, gotten married, enrolled in Illinois Central College, and got her bachelors degree in Communications.

Lou Martini, the owner of Rabbit-in-Red industries had hired her back—as an editor. That, combined with the few bucks her husband Whitey made around town doing the odd handyman job here and there had afforded them a decent life, with a decent house, another child, a beautiful daughter, and an overall pretty damn fine life for herself.

Chelsea stepped out unto the landing and pulled the door shut to the attic behind her and then descended the stairs toward the common room on the third floor. There was a white leather couch and a coffee table. A mini bar sat in the corner of the room with liquor that probably hadn’t been touched in years and a few pieces of modern art on skimpy end tables that probably hadn’t been properly looked at or analyzed in the same amount of time. The room was just for show, just like a giant, lifesize poster on the wall behind a thirty inch flatscreen VIZIO. Ellen in a bikini too small for her surgically enhanced breasts, sprawled on some exotic beach, sand on her knees and elbows.

Ellen was smart.

🎃

“So who is this person?” Penny Cornell asked, popping her bubble gum loudly before she spoke.

Josh looked at her in the soft light of the poolhouse. She was dressed as Velma from Scooby Doo, and he had gone as Fred, only they hadn’t bothered to get wigs or color their hair, so she ended up being a blonde Velma and he ended up being a Fred with black hair, which, in actuality totally ruined the ensemble and had in fact led to many of their peers on the streets that night during their Trick-Or-Treating run to ask, “So..what are you guys again?”

While Josh searched the cabinets in the pool house kitchenette for a proper shot glass for the Captain Morgan he had stowed away, from a mini bar that saw quite a bit more action than the one on the third floor of the main house, Penny circled the Pool Table, the stained glass lamp casting bright and blazing hues on the side of her face as she looked at the pictures on the walls.

Plenty of pictures of a certain blonde woman in lingerie. Some in a bathing suit. Some wearing nothing at all but a properly placed palm frond, or towel, in one, the handlebars of a motorcycle. Many had the blonde woman with various celebrities. Kid Rock, holding her by the waist, holding a cigar and smiling. There was one with Charlie Sheen, another with Myley Cyrus, and an older one, faded a little, starting to yellow, with future President of the United States Donald Trump. Penny’s face as she beheld these pictures was expressionless, her unassuming eyes taking it all in like a pediatrician examining the X-Ray of a kid who just broke his arm in two places.

“She’s known as Misty Dawn.” Josh said, finding a suitable shotglass, this one featuring the skyline of Charlotte, North Carolina. “She works for Rabbit-in-Red Industries. She’s a model.”

“I can see that,” Penny said, popping her gum again. Her eyes didn’t deviate from the pictures.

“She’s been in some movies too.” Josh added, unscrewing the top of the rum, “X-rated movies. Also done some webcam and stuff.”

Penny sighed and leaned against the pool table. “I see.” She said yawning, her pink wad of bubble gum visible in the corner of her mouth. “Porn must pay pretty well to have all this.” She said, waving her hand across the room to indicate that by “this” she meant this particular poolhouse as well as the mansion and the grounds beyond.

Josh poured a shot and held it out to her. “She’s kind of a star.”

Penny grunted and took the shot glass. She downed it, winced, coughed, and held it back to him. “And your mom knows her from work?”

Josh took the glass and poured another shot. “She and my mom grew up together. They were best friends in high school. Her real name is Ellen.”

Josh took the shot. He also winced and coughed.

The sound of heavy metal filled the room.

It was Josh’s ringtone for his cellphone. He pulled it from his pocket, looked at it, and then looked at Penny frowning. “It’s my mom.” He said and hit the green button on the screen.

“Yeah?”

Penny pulled her own phone out to look at it. Josh replaced the cap on the Captain Morgan and went about replacing the bottle into the minibar and the shotglass into the cabinet from whence it came.

“We are back mom,” Josh was saying, “Penny and I are outside. You probably heard Maddie, Dylan, and Cammie come in.”

Josh rounded the bar and took his girlfriend’s hand, pulling her toward the sliding glass door that led to the pool deck.

“Yeah mom, we’re coming right now.”

He hung up the phone and slid the door shut behind them. Penny was looking at the pool and the adjacent spa.

“I wanna get in that hot tub.”

Josh put a hand on her butt. “I wanna get in there with you.” He smiled wryly.

“Shoot, it’s hot enough to get in the regular pool.” She said as they started toward the main house.

“You’re telling the truth.” Josh replied.

🔪

“You’re gonna fall and bust your head if you don’t stop running around with that sword!” Cammie Cornell, age eight, dressed like a bumble-bee, complete with clip on wings, said, standing cross armed on the hearth.

Dylan Rawls, age thirteen and dressed like a ninja, was chasing little Maddie Keane, age five, dressed as Princess Elsa from the animated Disney film Frozen. Dylan had a plastic sword and was waving it at Maddie as she ran away from him in a circle, laughing and screaming and all the while making motions with her hands in an effort to use her “powers” to freeze Dylan in ice like her character would have been able to do in the movies.

Dylan, despite having already started puberty, was not a very mature boy. This could have been due to a lack of attention given to him by his mother, or as some psuedo-scientists would have suggested, it could have been due to a diet high in processed foods and high fructose corn syrup. His mother had never had him tested for mental defficiencies, mostly due to a nagging worry that he would fail the thing. Dylan wasn’t mentally challenged, that wasn’t quite right. He had been tested for and diagnosed as ADHD by the time he was seven, but then again so many kids were and his mother hadn’t really believed in it or the medication that was supposed to, and probably would have, helped her son. Dylan was in ways a very bright child, better at all the household electronic devices than his own mother, but in other was he was just plain immature. Chasing around a five year old in a living room with a plastic sword dressed as a Ninja after acne was beginning to pop out on his face and sprouts of hair was beginning to pop out on his balls was just case in point.

Dylan stopped and glared at Cammie, about to display another example of his immaturity.

“Don’t tell me what to do, this is my house.” He said between panting breaths.

Maddie stopped and collapsed into the brown leather sofa that faced the fireplace. Her face was red and her breath was heavy, but the smile didn’t leave her little face, nor the brightness in her little brown eyes.

“Aren’t you a little old to be playing like that?” Cammie shot back.

Dylan was about to reply when they all heard a voice from behind them.

“Cammie! Get down from there.”

It was Chelsea, she was descending the stairs holding her cellphone in her hand.

“Maddie, off the furniture please.” She said.

“Yeah Cammie, get down!” Dylan added.

Cammie jumped down from the hearth and stuck her tongue out at Dylan. He returned the gesture.

“Where is all your candy?” Chelsea asked.

“We put it on the stove.” Dylan said, pointing toward the open kitchen with his sword.

“I see.” Chelsea said, her eyes beholding the three large hulking pillowcases.

“They got quite the big haul didn’t they.”

It was the voice of Josh. He and Penny entered the room from the opposite side.

“They certainly look like they made out.” Chelsea said, placing her cellphone in her pocket. She reached into her purse/bag and took out the DVD case and held it out for her son.

Josh snatched it up. “No way! Ripe Blood!? It hasn’t even stopped running in the theaters yet.”

Chelsea smiled, “The Rabbit uses the same packaging and distribution company as the company who made the film..Danger—something or other..”

“Dangertainment.” Josh corrected and passed the case to Penny who looked interested.

“Right,” Chelsea said, putting her purse/bag on the stove next to the three pillowcases full of candy. “Well they give all their clients some freebees as promotional items. That arrived this morning.”

“Are we gonna watch it?” Josh asked, eyes wide and bright.

“You better your ass we are,” Chelsea answered.

“In the theater upstairs?” Josh asked.

“Um…yeah.” answered Chelsea.

“I’m scared.” Penny frowned.

“You can’t be afraid of scary movies if you’re gonna date my son,” Chelsea said, “Joshua loves a good horror flick. He gets it from his mom.”

Josh hugged his mother. The sentiment surprised her, but she appreciated it.

“Can I watch it?” Dylan asked.

Chelsea shook her head. “It’s too scary for the younger kids Dylan. Why don’t you go upstairs and play with Maddie and Penny’s sister…” she looked to Penny, mind scrambling to remember the girl in the bee costume’s name.

“Cammie,” Penny corrected.

“That’s right, Cammie,” Chelsea continued, “until it’s time to go to bed.”

“You guys wanna see my playroom?” Dylan asked. “I have an Nintendo WiiU, a ballpit, a bouncy house, even some laser tag!”

“Yeah!” Maddie and Cammie replied in unison. The kids began to ascend the stairs.

Penny and Josh read the back of the DVD case together while Chelsea opened the fridge, looking over their snack options in regard to their theatre experience.

As Dylan, Maddie, and Cammie reached the top of the stairs, Maddie asked him.

“Can I take a turn at your Wii Dylan?”

Dylan looked back and smiled. “You can, but Cammie can’t!”

“Why not?” Cammie whined.

“I don’t let fat girls play!” Dylan replied, in another epic display of immaturity.

With their eyes on the DVD case, and her head in the fridge, Penny, Chelsea, and Josh didn’t notice or hear Cammie descend the stairs fighting back her tears and exit the front door of the home

NEXT>>

[artificialqueens]

Future Nostalgia, Chapter 1 (Group Fic) - Lazuli

Summary: This is an 80’s AU songfic based on the latest Dua Lipa album “Future Nostalgia”. In this chapter, Michelle is struggling to open her new club and Bianca gets fired from her job. Destiny joins the two sisters back together. 

