#i was so busy making sure the hard drive the memory and the graphic card were ok 😭

[natandacat]

After 12 attempted fixes, some of which took 6h to run, and including a full factory reset, my laptop is finally back to full performance

[wingedtyger]

How to Buy a Computer for Cheaper

Buy refurbished. And I'm going to show you how, and, in general, how to buy a better computer than you currently have. I'm fairly tech-knowledgeable, but not an expert. But this is how I've bought my last three computers for personal use and business (graphics). I'm writing this for people who barely know computers. If you have a techie friend or family member, having them help can do a lot for the stress of buying a new computer.

There are three numbers you want to know from your current computer: hard drive size, RAM, and processor speed (slightly less important, unless you're doing gaming or 3d rendering or something else like that)

We're going to assume you use Windows, because if you use Apple I can't help, sorry.

First is hard drive. This is how much space you have to put files. This is in bytes. These days all hard drives are in gigabytes or terabytes (1000 gigabytes = 1 terabyte). To get your hard drive size, open Windows Explorer, go to This PC (or My Computer if you have a really old OS).

To get more details, you can right-click on the drive. and open Properties. But now you know your hard drive size, 237 GB in this case. (this is rather small, but that's okay for this laptop). If you're planning on storing a lot of videos, big photos, have a lot of applications, etc, you want MINIMUM 500 GB. You can always have external drives as well.

While you've got this open, right-click on This PC (or My Computer). This'll give you a lot of information that can be useful if you're trying to get tech support.

I've underlined in red the two key things. Processor: it can help to know the whole bit (or at least the Intel i# bit) just so you don't buy one that's a bunch older, but processor models are confusing and beyond me. The absolutely important bit is the speed, in gigahertz (GHz). Bigger is faster. The processor speed is how fast your computer can run. In this case the processor is 2.60 GHz, which is just fine for most things.

The other bit is RAM. This is "random-access memory" aka memory, which is easy to confuse for, like how much space you have. No. RAM is basically how fast your computer can open stuff. This laptop has 16 GB RAM. Make sure you note that this is the RAM, because it and the hard drive use the same units.

If you're mostly writing, use spreadsheets, watching streaming, or doing light graphics work 16 GB is fine. If you have a lot of things open at a time or gaming or doing 3d modeling or digital art, get at least 32 GB or it's gonna lag a lot.

In general, if you find your current laptop slow, you want a new one with more RAM and a processor that's at least slightly faster. If you're getting a new computer to use new software, look at the system requirements and exceed them.

I'll show you an example of that. Let's say I wanted to start doing digital art on this computer, using ClipStudio Paint. Generally the easiest way to find the requirements is to search for 'program name system' in your search engine of choice. You can click around their website if you want, but just searching is a lot faster.

That gives me this page

(Clip Studio does not have very heavy requirements).

Under Computer Specs it tells you the processor types and your RAM requirements. You're basically going to be good for the processor, no matter what. That 2 GB minimum of memory is, again, the RAM.

Storage space is how much space on your hard drive it needs.

Actually for comparison, let's look at the current Photoshop requirements.

Photoshop wants LOTS of speed and space, greedy bastard that it is. (The Graphics card bit is somewhat beyond my expertise, sorry)

But now you have your three numbers: hard drive space, RAM (memory) and processor (CPU). Now we're going to find a computer that's better and cheaper than buying new!

We're going to buy ~refurbished~

A refurbished computer is one that was used and then returned and fixed up to sell again. It may have wear on the keyboard or case, but everything inside (aside from the battery) should be like new. (The battery may hold less charge.) A good dealer will note condition. And refurbished means any flaws in the hardware will be fixed. They have gone through individual quality control that new products don't usually.

I've bought four computers refurbished and only had one dud (Windows kept crashing during set-up). The dud has been returned and we're waiting for the new one.

You can buy refurbished computers from the manufacturers (Lenovo, Dell, Apple, etc) or from online computer stores (Best Buy and my favorite Newegg). You want to buy from a reputable store because they'll have warranties offered and a good return policy.

I'm going to show you how to find a refurbished computer on Newegg.

You're going to go to Newegg.com, you're gonna go to computer systems in their menu, and you're gonna find refurbished

Then, down the side there's a ton of checkboxes where you can select your specifications. If there's a brand you prefer, select that (I like Lenovos A LOT - they last a long time and have very few problems, in my experience. Yes, this is a recommendation).

Put in your memory (RAM), put in your hard drive, put in your CPU speed (processor), and any other preferences like monitor size or which version of Windows you want (I don't want Windows 11 any time soon). I generally just do RAM and hard drive and manually check the CPU, but that's a personal preference. Then hit apply and it'll filter down.

I'm going to say right now, if you are getting a laptop and you can afford to get a SSD, do it. SSD is a solid-state drive, vs a normal hard drive (HDD, hard disk-drive). They're less prone to breaking down and they're faster. But they're also more expensive.

Anyway, we have our filtered list of possible laptops. Now what?

Well, now comes the annoying part. Every model of computer can be different - it can have a better or worse display, it can have a crappy keyboard, or whatever. So you find a computer that looks okay, and you then look for reviews.

Here's our first row of results

Let's take a look at the Lenovo, because I like Lenovos and I loathe Dells (they're... fine...). That Thinkpad T460S is the part to Google (search for 'Lenovo Thinkpad T460s reviews'). Good websites that I trust include PCMag, LaptopMag.com, and Notebookcheck.com (which is VERY techie about displays). But every reviewer will probably be getting one with different specs than the thing you're looking at.

Here are key things that will be the same across all of them: keyboard (is it comfortable, etc), battery life, how good is the trackpad/nub mouse (nub mice are immensely superior to trackpads imho), weight, how many and what kind of ports does it have (for USB, an external monitor, etc). Monitors can vary depending on the specs, so you'll have to compare those. Mostly you're making sure it doesn't completely suck.

Let's go back to Newegg and look at the specs of that Lenovo. Newegg makes it easy, with tabs for whatever the seller wants to say, the specs, reviews, and Q&A (which is usually empty).

This is the start of the specs. This is actually a lesser model than the laptop we were getting the specs for. It's okay. What I don't like is that the seller gives very little other info, for example on condition. Here's a Dell with much better information - condition and warranty info.

One thing you'll want to do on Newegg is check the seller's reviews. Like on eBay or Etsy, you have to use some judgement. If you worry about that, going to the manufacturer's online outlet in a safer bet, but you won't quite get as good of deals. But they're still pretty damn good as this random computer on Lenovo's outlet shows.

Okay, so I think I've covered everything. I do recommend having a techie friend either help or double check things if you're not especially techie. But this can save you hundreds of dollars or allow you to get a better computer than you were thinking.

[peaceoutofthepieces]

Tracing Time

Tuesday, 08:21

Song: Maggie Rogers - Dog Years

Sander is still rubbing at his eyes as he wanders into the kitchen, yawning loudly as he half-blindly makes his way towards the table. Before he can even get there, however, his mother is blocking his path and shoving a cake in his face and his dad is joining her to chorus, “Happy Birthday!”

“Uhm,” Sander blinks at them.

It’s strange to see that his mother is clearly wide awake, and that his father hasn’t left for work yet. Though he is already dressed in his police uniform, as one should always be when apparently preparing to have cake for breakfast. “Thanks. Don’t we usually do this in the evening, though?”

“Blow out your candles,” his mom orders. “Remember to make a wish!”

Twenty candles. The woman has twenty candles in a circular cake. (He’s sure, he counts them.) There’s already wax threatening to drip onto the icing, where the hastily piped ‘Happy Birthday Sander’ has holes pierced in it, the cake too small and the candles too numerous to avoid all of the writing.

Sander quickly blows out the candles.

“What did you wish for?” Léa asks, innocent and eager.

His dad, Ciel, makes a noise of protest and holds a hand up towards Sander. “If he tells you, it won’t come true.”

Sander points at him in agreement, and Léa huffs. It’s odd, that it’s odd to see his parents standing in front of him so early, interacting so casually, doing it all together. It’s not that they’re a distant couple, far from it. Sander’s father is just a busy man who sleeps and wakes early, and his mother is a not-quite-as-busy woman who has the luxury of being her own boss and rivals Sander’s own temperamental sleep schedule. They do not have breakfast as a family because they do not cross paths in the morning. They have dinner all together once or twice a week, if they get lucky. But there is certainly a bigger chance of their evenings coinciding.

So what is happening here?

“We’ll keep this for another time, I made actual breakfast,” his mother adds, gesturing at the table—with the cake still in her hands. Sander takes it from her quickly and sets it aside on the counter.

“Are we not having dinner, then?” he asks carefully.

They both give him bland looks. He curses both their heights—surely he should have earned an extra few inches from them. “We know you won’t be free for dinner,” Léa says.

Sander opens his mouth. Closes it again. Smiles sheepishly. “Oh.”

She huffs as she squeezes his shoulder. “But at least I can still be the first to wish my son happy birthday.” At his increasingly sheepish expression, she corrects, “In person. My god.”

It’s part of the reason he’s so sleepy still. He’d stayed up on a video call with Robbe until (well after) midnight, and the boy had wished him ‘happy birthday’ countless times, peppering kisses at the camera and apologising every time he’d started to nod off. It was possibly the cutest thing Sander has ever had the honour of witnessing. His lips twitch in a smile as he thinks about it again now.

He’d gotten a slew of other messages, all almost simultaneously at midnight. Gilles and Emilie and Thomas had all messaged almost at once into their small group chat, with varying styles and lengths and emoji usage. Adi and Lucas had both kept it sweet and simple. Milan had sent him a short video singing all of ‘Happy Birthday’ and blowing him a kiss. Jens had sent him one a few minutes late simply saying ‘happy bday. no I didn’t forget’, which Sander had blinked and then laughed at. He’d responded to them a while too late, after Robbe had eventually decided they both needed to sleep.

“Why couldn’t we just ask Robbe to join us for dinner?” Ciel asks. Not for the first time, Sander thinks that, for a policeman, his father is at times worryingly oblivious.

Léa clearly agrees, as she simply rolls her eyes in response. “I’m sure they’ll have their own private plans, of course he’ll want to spend his birthday with his boyfriend.”

“Uhm,” Sander says, again. “I still have class first though, so…”

“We should eat,” Ciel agrees, but glances at his wife. “Gifts now too, or in the evening?”

She considers it for a moment, then nods decisively. “We will do it before you two have to go. I’m not sure it’s too exciting, but you can make more use of it this way, maybe.” She offers Sander an apologetic smile.

He waves her off and presses a kiss to her cheek. “Don’t be silly.”

She returns his gestures and then pulls him to the table, pressing him down into a chair and piling food in front of him. It doesn’t matter that he’s not quite hungry enough for it, not this soon after waking, and his stomach protests a little with each bite. He enjoys it. He sits and eats with a parent at either side of him and he doesn’t get the feeling of too much. He doesn’t think undeserved. He’s not worrying about another year gone and him still the same. He’s not hit by a wave of inexplicable loneliness, or fretting over his current painful mistake, or mourning another year of life gone in which he has failed to grow up.

It’s all there, lurking in the constant shadows, but it’s not there, at the same time. Instead it’s his parents’ light bickering, and the memory of Robbe’s ‘goodnight kiss’, and all those messages on his phone.

And it’s relief.

Another year. Twelve months. 52 weeks. 365 days. 8,760 hours. 525,600 minutes.

All that time, and nothing has really changed.

No intrinsic part of his life has altered, nothing’s gone. He’s still managing school (mostly), he still has the same friends, his parents are still fairly understanding, his unrelenting mental illness still hasn’t killed him, and he still has the man of his dreams across infinite universes (as said man claims).

He’s still here. Breathing, living. Thriving, his mind exalts.

“That’s a genuine little smile,” his father notes, returning it with one of his own. “It’s nice to see.”

Warmth spreads through Sander, cushioning his heart but also sneaking into his cheeks as he shakes his head and takes another overstuffed mouthful of food. Ciel’s smile just widens in understanding, and Sander feels a twinge for how often he turns the man away. It’s moments like these where he thinks it’s wrong to do so, that he should give him more of a chance on occasion, that maybe he really would be more helpful than Sander lets himself hope for.

But it doesn’t matter, today. Nothing like that needs to matter when they’re all happy to make it about his birthday.

They give him his gifts after breakfast, quickly. New clothes that he likes enough to go change into before he leaves, wearing the tee with subtle Bowie graphics with pride. There’s the usual restocking of art supplies as well, more expensive than he ever buys himself and which he gives his mother another kiss for. Then they pass him a card, which has sappy words in his mother’s handwriting and money tucked inside.

“Thank you,” he says, for the third or fourth time, squeezing them both in a quick hug as Ciel checks his watch and Léa smacks him on the arm for it. “Everything is perfect, really. And we can have some cake in the afternoon? I’ll come back for a while before I meet up with Robbe.”

His mother narrows her eyes and places a hand on her heart playfully. “So kind of you to include me in your busy day, the woman who brought you into this world.”

Ciel smiles at her, in a way that suggests he’s heard this particular speech before. “Yes, really a day to celebrate you, if we’re doing it right.”

“Of course,” Sander agrees, nodding sagely. “What was it? Seventeen hours of labour?”

“Followed by twenty years of tender and loving care,” she adds, and Sander laughs.

He wraps his arm around her shoulder and kisses the top of her head before leaning away to pick up his bag. “Truly the best,” he tells her.

“Save me some cake,��� Ciel requests, also collecting his things by the door.

“But you weren’t involved in any of that credit,” Sander notes. “Hard to know if you should get to join in the best part of the celebration.”

“I cooked those croques this morning, and I’ll drive you to college.”

It’s a cheap bribe, considering Sander could drive himself if he so wished, but he still beams and pats his father’s shoulder, following him out. “A slice will be left in the fridge.”