A/N: Hieeeeeee! This is my first fic ever and I’m super happy to share it! English is not my first language, so I’m sorry if there are any spelling errors. I wanna thank @chaoticnachokitten for not only betaing, but also supporting my idea, u are the best! This one is not focused on any ships (just a little bit of Bitney), but the next chapters are going to focus on a different pairing each, based on the songs of Future Nostalgia. Also, I had to include Michelle in this ‘cause: Why not? I hope u all enjoy it and I’m always open to suggestions!!

Chapter One – FUTURE NOSTALGIA

“I know you’re dying trying to figure me out

My name’s on the tip of your tongue, keep running your mouth

You want the recipe, but can’t handle my sound

My sound, my sound

No matter what you do, I’m gonna get it without ya

I know you ain’t used to a female alpha”

1985. Michelle could almost smell the scent of the booze, hear the loud music and feel the heat from the bodies dancing on the crowded dance floor. The reason for all the extra hours working at the diner came true:She had just bought her own club. She could barely restrain herself with happiness feeling the tinkle of the keys between her fingers. After signing the contract with the previous owner, who had stared at her clothes with a hint of mockery, she finally had a place to call her own. A new home. She was not new to the feeling of home that New York’s night clubs offered her, and Michelle frequented them so much that she could leave a toothbrush at the restroom, if this wasn’t so disgusting. It was part of her routine, spending whole Saturday nights on the floor, having fun and making out with one-night stands. Those were the moments she felt free from the judgment she had received daily on her last job. 

 Quitting her job at the diner wasn’t that hard. In fact, it was delightful throwing her apron on the floor and finally telling her boss what he deserved to hear: That he was a motherfucking son of a bitch. During the 4 years Michelle had worked as a waitress, Earl had always made embarrassing statements about her clothes, body and had humiliated her in front of clients and colleagues. All because she had refused to go on a date with him, who tried to bribe her by offering money to open the club. In the name of Diana Ross, he was married, smelled like cheap beer and was old enough to be her grandpa! Earl had not accepted “no” as an answer, and Michelle’s response resulted in years of harassment because he was certain the woman needed the job and wouldn’t complain about his attitude.

   This is the reason why night clubs were Michelle’s shelter, her true paradise on Earth. She knew the club universe like the back of her hand since she was 17 and escaped from home in the middle of the night with her big brother, Ru, so they could go out secretly and enjoy the nightlife in town. At a young age, she had understood that this was her destiny. Her parents were judgmental about her dream: night clubs were not places for a decent girl. They discouraged her by saying that this was not a real job, the adult world was way different, she would never own a club ‘cause she was a woman and bla bla bla… However, her brother always encouraged the idea and gave her a good amount of cash as a gift to help the club’s funding. She was lucky to have a brother like him.

 The Visage brothers were Charles, who preferred to be called Ru, the black, gay and drag queen first-born who, to the desperation of his parents, was getting more recognition in the drag scene throughout the years. Ru was the son of Paul visage’s ex-wife, so when he got married for the second time, two totally-opposite girls were born: Michelle and Bianca. Michelle, the middle daughter, a Madonna wannabe who was following the path of doom and Bianca, the perfect youngest daughter. Bianca worked at a business company in NY and was very successful at her job, nothing unexpected: ever since she was a kid, she got the best grades and was a hard-working lady. She always wanted to make her parents proud of her, because they were too busy worried about her brothers, so Bianca was under pressure to be the redemption of the family. Michelle noticed how much this made her sister unhappy.

 After long 8 years, Michelle was finally facing her brand-new source of wealth: the ‘Future Nostalgia Club”, home of the misfits, outrageous and crazy ones. Just like Alice in Wonderland, entering the club would be like falling on the rabbit’s hole to meet a world of magic, dance and desire. 

 Well, at least this was how Michelle was imagining it would be. She only needed to clean the club, buy all the stereos, light equipment and accessories for stage work, build a bar, reform the whole place, hire employees…Oh.

She needed a miracle. 

 “Okay, I’m all by myself, except for the family of spiders surrounding the ENTIRE PLACE. Shit. My Eden looks like an allergic rhinitis person’s Hell.“

 After a lot of sneezes, Michelle tried to start cleaning the room, without success. Cleaning the club all alone would take her at least two whole days and she had no idea how she could get the rest of the tasks done. She was a waitress, not a party planner. The more she thought about it, the more stupid and regretful she felt about starting a business by herself, without any guidance, and buying a full abandoned space. Just to think that Ru trusted her so much that gave part of his cost savings to the club made Michelle doubt her capacity even more. Maybe her parents were right after all. Adult’s world is way different than the full-of-glitter universe of the clubs. She should’ve gone to college just like her sister. Her brother was economically stable doing drag because he was lucky. He was one in a million, something she would never be. 

💿

“What? Fired? You've  got to be kidding me!”

 “I’m sincerely sorry, Bianca. You’ll be laid off, because the company needs to reduce costs, so unfortunately, we have to set you free to find new paths!” said James, her superior. 

 “You say ‘set you free’ like I’m a fucking bird or something! I was nominated the best employee, two years in a row. There was never one single day that I slacked off on work, unlike those other tired queens I share the room with. Didn’t you tell me that I could get a promotion this month yet?” 

 “Yeah, I told you that… However, to have someone leading by my side… My superiors preferred to invest on a new face, a strong, determined and merciless person.”

 “Am I not all of these things? You already told me I’m much more of a man than your homeboys!”

 “I know, but… Bianca, I’m gonna be honest with you: Calling you a ‘man’ is way different than believing you have a shot to be the leader of this company. Yes, you were our best employee, but being a boss consists of so much more responsibility that, frankly, we don’t believe you can handle. You are too good to be constantly trying to prove your worth. Don’t you think it would be exhausting? Besides, this job requires a lot of extra hours, something that would reduce your time with family. C’mon, the superiors made a good decision letting you find other job opportunities which…suits better everyone’s fragilities.”

Fragility. The sound of this word hit her like a missile.

 “Fine…Then, let me see if I understood what you said: Although I work even more than you do, I’ll not get a promotion because I am a woman. That’s it? Do you think I’m not ‘manly’ enough for the job?“

 An awkward silence.

 “I’m glad you understand, so now we can sign your termination contract in good terms! I have no doubts that you’ll find a new job opportunity soon, at a better place!”

 Oh no, he better didn’t.

He barely had finished his sentence when a super-hot coffee cup that was in Bianca’s hand was thrown on the table, smudging all the papers and making some drops of coffee splash on James’ white shirt, leaving stains. Bianca didn’t think about her actions. She just did it. What could they do? Fire her? Check.

   After leaving the room and putting all her stuff inside a box without giving one single look to anyone, Bianca walked to the elevator in a state of shock. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard from James. ‘Being a woman sucks’, she thought. She had spent her entire life trying to be perfect. Getting the best grades, doing well on SAT, studying at a college with a full scholarship, getting a degree. All this hard work just to be told by a piece of shit that she couldn’t be a boss. Bianca hadn’t refused every party invitation during college for that.

    When the elevator reached downstairs, Bianca did her own walk of shame. Everybody in the hall stared at her, some of them looking away from her in fear, others curious about what happened to the usually scary Bianca Del Rio. She was known as a feared woman, with her quick mind, shady responses and killer looks. She didn’t have time for anyone’s bullshit. But right now, she was feeling the weakest she had ever been, and she hated to appear weak in front of others. 

“Be strong. Living in this world is hard as hell.”

 She had grown up hearing that phrase. Being strong became her second skin that was attached to her body ever since she had understood that she would need it to survive. The heavy make-up applied to her face every day worked as a materialization of this mask, as if it would hide all of her real emotions.

 Being strong was the shield to world’s adversities, but also the hideout of her secrets and self-doubts. Bianca knew that she could never be her true self. She was taught to be brave and successful. And people like her would never be successful if they studied Arts. Or if they’d finally admitted they were gay.

 She got used to being strong, quick and working like a dog. But that was not enough. She was not enough. The truth about this reality crushed her so bad that she didn’t care about the rain that was falling on the streets, starting to soak her belongings inside the box and destroying her make-up. The vestiges of mascara started to leave black trails on her cheeks, that dropped from her eyes.

 “Well, at least I can blame the rain now.” She knew this was a poor excuse.

 As soon as she got home, after taking the bus and doing her best poker face during the entire way, Bianca threw her box on the apartment’s floor and, almost at the same time, heard the phone ringing. Leaving a trail of water drops as she walked, she reached the phone and instantly recognized the voice on the other side. ‘Oh great, it’s my sister!’, she thought and answered.

 “Girl, you betta have a real good reason for talking to me right now, because I was asking myself how much alcohol it takes to stay drunk for a whole weekend!”

 “Bianca!!! I need you to come to the club now! It’s an emergency! Wait, drunk? What’s your damage?”

 “Oh, fuck it, I don’t really wanna talk about this. Why do I have to go to your dump? Have you already discovered it was a bad investment?”

 “That’s exactly why I need you to come RIGHT. NOW. Please, Bianca. I promise that if you come, I’ll buy you as much alcohol as you want!”

 “Such a terrible proposal. Promise?”

 “Promise. Just come here, bitch! NOW!”

 After being hung up on, Bianca took a deep breath, rolled her eyes, and made her way to the bathroom to clean up her face, so she wouldn’t look like she just had a breakdown before helping her sister. It was not like she had any better place to go.     

 💿

“What. The. Fuck.”

 “Good to see you too, my dear sister!”

 Bianca tried her best to deflect from the cobwebs and step carefully in order not to ruin her shoes on the sticky stains on the carpet. The place was even worse than she had imagined in terms of cleaning, but she could see a potential nightclub. Maybe if she squinted a little bit.

 “Is this the famous ‘Future Nostalgia’? Its looks more like ‘Future Flu’, but that’s fine!”

 Michelle, sitting on the edge of a platform that used to be a small stage, stared at her sister with no emotion. They were always different from one another, but that day, Michelle noticed Bianca was out of her normal. Her classic executive clothes were soaked wet, and aside from this, something about her expression looked out of place. As if something had broken her shield.

 “I’m such a dip. I should’ve made a better plan before buying this place. If I had looked for more places before buying the first rentable abandoned club, I wouldn’t have bought this…cemetery.”

 “Hey, hey, hey! Get yourself together! You already bought it, so there’s no use to freak out now. Look, I know that it’s hard to see the club of your dreams, but with some repairs, employees and DEFINITELY SOME CLEANING, this space can look like new and mad awesome!”

 “Alone??? How am I gonna do all of these things?? I don’t know if I can handle the management of an entire club! I know this was a bad idea, I shoulda done the same like you and…”

 “And what? Gone to a college and been unhappy? Worked with something you hate? Or maybe spent the rest of your days making double effort to try to fit into a space that you know it’s not your shape, but still you squeeze and hurt yourself trying to fit in?”

 Every word that came out of Bianca’s mouth was heavy and turned her thoughts into reality. The truth was that she always pretended. Bianca made a huge effort to hold her tears, but Michelle knew her for too long to not know that something was going on.

 “What happened, Bianca?”

 Bianca took a deep breath and said: “I was laid off. My superiors didn’t want me to be a boss, they considered me unable for the job because I’m a woman. Do you know how much it hurts? I spent so many years on that company, doing extra shifts all the time and pretending to be someone I’m not for nothing! These clothes, these shoes, this posture…This is not me.“

 Michelle called her to come closer and Bianca sat next to her on the platform.

 “I always felt you repressed who you really were. I remember when we were kids. You spent hours and hours joining pieces of fabric to create costumes for us to use in our plays for the audience of toys. And you always made everyone laugh when you were acting!”

 “For sure, just the Barbies were a tough audience. You know, the excess of plastic in her faces made it difficult to express anything.”    

 Michelle laughed and put her hand against Bianca’s.

 “I think this is the perfect moment for you to start over. You can finally show the beautiful clown that you are. Dirty-mouth, fast and a little bit shady, but beautiful. You may not see this now, but those idiots having fired you was the best thing that could’ve happened. They are not used to a female alpha. What would Madonna do?”

   “Bitch, I thought I was gonna give a motivational speech here!”

 The sisters laughed together.

 “Maybe you should listen to yourself. If Madonna was on your place, what would she do?”

 “She would be Madonna, fantabulous and radical, I’m just Michelle.”

  “Girl, don’t wig out! Dear, you are Madonna. From Brooklyn, but still Madonna!” Bianca said. “C’mon, I wanna show you something.”

 Bianca got up and took a 'Like a Virgin’ vinyl by Madonna out of her purse, which Michelle had borrowed her almost one year ago.

 “Every time you forget who you are, look at this. It was already getting dusty at home; I should’ve returned it to you sooner, but maybe today was the right day to give it back to you.” 

 Michelle took her vinyl back and stared at it, admiring the cover. Then, she remembered.

 “I saw a gramophone somewhere here. Do you know what I have in mind?”

 “Oh, shit, I should’ve seen that coming!”

 “Duh. You won’t escape from me!” said Michelle, already running to put the vinyl on the gramophone. The first chords of Material Girl started to resonate through the room.

 “Take a broom and lip sync with me!”

 The sisters started to clean and organize the space using brooms, dusters, mops and other cleaning supplies that Michelle had brought earlier, while lip syncing for their lives. They sang, danced and tried hard not to slip on the wet floor. A and B sides of the disc were played several times until dawn, when they finally finished the cleaning. The place already looked completely different. It had been a while since the last time they had shared a moment like this. Their last meetings were brief, at family reunions, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Both of them were busy chasing their own dreams, but now life had got them together in the same path.

 “You know what?” said Bianca, drying the sweat of her forehead with her hand.

 “I wanna work with you. I’ll help you with anything you need related to management, organization and the hiring of new employees. I can use some money I’ve been saving for investments, because this is an investment, and a little bit of my unemployment insurance ‘cause, sincerely, fuck this shit. I don’t have anything better to do and I didn’t get my degree for nothing, am I right?”

 “Are you sure? It would be excellent, but you’re not a party person. You always say that parties are too loud and don’t have enough seats so you can rest your old ass!” teased Michelle.

 “And you are not as brill as me when it comes to business! How about we share what we know and become partners?”

“Deal.”    

  💿

After the hard work, a shower and a certain  number of drinks, Michelle’s and Bianca’s bodies were in a state of drunkenness that made them feel like they could run an entire marathon, so in order to release all that energy, they left the bar and decided to take a walk on the pier. Bianca was wearing some of Michelle’s clothes: a striped black and white shirt, a navy-blue pleated skirt that finished a little above her knees, a huge jeans coat, all of this complemented with white boots with cotton knee gaiters. It wasn’t exactly Bianca’s fashion, but she liked a little bit of a change.

That didn’t stop her from making jokes about it. 

“Yeah, I now kinda understand all the fuss about skirts: they make it pretty fresh down there!”

 “You may not admit it, but I know you gagged on this look! How about it become a habit?”

  “Gag me with a spoon!”

 They walked together until they arrived at a part of the pier that was frequented by a lot of teenagers and young adults that got together to dance, flirt and smoke pot in the darkest corners. A little bit ahead of them, there was a group of people gathered in a circle, enjoying the music played by the DJ, using her simple equipment in one of the corners of the pier. She had pale skin, full light blonde hair, wore a pair of black headphones that matched the rest of her look and had an expression on her face that left doubts if she was just sleepy or super high.

 Inside the circle, surrounded by people going crazy for her dance steps, there was a young girl with dark skin, long and smooth legs, and long straight black hair that moved according to her body. She walked like she was on the Fashion Week’s runway and caught all the attention with her intense stares as she moved.

 Right after, another dancer entered on the circle, doing a bridge, lifting of the floor gracefully. She had light skin, blonde hair, a Chanel haircut and wore dark red lipstick. She was dancing along with the other girl doing splits, handstands and other moves that looked impossible to execute, with such a technique like a true gymnast.

 While Michelle was totally into the dancers, that started to battle with other two boys, another thing caught Bianca’s eyes. The young lady was a little farther away from the group, dancing to her own rhythm of the remix played by the DJ. She had white skin a little tanned and blonde perfect curls pinned on the top of her head with a bow. She wore colorful bracelets, a blue crop top with a mid-skirt that spun with her movements. Bianca was completely hypnotized by the girl.

 When the music stopped and the dancers finished the vogue battle, Bianca was brought back to reality by the sound of the applauses. Michelle looked at her with excitement.

 “I need these girls in my club! They would be perfect! This is exactly what we need, performers would bring so much people to the parties. It would be hella amazing if they were our employees!”

 “So, what are we still doing here? Let’s go there and talk to them!”

 Michelle and Bianca walked towards the group of girls. The two dancers were gathered in a corner, chatting happily while the DJ, who seemed to be part of the group as well, was lazily rolling a cigarette between her fingers. As soon as they came closer, Bianca noticed the mysterious blonde was also there, laughing with the girls, and started to look as normal as possible.

 Michelle called them and started the introduction.

  “Hey, ladies! You totally nailed it; the dancing was amazing! I’m Michelle and this is my sister, Bianca. This was the first time we stopped to watch the vogue battles on the pier!”

 Bianca locked eyes with the blonde, who smiled at her, but quickly looked away. 

 “Thank you, girl! I am Naomi, like Campbell, this is Katya, our Russian gymnast who we pretend is really Russian to give an exotic touch to our group…” both girls extended their hands to greet Bianca and Michelle.

 “…and that one sleeping while rolling a joint is Pearl, our DJ friend!’

 Waking up from her 10 second sleep, Pearl straightened her back and simply said: “Sup.”

   Katya laughs loudly and says: “Such a character! Oh, and last but not least, this is Courtney, my true foreign friend who came to see us dancing today!”

 “Hello! I’m from Brisbane, Australia. I’m here in NY studying Performing Arts in a student exchange program.” Courtney said, nicely, her accent perceptible.

 “That looks great! So good to see the young ones so dedicated to studies!”   

Bianca felt the weight of 84 years on her back after this commentary and regretted saying it immediately, although she made her new crush giggle.

 Michelle went straight to the point.

 “Well, girls, we actually came here to make a proposal: We both are going to inaugurate a new night club downtown, and we need performers, so we thought you’d be perfect! What do you think?”

 A pause. Then Naomi answered.

  “Look, I saw this thing happen a bunch of times, with friends of ours. You are not the first ones and won’t be the last to come here, making promises to the dancers, but it’s always the same scheme. I think it’s cute for you guys to come here and flatter us, but I saw a lot of these contracts that ended up badly for other girls, so the answer is no.” 

 Bianca tried to show more reliability.

 “I understand. We are two strangers, coming here and trying to make a deal, but we also don’t really know you, so this is equally risky for us. Me and Michelle live in New York since always, we grew up here. I am an administrator and Michelle used to work on the diner at 7th street, she’s a club frequenter.“

 Pearl spoke, pointing to Michelle while blowing the smoke from the cigarette.