~^~

previous/next

[jeonggukingdom]

longing in tokyo (m)

pairing  ⟶ namjoon x fem!Reader

synopsis  ⟶ It has been just two weeks. Two bloody weeks of nothing but text messages and phone calls and, quite frankly, Namjoon can’t simply take it anymore. He needs you. And it’s exactly that firing desire that prompts him to call you in the middle of the night in the hopes of quenching his unyielding desire for you once and for all.

genre  ⟶ smut rating  ⟶  18+ 

word count  ⟶  5.407 words

warnings  ⟶ graphic depictions of sexual intercourse, masturbation, voyeurism, skype sex, dirty talk, namjoon calling you ‘baby girl’, excessive amount of cum, namjoon being quite the loud one because I have impulse issues.

author’s note ⟶ this fic has been written for the “Bulletproof Bingo” project created by @ficswithluv​! You can find the card I received here (click!) but to make things more fun and keep the surprise I blurred out all the songs except for the five songs in the same row that I’m going to write first ;)

song title ⟶ Tokyo - RM [ lyrics that inspired the story:  “Homesick babe, I just wanna, Stay right next to you, If I could choose my dream, I just wanna, Stay right next to you” ]

tag list ⟶  @heroesfan101

The city stretches before him in stunning colourful lights shining like stars under the night sky.

Skyscrapers upon skyscrapers surround him but it’s a rather beautiful sight at this time of day when the sun is long set but everything seems to still be lit up by it.

A city that never sleeps, a city that seems to grow right under your eyes, expand a little bit more with every single one of your heartbeats, an ever-changing city full of possibilities, surprises, memories to build and everything in between.

Tokyo.

There is just one thing this city can’t offer him and that happens to be the very thing he needs the most: you.

A deep sigh escapes his lips, his eyes closing as his body relaxes onto the little couch placed right in front of the huge window.

His thoughts inevitably drift towards you every time he allows himself to stop and rest.

He can almost hear your excited voice as you enter the room, he can almost see the stars shining bright in your eyes as you stare out the window, he can almost feel your hand tightly wrapped around his as you force him to go with you around the city despite the fact that he’s beyond tired.

A small smile stretches on his lips at that last thought. He would grumble, for sure, he would try to convince you to stay in, watch a movie or just chill together in your bed but in the end, he’d be walking right beside you in the busy streets, he’d be taking silly pictures with you in front of beautiful sceneries, he’d be tasting delicious food with you from random restaurants or street vendors.

He opens his eyes, pulls himself out of his waking dream and chooses to drown his bitterness in the glass of scotch in his right hand. Alas, dreams and fantasies, that’s all they are and he really should not be indulging in them, especially not at this hour of the night.

His body feels sore after the long day at work spent either stuck in a car or sitting down in an office and he can feel a dull ache starting to spread from the base of his sculpt up to his forehead and he should really stop drinking now and just go to sleep but he simply cannot.

No matter how hard he tries, tonight it just doesn’t work.

He misses you. Misses the sound of your voice, misses the tender smile on your beautiful lips, misses your shining eyes, misses the sensation of your body under his fingertips, misses the way you arch your back beneath him when he is making love to you, misses all the pretty whimpers that leave your lips in ecstasy whenever he hits that perfect spot, misses the way you quiver and call his name when you reach your high.

Damn.

It has been just two weeks.

Two bloody weeks of nothing but text messages and phone calls and, quite frankly, Namjoon can’t simply take it anymore.

Maybe it’s that insane desire and endless need that prompts his hands to grasp his laptop, turn it on and place it on the table in front of him or maybe it’s just the alcohol driving him his every movement.

The clock on the screen informs him that it’s past two in the morning and that should suffice to deter him, to pull him back from this love-drunk—or maybe actually drunk—state he is in but it doesn’t.

His fingers move before he can even consider stopping them—not that he really would, honestly—and then, he is calling you.

He is sitting there in front of the screen, sipping on the remnant of his scotch with his heart beating hard against his ribcage as if he were an adolescent about to ask the girl he likes out for a date and not your fiancée calling you because he misses every single thing about you.

The empty glass hits the table and he closes his eyes once more, tilts his head back against the edge of the couch and just waits.

You rest your chin on your knees, your lips slightly protruding forward in a little pout as you stare out your window, your gaze focused on the few people walking down the streets at this ungodly hour.

You can almost hear the loud talks, the waves of laughter, the drunken slurs of those coming out of clubs or dinner with colleagues and on any other night you’d be smiling at them, shaking your head as you catch some of their words in the silence of your apartment.

People-gazing, as you call it, is one of your favourite activities to indulge in during nights when sleep escapes you and other people’s lives seem just all that much more interesting than your own.

A little sigh escapes your lips as you shake your head. Tonight, not even making up lives and stories for those strangers down the streets seems to be working on the melancholy trapping your heart in a tight grasp.

Your eyes drift away from the world outside, fix on the laptop on the couch and the picture in the background: a photo of you and Namjoon, smiling happily towards the camera with ice-cream melting in your hands and on your lips.

A small smile graces your lips then but inside your heart, you ache a little more.

The yearning for him is almost unbearable tonight and you do feel guilty about this need to have him next to you, to feel his hands and arms tightly wrapped around you at all times.

Namjoon is a businessman and you should be accustomed to his absence by now but, alas, you aren’t and a part of you suspects you never will.

You are good at pretending, at putting a happy smile on your lips to reassure him that you are fine, that you can do well even when he’s not right there next to you but it’s not always the truth.

On most nights, you can’t even fall asleep properly without him by your side, without his scent enveloping you whole, without his warmth surrounding you.

You hug yourself tighter as a deep shiver runs down your spine, goosebumps gathering on your flesh as a cold breath of wind caresses your naked legs.

Your eyes drift away from the happy picture and fix on the open window instead. You can almost hear him, if you concentrate hard enough, yelling at you to close the damn window before you catch something and join him under the warmth of the covers.

The thought makes you smile but it is a bitter one.

God.

It’s been two weeks, just two weeks and yet you’ve never missed him quite this hard, you have never yearned for him quite this much.

You count down the seconds, the minutes, the hours that pass between each text, each phone call.

It feels like you are living your life on hold, just waiting for the crumbs he can throw your way to keep you going through the days until his return.

You lift yourself up, at last, close the window and then let yourself fall back on the ground once more with the pout getting deeper on your lips.

Tonight feels like one of those endless nights where sleep just refuses to come your way and claim you and every second seems to last an entire hour.

It’s when yet another sigh of frustration leaves your mouth that your laptop chimes, the familiar tune from Skype’s videocall snapping you out of your thoughts.

Your brows furrow as you slowly lift yourself up to fix your eyes on the screen. Who in the world would be calling you at two in the morning?

Namjoon.

Your heart throbs against your ribcage in an instant, your lips parting in surprise as you eagerly accept the call, your eyes fixed on the screen to catch even the smallest glimpse of him inside his hotel room.

Namjoon is right there, sitting on what looks to be a little couch with his head tilted back, his lips parted and his eyes closed.

His body looks relaxed, his legs open in what you would consider an invitation if he were standing right in front of you in the flesh and not inside a screen.

“Joon?” Your voice sounds small to your own ears, certainly full of all the uncertainty you feel but, judging by the way his body immediately tenses, you know he’s heard you loud and clear.

His eyes are on you in an instant, embarrassment written all over his features as he takes in the sight of you completely.

“Baby girl.” His voice is hoarse and deep and, mixed with the endearing nickname, it easily turns your blood into liquid fire, makes your insides boil and turns your cheeks aflame—all of which he must be aware of judging by the little smirk that graces his plump lips.

“I didn’t think you’d actually be awake. Can’t sleep?”

You nod your head a couple of times as your eyes linger on him, on every little detail of his features, on his body still trapped inside his elegant work clothes.

“What about you? Just got back from work?”

Namjoon heaves out a sigh, closes his eyes for a second before moving forward to rest his elbows on his thighs and take an even better look at you.

“Yeah, we closed our contract today and the guys felt like having some fun so we went out for dinner.”

You hum in understanding as you hug your knees to your chest once more, slightly rocking forward as you keep staring at his face. He is as handsome as ever but you can’t ignore the dark lines under his eyes or the bitter twist of his lips. Something is bothering him.

Before you can voice out any of your concerns, though, he speaks again.

“What’s keeping you up? People-gazing?”

You chuckle at the way the word sounds on his lips and your heart flutters as you watch him smile inside the screen, his eyes warm with love and… longing. The same type of longing that has you still awake, staring outside your window.

“Sort of,” you settle on replying as you force your eyes to drift away from his face and rather focus on the night sky out of your window, on its soothing effects on your melancholic heart.

“You look tired, Joon,” you say after a while and your lips turn downward as you hear him sigh, shuffle on his seat and you can almost picture the way he is massaging his temples, his eyes fixed on the ground and his bottom lip trapped under his teeth.

“Can’t sleep?”

“No,” his voice trails off, another long sigh moves past your lips and your eyes fix back on the screen to take in the pained expression on his features, “I keep thinking about you… the view from my window is stunning, you’d love it.”

He sounds sad, so impossibly sad it almost brings tears to your eyes. You miss him and by the look of things, he misses you quite as much, if not even more.

“Let me show you,” he says, lifting himself up and bringing his laptop with him to the window. In an instant the scenery before you switches from his lovely face to the stunning colourful lights outside, dancing in the night like neon fireflies.

It’s breathtaking.

“I knew you’d love it,” he whispers into the speaker and the heat on your cheeks intensifies, a little chuckle moving past your mouth as you nod towards the camera.

“I do. It’s so beautiful.”

“Yeah… but it can’t compete with you.”

Lame and corny as a line but damn, does it tug on your heartstrings the right way, damn does it make that stupid heart of yours beat faster in your chest, damn does it make your longing for him even deeper.

“Joon!”

He laughs at himself, at your expression reflected on his screen, at the absurdity of all of this—whatever it may be.

“I think I’m a little drunk,” he admits with another laugh and you can’t help but join him while shaking your head as he occupies the screen again, back on his couch.

You shift in your seat, hug your legs to your chest tighter and rest your chin on your knees as you stare at him, your fingers grasping each other to prevent you from reaching out and caress the screen like you would to touch his skin if he wasn’t seven hundred miles away from you tonight.

“Baby girl…is that my shirt?” He asks all of a sudden and you hide your face between your legs in embarrassment. Damn, you really hoped he wouldn’t notice.

This is one of your little secrets, one of those that don’t hurt anybody but that makes you feel shameful enough to still keep it hidden and close to your heart for extra protection.

“It is… I always sleep in your shirts when you’re not here. It helps me fall asleep.”

You do not tell him that it feels like he is embracing you if you concentrate hard enough, you do not tell him that sometimes you even wear his shirts outside to work just because it makes you feel like he’s still with you during the day. You do not tell him that sometimes you just walk inside your bedroom and spray some of his perfume around the house or on your pillow just to feel him closer.

You do not tell him any of that but somehow, it feels like in the silence that lingers between the two of you, you just did.

“Baby girl.”

“Mh?”

“I miss you so damn much. All of you.” His voice is low again, barely above a whisper, and it sends shivers up and down your spine, makes your insides twitch and the yearning for him grow stronger and stronger, so much so it is almost painful, “Damn, I really wish I could kiss you right now.”

You close your eyes, slightly part your lips as you imagine the sensation of his mouth on yours, the way his hands would embrace you, pull you towards him so that your bodies can touch, relish in each other’s warmth.

“I miss hugging you, touching you…” His voice trails off as you visibly shiver in front of the camera, your tongue wetting your lips as you slowly open your eyes once more.

You can’t take this anymore.

“I miss the way your hands feel on me,” you confess, your voice thick with love, yearning, desire and everything in between.

You wish you could run your fingers through his blonde hair, tug on the loose locks until he groans and tilts his head back to offer you his neck. You wish you could kiss and bite that soft expanse of flesh, mark it for everyone to see and then slowly inch down to his chest, the fine line of his abs, the happy trail of hair right under his navel that leads to the treasure right between his legs.

“What are you thinking about?” He rasps out and your eyes snap open, fix on the screen and on his dark gaze, his parted lips as he stares at you in that way that has you always squirming before him in anticipation for what he is going to do to you.

“You.”

You bite your bottom lip, tilt your head a little to the side to watch him better under your lashes as you let go of your legs, arch your back a little just so he can properly take in your figure inside his buttoned-up white shirt.

You wonder if he can see your turgid nipples peeking through the soft fabric even in the dim light surrounding you, you wonder if he can tell exactly how much riled up you are just at the thought of him touching you, kissing you, ruining you.

You let out a soft grunt of frustration as you tug on the shirt, let a few buttons fly open for him to take a peek at your chest.

“Kissing me everywhere,” you continue, your fingers trembling a little as you undo a few more buttons in front of his rapt eyes, “Touching me everywhere.”

“Fuck, you’re so sexy baby girl,” he hisses under his breath, his face inching closer to the screen so that he can see you even better as your fingers keep trailing down your shirt to open it up slowly, inch after inch before his eyes.

You can see the lust in his gaze even through the screen and in an instant you know, this is why he called. That deep unquenchable desire you felt in the pit of your own stomach all day, that yearning that has kept you awake to this hour, he feels it too.

You watch him get rid of his black jacket, toss it far away behind his back, in a portion of the room you cannot see through the screen.

You wet your lips, drink up the sight of his slack jaw as he stares at the way your chest rises with your heavy breaths, the way your hands caress your exposed skin, envelope your breasts to pull them together, the way your fingers tease the little turgid buds.

You hear his soft sighs laced with arousal as one of his hands flies between his legs to palm his growing erection in the confinement of his pants.

You watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down with every new bold movement of your hands, with every new inch of skin you expose to the camera and you keep imagining kissing that beautiful neck, lick and bite the golden skin and make him whimper your name in the silence of his hotel room.

“If only I was there with you,” you mutter under your breath and he grunts in frustration, his fingers wrapping tighter around his shaft in a way that looks almost painful but that, nevertheless, makes the blood rush to the pit of your stomach in excitement.

“What would you do if you were?” He asks, his voice low and hoarse as he inches backwards to rest his back against the couch, spread his legs wider for you to be able to see the outline of his turgid cock underneath the black fabric of his pants.

You take in a sharp breath, your fingers inching away from your breasts to favour the supple curves of your legs, the barely concealed sex between them and the arousal growing right there soiling your pretty underwear.

Heat gathers on your cheeks as you part your lips, the words dancing on your tongue before you can stop them.

“I’d slowly kiss your neck, inch down towards your chest…” you trail off as your eyes close for a second to imagine how it would look like under your attentive gaze, how it would feel like, “I would undo your tie just enough to allow my fingers to unbutton your shirt, reveal your chest.”

You open your eyes then and watch him follow your fantasies to perfection, his eager fingers caressing his skin like you wish you could do.

He yanks his tie completely loose, leaves it around his neck as he keeps unbuttoning his shirt just like you did with yours and you can’t take your eyes off of the sight of him like this, stripping before you with not a single hint of hesitation.

“I’d go down on my knees next,” you whisper, breaking the silence as he unfastens the last button of his shirt.

His muscles tense underneath your gaze and you wickedly smile at that, at the way he seems to shiver a little just at the sound of your words.

He licks his plump lips, relaxes his neck against the couch even more as if abandoning himself to your desires completely.

“I’d pull down the zipper next,” you bite your bottom lip as you watch his trembling fingers reach his pants and follow your instructions.

A trembling breath leaves his parted lips then, relief morphs his features for an instant and then his brows are furrowing once more as he palms himself through the fabric of his underwear, the gesture sounding like a plea towards you.

“Show me how hard you are, please.”

He whines at your words, rolls his hips into his hand once, twice and then, he is manoeuvring his erection out of his boxer briefs.

The sigh of contentment that leaves his parted lips drives one of your hands right between your legs to palm your womanhood and tease the covered flesh until a soft whine erupts from your mouth.

His cock stands tall before you, head tinted an angry red and slightly wet with pre-cum. You lick your lips as you imagine its bitter taste filling your mouth and Namjoon grunts at the sight of you like this, at the way you arch your back a little more, at the way you rock against your hand as if it were his teasing you like this, discovering you like this.

“Now what, baby girl?” He asks in a breath and you gulp down heavily, fix your eyes right between his legs and damn, all you can think about is riding him until he has no choice but to scream your name for everyone in Tokyo to hear.

“Ugh, Joon!” You whine, your eyes almost filling with tears in frustration. Your deep desires don’t seem quenchable with just a stroke of your hands accompanied by the sound of his voice and breathy whines. You want him.

“Tell me, baby girl, tell me what you would do to me,” his voice is thick, his hand still around his cock as he stares at you, his eyes boring into you with curiosity and desire and how could you deny him when he is looking at you like this, eagerly waiting for every single one of your words?

“I would ride your big cock right on that little couch in front of the windows,” your words are strangled, followed by a whine of frustration as your fingers press against your clitoris, circle around the little bud atop your panties.

“Show me,” he breathes out, his fingers slowly pumping his length as he shudders at the pleasure and the fine picture you’ve planted in his mind, “Show me how you would ride me.”

You lick your lips, pull your gaze away from him just enough to fix it on your couch and the cushions sprawled on its surface.

Biting your bottom lip you reach for the sturdiest one and pull it right between your legs. Your thighs brush against the fabric as you sit right on top of the cushion and tentatively rock your hips forward once.

A little whimper immediately moves past your lips and you fix your eyes on the screen to catch him staring at you, his jaw slacked and his hand slowly moving around his shaft.

You lift yourself up just enough to help yourself out of the soiled panties and then, you come crashing back down, grunt a little as if it were his length welcoming you back where you belong and not the softness of the little cushion.

With your eyes fixed on the screen, you start rolling your hips forward, one of your hands teasing your breasts while the other keeps you perfectly balanced on the cushion as you become more confident, more eager to feel the pleasure engulfing you whole.

“You’d look so good on my cock, baby girl.”

You lick your lips, roll your hips faster against your cushion while imagining him deeply sheathed inside of you, battering your walls, stroking your cervix, making you see the stars.

You whimper his name as you watch the thick trail of saliva fall from his lovely mouth to the tip of his cock, you watch him with rapt eyes as he spreads it around his shaft and palms himself harder, strokes himself faster to match up the rhythm of your hips.

If you imagine it hard enough, you can almost feel him underneath you and just the thought makes your heart beat faster, turns your breath laboured and your limbs more eager to reach that peak with him.

But no matter what, the cushion is not quite enough to have you scream his name, to have your body quiver and your toes curling.

You leave your breasts in favour of the little bundle of nerves right above your slit, you start drawing little circles on top of it, pressing down with your digits enough to elicit small whines out of yourself.

You hear him hiss at the sight of you like this, touching yourself so shamelessly in front of the camera just for him to see. A little smirk draws on your lips at the lust reflected in his gaze, at the way he pumps himself harder, faster.

His little breaths and sighs, his little ‘yeahs’ of satisfaction, his deep grunts and huffs, they all rile you further, prompt you to roll your hips faster and faster until the burning sensation between your legs becomes almost unbearable.

You tilt your head to the side, fix your eyes on your fingers as they furiously draw circles on your clitoris and you moan loudly for him, the sound awfully similar to his name and, just as loud, he responds and twists before the camera, angling himself as if he were trying to plunge himself deep inside your pussy.

“Fuck, I’m so close baby girl,” he whines as his muscles start tensing, his hips jerking towards his hand in search of that bit more of friction that will throw him off the edge and give him what he so desperately craved for.

“Me-me too, ugh,” you gulp down, thrust harder against the soft cushion and then you feel the wave of pleasure run through your limbs like liquid fire. Your vision turns white, your body quivers helplessly on the floor, your toes curl and a lewd moan moves past your parted lips.

Your heart is beating frantically against your ribs, your breath stuck inside your lungs as you completely let go before his eager eyes.

The orgasm seems endless, it coils between your legs, soils not only the cushion but the carpet underneath your knees as well and when it subdues it leaves you breathless, dizzy with lingering ecstasy.

It’s his deep groan that makes you snap your eyes open, fix them on the screen once more as he jerks harder in front of the screen, as he palms his balls through the fabric of his pants for extra stimulation.

He calls your name over and over again, so loud there is no doubt someone is going to hear him and that brings heat to your cheeks and down between your legs once more.

You watch him come undone on his hand in long stripes of white that much like your own juices seem to keep on coming and coming until his fingers are covered and sticky and his pants are ruined beyond recognition.

His chest is heaving, his eyes tightly closed as he tries to keep that blissful sensation close just a little bit longer.

You softly call his name then, smile towards the camera as his eyes pry open to fix on your lovely face.

“That was amazing, baby girl,” he whispers before his eyes move to the mess he has made of himself. A chuckle leaves his lips then, his head shaking left and right as he tries to clean his hand against his pants.

“I wish I could lick it off of your fingers,” you let the words slip out of your mouth and chuckle at the way his eyes turn as big as saucers, at the way his mouth opens but no sound comes out, at the way he gulps down heavily and then, finally, groans.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters under his breath before wetting his lips with that tongue you wish you could have felt lapping your folds tonight.

“Clear your schedule for Saturday, baby girl.” He suddenly says prompting your brows to furrow in confusion.

“I have every intention of fucking you until neither of us can walk out of that damn bed as soon as I’m out of the plane.”

His words make you groan, prompt your hands to move between your legs once more and if you weren’t still sensitive you’d be touching yourself again right now, make yourself crumble before him once more and watch him get worked up all over again.

“Is that a promise?” You retort, a little teasing smile on your lips as you tilt your head to the side while spreading your legs wide for him just to taunt him a little bit further.

Every bit of shame you might have felt has long gone now and every single one of your desires is out, hanging right between the two of you.

“You can bet on it, baby girl.”

His hoarse voice makes you shiver, it gathers goosebumps on your feverish skin and it makes that deep yearning for him grow as intense as it was before his call. Will you be able to resist four more days without him, hanging on just the thought of him and his return and what he will do to you the moment his fingers can finally wrap nicely around your frame?

“Now, be a good girl until my return, mh?”

You bite your bottom lip, close your legs and draw your hands away from your core like the obedient little sub you usually are.

“I can’t wait to see you,” you murmur after a while. The lust has slowly subdued, suppressed by that melancholy that has kept you awake on most nights these past two weeks. It is not just the sex that you miss, no, you miss every little thing about him and by the way he looks at you, you know he yearns for you just as much.

“Just a few more days, my love.” His words are barely above a whisper, laced with the same emotions you feel deep inside your heart.

You hum in response as you slowly remove the cushion from between your legs. You ignore how sticky it feels, you ignore the lewd sound of the fabric as you shove it aside and then, you hug your legs back to your chest, rest your chin above your knees.

“You know I love you, right?” You say then, your head resting on your arms as you close your eyes for a second, fatigue finally taking over your body and mind.

Namjoon hums softly in response, his eyes tender as he takes in the peaceful expression on your features. His body finally relaxes as he watches you slowly drift away from him and enter the dreamland.

He watches you for minutes, slowly undressing himself and tossing everything on the ground for him to take care of in the morning.

“Baby, go to sleep,” he mutters under his breath after a while and you stir at the soft sound, a sheepish smile on your lips as you lift yourself from the ground and reach your bedroom with the laptop still open between your hands.

You put another one of shirts on making him chuckle and then, with his face close to the screen, you let yourself fall on the bed, right under the covers and hell, if you concentrate hard enough it almost seems like he’s right there with you, watching over you with his arms wrapped tightly around your frame.

Your eyes slowly close as he keeps whispering sweet nothings to you, so close to the microphone it almost feels like the sound is right inside your ears and just like magic, you fall into a deep slumber right before his eyes.

He watches you sleep for minutes on end as he crawls inside his cold bed as well and it is only when his eyes become heavy with sleep that he ends the call.

He falls asleep with a deep smile on his face and a contented heart in his chest and for the first time ever since he arrived in Tokyo, somehow, he feels utterly happy.

Copyright © 2020 by jeonggukingdom. All rights reserved. Do not repost, do not steal, do not translate without consent.

[balwinderthandi]

An Introduction to Video Editing for Beginners

More people than ever are interested in learning how to make videos, for a variety of reasons ranging from capturing family memories to launching entire businesses online. And now is unquestionably the best time to do it. The majority of people already have a camera in their pocket. Taking video is, of course, only one part of the process. It’s also crucial to learn how to edit video. With ever more options, learning how to edit video can become a never-ending rabbit hole.

Things to Consider Before You Begin

Video editing can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. However, no matter how complicated you want the final product to be, you will find the process far more enjoyable if you take a few minutes to plan ahead of time, preferably before you begin recording any footage.

What types of videos do you edit?

The requirements for different types of videos vary. Perhaps you’re just trying to put together a highlight reel from your family vacation and all you need to do is splice together long recorded segments into your favorite moments. Maybe you’d like to make a YouTube vlog that combines talking head footage with explanatory B-roll clips. Perhaps you’re putting together a full-length documentary, with hours of footage to go through, computer-generated graphics to make, and special effects to incorporate.

What and how you shoot, the video editing software you pick, and how you handle the whole process will all be influenced by your desired end result.

Can I edit videos on my computer?

Because you’ll be doing all of your video editing on a computer, you’ll want to make sure your computer can handle the work you’ve set out to do. As you might expect, the more complex features you want to include in your video (for example, computer-generated special effects), the more powerful computer hardware you’ll require.

It’s worth noting that the best operating system for video editing has long been a point of contention. With the exception of a small number of programmes that are only available on one OS (such as Apple Final Cut Pro X), there is currently no discernible difference in video editing between Windows and Mac.

Computer Requirements for Video Editing

Looking at what the software you’ll be using recommends is the best way to figure out what computer specs you’ll need. Software that is less powerful necessitates less powerful hardware. However, as a general rule of thumb, the following should serve as a good starting point:

1 Processor

A recent Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processor should suffice. Newer AMD Ryzen 5 processors provide good performance at a low price for budget builds

2 RAM

While some software recommends at least 4GB of RAM, you should have at least 8GB, though more is preferable. You’ll be happier with 16GB or more if you’re doing particularly complex or high-resolution video editing (4K+).you’ll be happier with 16GB or more.

3 Graphics Card

Whether or not you require a graphics card is determined by your software and the task at hand. Some software does not necessitate the use of a graphics card. You’ll need at least an RX570 or GTX 1650 if you’re going to do a lot of rendering or if you’re using DaVinci Resolve (which is designed to use a GPU).

4 Storage

Video, particularly 4K video, necessitates a large amount of storage. Hard disc drives (HDDs) will function, but solid state drives (SSDs) will be faster and more pleasant to use. If you’re going to be doing a lot of video, get the most storage space you can afford.

Other factors to consider if you’re using a computer — There are a few other things to think about in addition to these. Because video files are so large, you’ll need quick ways to get it on and off your computer. For transferring data to and from digital storage devices, USB-3.1, USB-C, and Thunderbolt provide relatively fast ports. If you want to upload videos to the internet, you’ll need a fast internet connection.

Picking a Video Editing Software

There is a plethora of video editing software available. Some of them will genuinely be better (if you have specific goals), but there are few, if any, right or wrong answers when it comes to choosing video editing software.