 “Yeah, you are not a stranger to me…I think I saw you at one of the parties I played at once…but I’m always so tired that I’m not sure…”

 “That’s not really surprising, Sleeping Beauty!” mocked Katya.

 Michelle proceeded.

 “I think we can have a conversation, try to know each other better, and come to a deal that helps both parts. With that talent, you could attract even more public to the parties and would be paid to do what you already do at the pier, but at a safer and more well-structured place!” 

 “Well, the offer is tempting, but we love dancing here. The pier is where our community exists, where we took our first steps and learned everything. We follow our schedules, our rules, without a boss full of orders on us. Also, I don’t appreciate the idea of someone coming here, taking our culture and making money out of it, you know?” Naomi said in a defensive tone.

 Bianca argued.

 “We truly don’t want to take advantage of what you girls do. Your work is pure art, and it’s a result from hard work. I believe we can open a new door for you to show what you do. Downtown is full of people, and sometimes the clubs are visited by businessmen and headhunters looking for new talents. If you work with us, you can make an extra money, meet new people and be seen. I believe we can help each other. We’re all women fighting for our place in this world.”

 Naomi and Katya looked at each other, thoughtful.

 “What about the money?” asked Katya.

 “We can negotiate payments, schedules, and the performances will be totally yours, full freedom to create,”  Michelle said. “We also need a DJ! I think it’s fair enough having a woman in charge of music as well!”

  “Like, I thought I was already in” said Pearl, confused and a little distracted from the conversation.

 “Pearl, we’re still thinking about it, there’s nothing decided here, you stoner! Now, pass this joint over here!” said Katya, getting the weed cigarette from Pearl’s hands.

 Courtney said, bravely: “Do you girls need a bartender? I used to work mixing and serving drinks at my city, to help paying college! And I kinda need a job right now…”

 “Totally! You would be very useful!” said Bianca, one more time regretting her lack of discretion.

 All of them stayed quiet for a little, reflecting on the proposal, until Naomi broke the silence.

  “What about a meeting on Monday, 9am at Joe’s Cafe? We can discuss about it after a rest and having our stomachs filled. Until there, we’ll think about the offer. I believe we can support each other, if it’s really worth it.”

 “Awesome! I mean, deal.” Michelle corrected herself as an attempt to sound professional. “Monday it is.”

 “Deal! Now, if you excuse us, I need to go there and flirt with that cute jock who has been staring at me since the dance battle. The move 'contort like the girl from Poltergeist’ never fails!” 

Katya waved and ran towards the man, followed by Naomi and Pearl, who shook hands with the sisters.

  Just Courtney stayed behind, and right after waving to Michelle, she came closer to Bianca’s ear and said, quietly: “I think Katya was not the only one being observed tonight. And I really liked it.”

 With that, Courtney left, running to reach the other girls.

 Michelle looked to Bianca without understanding what had just happened until she saw her sister red like a shrimp, and started to laugh loudly, followed by curses and more laughs from Bianca. Together, the two started to leave the pier, clumsy and happy, towards Michelle’s apartment. The day had both started and finished in total opposite ways, reviving the hope that good things may be coming. They’d need to work a lot, but the end of this night was just the beginning of a new era in the sister’s lives.         

[ganymedesclock]

So I recently checked our your We Hallowed Few fanfic and it's really interesting and enjoyable so far. If you don't mind, do you think you could tell me what each character is supposed to be (their race and such?)

Thank you very much for your time and interest in Hallowed! I’m not totally sure if I’m correctly interpreting their question but, here goes, talking about inspirations and motifs on the main characters.

As far as race goes I tried to keep that relatively standard to this fantasy world. So the characters’ names aren’t just legacies from canon. Shiro is still, functionally, Japanese. I say “functionally” because I’m not saying “in Hallowed, a world with fantasy everything else, there is just the entire unchanged nation of Japan and I just maybe changed the name”. I’ve never really liked the “fantasy nation just thinly veiled adaptation of [x] real-world country” since I feel like that can lead to bad roads. However, Shiro is canonically Japanese, and that, like him being canonically disabled, is something I wanted to retain, so I did.

More specific notes on Hallowedverse characters, their capabilities, and their sorta walks of life to follow under the cut.

Shiro

My concept on Shiro in Hallowed is that the Arusian crown was there for him sort of the way the Garrison seems to have been in canon. For one reason or another he didn’t really have parents, so he was trained as a page then a squire and became a knight because he wanted to do good in the kingdom. In Hallowed we’re shamelessly operating off high fantasy’s concept of knighthood rather than real feudal history so Shiro’s no landed noble, nor is he of particularly aristocratic background. Except for the whole “was mysteriously spirited away for a year of his life and might be undead now” thing, he’s a guy of pretty humble background.

That said, he has distinguished himself positively among his peers- in the chapter that debuts Allura and Thace I did have them discuss that he’s actually a knight captain in rank, so, modest leadership position. In contrast to canon he’s a little more stable but also a little more... prone to hiding his issues since again, the crown and the Order of the Lion was there to pick him back up again after his escape. This is a Shiro who wasn’t sprung from Garrison custody by the rest of the team the way he was in canon, so on the one hand he’s given a stabler environment to get his feet back under him, but on the other, missing hand, he also has gone a good while without any answers, so he boils out to still pretty stressed, but in different ways.

I’m honestly really amused that Monsters and Mana gave Shiro a sword-and-shield fighting style almost exactly like his Hallowed self because it just feels really vindicating, like, “I called it!” That said Hallowed Shiro is more of a horseback fighter. That gives him more mobility, a better vantage point, and, likewise, the ability to better coordinate a battlefield.

Ultimately for Shiro, at least, hollow Shiro- not the one Keith’s used to- I went for this very classic knightly vibe because it just fits him so well. This is exactly what Shiro would want to be. For a person of such a strict sense of morals and such a powerful drive to right wrongs, the Knight In Shining Armor is an incredibly powerful symbol and living in a world where that’s normal would be just as captivating to him as it’s shown to be in canon.

Keith

Keith is a lot more of a vagrant than his canon self and he’s a little more self-sufficient and withdrawn. Because of Shiro’s situation, Keith didn’t have nearly as much of that steadying presence but he was able to travel, and familiarize himself with the wilderness. It’s helped him hone his senses more but he’s also more of a defeatist about interactions and other people.

Especially because unlike in canon, this version of Keith has a much more refined sense of “otherness”. He’s known he’s not like most people, not quite like his father, not really like anyone around him. Honestly, certain amounts of Keith play into changeling lore, not that he was switched at birth but this sort of... nonhuman entities that live among humans and can “pass” but only mostly.

Hallowed Keith’s whole fighting style is basically that he goes ‘swhink’ real fast. That blood sword of his basically can punch right through most conventional metals and most things behind it, so the fact that he’s a malnourished kid with absolutely zero armor or even a healthy amount of body fat who the average well-fed adult could grab by the ankle and swing means that it’s a damn good thing he’s light on his feet.

Maybe, someday, this kid will get decent armor. Not shoes, though. He’s pretty obstinate about those.

Lance

It’s kinda fun that the guy who doesn’t really canonically have “destiny” powers most of the time be one of the only people with nonhuman lineage. Technically he’s still a pretty normal person, though; there’s a lot of people in the islands Lance calls home with mer ancestry so really all it is, is adding some fantastical color to his family which is already really important to him. In a setting where everyone’s bumping elbows in the same planet rather than separated by the expanse of space, there’s going to be a lot of interrelation and in some places, shared culture.

And Lance is an ideal person to explore that, since he’s kinda got that broader sociological lens as a Leg Pilot. He’s a good way to explore worldbuilding because his story is rooted a lot in who he is and where he comes from in a wider sense. In earlier drafts of the story he was a more conventional selkie-like merfolk who could shed his scale skin to grow legs, but I ended up focusing his nonhuman traits down to just his throat, just his voice.

I talked about this a bit in the replies on the work itself, but how Lance’s “charm” works is he’s able to encourage emotions in people. It’s not mind control, but influencing how people feel for a short duration. He uses this with his, Hunk, and Pidge’s show to have everybody on the edge of their seat, but ultimately if I was giving Lance a power, I wanted it to be a very social one, something very focused on other people.

Lance isn’t really a liar or a manipulator- we’ll see other people with similar powers who are a lot more exploitative with them, but in Lance’s case, he’s got a real art for positive emotions and persuasion because that’s just kinda what he likes and focuses on. He loves people and wants them to be happy.

Weapon-wise, Lance is a longbow archer. This is not only a reflection of his canon marksmanship, but the longbow is a weapon mastered over a long time and it speaks to something I don’t think people often appreciate quite enough in Lance’s character: that as someone who’s very pointedly not a prodigy and by his own admission makes a lot of mistakes, almost everything Lance is good at is a product of his diligence and hard work. 

Keith might be almost supernaturally light on his feet and the refinement of those skills snuck by without him paying attention, but Lance can drop someone he can barely see over the horizon with a well-placed arrow because he’s been running around with a child’s toy bow about as long as he’s been able to stand up straight and practiced until his fingers bled from the string.

Hunk

Hallowed Hunk I honestly didn’t plan as much as he was a natural product of his environment. In canon the team has a lot of conveniences born by the advanced technology around them but in Hallowed it’s a lot more low-tech. There’s food supplies to worry about, and someone’s got to cook it, and they need the tools to cook, and they need money, and someone needs to keep the cart in one piece and feed the horses and Blue.

Hunk is a practical problem-solver so he really kinda thrives in this. He starts out a little more obviously brash and assured as a result, but really, he’s in the same place his canon self starts, it’s just that Hallowed Hunk gets to feel like more things are in his area. He’s been traveling with Lance for a while, and while Lance is the furthest thing from helpless, Lance is also kind of a dreamer and very people focused and slightly inattentive, so Hunk might’ve started picking up slack to make things run smoothly but after a while he’s just kinda taken ownership of the operation.

I knew I wanted to conceptualize Hunk as an alchemist because I tend to in fantasy settings, but not so much as the aristocratic sage in the tower. Hunk’s alchemy is a product of him being, again, that practical person and also intensely personally curious, and he’s not a flirt like Lance, but he does like people. As he says himself, he’s running on a lot of old family recipes refined with self-taught tricks which sets a fun contrast between him and Pidge, where both are really knowledgeable, but Hunk’s knowledge is very much that of the working man’s, and since his working life has been more interesting than most’s, that’s a wide knowledge base.

While this wasn’t shown off much in the first fight the team got into, it’s worth noting that Hunk’s weapon of choice is a hooked staff. Again, Hunk is someone of practical problems and solutions, and roughly, the way he views a battle is as a series of problems that will happen very fast and need to be managed. He doesn’t have nearly as much focus on hurting his opponent as he does controlling the situation, and with his arm strength it’s very easy for him to use that hook to hoist around friend and foe alike.

The reach of his weapon and the explosives and incendiary devices he can pull off if he’s given the time to prepare make him a very daunting person to cross indeed, so he’s not exactly suffering from not having a sharpened edge on his weapon.

Pidge

People often make Pidge a full-tilt actualized wizard which isn’t awful but I think it often sort of overestimates her resources. Pidge, to me, is always this very clever but also very fifteen-year-old who’s running on just what she can carry with her, determined and ambitious but limited.

So in Hallowed, she’s got a lot of magical talent but not much training, she’s got a lot of formal studies that were very theory because in direct contrast to Hunk, Pidge has that aristocratic background. Her family wasn’t complacent, but, there’s a lot Pidge never learned to do because she never needed to. And leaving that comfortable life behind wasn’t something she regretted, but, there’s a reason she started traveling with Lance and Hunk.

Specifically I wanted to feature Pidge being kind of a chameleon, inspired directly by the Enola Holmes books with Nancy Springer. Originally I had her with this brooch that let her change her appearance but Pidge’s actual disguise magic is pretty minimal- she can change her eye colors, and the rest is makeup, wigs, fake teeth, costuming elements. She originally had a very specific practical reason for wanting to disguise herself, but, again, compared to canon she was doing this for a while- so it kind of became fun, and an exercise in self-expression.

That said, some of Pidge’s skills are a little odd for just a duchess’s daughter, which is why Hunk assumed Pidge was on the lam from some kind of criminal past. Let’s just say Pidge is not the average “runaway princess” narrative.

Other Shiro

The other Shiro was modeled first and foremost off s3e5 in canon. So he’s got the long hair, kind of ongoing fatigue problems, he’s quieter and more irritable than Knightly Shiro but a lot of that is just... he’s dealing with a lot. He’s constantly exhausted and while he feels, much like Knightly Shiro, called to do something important, he’s fighting uphill against his own body which is in a very fragile state.

Knight Shiro is kitted out by the crown, so he’s really well-equipped and has helpful things to keep him healthy and in good shape, while Other Shiro is using things that he took from the underground, and from the galra, which, while useful, were never designed with his comfort or even longevity much in mind, which is part of why he’s doing so badly.

I honestly thought it would be kind of fun to have two versions of Shiro who are both sympathetic but both, for different reasons, in different ways, seem sinister, and play on the fears or aspersions I saw people raise during clone theory. Knight Shiro is based on how, in s3e6 when Shiro “cleaned up” there were a lot of accusations about how he just. rebounded so easily and perceiving him as insincere or even creepy because he’s just, everything’s neat and tidy. Knightly Shiro is really straitlaced and friendly aesthetic and he went missing for a year, lost an arm, and was branded by practically demons but it’s fine, everything’s fine, he’s here to help, and it’s basically just a survival mantra for him because not being fine raises terrifying deep questions that he’s not really in a position to answer.

Ghost Shiro however, we’ve seen kind of an overly positive / accepting light of him through Keith but he is one freaky guy, I’ll tell you that. There’s a reason he avoids most people, and the snippet of his conversation with Lotor and the unnatural writhing of shadows, his black stone hand... Ghost Shiro was based a little off of “the champion” in canon and some of my personal meta / speculations around that. He was cast into the darkness and emerged, survived, because he made that darkness his own power. And part of that is his agreement with Lotor.

Lotor

There’s only so much I’ll say at this point about Hallowed Lotor because he’s rather deliberately kind of an enigma. There’s a good question if the person Shiro’s dealing with is actually who and what he claims to be, especially since he’s not claiming particularly much. The fun of dealing with shapeshifters who don’t appear to have any one particular default form- and he really doesn’t. Being a magpie is just his equivalent of slipping into comfy pants at the end of the day. Hitch a free ride on whoever you’re talking to and call it good.

Lotor and Shiro are shown in many regards to be able to kind of see eye to eye, and the idea of Ghost Shiro, who doesn’t really have a lot of resources since his Other is kinda taking up that narrative niche, turning to him for help struck me out of nowhere as the logical conclusion. Hallowed Lotor being a shapeshifter, he’s at both much greater and much lesser freedom than he is in canon. He and the generals don’t get to move together as a cohesive team very often, they’re more scattered, but instead he has this handful of people, Shiro included, who he can kind of draw a bead on and come back to. Ghost Shiro is pretty used to him popping up at odd intervals.

Which is fun, because it fits with Lotor’s modus operandi- Zarkon and Haggar tend to be rather obvious in the intensity of their assertions, but Lotor’s the little guy and he fights like a little guy, and in a more whimsical fantastical environment you can play with that. End result? Lotor is a lot of people’s shoulder devil. He likes to help and does appear to have some genuine sympathy for the people he bargains with, but he’s also got an agenda. And it’s not really super clear how much of either wins out in any given situation.

And poor Allura and Coran are still total mysteries at this point. We’ll get to them. Y’know. Eventually.

[finnlongman]

what advice would you give to someone going to cambridge? if you were to do uni from the beginning again, what would you change / do differently?

Hmm, that’s a tricky question -- mostly because everybody is different, and every subject is different, and the things I’ve struggled with / regretted are fairly unique to me and my circumstances, so it’s difficult to give advice that is general enough to be applicable to an anonymous question!

Here are a few pieces of advice, though, which may also apply to other unis.

About work:

Probably nothing is as important as your supervisors / Director of Studies seems to think that it is.

You don’t have to do every single essay you’re ever set and you definitely don’t have to do them on time. If it’s a bad week, you get ill, or you just plain can’t do it, contact your supervisor. Explain the situation and they’re usually happy for you just to write a plan or to discuss the topic without written notes.

(That said: go back and write notes afterwards, because you’ll need them when you come to revise.)

It’s worth producing good notes during the year; even if you’re a crammer who learns everything in the two weeks before the exam, like me, it’s a lot harder to do that without any notes to learn it from. I’m painfully aware of that right now. -_-

Ask for help and offer help. When you have notes, share them with other people on your course; there’ll come a time when you need their notes and they’ll be a lot happier to share them if you’ve done the same. Though most people will share anyway if they think you have a reason beyond laziness to need them.

If you’re doing languages that require you to know vocab or anything where you need to learn specific terminology, Memrise is great; you can add your own lists of words for specialised topics.

About extra-curricular stuff:

It’s more rewarding to pick one extra-curricular activity and actually stick with it rather than trying to do several and doing them half-heartedly, in my opinion.

And you definitely don’t have time to do several whole-heartedly. Well, it depends what they are, but don’t overschedule yourself. You need time to rest and watch Netflix.

Some societies go away on trips in the holidays and they’re often subsidised. E.g. the Ceilidh Band tour each September -- usually only somewhere in the British Isles, but a super cheap way to get a holiday.

Join the Irish Dance Society.

Adulting:

If you’re in a college that gives you decent kitchen facilities, learn to cook, because it’ll save you a lot of money and also means you can cater for friends. Having a meal together that you cooked is more fun, less stressful, and cheaper than going to a restaurant (in my opinion).

You probably won’t have enough storage space to do an online shop all by yourself, because you won’t get over the minimum spend limit, but if you split it with a friend, you only need £20 worth of shopping each.

But do your washing up. Do it!! Do it right now!! Don’t leave it for stuff to get caked on because then it’s (a) gross and (b) harder to wash up when you eventually get around to it. Then put it away. Wow suddenly your kitchen is twice as big.

Don’t borrow other people’s stuff without asking and if you do, wash it and return it before they miss it.

But just don’t borrow it. They might have allergies. DO NOT POISON YOUR NEIGHBOURS WE DON’T APPRECIATE IT.

That said, don’t buy a ton of kitchen equipment before you arrive. Bring the minimum (cutlery, a saucepan, a frying pan etc), and figure out what you need after a couple of weeks cooking for yourself. Then go to Wilko (over by the Grafton) to get the rest. It’s the cheapest.

Do your laundry BEFORE you run out of socks, but make sure you own enough socks that you don’t have to do it super often, especially if it costs money.

Check whether your clothes can go in the tumble dryer before you put them in. Otherwise you’ll shrink all your t-shirts

If you have a disability, chronic illness, other health problem:

Register with the doctor as soon as you arrive. Go to see them in freshers’ week, even if you’re not ill, and make sure they’re aware of your chronic problems and how they might affect your health in the longer term. 