The truth is that the best software is the one that you feel most at ease with. You’ll be able to pick up some software quickly, but it may be limited in features.

There are a few popular video editors to choose from-

Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Adobe After Effects CC

HitFilm Express

CyberLink PowerDirector

Corel VideoStudio Ultimate

Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve

Shotcut

Tips For a More Successful Editing Experience

Making a video is a multi-phase process with its own set of challenges. The editing process can be frustrating if you aren’t prepared, but there are some things you can do to make it easier and more enjoyable.

Shooting a Planned Shot- This may or may not be possible depending on what you’re shooting. If you’re collecting home movies of events, for example, you’re going to be limited. However, if you have the time, consider sketching out a rough outline of what you want to shoot. What other footage will you require? Try to avoid having to reshoot a section later because you forgot to do it the first time

Data Management- You’ll most likely have a variety of files to work with in your final composition, including video clips, graphics and edited effects (such as title screens, overlays, and so on), audio files, and possibly more. Keep everything organized so that you can find it quickly and easily when the time comes to use it.

Take it easy with the effects- When it comes to effects, it’s similar to seasoning food: a little goes a long way, and too much overpowers the dish. More effects necessitate more computing power, which can cause everything to slow down.

Music- Music can help your video stand out, but don’t let it overpower it. Think about the copyright implications of your music if you’re sharing your videos publicly (on YouTube, for example). The most secure option is royalty-free.

[popculturebuffet]

Loud House Reviews: The Loudest Thanksgiving

It’s almost Thanksgiving! And a vastly diffrent one than in recent memory: Most of us are slimming down family gatherings to just whose in our house, you know because theirs a pandemic going on and it’s not worth risking your life for it. To those either guilting their families into it or doing so because MAGa or some such I only have this to say. 

Speaking of Black Friday i’ts spread over a week and it’s cyber deals mean I got a ton of graphic novels for a dollar a piece and my christmas shopping almost done. So in other words, boo Maga, yay safe and responsible captalisim.  But while the holiday may be diffrent, as well as the pseudo holiday attached that spawned a wonderful musical and many many injuries, one thing stays the same; Holiday Episodes. And despite being the less popular of the three holidays, Thanksgiving still produced tons of great holiday episodes and specials. And with everything being so busy I simply didn’t put too much thought into what to do for Turkey Day.. well okay the day proper i’m going to eat, spend time with family and watch a bunch of mystery science theater 3000, stay the course even in these troubling times, just with only the 4 other people who live in my house. But in terms of episodes I thought i had nothing.. then I started actually thinking on it and what do you know I have three things I want to do for the holiday, though one might wait till next year, and possibly a fourth. But given my workload currently, i’m not one to back away from a challenge, so welcome to a three or four course meal of reviews. First course: The Loud House thanksgiving special, the loudest thanksgiving.  I originally wasn’t going to do this one, mostly because due to my large workload and constant battle with procastination, I keep having to push back the latest episode review, and I have to do that one soon, as there’s a new episode in december and a christmas episode i’ve put off watching for far too long , as I INTENDED to watch eleven louds a leapin for every chirstmas up till now and never got to it before the season was over.  But just like elven louds.. Nick forced my hand.. and by that I mean the SPINOFF got a thanksgiving episode that’s also a sequel in some fashion to this episode. If I wanted to cover that episode this thanksgiving or the next I had to at least watch the original. And frankly, this close to the holiday there was no reason not to review it. So with that out of the way. 

Let’s Get At Er. This is The Loudest Thanksgiving... after the break

The Loudest Thanksgiving takes place during season 3, and still pre-casagrandes spinoff launch despite the christmas special taking place earlier. This is actually easy to explain: The Loud House runs on Comic Strip time... i.e. the characters don’t age unless the writers decide they do. But while the spinoff was in motion at this point, it was still a season off airing wise, and ill advised raitings stunt mini series wise, so in order to keep the Casagrandes fresh in people’s minds presumably, they did a crossover that at this point wasn’t a crossover but now technically is because the show exists but this existed before the show. 

It’s just a show, and I should really just relax. Point is this is a pre-crossover crossover, the two families meet for the first time, the man already said pitter patter, let’s get back at er.  So we open with Flip serving as our magical snowman narrator and regaling us with the tale of steven. Every compastionate can you imagine it... and i’m fucking with you, it’s of course abotu that time the louds and the casagrandes tried having thanksgiving together. 

We then cut to Lori and Bobby being all cute, as usual, and both talking over the phone as each show off their thanksgivings to each other and the enusing family shenanigans. On Lori’s side Lynn is wearing baggy pants so she dosen’t miss the game or the meal by going to the bathroom.. because that’s how pissing yourself works. Look if your going to do something that gross, stupid and broish just woman up and wear an adult diaper. The twins are guarding Lynn sr and the food, poorly, and Lisa has invented a Gravy Squriting robot. I can only see this ending one way. 

Yeah those single function robots really get useless once the exestnetial crisis kicks in. 

On the casagrandes side, Rosa is likewise guarding her kitchen, Frida is painting and Hector plans to sernade eveyrone because Hector is the best and you all should know that. Even with the recent Bobby Abuse he’s still awesome. As for the Mercado, CJ and Ronnie Anne are running the annual canned food drive because CJ is better than the best and should really be used more often.  Both wish they could be there.. and both honestly talk about possibly spending thanksgiving with each other and just one of their family. It’s not a wild proposition: Both are going to college soon, both are in a longterm relationship.. they plan to get married down the line for now. If things hold they will eventually have to figure this out. Of course rather than fate let them figure this out themselves, Hector overhears on Bobby’s end and Lincoln, whose busy A Clock Work Oranging himself so he can stay awake during dinner, overhears on Loris, leading to an emergency family meeting for both sides.  Both families are worried their prospective teenager going to another house of their longterm significant other for one year will mean they get all the holidays. Having never had a relationship last long enough to worry about this, I don’t quite get it as in my experince watching couples juggle this.. they usually just alternate years, spoilers the solution the episode goes with, or trade off christmas and thanksgiving, both fair solutions. Buuut as much as this bothered me at first the more I thought about it the more it actually made sense: People.. aren’t always rational and won’t always do the smart or correct thing, especially when it comes to their children. And with Lori leaving college and the casagrandes being togehter for thanksgiving for the first time in about 5 years, with both ronnie anne and her mom not having had a proper one in some time due to her mom needing to work thanksgiving, presumibly because of the eternal curse of gravy chugging contests, they have valid emotional reasons to go a bit nuts and do some irrational and assholish things. They just don’t want to loose their big sister and big brother, and that’s fair. It may not be at all accurate but it’s fair. 

So thus began the great Guilt Off of 2018. ON the Loud side they START with a fairly soft pitch, the twins simply offer her food early, and she takes it because honestly I would too. Then again, i’d also take free food in just about any situation, so i’m not really a good gage for this. As long as it’s not poision i’ll probably eat it if it’s free. The next two are a little.. less subtle, with the kids talking about Lori’s roll in the annual thanksgiving skit.. which I’m assuming is soley for Lynn Sr. as no one else seems to be going to their thanksgiving. Which granted theirs valid explinations for why their neighbors didn’t go, the mcbrides and mr grouse have their own families and while Mr Grouse rarely gets to see his, he now has neighborly friends after the last holiday special happy to help. But Pop Pop.. makes no sense as his girlfriend, the only plausable reason he wouldn’t be there, was said to not have much family in her debut. So he’s just.. absent from thanksgiving for no reason. Thena gain we later find out this play is movie length, so maybe he was just trying to escape that which in that case, who can blame him. Rita almost reigns things back in with the mother’s trump card: parental guilt. Almost. She then almost crushes lori’s hand but it’s funny enough.  At the Casagrandes, their opening move is largely the same only Rosa wins in terms of execution, cooking up some of bobby’s faviorites to specificially target him. Frida paints him into a painting, again the Casagrandes win his one in terms of effort. They do tie in the last bit, as Maria and Ronnie Anne try the same sort of guilt slining with the same bone crushing.  Eventually both teens get fed up with the next bit; For Lori, Lucy gives her a long overdramatic poem about an empty chair which is easily tied with one bit later for best bit of hte episode.. which granted when I can only think of two or three gags that really made me laugh...

Bobby likewise gets Hector telling the story about a realitvie not going to thanksgiving. Both get angry.. which for Lori, isn’t all that suprising, if entirely warranted. For Bobby though? It’s like pissing off a dolphin. IT’s hard to do and very much not something you want to actually pull of. Both families are forced to admit they eavesdropped, and are incredibly worried about this whole situation, with Lynn Sr selling lincoln up the river for telling them... this man’s capacity for selling out his children is as awe insprising as it is truly pathetic. 

So the two teens go back to their rooms to figure something out and come upon a reasonable solution: just have one of the families host and both come to it. That’s more than fair. But given we still have a full special to pad out, both families are still treating this like a competion: while the louds win the coin toss, both sides are determined to win thanksgiving. IT’s far from the most insane contest i’ve seen this month, x of swords was happening and i’ve seen a russian yank a goblin out of the demonic alligator skin he was using as a puppet. And we don’t know for sure Arrakoa and Krakoa didn’t have a trial over a baby turkey being adorable as one of the challenges. Other challenges included getting drunk, an eating contest, telling someone to murder a kitten and a wedding, all of this is actual stuff that happened in this recent crossover, I have made up nothing. 

So after the break and Flip realizing oh shit the audience is back, the war begins. The Louds are preparing for war, with Lola putting out a picture of herself instead of bobby and laurie because of course.. still not a half bad gag. The Casagrandes arrive and in in a passive agressive move that was already done a year before this special by Brooklyn Nine Nine and better, brought their own food.. though the roast pig is a nice and unique touch. Points for that.  And this.. is where the special gets tedious. Yeah while the IDEA of this episode was really good and I was excited to cover it in practice it’s just similar gags on both sides done for both halves: The first being “let’s guilt them into staying” and the second being “Let’s one up each other” with only two bits really working: Frieda having a painting and the louds annual skit.  And the skit is because it raises a LOT of questions: Why is it 90 minutes, who played the adorable turkey in the years between babies? Was it just whoever was youngest? Who wrote this? Who is this for besides Lynn Sr and Pop Pop? Who all has sat through this thing at some point? Is that why the mcbrides don’t come over for thanksgiving? It’s just.. fantastic is what i’m saying.  

But otherwise this part is just the family trying to one up each other with food, or toasts, or song, before devolving into a big fight. What makes it not work is.. there isn’t a lot of personality there. You have these two big, plentiful, intresting casts, even at this stage with the Casagrandes far less established and fleshed out. And instead of finding interesting ways for them to play off one another meeting for the first time, and to use that to also flesh the characters out more for the inevitable spinoff, it’s just 

For most of the second half. Thankfully it DOES manage to bring things around as after things degenerate into a food fight, the families decide to just ASK the two of them where they want to go.. and find them entirely missing.  It then turns out, in a nice twist, this is where Flip came in. Since his place is the only place open 24/7 and 365, barring fishing season, Bobby and Lori fled here to flee their insane families.. who then follow them there because Carlos and Lisa have them chipped. I was suprised at first Carlos had a tracker on bobby but honestly, i’ts just common sense. The man is like a golden retriver in a man’s body. Here’s an artists interpretation

Both families breifly bicker before Lori and Bobby announce their starting their own family thankgiving with blackjack, and hookers. They really shouldn’t of let Flip in on the brainstorming session. Both families don’t want that, and apologize, admitting they just didn’t want to loose them and both genuinely offering to let the other have them next year. Flip, who despite having a “pay for my colonoscopy jar” with a picture of his ass on it, is somehow the voice of reason and just suggests trading thanksgivings every year, everyone accepts, and we do get a genuinely heartwarming ending of both sides gathering everything for a gas station thanksgiving. Honestly reminds me of king of the hill’s airport episode, but in a very good way and still unique enough circumstances to work.Also Flip, of all people, donates the cans needed to finish the can drive.. granted i’m not sure if they WANT any of that meat, but hey, he meant well and it made me really like the character.  We get a heartwearming duet between hector and luna and sono the whole family and we’re out. 

Final Thoughts: This was disapointing. I’ve listed most of my complaints already, but overall it wasted a good premise of two families coming together, and even the feud parts could’ve been funnier. As it is it’s just.. ehhhhhhhhhh. It has some good parts, and bobby is an angel here on earth as always. But the whole just feels padded. Like this was SUPPOSED to just be 11 minutes, got bumped up, and thus here we are. It’s not the worst Loud House has done, i’ve seen and heard of muccch worse, but for a holiday special it just feels stale and i’ve seen way better thanksgiving specials. And i’ll be getting to that.  If there’s an episode of a cartoon you’d like me to cover, just pop in my ask box or dms and you can comission a review for 5 bucks a piece. Discounts on bulk, 15 for movies. Until then , happy thanksgiving.

[sabineelectricheart]

Duchess Fraldarius

Summary: In Spring, Imperial Year 1181, Mercedes von Martritz finally wed.

Rating: R - Content features heavy themes. Not suitable for most audiences. Consult warnings before proceeding.

Graphic depictions of rape, domestic abuse and confinement. Reader discretion is highly advised.

Words: 2700

Notes: Due to absolutely no-one’s request, I am proud to present another disturbingly dark fanfic. Usually, I only put out MC fics, but this one does not fit Byleth at all, but it is perfectly befitting Mercedes’ card if she does not return to the monastery in 1185.

Margrave Gautier would much more befitting for the role of abusive husband, but I have already done one about his sick tendencies and I am to understand he is still wed. So Rodrigue it is.

Remember, you were warned.