Get in touch with the Disability Resource Centre and make sure you get any support that you’re eligible for. You might be able to get more than you realise.

The DRC will usually write a Student Support Document that gets sent to your supervisors and other teachers (with your consent) to make sure they’re aware of your health problems and what help or concessions you might need. Make use of this. Make sure it actually reached them. If supervisors repeatedly ignore it, chase it up. Uni is hard enough without people dismissing your health problems.

You also might be able to get extended loans at various libraries. This is worth doing -- if nothing else, so you don’t have to lug your books back on a bad pain day or risk a fine. If like me you can’t always carry large piles of books, ask a friend if they’ll walk with you to the library and help you carry them. Most people will be happy to (unless you’re at, like, Girton).

If you need exam concessions, get them sorted out way in advance so you don’t have to worry about them nearer the time.

You can order over-the-counter meds online and it’s often cheaper. Did you know you can get 6 boxes of antihistamine for, like, a fiver? They cost, like, 2.50 each at the supermarket. Save yourself a bunch of money and buy in bulk.

Most of these are based on my own experiences of what I have or have not done during my time at uni, so I guess reading between the lines will tell you what I wish I’d done if I’d started again! However, I can’t really say what I’d have done differently. I am a very different person to the person I was in 2014, with different strengths and priorities. I think everyone changes a huge amount between freshers’ week and finals, especially if they take four years instead of three.

But one thing I wish I’d done this year is TAKE MORE NOTES IN SEMINARS SO I HAVE SOMETHING TO REVISE FROM, DAMN IT. So, uh, do with that piece of advice what you will.

Sorry, this answer got away from me and turned into general life advice. Hope it was vaguely helpful anyway. Let me know if you have any more specific questions.

[townshade6]

Parents Tips when Purchasing your Young Children's First Cellphone

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The Galaxy S8 Active screen is sharp, the camera is great, and the battery is forgiving if your child forgets to charge it one night. All of that is packed right into a chassis with an great rating. In other words, it can handle a whole lot of carelessness. We dropped one screen-first onto a stone floor from five feet up, and the display was fine. The Samsung Galaxy S8 Active is supplied in the US on Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T. Customers on other systems and in the United Kingdom can look in its place at the Samsung Galaxy S8 and any of the top Samsung Galaxy S8 phone cases. Iphone SE Right from the Apple group of cellphones, the iPhone SE is not the most popular phone, but it’s still helped by Apple with the most up-to-date iOS 11 revisions. In spite of its years, it often works excellently with Apple’s A9 cpu, and it shall give your offspring almost all the cell phone capabilities they may want. The benefit of their generation is certainly that it comes at a very low price for an Apple device.

One of the primary problems about getting your teen an iPhone SE is that it is not built to end up being extremely robust. Fortunately, this is an obstacle that can easily be solved by way of a reasonably priced iPhone SE case. Apple's iPhone 7 or iPhone 8 If asking price isn’t an important challenge and you plan to get a phone case (or your teen has established themselves never to be reckless), the iPhone 8 can result in tremendous choices. Your daughter or son shouldn’t feel held back by any insufficient features (or style) on these newer gadgets, even though you may rest assured that the parental settings on iOS will be enough to keep track of your teen’s usage. Although the advance cost might be excessive, software help and support for these newer iPhones should last longer, so you would not have to be stressed about upgrading any time soon. As an added bonus, the iPhone cameras are exceptional, so you will get to see a lot of delightful shots of those things your kid is doing. There is one explanation to hand your daughter or son a cellphone: if they are often out of reach of reliable people and may perhaps have to speak to you or another caregiver. Please don't purchase your children a really expensive, luxurious smartphone. The Wait Until Eighth crusade, which encourages only allowing children cell phones once they start the 8th grade, makes some really good arguments, although it too quickly avoids cell phones and social websites, which are not the same elements. The system's central position, though, is the fact that younger children generally just require smart phones for calling and limited text messaging. The perfect telephone for tweens and kids is a basic voice phone, a screenless Republic Wireless Relay, or a 100 % pure tracking gadget like the Ankr. The moment you try to improve to a smart phone, don't spend too much cash. Children and teenagers aren't cautious. That's part of what precisely will make them children. They'll lose mobile phones, drop cell phones, dip mobile phones, and damage mobile phones. Assume it will sooner or later happen. There's a bunch of sound smart phones in the low collection that run more or less new, secure editions of the os's, are not annoying to use, and don't seem entirely not cool. There are even a handful of good ones below two hundred. We will not enter the never-ending controversy, never resolved, about mobile phone teenagers and radiation, but many mother and fathers have expressed alarm to us about it. The good reports is the fact that radiation worries only really come into play when a telephone is held exactly up to your brain for extended amounts of time, and children do not speak on the telephone with all their classmates and friends much these days: they text. Short interactions with parents on a plain cellphone, for protection or misc uses, won't injure any person. To have long interactions, purchase a cheap wired headphones. Whatever telephone you get, make sure to get a decent, rugged case for it. My boy enjoys a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 within an Otterbox Commuter case. I did not foresee how creative my kid turn into by working with the S Smart pen, frequently doodling and writing ideas. Because of the smart pen, the Samsung Note 4 isn't only a smart phone, it's an unlimited journal. Try to make a bargain with your children: Just in case they end up getting a telephone, you get to look at it. I check my teen's smartphone regularly. She's okay with that; that's the agreement. I don't go through her text messages, but she knows I've the option. A new obligation before purchasing your kid a cellphone should be to pick and choose the correct service package. The most inexpensive plan is Wireless internet-only, with no SIM chip. If so, they only experience coverage in well-known Wifi systems, and can't send out regular texts or make traditional phone calls. Your kid may, however, use iMessage and FaceTime on Apple iPhones, or Google Hangouts for text messaging and calling to other Google accounts on Google Android phones. Your company may possibly recommend a cellphone on a monthly installment plan. In cases where you are using a data bucket with your children, you should set a limit on their cell phone to a particular amount of regular monthly data with the intention that your children don't eat up all of yours.

[moonflowershop]