The snow falls steadily out the window. There is grave silence in the grounds, the people out that grand, ornate, thick double doors are hungry, tired and worried for their future, but none of it ever came inside. Inside, there was no cold, no darkness and no want. Only happiness and tranquillity.

Mercedes, Duchess Fraldarius, is sprawled out on the plush mattress of the Castle’s master bedroom donning a thin, silk sleeping dress, one of the many she kept on the trunk by the foot of the bed. She wore little else, other than a pair of shoes and stockings, for meals.

In Spring, Imperial Year 1181, her stepfather finally settled on a marriage contract with a nobleman. Rodrigue, Duke Fraldarius, who was in dire need of gold to fund the resistance effort against the Empire, once the Kingdom fell. Her stepfather wanted to buy himself some nobility, and so the deal was closed.

“Daddy.” The blonde cleric whines, pouting at the man before her.

He had undressed her, kissed along her neck, and commanded she get on the bed, leaving her incredibly turned on. Now, Rodrigue stands at the foot of the bed, slowly folding up his sleeves, not touching her. He is not even looking at her, and that just will not do.

Her husband has been married before. Mercedes remembers, very faintly, Ingrid commenting that, despite being a regular fixture at Castle Fraldarius, she had never met her mother-in-law, even before her untimely death, six or so years ago, before Glenn’s passing. The first wife was kept just like the second, she concludes, it is just her husband’s way of life.

No-one, other than her husband, her stepfather and Margrave Gautier, knows she is here. Sometimes she hears Felix’s voice, sees his teal hair running on the grounds, but he does not come to visit her. No letters arrive, either. It was disturbing at first, but now she finds comforting.

“Daddy!” Mercedes repeats, giving a displeased kick of her feet.

She sees the beginnings of an amused smile tugging at his lips, the soft yet wicked turn of his facial hair, but he quells it, and instead looks at she with a raised brow.

“What is it, sweet pea?” Rodrigue asks with a chilling tone.

“I am waiting!” She grouses, narrowing her eyes slightly.

At that, he lets his amusement show clear on his face.

“You must be mistaken, dear. Waiting implies the presence of patience, and I do not believe you to be very patient.” He teases, finally putting his now exposed forearms down at his side.

She only whines, squirming on the bed. She rubs her thighs together as she gives Rodrigue her most pleading look.

“Oh darling.” His taunting voice only fuels her arousal. “Very well, I will give she attention. Since you are very clearly desperate for it.”

Their marriage is barren, and will remain so. Rodrigue himself brings her contraceptive herbs and charms. War or no war, estranged or not, Felix is his heir, and he is not about to have his House thrown apart by conflicts between half-siblings, like so many others all around Fódlan had. It was hard enough keeping his own brother’s prolific family at bay.

The Duke glances down at the apex of her thighs. “Take off your smallclothes for me.”

Though the command is gentle, Mercedes rushes to comply, lifting her hips so she can pull her underwear off under her skirt. She bends her knees, removing them completely, and toss them to the floor beside her.

“Good girl.” He praises, feeling his tights become too small for his virile, deviant manhood. “Spread your legs, let me see how aroused you are.”

The church girl side of hers takes over for a moment and the blonde blushes at that, suddenly feeling shy. She rubs her thighs together once more, looking down at her husband bashfully. He tuts.

“Do not get shy on me now, precious. Let me see that sweet pussy.” His posh accent, the finest High Imperial language, the likes of which spoken at the courts, but rarely at the church and never at home.

Perhaps it is a sick memory of Baron Bartels, that blond, cold man’s domineering presence and strong jaws, a combination of beautiful and terrifying that confounded and charmed many a maiden in Adrestia. Perhaps it is her admiration of Ferdinand and Lorenz from her times as a student, that sincere but entitled kindness, born not out of a public spirit but of an instinct to reinforce a social order that privileged them. Be as it may, that proper speech has her sex pulsing, drives her to comply with the wildest things. The woman draws her legs apart slowly, biting her lip in embarrassment. She is sure he can see her folds glistening with the evidence of her arousal.

He hums.

Is it wrong? Is it sick? Mercedes does not know anymore, but in any case, there is no escape from this castle. There was no more Church of Seiros or Holy Kingdom of Faerghus to grant her a divorce, and even if it were, she would not be able to reach Galatea on foot, trekking through forests and mountains. She escaped an abusive marriage once before, she does not have the strength to escape another.

She does well if she convinces herself she is happy in here. Where she is fed and protected.

“There she is.” Rodrigue steps closer until his thighs make contact with the mattress, eyes glued between her legs. “My little girl. Are you eager for daddy, dearest?”

Mercedes nods, expectantly.

“Look at that, you are dripping.” He murmurs.

She whimpers needily, and at the same time she draws her legs together, feeling exposed under his intense gaze. He grabs her ankles, yanking them apart.

“Keep them open!” He growls his order, looking at her sternly.

She nods, giving another pitiful whimper, lest she angers her husband.

The Duke brings a finger up, sliding it teasingly through her folds. The blonde lets out a breathy moan at the contact, angling her hips to invite him to touch her some more.

“So responsive.” He repeats his ministration and she squirms, careful to keep her legs spread as he had instructed.

Finally, after a couple slower drags, the nobleman’s long, calloused finger, bearing his signet ring, stops at her entrance. He eases it into her tight heat, and the cleric moans at the sensation, head falling back. Below her, she hears her husband inhale sharply.

“You are so tight for me darling.” Rodrigue brings his free hand up to rest on the base of her stomach.

He holds her down as he begins pumping his finger in and out of her, pace torturously slow. Mercedes whines, attempts to buck under the firm pressure of his hand failing. She tries to wait patiently for him to speed up, but he seems to have no problem taking it slow.

She, however, have a great problem with that, and decide to let him know.

Mercedes weighs she is rather happy with the situation. Her whole life had been about caring for others. She cared for Emile under the Bartels, she cared for her mother when they ran away, she cared for her stepfather in Fhirdiad, she cared for the students at the Sorcery School, and she cared for Annette at the Officers’ Academy. In Fraldarius, she is cared for, she does not have to lift a finger or concern herself with anybody.

It was freeing, in a way.

“Daddy, give me more.” Mercedes means to sound assertive and compelling, but her aroused state means the words come out a desperate whine.

Rodrigue raises an eyebrow, finally looking up from her pussy.

“That is not how one asks nicely.” He reprimands, continuing his excruciating pace.

The Duchess lets out a huff and roll her eyes before she can stop herself. Swiftly, Rodrigue’s hand leaves her pussy and comes down on her inner thigh, a sharp smack sounding in the room.

Mercedes gasps.

“Watch it, girl. That attitude will not be tolerated.” His voice is a low growl, and she quickly nods.

“My apologies, daddy.” She mumbles, cheeks burning at her little scolding.

The man hums, placated, and the blonde wife feels emboldened to rephrase her question.

“Please, can I have some more?” She corrects her earlier words.

“Much better.” He brings his hand back down to her entrance, sliding two large fingers into she now.

She moans, gripping the bedsheets, relishing in the delicious stretch. He pumps his fingers at a steady pace, a welcome change from that prior. Soon, he pulls his fingers from she once again, and she whine at the loss. He shushes she, thumb rubbing over her stomach soothingly.

“You will not be empty long, sweet thing, do not fret.” His free hand works open the fastenings of his trousers, pulling them and his smallclothes down enough to free his thick length.

She watches intently as it bobs against his stomach, wide eyed. Rodrigue chuckles at her reaction. He gives himself a few languid strokes.

No, Mercedes lied. She has much to concern herself about in this chamber. There are no books and no needlework, there are no sweets to be baked or wounds to heal. Her only pastime is wondering where her husband might be, when he will arrive with her meals and whether he will fuck her.

It might have been a minor concern of hers, if she had more to busy herself with, but her mind gives it proper weight since it has nothing else to think about. So much so, she has taken to sleep with one of his capes, one that smelled of him.

“Do you want my cock, darling?” Rodrigue murmurs, leading her to nod enthusiastically.

The Duke raises an eyebrow at Mercedes silently, and she quickly realizes what he is waiting for.

“Yes, daddy, please give me your cock” She slurs, eyes pleading.

He hums.

“Good girl.” He holds himself at his base and slowly guides his length into her waiting hole.

The blonde Duchess moans as he sinks into her, walls fluttering around him.

“That is my girl,” Rodrigue grits out as he watches her pussy devour his cock.

He hooks his arms under the crooks of her knees, pulling Mercedes so her ass is hanging off the edge of the bed. He begins to rut into her deeply, holding her thighs in a bruising grip. She moans at the rough treatment.

“Do you like that, sweet pea? Do she like when I pound your pussy?” His voice is somehow steady and his face unbothered save for his furrowed brows and a light sheen of sweat.

His composed posture is a sharp contrast to her moaning, writhing form below him. If one was to capture that moment on a painting, it might belong to the realm of grotesque, rather than romantic. These are two people who have lost themselves in their indulgence.

Mercedes does not care about any of it and nods desperately.

“Yes, daddy, it feels so good!” She moans loudly.

“Naughty girl.” He growls out. “Worry not, I will fuck you straight. I will bring out a proper Fraldarius wife out of you just yet.”

The blue-haired nobleman brings a hand up from her thigh to her mouth, sliding his thumb over her bottom lip before slotting it into her slack mouth.

“Suck.” He orders.

The blonde woman complies, working his thumb with her tongue and suctioning gently. Another growl leaves his lips.

“So obedient. Such a good girl for me. Just for me to fuck.” His hips snap into she all the more roughly, his pace increasing.

Mercedes moans around his thumb, squeezing her eyes shut. She feels herself climbing towards her peak, her walls tightening around Rodrigue.

“Open your eyes. Look at me when you come.” His voice leaves no room for argument.

Her doe-like blue eyes snap open, coming down to meet his. Cold, sick, vicious and lascivious.

“There is my girl. Come on, come for me.” He encourages.

Having been granted his permission, she allows her body to fall over the edge. She moans breathlessly around the thumb still in her mouth, legs shaking and pussy spasming with her release.

The tightening of her channel is enough to send Rodrigue into orgasm just after she with a muttered “yes, darling”. Despite his vehemence against a child of her own, he always releases inside her. She feels as thick ropes of his cum fill her, and she whimpers. Her eyes flutter shut, feeling spent and exhausted.

Rodrigue pulls his thumb from her mouth and his cock from her cunt after a moment of catching his breath. He goes over to the bedside table, grabbing a towel to clean himself with and tucking his length back into his trousers.

Then, he goes back over to her, handing her the same piece of cloth so Mercedes could clean her intimacy.

“Come on sweet pea, you cannot fall asleep just yet.” He pulls her further down the bed by her waist, sliding his hand under her back to guide she upright. “I am still voracious.”

The Duchess open her eyes, feet meeting the floor. Despite up straight, the woman stands on shaky limbs.

“I am tired, daddy.” She complains feebly, looking up at him.

Rodrigue coos, wrapping his arm around she for support as he guides her to the bathing area.

“I know, you can sleep right after I am satiated. For now, clean yourself, as you still have a duty to perform.” He murmurs, stopping by the tiled room door and nudging her forward gently.

“Would you cuddle with me afterwards?” She glances back at him with wide, pleading eyes.

He gives her a soft smile that makes her heart flutter with adoration.

“Of course not, precious.” Rodrigue responds instantly, with a soft voice of someone waxing poetry by their lover’s ear. “I would not sleep well here with you.”

Mercedes does not know why she bothers asking. He never stays. She still held on the hope that he would stay a night, that the loneliness on her heart will be dispelled, if only temporarily.

Oh. Is she lonely? She does not know. Either way, it is best not to dwell on those thoughts. As her husband pointed out, she still has a duty to perform.

She makes her way over to the toilet and Rodrigue goes back into the bedroom. He pulls back the bedding and her some tea as she relieves herself and washes her hands. She heads back into the bedroom, walking over to him.

“Would she like pajamas, are she cold?” He asks, handing she the glass of water. She take it, looking at him thoughtfully for a moment, before shaking sher head.

“Alright.” He gestures to the steaming, inodorous tea with his eyes. “Drink up.”

She obediently raises the teacup to her lips, taking a couple of sips, eyes on his over the rim. He raises an eyebrow at her, and she continue drinking until half the cup is empty before pausing again, looking at him once more. He nods, waving his hands, signalling he wanted her to drink it all. She would do well if she complied, she would not want to be forced to drink the rest.

“Good girl.” He praises, setting the ceramic down on the bedside table.

Mercedes climbs into the bed, facing Rodrigue, and nestles under the covers. He removes his coat and trousers, leaving him in his smallclothes, and climbs into bed beside she. He wraps an arm around she and she snuggles in close, resting her head on his strong chest. His thumb rubs soft circles on her arm.

She feels her head faint, as her husband touches her lower and lower. He might have tired of her voice. It does not matter, she will perform to his highest expectations, conscient or not.

The last thought that runs through Mercedes’ head is that it is the 24th of Eternal Moon, 1185. The eve of the Millennial Festival, of the oath she had swore to return to Garreg Mach.

It seems she is not going to make it.

*_*_*_*_*

Fire Emblem Masterlist

Three Houses Masterlist

[scroobles]

My Testimony Against Rictus Corporation

At Rictus I was living out my destiny as a Marketing Strategist, refining campaign messages and watching them hit the bullseye right between the eyes of our demographic. The deadlines were tough and I hit most of them at a hairsbreadth but I was tenacious and worked uncompromisingly to get things done. The multiple personality quizzes at the company corroborated this and they were hardly ever wrong, I suppose it was the main reason I was chosen for the post. I was for the most part liked by the office, although looking back its hard to tell what “liked” consisted of. Whether it was a genuine connection or just assumption of mutually shared moral axioms I wasn’t sure. I do not blame my colleagues entirely for this as it was the way in which were trained that dictated much of our behaviour in the office. We all started at the corporate bootcamp. This was set in the welsh borderlands against a hillside with a view of the beautiful foothills, planted with a ring of orchards circulating the property. It looked much more like a Spa than a bootcamp, I suppose that was the point, to start us relaxed and open. I was greeted at reception with soaps, lavender oils, bathrobes and shown upstairs to my personal futon. We were required to stay training for a month in total, which was asking a lot but as I looked at the view from my balcony I knew this was a blessing. The staff there were filled with a joie de vivre and an eagerness to please switched on at all times. Josh was our instructor for the month, he gave off the strong impression of an online fitness instructor rather than a business guru, his charisma was practically a smell, a muscle and a force field. This actually became infectious after a while. He made us run around in the morning as in any bootcamp and we were told physical fitness was a requirement, which non-maintenance of could get you fired. In the afternoons there were open-air presentations called “Transparency Classes”, which we would take sat under the dappling light of the orchard where we talked about the basic principles of business and afterwards moved onto more personal topics. It was clear we were to divulge our past selves, if there was any hesitation in this our instructor would repeat the company mantra “The more in light, the more we make right”. These classes gelled our group together and we became fairly close after the month was through, a closeness comparable to a first year of Uni. After this I was feeling refreshed and ready for the work ahead. We were sent in a busload together to the headquarters, had our checks, our cards, our eyes mapped and were led through the atrium to our Marketing quarters on the 1st floor, through the serpentine interior of the building. I was shown to my own personal Panorama ICE screen, I stroked the plexiglass screen awake, tingling from the power at my fingertips. One of the first projects to come to our sentinel was a market testing project for a new product developed called The Memory Ball. We were invited to test it for ourselves passing the ball to each other in a circle, It was a dull grey oracle, about the size of an easy peeling orange. I felt it in my hand and must have squeezed it as the light began to shine through my palm, I let go of the ball and it hovered there dead still in the air, I thought what a supreme piece of technology! We were given them to carry on our person for a week, as it took that amount of time to prepare your memories to be accessed. I came back from speaking to a test group who were full of bountiful praise for the product, I couldn’t wait to try it for myself. I entered their thoughts into our feedback vortex and headed home with anticipation. Back at my conapt I sat in my living room, unable to wait I began rubbing the ball, it started whirring and suddenly the memories of the preceding week came sputtering into life in holographic grandeur. Memories of the office, of the river from public transport, columns of rain moving across the sky in the distance. These images experienced themselves in front of me, I was only a third party to myself, blissfully apart but yet so near. It was a beautiful experience that would eventually in the end, turn bitter for me.

Society as a whole knows about Rictus and what the end goal of the platform is. Its products all provide a path for you to create an Exo-Soul, this is a perfect simulation of ourselves that can last pristine, stored forever in ether. You must have seen them, if a friend or a colleague hasn’t shown one to you you may have seen them acting in Hollywood films without being aware of it. Achieving a synthetic immortality is the main driving factor for many people’s use of the app, however for some this is only a side-effect of using the app. Creating an Exo-Soul was never my personal goal however, I didn’t really feel comfortable being uploaded into the ether for anyone to access for eternity. I was too self-conscious, even in death I would embarrass myself! For some reason I didn’t ever criticise this nature of the business though, I guess there has been too many socio-technological implosions in our society to even begin to attempt a criticism of this power. Anyway I knew it was a dream marketing tool, it converged our human desires, drew people into the app and gave them the fuel to keep pushing through the program. I had the Marketing excalibur in my hands but I didn’t understand the morality regarding its power. I kept segmenting and strategising, functioning as a consistent worker in the quadrant. The first time I felt that things were changing for the worse was after a seminar we had introducing a new appliance on our Panorama ICE systems. This new appliance allowed us to see the psychological make-up of our users, their names were not included but it provided a sweeping look at the real-time state of their lives in absurd, graphic rendering. As the presentation closed I went back to the lower quadrant to inspect this new function. My hand waved over the title “Pulse Systems” on the ICE , I saw the familiar hexagons slide across the screen but these opened much different information this time. I could access the romantic relationship satisfaction of users scored out of 10 with decimals, the state of users mental health, even the general characteristics of their lived experience, for example whether the texture of their sensory existence was grainy, blurry, black etc. I felt deeply unsettled at the information available to me on my screen and felt the need the share my worries with the others, we were meant to be honest with each other after all. I came into the quadrant mess as my close acquaintances were speaking about their home entertainment systems. I waited for my opportune time and put myself forward “So how’s everyone feeling about these new Pulse systems then? Personally I feel a little afraid of them y’know, seems like we’ve gotten too personal”. The look of puzzlement came across their faces as the collective mastication slowed to a halt. One close acquaintance Mary said “Why do you feel that way? I think this close relationship with our customers is beautiful in way, they can tell us how they are feeling and we can respond to help them, help mould their lives into a better shape”. She used the word closer like it was a relationship between between lovers, a strange word for a Marketing strategist to be using. The others were nodding I couldn’t quite tell if they were being genuine. “Well I just think that this information is nothing to do with us, of course we can track their use of the product but I think the extent of people’s feelings should end at what they think of the product, don’t you think?”. She shifted her position in her seat and said “The people have spoken Sam, they wish us to understand them. We can give people a 360 degree new life, our products can give them a new lease of creativity, an interlocutor for them 24/7, even immortality. The information we gather is inevitable and as you well know Sam, the more in light, the more we make right”. I couldn’t come back to such an entrenched position, I felt myself adrift, filled with a doubt for the people who I have been in the midst of this whole time.

There was a change in my colleagues attitude towards me from then on. A library of poorly hidden distrustful looks answered me, only the most perfunctory conversation greeted me in the corridors. I kept working on my projects continuously burying myself in the work in an attempt to forget. I was hurt by their coldness and retreated further and further into my Memory Ball. In the evenings my living room was graced with memories of many months before. A skyline the colour of blazing peach therapeutically pacified me, the granular vividness was astonishing and I could forever rewind and pause. Even zooming in on the dilated eyes of Pat my co-worker laughing at a crap joke of mine provided me much relief. One night I was working on crunching some reports for a product called “The Philosophers Throne”, which to our surprise became immensely popular with the elderly population. This was a essentially just a toilet but one which engaged you in a philosophical discussion, asking pertinent and paradoxical questions in an attempt to draw a clear line of thinking out of you. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself, you could say hysterically considering I was alone with only the black night outside as a friend. Working at night was always a strange experience, it was like being in a fluorescent desert, there was a buzzing and squeaking in your ears you could never place, was is it in your brain or from some unknown source in the office? I stood back and blinked and feeling my attention pass through the ceiling I made to the water cooler for extra hydration. As the water filled my bottle I saw the light of a monitor in the managers office. This was against company policy so I dutifully went to turn it off. Just before I did something caught my attention. A header titled “How Rictus Challenges can capitalise on information suction from company targets” raised my eyebrows. To explain what Rictus Challenges are if you are unfamiliar with them, they are challenges in which you have to pass to move onto the next level on the app. These levels are Humani, Chrysalist, Exo-Trist, Wizari & Pantheon. If you make it to the pantheon you can have your Exo-Soul released after death, for all the world to see. I Remembered wondering how peculiar and specifically tailored these challenges were before but this all made sense now, I kept on reading. The document detailed how these surveillance Challenges provided actionable information on the company’s “enemies” and helped curtail their movements against Rictus. One example given was a customer who was told that he needed to ascend a hill overlooking a house belonging to a government official and meditate with a Rictus Headset on for two days, which he honourably did. This unearthed valuable evidence against the government official of an affair he was having, which was used to silence him. I was shocked at the use of our customers as vessels to carry out the company’s dirty work, I printed the document and made off with it. Unsure of my own place within the company, even the world, but knowing that I must act in some way.

The next morning my manager entered the office in his usual self-assured manner, clutching his morning Americano. I saw him walk into his office where the exposed monitor was waiting for him. Moments later he came out of his office with a fretful look, like a wolf retreating from a buffalo. He scanned the floor left to right looking for anyone else aware of this information breach, I averted my eyes, seeing this he became just a bit suspicious of me. For a week I tried to time my movements and miss bumping into him, however putting much effort into avoiding people marked me as more suspicious, I suppose I have a terrible capacity for concealing my feelings too. We were told for GDPR reasons we were only aloud inside our own departmental quadrants, I knew this was clearly nonsense, I was planning to explore another level higher up. I knew there was a level some way up called “Central Navigation”, where many of the corporate-wide decisions came from, a lot of our departmental prerogatives had its stamped authority. As I was thinking of this the manager sat himself on my desk, smiling with cold, concerned eyes  “Hey Sam, you seem a little pre-occupied, and I don’t mean with the work. Is there anything you need to tell me?” I responded reflexively “Well nothing really, actually there’s something going on at home” He leaned in sensing a good deal of hesitation in my answer. “That’s interesting Sam, I thought you lived alone?” He smelt blood “Uh yeah, I mean back at home, home. Parents not so well, I need to sort out their healthcare, expensive nowadays isn’t it?” His posture sunk back to its usual state from hearing this excuse, disappointed that his hunch had been incorrect, trusting me even though I was talking like a fridge “Okay as you know our prime value is to be transparent to one another, I truly suggest you speak to our Rictus councillors about this, we don’t want anything happening to you” “Sure” I said, “If this continues you will see them” he reiterated, “Yes, I understand” I said staring into the middle distance, with one desire to find what and who was pulling the strings above me. I knew there were multiple fob entries and no eye scanners, as they were placed on entry to the building. I knew the janitor for the building as I was a frequent late night worker. One evening I accosted him, and gave him a very expensive handshake for his participation in getting me up there. He said for me to be out of there by 9 latest otherwise I would be locked in and that would be the end of us both. The next night I lowered my Janitors cap and made it up to the “Central Navigation” level after getting past the fobs and keypads. I went to clean the toilets first and worked my way around the level. It was a darkly lit area, like an aeroplane cabin at night, I felt watched. I heard somebody coming down the corridor and made my way into the filing annex in an empty office. The shuffling and voices came nearer until I heard them enter the room. It seems the senior employee was surrounded with a coterie of lawyers. He began the address “Welcome gentlemen I have brought you here to discuss the new final clause in the Rictus panopoly. We are seeking your guidance on legal matters, needless to say this is highly confidential information I am about to share, if any of this gets out we will know exactly where the leak is, you can guarantee that”. I was recording with a field mic, he went on “As you have heard we are looking to introduce a new lifetime guarantee for our information subtraction operations. We are looking to build in a Final clause, one that we will vigorously lobby for. We see information as not something attached to a particular person, we see it rather like oxygen, none of us own this substance, not even the breather, therefore it is an open source material. This we feel should be the new basis of our information strategy. Therefore we are looking to introduce a final clause to implement a ceaseless subtraction of our users without any get out” I looked at my recorder I knew I had something groundbreaking. After it finished I waited a while to exit the room, in fact I saw the gentleman further down the hall, I almost saw the question mark rise above his head however an incoming call distracted him from further pursuing his curiosity.

I’m not sure what was driving me towards this new life as a whistleblower, I didn’t question my reasons, it was a course that carved out itself by the magnitude of the information, but maybe there was some reflection missing on my part. Anyway I wanted to strike while the iron was hot, the world couldn’t wait on this information so the next day I left for the Guardian Newspaper headquarters at 90 York Way. I waited at the entrance behind a pillar, I had memorised the names and faces of the main journalists I could trust, I made a note of who was coming and going. I saw one of the journalists exit the revolving doors, I checked my list and almost shouted she’s perfect! I walked from my pillar and accosted her in the street I told her I had a story for her, she seemed hassled by me “I appreciate your willingness to talk but we have official avenues in place for this sort of thing, please follow the process”. “Please you don’t understand” I pleaded “This isn’t your average story, this is about abuse of power, this is about Rictus. This could be a huge groundbreaking story for you, A Guardian exclusive”. She stopped in her tracks, visualising herself carrying the golden torch of freedom up a large hill, appearing on cascades of network interviews, signing book deals. She turned to me discreetly “Okay, meet me tomorrow at the Lebanese restaurant Taste of Beirut, here’s the address, come alone” she gave me a searching look and left, I couldn’t believe this was happening so quickly. I could barely get to sleep that night and drifted into a thin dream. I was awoken later on, not knowing exactly what had stirred me but I sensed there was something wrong in the apartment. I walked out of the bedroom and caught a light illuminating from the office and headed towards it. A strange sight welcomed me as I looked into the office. There was my Memory Ball hovering over my desk, restlessly searching for something, moving like a dragonfly with a sentience I could palpably sense, opening the drawers with its magnetism. The ball suddenly noticed I was in the hallway watching and stopped dead and we locked eyes for a couple seconds. It suddenly lunged towards me with a violence that took me off guard completely, narrowly missing my temple. I scrambled down the hallway to make it to the safety of the bedroom and slammed the door, The Memory Ball came crashing behind me. The conspiracies hit me at once, Have they surrounded the property? Would they kill me? Are the Guardian in on it? I told myself I couldn’t answer these right now and gripped the baseball bat in my hand. I timed opening the door at the exact wrong time when The Memory Ball was attempting to knock it down, it came crashing into my face. I felt my nose break and the hot stifling blood rush into my sinuses. In a pain driven rage I launched myself at the ball with the bat, smashing up lampshades, bookshelves, until I hit it flush and smashed it to pieces. I dropped my bat, collapsed on the floor and cried, my memories were forever gone from me.