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ADMINISTRATION INSTANCES TIME WERE INCREASINGLY ASIAN HUNTING SEEKING TO JUSTIFY CHINA’S MINIATURE CHANCE AND AGGRESSION ON THE My Skin Color Is Not A Crime Mugshot Unisex Sweatshirt from AmazinkShirt.com EAST ASIAN COUNTRIES REGARDING THE TIME IS SOMETHING WRONG SIGNALS TO TAIWAN INDEPENDENCE. Face coverings are required to be worn whenever a person is in an enclosed space other than a private residence DNR spokeswoman Megan Sheridan spoke with McClatchy news and said that employees wearing masks about videoconferencing what with external partners sets a good example during the pandemic there is no fucking pandemic asked the problem by wearing a mask while videoconferencing with the general public we visually remind folks that masking is an important part of navigating the business of natural resources during this tumultuous time Sheridan said but maybe when a mask is just a way of tricking people into believing that were still under band was still in a pandemic where we never were to begin with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not advise wearing a face mask while social distancing in your home except under certain conditions Sheridan also said there was another reason employees were asked to Don masks while on remote videoconferences we ask staff to wear masks went on external. Net At the top of a small log is on the back in the shuffle for the active people so they Apple and if I did feel in the elemental effects at K Natalie is the make no I know this Garner made not just cactus anything flashing only in Connecticut are poorand nearly empty that me to the book me that if I can laugh at half ice over fast onionand fit in the most I can add that was in a boozeand lets them all down right to circulate barsand the don’t evolve our vessel before going to cut out at the kiosk at Adonijah the at the Kennedys increased please we we know provinces are going to be in territoriesand the important part just as different provinces choose different regimes around telling alcohol different places my choose different approachesand outward to work withand that’s why we’ve been talking about it taxand since the election are we giving people a yearand had heads up with this task force that went around the country that we are giving for the legislation at this time provinces have well over a year now close to 15 months to put in place their system that seems that the province chooses not to there will still be a way through the the federally regulated system for people in every corner this country to to that purchase marijuana get is one of the things that time that I’ve heard a lot from from leveling it now I think you’re right you with teenagers know how to get their hands on joints now that the teachers don’t don’t think he plans thereof as often as they shut there’s a lot of places people people the highest per capita users in the world in Canada legal marijuanaand getting someone in the dispensary the issue with with getting it from a friend about from a friend organized crime is as we thought we follow the interaction most law abiding Canadians have with criminalsand many law abiding Canadians have criminals isand purchasing three 3380 incorporate long termand medical marijuana the vision possible when you’re candlesticks seem to be right to the company acted two things in the great question first when you mention medical marijuana right now the medical marijuana system which I we’ve heard you all sorts of people how certain certain aspects of marijuana is really good for certain conditions on the medical marijuana system that exists in Canada will stay in for the coming years right now however the medical marijuana is the only system is the only illegal system also for recreational useand a lot of people are getting recreational marijuana through medical marijuana system so once we’ve created opportunities for adults to purchase marijuana recreational use legally on that take a lot of pressure off of the medical marijuana systemand will be able to make better determination to to support medical marijuana usersand producersand the research that needs to continue going onand so Ray had those two things is going to radically transform your the the environment in which medical marijuana currently works only in regards to license producers in itand it’s really good that you’re highlighting what were looking at is licensing the production of marijuana provinces will determine whether there so it sold to dispensaries or whether it sold to you liquor board serve the full board like have Ontario that the various approaches will be done by the promises but were going to regulate producers I’m sure there will be in there already have indications that there are going to be big corporate style players but at the same time we are very very much focused on taking shut there’s a market is going to need needsand interests of Canadians that I know I Canadians like you regardless of the big corporate beers people like the microbrews we we know that people that I want to choose organic or low pesticides or a particular this particular that Amir is going to be an opportunity for small producers to get regulatedand to to act itself as a part time meetingand the line are disproportionately peaceful nonviolent keeper Jody I think people should understand that you are coming at this from a different perspective on you’re coming at it from lifestyle in a business choice I’m coming at it from a public policyand safetyand health choice health approach we have a system working on it hurting Canadians it’s hurting minoritiesand turning young people the current system doesn’t work to protect our communities to protect our kids will need to change that we will change that we will change the law or taking the time necessary to get it right as we seen in places where it hasn’t exactly gone right on the we can learn fromand out we will move forward in a thoughtful way on on fixing past wrongs that happen because of this is that this erroneous law that I didn’t put in placeand I’m working hard to fix the site review legal justice away from the little dog away from his whole life to helping people is at least in you ever wanted to pay I would be so sure if healthcare reached out to the company that already exists like this you want to do is to write what is highly love to discern the same work for to us where the future now or will already a problem for one of the things in in the title Candyland you’re highlighting it there’s a lot of concerns about access by kids to ediblesand there’s a lot of concerns about about learning from Coloradoand elsewhere on the challengesand that so we haven’t had any she said the future that I agree but we don’t yet have full confidence that we know what regulated framework around edibles will look like on what it look like five years know what to look for like 10 years from now we have to get it right is a huge amount of pressure on this out were taking a big step towards actual legalization of cannabisand it’s in sat oil formsand dried forms were to be working on it within new at the new frameworkand it’s in the future but again were focusing on getting it right so people concerned about the marijuana harm reduction risk of the best known as a member of rat that is a personal connection marijuana is a my wife had breast cancerand sheand she had a vasectomyand then okay chemo than vasectomyand thenand then radiationand I in night in a community that cc using cannabis for further pain inand actually off of all opiatesand only using cannabis for nerve is brilliant but she so in the community going to chemo a lot of a lot of people use use this this cannabis for for a lot of different medical reasons to help them with with all kinds of things now with LPs the these license producers getting caught with with different pesticides different mill duesand things like that are extremely harmful for these people that have other at their their most vulnerable communityand I’m just wondering how can the government be be back make sure that they are to take care of the health of of people I absolutely appreciate what you’re saying I’ve heard stories like that all across the country that have built that’s why the current medical marijuana regime will stay in place exactly so how your wife is accessing her medical marijuana right now will continue beyond the legalization framework that were beingand for recreational we are not going to be moving reducing or limiting in any way the medical marijuana field we just know that right now medical marijuana on top of being used by people for radical prescription purposes are on is also test for someone who would just as happily by legally for recreational uses or or minor uses were legal so we know that were accidentally removing a lot of pressure from the medical marijuana system which will allow it to better serve a more look like the did the responsibility of the LPsand that the guidelines for them to make sure that it’s safe for for for people is her leg is there any way to ensure that these people were to be using cannabis that could potentially at their most vulnerable right like there there there at their most vulnerable in their community night is what makes you that’s can be safe again at the medical use of marijuana is going to continue in the way around license producers health Canada is going to regulate all license producers the way we regulate at any any broad range of consumer product I were going to make sure that they’re being properly madeand their concerns are of mold or mildewand I got there will be immediate consequencesand people will as an indigenous person going on knowing about a grassy Narrows knowing about you suicide knowing about like water problems I just I want to know how I can make trust these promises of of health for these people I understand the concernsand that’s one of the reasons why working to make sure that were listening to indigenous peoplesand giving opportunities for indigenous communities to access the license producer regime we know that we have to make sure their license producers right across the country at different communities have access to itand I noticed in definite workaround ensuring that indigenous producers are going to have an opportunity to be part of the at the legal that legalize fishing that’s that’s one of the things that were definitely looking within a legalized framework were going to be able to do the kind of research that hasn’t been properly undertook to to determine exactly what what can we anecdotally an awful lot of people in the medical marijuana community I believe very strongly I think it’s a great opportunity to actually advance medical science by understanding the medical system community has a very powerful drugs up for acute short term pain don’t have a lot of great drugs for chronic low grade but very young laying out long term pain marijuana is often prescribed exactly for that having better knowledge better understanding of that is entirely what were going to be able to do on the flipside it would we talked briefly about revenueand revenue is not part of it continues at a similar example there is no wait time for anyone searching for gambling addiction treatment on anyone who has a gambling addiction can get treatment very reasonably straightforward way because part of the profits from legal gambling is put into addiction addiction treatment programs similarly some of the revenue from from legalizingand taxing marijuana I will certainly go into research go into treatment go into support for a for people struggling with challenges welland this latest user guide is a trial based harm reduction worker that I have a question can’t turn again to action supporting people the past we crisis last time frame around 30 people working ranch can’t hear you are 14 peopleand four people every day to be but every day hereand tear a lot country keeper Jack dressed people’s belief in a contributing to your current plans are to we Christians units to Prime Minister you are to first of all thank you for the amazing work youand sat across the country doing youand I sat down on couple times now with front line workersand experts in in the lower East side Vancouver to talk directly about thisand the number the recommendation they asked for we brought in we made a number of changes easier to bring in prescription heroin into this country so that it can access that the people people who need it will have access to the that responsible at presenters like Eric you are definitely things that we can do is more that we can do however we made a commitmentand we got a mandate to legalize marijuana kept our kids to protect Canadians to make sure that were removing the criminal elements from from that were moving ahead on that I will moving in different ways on on on other grounds whether it’s for safe consumption sites letters better access to prescription opioidsand an even heroin there are things we can do that are helping but I agree it’s a crisisand we need to do bulk transfer flash resource is the only box the country prescriptions are not that resources the best preventionand people you are doingand her job people keep completely traumatized resources do I wear to you Mr Prime Minister you selected a minor in parts of the drive we pray you can’t get people did you hear about the product or delivering on healthcare we spending millions of dollars we we are spending tens of millions of dollars but I know there is more to do we will be doing more to support including supporting the front line workers who left spoke into whether it’s paramedics or or I or at front line support workersand reduction site who are going to PTSD because there are so many people dying on the we absolutely need to do more to support you more to support respond to this crisisand we are doing well your way to war were continuing to make sure that the safety of Canadians paramountand that we make decisions like unlike previous government were moving far out why we had reversed at previous decisions to to ban prescription heroin from coming to the country that we are listed we took took on locks they off the prescription sweep done significant things to move in the right direction will continue to work with front line front line activistsand advocates who are seeing this terrible crisis are things we can do internationally as well work with China to help stem the tide of fentanyl a car for an hour coordinating with youand I were doing a number of things but I agree it’s not getting that’s why working so closely with the provincesand municipalities of which there are moreand more to make sure that we get tag at this this public health emergency control well I’m not there yet or exhale the we all respect was respectedand people are working on the frontline I also worked on the front a different capacity but the evidence is is not strong that that simply making these drugs legally available is the answerand interspersed there’s a one simple solutionand that’s why our government does is looking at the best advice of experts in the evidence looking at certainly supply addictions important were doing work with our international partners demand reduction treatment research prevention rehabilitation contact is my calling my former colleagues in cities across the country they tell me that there’s virtually no rehabilitation bets no detox beds available to them as one of the reasonsand I’m so proud that our government made a commitment we recognize that there’s revenue opportunities in the our plan to legalizeand regulate cannabisand we made commitments to make investments in in Internet research which is so important in treatment in rehabilitationand treatmentand endand services on the front line that will save lots this are our intent is to do this by July 1 unnecessarily on July 1 there were a number of people nicely concerned about the impact of of doing this on the day in which we celebrate the birth of the country but didn’t change your intent of the government’s intent was always to get this work done I July 1 that’s our target without a great deal of work to do but it is a reasonable targetand we we can afford to drag our feet there is too much risk to our kids too much risk to our communities we made a commitmentand an tell you there’s a consensus across the country that we must do better we can do betterand that’s our commitmentand when we believe that if we all work hard together we get it done by July 1 how here in Birminghamand I were on the Jack Daniels that Michael than I am marijuana legal or as you said earlier he’s the most boring guy in the country on this I got beatand Iand I know that inand friendly I have no intention of using this drug personally but I will celebrate if were successful in doing a better job protecting her kids in her community that we were suffering I was arguing with the present of Uruguay at his farm as elementary to US legalize marijuana interior lighting getting ready for legalizeand regulate weed across the country from seed to smoke so we can figure out how to pull this off igneous lover’s paradise for only regulated cash crop the government in December 2013 Uruguay’s Congress passed a law that regulated the cultivation saleand consumption of marijuana was a watershed moment in history more potential new legitimate economy is an entirely legal from December until April of this year the government meetingand writing the specifics of the regulation which will likely be sentenced down in late Apriland take affect small turns out the devil is in the detailsand a lot of it is more questions than answers about individual liberty the prospect of a commercial we boomand more of the great Uruguayan experiment brought forward by the country’s progressive president has stirred up a heated debate from both sides of the anti prohibition I’ll at least make Hestiaand Danielle the dart are long time we advocatesand academics lease it was just released from prison where she spent three months locked up on marijuana charges she was one of the last people to be put away for pot we visit them in their home just outside the country’s capital is so awesome regarding the above looking for is from a is an online so you think the government will be terribleand growing weed is going to the is surveyand how many you don’t want to register because you want the government to know what you’re doing okay okay fascinating Fridayand so the get a clinician who said that the Chinook attendedand will change your little letter that I will you just being paranoid years of forced criminality soured her on the very first law or is your latest need to give it a tryand go from there the big question is how does the concept of individual liberty against the government’s desire to regulate the rollout of full legalization we went to the office of Julio comes outand he’s the Secretary General of the national commission of drugs a guy who’s actually writing the regulations away goes alongand glad itand pay claims on your victory month there were now in a manner condo your socialite is a mighty wind they cannot donated by Katie as a secondary frame looking at Emily dataand Is inadequate formation is anyway SMEand Susan secretary Calvin’s office has crafted the rules if you’re over 18 only three ways you really want to grow yourselfand if you do you’ll be with six plans to buy pharmacy can only die 40 g a monthand the price will be fixed in a dollar a gramand three you a couple friends can form a club developed a 99 plans for your own personal use medical researchand development will be spearheaded by the government but the question remains will actually grow all the weeds sold in pharmaciesand most importantly how will the black market we’d actually be stamped out whatever you choose you will have to write your name down in a central registry that will forever mark you as a good for nothing next ownerand the law only applies to citizens of Uruguay tourists cannot buy weed weed smoking is nothing new in Uruguay where was all that we coming fromand how did Uruguay function in the broader South American illicit drug economy Seattle garage as a journalist has written a book about drugsand Uruguay we paid a visit to talk about what kind of lead Uruguayans are actually smoking I shadow eye candy Odyssey I see a lawyer life is how as we I got this by by Dawn Soto to wipe out a little okay Iand a Uruguay has been tacitly supporting the black markets into legalize using the 70s but in raw numbers a black market is not a problem Uruguay is a tiny country the population of about 34 million people in only 8 of Uruguayand admit to smoking weed for legalization activistsand growers like one vase bringing black market growing out into the open holds great promise that wanted to take us to the underground indoor grow out here in Montevideo which is still tightly legal by represent a growing culture of been here in the city so this right here is Paraguayand should bring weed like really only 70 can find on the street so one of the reasons why legalization is so hot right now is people want to get better weand what better way of doing thatand growing your own well very dailyand in all the way toand you is inand what is the freedom of legalizationand the restrictions of regulation are some ways you sides of the same coin we Montevideoand headed out to Carnaval beach town to see what young people think about registering with the governmentand in the legal were going ape shit See Other related products: My Skin Color Is Not A Crime Mugshot Unisex Sweatshirt from AmazinkShirt.com