I couldn’t sleep, I knew that Rictus were out there aware that I had some information on them, although may not be aware of exactly what. I knew the only way I could get out of this corner was to risk it and get this information out there, that could be my ticket to safety. I got off the Bus after numerous changes in an attempt to shake off any trail. The restaurant was a little walk away, however as I approached there were more and more people suspiciously looking at their phones, at me, back at their phones again, my nerves started to oscillate. As the restaurant came in sight I saw a thicket of people on the pavement, congregating as if waiting for something. They had their headsets over their eyes, one of them recognised me and they all turned to look right dead on. At this point I knew that I too had become part of the Rictus Challenges I had read about earlier. I guessed that their aim was to stop me getting into the restaurant, god knows how this challenge was framed on the app. What could possibly convince them to unknowingly but willingly take part in intimidation tactics? but here there they were on the pavement, as if controlled by a digital tapeworm, arms wide, yelling at me. I wanted to see how far they would go so I decided to run a circle around them, a couple broke off from the group and took chase towards me. At the point I knew that they would not countenance any failure of this challenge. I ran off down the road and kept running for a mile or so and hopped on a bus in the same direction. I was sweaty and petrified, feeling hunted down. I didn’t know who I was surrounded by, Rictus had more power than I had known, how could I have been so naive this whole time, even as their employee? As I was panting with my head resting against the bus window the most disturbing sight started to unravel outside. There were billboards passing with my face and body supplanted on them, unmistakably me. There I was waving from a McDonalds advert, winking from the golden sands of a Thomsons Holidays beach, loosening my tie for the latest Paco Robanne perfume 20ft above. This was unbelievable, what were they trying to achieve with doing this? What was their point? It took a while to calm myself but I saw quite clearly what this was, it was a message “We can make you into anything, be places you never were, at a very unfortunate time for you”, they controlled my own image, they were flaunting this power they had over me, I felt violated. On the way back my image was everywhere surreally laughing back at me. I got back to my conapt and shut myself in.

I arose as if from anaesthetic the next morning, the sky was dusk, dawn was just breaking, the somnambulant sky rolled into existence just as I did. I should be in work I thought but this was out of the question. There was something strange, the sky was different but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was mored here, but out of a strange compulsion I felt the need to follow my fuzzy curiosity outside. There was something strange with the light, it was hanging too low, I kept on thinking there were clouds over the sun, like there was some permanent dusk inside of the globe. I was unsure what had happened to me in the night. I was looking out for my face in signs but I didn’t see it on anything, the sides of buses still had the the usual faces of satisfied customers. However out of the corner of my eye there was blip, I swore one of the animated store signs lurched towards me. I jumped and thought what the hell was that? But it resumed its normal cheery animation. I kept on with the walk I’m not sure why, something had changed I kept repeating. The buzzing started to rise. I caught the tube and things really began to change. The holograms illuminating the walls glitched disruptively. Cities these days are full of holograms, I never knew just how much they have permeated the city until I ascended out of the tube that day and stood in horror at the demented chorus above me. Adverts were suppurating with iridescent lesions, popping under the pressure. Figures had holes burning out of their abdomens, some screaming drowning in the suffocating cathode seas. I looked at pedestrians as they walked by, but they were in another world. I had come to another plane of existence, one purely curated by Rictus. Every holographic image I came in contact with was sullied, images bleeding into one another with horrifying freedom, from that day onwards no image was pure. Each image, even internal, a memory, a lifeless object, fornicated pointlessly together. The days afterwards preceded with visual intensity but at the same time an amnesia began to descend like impenetrable fog, which made it hard to plan my next movements. I knew I had a problem as the desire to go back into my Memory Ball became all-consuming. At this point I knew that the destruction of the Memory Ball had weakened me fatally. I didn’t know there were any side effects from pure technology but I knew something had left when my memories stored in there, were scattered to the wind.

[storysims]

Hi! I was wondering what desktop pc you would recommend that is able to run The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 with ease? I'm from the UK so you might not be able to recommend me stores to buy them from but specs would be very helpful. Thank you :)

I’m so sorry for the late reply! ♡ It’s been a busy week, and I wanted to make sure I had the time to devote to giving you an answer. 

The first thing I would definitely look for is a computer with a dedicated graphics card! The latest system requirements for TS4 recommend at least 128MB of video RAM, but say you’ll get ideal performance from this video card, which has 1GB.

That sounds like a lot of gibberish. Basically, a dedicated graphics card means that the power it takes to actually display the game will be solely hosted by the graphics card! In turn, that alleviates strain from the rest of your computer and allows for better performance. 

Everything else is fairly straight forward! Pulling from Origin, here’s a list of all the recommended specs:

OS: 64 Bit Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or 10PROCESSOR: Intel core i5 or faster, AMD Athlon X4VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 650 or betterMEMORY: 4 GB RAMHARD DRIVE: 18 GB of Hard Drive space

Meeting + exceeding these should give you great performance in TS3 as well. For reference, I can easily run both games and here are my computer specs.

I hope this helps, ‘nonny! Good luck with your new computer!♡

[yuvilee]

29th October 2019 Student-led seminar 2

Text: Siegel, D. (2009) ‘Designing Our Own Graves’, in: Armstrong, H. (ed.) Graphic Design Theory : Readings From the Field, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp. 115-118. First published: Siegel, D. (2006) ‘Designing Our Own Graves’, Design Observer, 27 June. Available at: https://designobserver.com/article.php?id=4307 (Accessed on: 27 October 2019)

Table of content:

Introduction - Have a butcher’s Main part:  The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker The greatest thing since sliced bread - The art of self-promotion Conclusion -  Digging it Notes: Books and articles Pictures

About the author: Dmitri Siegel is a Creative Executive with more than ten years of experience leading and modernising brands, building teams, making change, and driving growth. Brand strategist, marketing executive, creative director, design leader, P&L owner, whatever. Currently inspiring the world to listen better with Sonos(1).

Introduction - Have a butcher’s

Siegels essay was first published in 2006, but looking at the questions on the DIY society it seems like he had foreseen how social media, digital availability and appearance would shape our life and work these days: creating own content.

Those early signs were already visible in 2003. Back then, my arts and design tutor told us in one of our design-related courses about recessions and smaller businesses. ‘If an economy is in recession’, he said, ‘one of the first things to get cut are advertising through graphic designers.’ His cautionary tale was about a butchers who would rather create his own advertisement instead of investing in a graphic design studio. It might not look elaborate or clean but it still works. Sales would not go down drastically and he would advertise his offers with self-written promotions. The numbers would show in his favour and reassure him to go on like this, he argued.  

My tutor was not totally right but also not totally wrong with his bleak prediction as the progression from Flickr and MySpace (which Siegel provided as examples) advanced to easy manageable website creation tools from companies such as Wix.com, Squarespace, GoDaddy and similar - and they are growing constantly. 

The butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker

Never was creating a website easier. And it is free on top - if you choose the smallest offer and depending on the selected provider. You do not get printed flyers and a business card, but you can even create your own logo.

For a small business it seems to be more lucrative and less complicated to build their own website. It makes sense as they are also in total control over the content and display. It seems like grammar-checking became less important as long as the layout is clean, the pictures are appealing, and the text is short enough to be read in three seconds(2).

The revenue those companies create are supporting the theory how accessible and appealing it became to build your own online appearance. Just to give one example, in 2017, Squarespace was estimated to have a value of $1.7 billion(3).

Nowadays, the challenge doesn’t seem to be a webpage anymore but rather a well thought out social media presence and a good looking portfolio. Same goes for the creatives like designers, photographers, and illustrators.

Above: My screenshot of Jullien, J., Peace for Paris, (2015)

Above: My screenshot of Jullien, J., Peace for Paris, shown by The Telegraph, (2015)

The greatest thing since sliced bread - The art of self-promotion

You are a good designer, tattoo-artist, illustrator, restaurant- or flower-shop owner if you at least have an online appearance, if you can be reached on Twitter and/or Facebook, and if you have good reviews and show your work on display over platforms like Instagram. Every self-promotion guide will tell you that. 

Those guides tell about creating an own brand, a distinctive logo, a signature and especially for illustrators it seems like people want you to create new content in your signature style.

In a best case scenario, your picture goes viral and you become famous overnight, like Jean Jullien’s Eiffel Tower/Peace Symbol in 2015 (as seen above) after the terror attacks. He posted his picture on his social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The image had been shared over 60,000 times on Twitter, and millions of times more via other accounts of people who had copied and shared the image(4). 

Another case in point in the realm of illustration I’d like to write about is Shencomix. His Facebook account goes back to the 21st February 2013. He is known for emotional comics everyone can relate to. Since then he got himself established as an illustrator with merchandise purchasable in his online-shop. He got famous as people are posting his comics on all available social media (Tumblr, /reddit, Twitter, …) since they are little, curious snippets right out of every-day life that many people can relate to easily. From simple comics to his own brand: 

Above: My screenshot of shencomix, no title, (2016)

Above: My screenshot of shencomix’s online-shop, (2019)

There are numerous similar stories of equal success stories. But getting back at Siegel’s question ‘Does that coffin have your career's name on it?’, sure there are ways to undersell your work (such as Fiverr) but I would tend to disagree. It has rather shifted and with this it has also opened up new possibilities.

Above: My screenshot of aitchmade, fun at the mall, (2012)

Above: My screenshot of lisa_quine, mural, (2018)

Conclusion -  Digging it

What I am getting at: social media has opened up new possibilities for illustrators but they require to be on top of them all the time and producing non-stop, ideally always in their own unique style. The AOI and agencies are constantly on social media, looking for new talents. Only if someone has a great and distinct portfolio, it is possible that they will be approached.

So are designers really digging their own graves or just following up with the changing advertising world? Companies like Wix and GoDaddy still work hard to create easily accessible websites but in fact not every small business has time or patience to create their website themselves. In the end they still need great content like photographs and text. Copy Writers and photographers might still find lots of job opportunities there while illustrators and graphic designers could still offer to create the websites. With the new emerging hype around hand-lettering and small illustrations such as Jean Jullien’s, with online short comics or long-running online graphic novels we are still in a position to find work if we make ourselves visible enough to be found.

Unrelated: I did enjoy Siegel’s Spotify lists I found on his web-page while writing.

Notes:

Books and articles

Siegel, D. (no date) Dmitri Siegel about. Available at: https://www.dmitrisiegel.com/ (Accessed on: 27 October 2019). And yes, the ‘whatever’ part is on his webpage.

The belief of a three second memory capacity of a goldfish has been busted as a myth. Cf. Simpson, A. (2009) ‘Fish’s memories last for month, say scientists’, The Telegraph, 07 January. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/4158477/Fishs-memories-last-for-months-say-scientists.html (Accessed on: 27 October 2019).

Vynck, G. (2017) ‘Squarespace Raises Funding at $1.7 Billion Valuation'. Bloomberg. 14 December. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-14/squarespace-is-said-to-raise-funding-at-1-7-billion-valuation (Accessed on: 27 October 2019).

Nudd, T. (2015) ‘How a Designer’s ‘Peace for Paris’ Sketch, Made in Minutes, Became a Global Symbol’, Adweek, 16 November. Available at: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-designers-peace-paris-sketch-made-minutes-became-global-symbol-168150/ (Accessed on: 27 October 2019).

Pictures

Jullien, J. (2015) 'Peace for Paris' [Instagram]. 13 November. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/-CvRmhhFJP/ (Accessed on: 28 October 2019).

Before long, this digital image made its way into the real world from a peace vigil in Kathmandu (top left), onto the streets of Paris (bottom left) and to vigils in Hong Kong (top right). Reuters/Getty/Instagram/Twitter/Facebook (2015) [Screenshot]. Available at: https://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/paris-attacks-tributes/index.html (Accessed on: 28 October 2019).

shencomix, (2016) no title, [Instagram]. 30 November. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BNcbN6nABUo/ (Accessed on: 28 October 2019).

shencomix, (2019), [Screenshot]. Available at: https://shenstuff.com/ (Accessed on: 28 October 2019).

Aitchmade’s fun at the mal, (2012), [Screenshot]. Available at: http://aitchmade.blogspot.com/2012/03/fun-at-mall.html (Accessed on: 28 October 2019).

lisa_quine, (2018) ‘no title’ [Instagram]. 19 June. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BkMPg0FFSXB/ (Accessed on: 28 October 2019).

[endlessly-searching-for-you]

Plane Luck

Another one for @meeraaverywalker's November Challenge day 5: Trouble. 

Summary: Young runaway pilot gets a job offer he can't refuse. 

Word Count: ~1900

Warnings: swearing, and lots of it. Also pointing guns at people and a few hits where it hurts, not very graphic because the fight scene sucked and I deleted it

A/N: A kind of Endless Summer prequel, one of the fics that sat in the back of my notes for a few months. It really bugged me: how does a penniless fugitive get a plane? My theory has more holes than a Swiss cheese, I know, but let's pretend for a minute it doesn't, and let the guy tell his own story ;)

(And there’s also another question at the end)

Tags: @darley1101 @mysteli @brightpinkpeppercorn @likethetailofacomet @akrenich @zaffrenotes @agent-bossypants @mind-reader1​

The first rays of sunshine hit my face like a baseball bat. Fuck. Did I really drink that much last night? Maybe I just have one of the tropical diseases that turn your brain to mush. Nausea fills me from the deepest pit of my stomach all the way up to my mouth, every cell in my body hurts, my hangover has a hangover.

And I still remember.

I close my eyes, but the images won't stop. No matter how hard I try to push them out of my mind, they always come back.

Weeks of hiding and running like a hunted animal.

Face of that bastard Lundgren.

Mike's death.

It could have been me. It should have been me. Mike's dead, and it's all my fault. My best friend in the entire world is dead just because I was stupid enough to believe in justice.

The memories make me sick. I need some fresh air, but getting up from the bed is not an easy thing. The liquid that was once my brain sloshes inside my skull, one of my thighs feels like it belongs to someone else, and the Death Valley is a tropical oasis compared to the inside of my mouth.