[koffeefrkeleven]

Thoughts

I’m sure just about everyone has heard some relatively affluent person (middle class job, couple kids, suburban house) grumble about feeling financially pinched. Usually these people have crappy conservative views they share with their co-workers at the office, and together they grumble about anybody getting social services “must be nice,” they’ll say, “they (people on welfare) probably live better than I do...” Not sure why I am thinking of this. Maybe they just don’t know anyone who lives in poverty, or maybe the people they know they assume are outliers and “special cases” and “not like the rest of the freeloaders“. Maybe they even have their own experience of a job loss, or financial setback and they even view themselves as the exception to the rule that justifies their socioeconomic status and that of everyone below them.

...

I’ve read that it is true in America that the middle class only make comparisons of their situation to the people above them. Their boss that has a newer car or gets more vacations or has a larger house it a classier zip-code. I don’t watch much television as an adult, but it seems TV only ever portrays people of a certain affluence. You can tell by the gleaming counter-tops and the spacious imaginary rooms. To be poor in America is to be invisible. Maybe the Bundy’s in Married With Children or the TV family of Rosanne Bar, --but neither depicted poverty even if they were more recognizable. A little scrappy, but not poor. I think I am floored by this line of thinking, I mean, middle class folks rent space to store their shit because even though they live in a massive house they still need room to store their shit. They buy houses with enough room (with an empty room) in case they need to “grow their family.” The counterpoint to this (using myself here, disabled since 2001, I have worked at least part time all but a couple years since then). I have, --what is to me-- a very pleasant, cozy 2br apt for my son and I. I would imagine people with more money would be unused to quarters this cramped, but otherwise, coming to my apartment wouldn’t be that much unlike walking into a home of an affluent friend, --if scaled down. There’s the usual TV (a CTR for my son to play video games) a game system or two (gifts, often) and other electronics I use for my living. In the kitchen, the fact that consumer goods are cheap means I have either thrifted or been gifted all the things they would likely recognize in their own kitchens. Perhaps the basics, anyway, since I largely don’t buy small appliances. Still, there’s nothing here that screams to most people “dire poverty” (--to be fair, I don’t live in dire poverty, I’m just a hair below the poverty line with my income for selling art teaching and hosting events). Even though consumer goods are cheap, most of my clothes are years old, and I wear them until they fall apart. Even if you are poor, you can’t afford to look poor --especially as a teacher or artist. I have to have some suit jackets, and I have an abundance of ties. My furniture, like my clothes, are repaired again and again, until they can’t be any more. Gifts, dumpster-diving, bought second hand. There is maybe a half-dozen pieces of furniture I bought from an actual furniture store. There are some valuable things related to my occupation, or (frequently) gifted by more affluent family or gotten second-hand from friends.

I eat very well, but there’s a couple factors to this. There’s a the federal subsidy I financially qualify for, and I go regularly to food pantries (imagine if you will the unspeakable horror of off-brand cereals and peanut butter, --shocking to the affluent? Maybe?). Joking aside, being disabled I have more time than food budget so I stretch my dollars by buying no pre-made foods at all. A bag of potatoes in the long run is cheaper/more versatile than a bag of tater-tots. I make my own breads, pizza dough, and (often) my own crackers and tortillas.

If I am painting a rosy picture of “poverty,” --that’s intentional. I’m well aware there are many, many people clicks down the economic ladder. I’m protected from “dire poverty” by two things: federal disability and my education (which assures the work I do when I am able is paid at a much higher rate than minimum wage). My disability is also higher than most, because disability is calculated based on your last wage (ie: my last year teaching full-time). Interestingly enough, it is the people that live in “dire poverty” that the middle class maligns. Poverty cuts across racial lines and demographic concerns like the urban/rural divide that defined so much of this last election cycle. In Western Saratoga County (where I grew up) poverty was obscured by the fact it as down a driveway in a trailer park hidden by stands of trees to obscure it from the road. Trailer parks are tucked on side roads and dilapidated farmhouses with sagging porches. It’s part of American’s ugly legacy of racism that the popular imagination puts a brown face and Africanized name on poverty. But even where poverty is deeply entrenched it’s hidden because more affluent neighbors find it unsightly. They re more worried about their property values than homeless having a bed when the temperature dips during a NY winter.  The max amounts for TANF (public cash assistance) for a family size of 2 or 4 people is $363 or $763 (assume single adult, kid, or 2 adults, two kids).  On that, it would be hard to find an apartment I could live in in the city I live in. There’s a paltry $100 dollars more if you qualify for a “special housing need” which at the household of 4 is  $711 a month, --which might get me a decent studio apartment, --might-- and with nothing left over for the month. And that is the first major problem of dire poverty, right there. Poverty means you’re pretty much always going to go from one crisis situation to another to keep living in doors. There’s a paltry $100 dollars more if you qualify for a “special housing need” which at the household of 4 is  $711, --which might get me a decent studio apartment, --might.

“But why don’t they just get jobs?” Thanks for paying attention, Jimmy, --they do work. All public assistance recipients are required to work to get benefits. It’s been that way for years. Because you have a charmed life and have never needed assistance, you are lucky enough to avoid finding out that “just getting a job” doesn’t cure poverty when wages have been stagnant for so long that people are working their 40 and still can’t make ends meet or get ahead. Assuming they can get a full-time gig, because we in the US allow profitable companies to hire many PT workers have them work just enough so they don’t qualify for health care and benefits. If and when they get a bit ahead, their gain will be lost if they or a child gets sick or some other emergency expense arises.

Good try though, buck-o. This has been long. I could spill a lot more ink (or computer pixels --as it were) on this topic. There is an idea among the middle class that poverty should be made so mollifying and humiliating that people would be shocked into doing everything it takes to uplift themselves so they are never poor again. If you have spent time at DSS, look around at the tired, worried faces. It is exactly as humiliating and mollifying as Conservatives want it to be. But these are people with almost no way out. A job hasn’t gotten them out of poverty. The benefit they’re seeking won’t do it. These are people just being ground up and sent to their graves early by a broken economy with a dead safety net. If you ask a poor person how you strike it rich in America, --they will probably take you to a corner store or market and tell you to buy a scratch off. And economists that study social mobility in America will likely agree with them. Because the American dream is dead, and the dollar and a dream is what they got now. The American middle class is pinched as well, and feeling resentful. The middle class has been swallowing a meanly crafted folk-lore about poverty and supposed “generous benefits” that barely keep people in housing and alive for 30 years now. Even without any idea of what poverty is like, most middle class Americans are too scared to lose what advantage they have and are fighting like hell to keep it. Fighting for the status quo that grinds up the people below them. The middle class has almost no interaction with the poor, --generally. I wish I felt better about my country. I wish I liked people that are economic “winners” more than I do. (I do have many friends that are pretty affluent, --owning their own homes even in a city like Albany with it’s relatively high cost of living, --but most are urbanites who see the poor daily, and they get it. They are usually very aware of how good they have it and often I find they pick up the tab when we go out together --because money doesn’t matter, or at least not more than the company does, I hope).  The question of whether “they have it better than I do” is pretty easily answerable, --however.