I reach to the fridge, pick one bottle at random and down it in one big gulp before I realize what it is. Milk?! Ugh. I regret the decision when it forces its way back up a few seconds later.

The floor slowly stops swaying under my feet, and I pour myself some coffee. All milk went down the drain, so it's pitch black, just like my mood, and this time it stays down. I hesitantly reach for a slice of stale toast. It's gross, but I don't have anything else, and my rumbling stomach demands a sacrifice, so here it goes.

I splash the cold water on my face and look in the mirror.  I look like absolute shit. Is that really me? I can't even recognize myself. Which, I realize, is actually a good thing. I don't want to be recognized.  Maybe I should grow a beard? Nah. It would be a shame to hide a jawline like this. Long hair? I'm sick of the short military haircut. Yes, that's it.

I can't tell if it's the coffee or the toast, but I feel really good right now. Cheerful and energetic, even. Both my legs are back, so I grab the worn out sneakers and go for a jog. Maybe that would flush the toxins and despair out of my system.

For the first time in a while, I'm running for fun, not because someone is chasing me. I feel alive and free. I drop to the ground and grind as many push-ups as I can before I fall flat on my face and right in the mud. Forty-five. Not bad for a guy with a hangover, but I know I could easily double that. It's about time I stop wallowing in self-pity and get myself back into shape.

I open the door and stop immediately. Something's not right. Someone's here. They found me. A treacherous floorboard creaks under my foot and I know I'm a dead man. I reach to the pocket of my jacket, but it's empty.

“Are you looking for this?”

A tall, muscular guy stands in the door with my gun in hand. He speaks with a heavy accent, and I don't think I've ever seen him. Policeman? Headhunter? Doesn't matter, I'm screwed anyway.

“Nice to meet you, McKenzie. Why don't we sit and have a chat?”

He waves the gun at my table—it has a fucking teapot and two cups on it, and I'm pretty sure I didn't invite anyone for a fucking tea party—then points it back at me, sits and starts to drink.

“You're awfully quiet.”

I bare my teeth at him in response. What the fuck does he want from me? How does he know who I am?

“We heard you're a pilot.”

I nod.

“My boss wants to see you at five. He's got a job for you.”

He takes another sip, and I fight really hard to stop myself from snatching the cup out of his hands and smashing it on his face.

“I know where you live. I'll come to pick you up.”

He finishes the tea and walks out of the door, taking the gun—my gun—with him, and I pick up my jaw from the floor, wondering what the hell was that all about.

I have absolutely no intention to go, but the bastard keeps a watch on me, and he doesn't even bother to hide. When I look out of the window, he waves at me. The clock chimes four, and he's back in my house with a big smile plastered on his face, like we're fucking friends, and soon I'm in the car, squeezed in the back between two more goons, driving who the fuck knows where.

He drops us off in a shady bar downtown and the two thugs drag me through the crowd. I can't hear, I can't breathe. I'm getting drunk just by inhaling the fumes, and my skull starts to throb again with all the noise. I'm almost thankful when they shove me to a quiet room behind the bar. It's filled with cigarette smoke, but despite that, I feel the increase of oxygen in my lungs.

I don't know who I expected to be the boss, but it definitely wasn't the guy before me. He can't be much older than me. Twenty-five, maybe thirty, tops. Really tall—I hate tall guys—and really handsome. His suit probably costs more than I could earn in a year, and don't get me started on the watch. He looks just like the type of guy who would hire someone else to do the dirty work.

I think I'm not what he expected, too. There's something in his eyes I saw way too many times, and for the first time since this morning, I feel the tiniest spark of hope. There's a slim chance I might be getting out of this alive.

He shakes my hand, smiles the fake smile that doesn't reach his eyes, pushes a glass of water in my hand and babbles something about the weather. I should have taken some business cards, because it feels like a fucking business meeting.

And then he drops the bomb. There is a certain shipment he wants out of the country.

“What happened to your guy?” I ask politely, and he shrugs.

“He had the most unfortunate accident.”

Of course he did. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! I knew I was a dead man the second I walked back into the house.

I look him straight in the eye. We both know I'm in no position to refuse, and I'm not even talking about the obviously armed bodyguards. But there's one thing Jake McKenzie won't do, and that's smuggling fucking drugs.

I'm looking for a way out—maybe I could escape through a bathroom window—but my friend from this morning casually pats his bulging pocket to remind me just how fucked I am. My eyes fall to the table, and I notice a card deck. I feel the faintest idea coming to my mind and hang on to it like a drowning man to a lifeboat.

“Why don't we play cards?” I smile at the boss, my signature underwear dropping smile, and oh my fucking God, I was right. His face flushes for a fraction of second, but there's no fooling me. I shuffle the deck and look him dead in the eye. “I propose a bet.”

He stares back at me, clearly amused, but takes the bait.

“If I win, you agree to work for me?”

“Yes.” God, I hope the deck isn't rigged. “But if I win”—the bastard laughs, and my heart drops, but I continue anyway—“if I win, I want a plane.” His smile widens, so I lower my voice, put the smirk back on and add, “Or, if you want, we could just play strip poker. Like normal people.”

Bingo. His face turns bright red, and one of the thugs chokes on his beer.

“Fuck off! I'm not into dudes!”

Like hell you're not, I add in my thoughts and break into a wide grin. You can deny it all you want, I already know what I needed to know. 

“Well?”

His fingers wander up to his tie. Good. I need him distracted to buy me some time to think of a next step. I win the first round easily. Then the next one, and the next, and another one after that. The clock is ticking. If I win another one, he probably will have me skinned alive. And I still have no idea what to do.

“Too bad we're not stripping,” I joke, and I wish I could shove the words back into my mouth the moment they leave it. The boss's fist lands on the table with a loud thud. I crossed the line.

“You're taking the job.” It’s a statement, not a question. He waves his hand at one of the guards, and I feel the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed to my back.

I nod slowly, unable to breathe, as he explains the details. It's easy enough, no real risk, but I loathe myself already. Unless...?

“Let’s do it right now. I really need some cash.”

His eyes meet mine, and to my relief, he agrees and whispers the orders to the tea-drinking thug. I could almost hug them both. We drive to the dilapidated airport in the middle of nowhere, and my friend—I think I can call him that, I really love the guy right now—repeats the orders to his crew. They cannot be serious, I think. Just two guys?! They run to fetch the goods, and we're left on board alone. The engine hums nicely, the tank is full, and I can't believe my luck.

I turn to him with a big smile and ask for help. Nothing big, he just needs to press a few buttons. He reaches to the first one, and I act quickly. He might be big and strong, but as it often is with big and strong guys, he’s also awfully slow, and I learned long ago to play to my strengths. I knock my gun out of his hand and smash it right in his face. Time seems to slow down when I rush to deliver a flurry of blows and kicks. The attack catches him off-guard, he can't do much except shielding himself from me, passes out not before long, and I shove his limp body out of the door.

I hop into the chair and try to steady my shaking hands. My body already knows what to do, I don't even have to think about it. I can see the two thugs returning and trying to shoot me, but it's too late. I'm off the ground, and they can't do nothing about it. I started the day regretting I'm alive, but right now I couldn't be any happier. I really am one lucky bastard. Adrenaline still rushes through my veins, and I laugh hysterically. You see, my gun wasn't even loaded. I shot the last bullets a while ago. 

I don't know how long I’m flying, but the fuel indicator slowly starts to drop and I land on the first clear patch I see. I don't know where I am, but I'm here, and I'm alive. I jump out of the cockpit and roll on the grass, laughing like a little kid. I can't believe I did it. I fucking did it! 

I take a small flask out of my pocket and raise a toast to the big, starry sky.

To the new day, new life and new beginnings.

===

Very Important Question!

Maybe you can help me figure it out. What kind of plane it was? We know there are at least 14 seats, most likely in the 1+2 layout (there’s 11 students, 1 tour guide, and at least two free seats, because MC could sit next to Quinn or Sean during the turbulences). 

Outside-looks-wise I’d say it’s King Air, but it’s too small. Twin Otter, on the other hand, has the right inside, but doesn’t look like it from the outside. HALP I CAN’T SLEEP UNTIL I KNOW

[stripesthesupervillain]

DCULSS Chapter 3.5: Piggy

This took way longer and was way more lengthy than originally intended. That’s cool, though. At least I got it out. Anyshoe, this is a bit of a break from my third chapter of DCULSS, and surprisingly, it’s not a shitpost. If anything, it’s a SHIPpost, seeing as I hadn’t realized I was into this pairing until I was writing last chapter’s scene with the two together, despite the fact they won’t be too important moving forward.

So, warning: a bit of blood, but nothing graphic, Pyg isn’t actually in this one, and I guess implied shipping warning. I also took a few liberties with Zsasz’s background, sooo yeah.

Enjoy.

Professor Strange came to sit before the patient, adjusting his notepad silently. His pen met paper and soon he began to write. “Viktor.”

“Doctor Strange. A pleasure,” Zsasz greeted, his arms cramped from being tightly bound against his body. He would have sworn straight jackets had been put out of use by now. He didn’t mind it; it was something he’d grown used to during his initial years as one of Gotham’s most abhorred.

“Would you like to explain the mark on your neck, Mr. Zsasz?” Strange requested, gesturing to the scabbed-over mark that had appeared beside his jugular seemingly overnight. Viktor’s smiling expression didn’t flex at the comment, having known such a question would soon befall him. “A piece of discarded glass works wonders, Hugo,” was all his patient had to say about that, putting himself on a first name basis with the psychiatrist.

“What is it for, if you don’t mind me asking?” Hugo pried, showing no expression of suspicion towards the man. When given a small curious tilt of the head, he continued. “Your doctor, Dr. Chen, saw the mark and immediately assumed it was for her, which is why we sit together here today.”

“Miss Chen needn’t worry,” Zsasz told him calmly, feeling as though his head was clear for the first time in near ages. “The mark isn’t for her.” Despite his apologies, it was most likely they wouldn’t be interacting again for her safety; a mere obstacle, he reasoned, as he would easily find her once he was out of the asylum.

“Who is it for then?” Hugo repeated, his patience undeterred as his pen scrambled across the page with detailed notes.

Zsasz’ grin never faded, a faint song playing in his head that’s melody escaped between his teeth under the mounting pressure of the professor. “Can I simply say I needed the mark? Is madness not reason enough for you, Strange?” Sleepless eyes scanned over the other’s flesh with an internal ache to sink something sharp in there. He was already dreaming of the poses he could put the man in; playing cards, perhaps? No, something more professional. Draped over his own desk in a collapsed heap of sleep? Possibly. He was sure a workaholic was hidden somewhere behind those thick frames, aching to be set free from the limbo that was life itself. But where would he put the mark? For Strange, it had to be someplace special, and his palms were bare enough as it were.

“Are you implying that many of your marks are unearned?” Strange suggested, quite obviously using a triggering statement to catch the serial killer off his guard whilst he was lost in thought. Zsasz’s evaporation of his smile spoke volumes of his true thoughts. To even suggest any of his scars could be faked was an insult to the legacy of terror that sat before him. Hugo thought it redundant to pry more on the scars, and so therefor moved on.

“According to Officer Kieth, one of the guards that had been watching over you three, another officer had taken you, Valentin, and Wesker to get sorted out in Solitary, only to be found later in your cells. Would you perhaps like to explain what happened then?”

Zsasz’s brow raised ever so subtly, the frown retained on his expression. “It was all a misunderstanding,” was all he would offer, the foreign lilt of his voice not being able to disguise his contempt matching Strange’s. “Wesker apologized after all. The little man meant no harm towards our little Pyggy.”

Strange stopped writing for a brief moment and tapped the thin pen against his clipboard patiently, adjusting thick glasses that hid a more fiendish glint. Despite the disguise of those thin frames, Zsasz could see eyes searching for something; a crack in the wall or a well hidden doorway, perhaps. At this point the professor was poking around, scanning for that pressure point that would further split the cracks. He found them in his cellmate. “That’s good to hear, Viktor,” Strange congratulated. “We should never solve our differences through violence alone. Wesker could certainly teach you a thing or two.” Violence alone? “Perhaps I should meet with Mr. Valentin. I’m sure he would do well in holding you to the truth.”

That had Zsasz’s jaw working, although nothing was said initially. Viktor admitted to nothing, instead finding it rather irritating the man found a proper angle in the his cellmate. He took a moment to consider everything, keeping consistent eye-contact with the only other man in the room. “These guards of yours,” he said finally, a faux tone of curiosity drenching the cadence of his voice, “do you treasure them? They certainly are hard workers, aren’t they?”

“Arkham staff work very hard to maintain a peaceful environment,” Hugo said briefly. Viktor had a point to make and a story to tell. It was simply best to listen on and let him speak.

Viktor looked away, a scowl briefly crossing his features. “Yes, such lovely fellows. Gifted me with a little piggy, as you most certainly know.” As silence enveloped the room, he only continued. “Before my father had finally gotten big with his business in America and met his end in a… tragic accident along with my mother, he tended to the farm as much as he could back home.” He swallowed, remembering his parents fondly. “One morning when I was eight, he taught me about the pigs. Plump little creatures they were, blissfully unaware of the hatchet within my dear father’s shed. He used to tell me you could kill off the runt little piglets, do away with the deformed little monsters and keep their pork, but that sows were too valuable to the farm to kill off.”

Hugo said nothing, merely wondering where this would lead. The attempts at symbolism were far from subtle.

“Your guards gifted me with a horrid, deformed sow, hoping (praying perhaps?) that I would off the poor thing, or perhaps they he would eventually end me,” Viktor continued, grin slowly returning as his mood shifted back into proper place.

“They placed you in the same cell hoping you would kill each other,” Hugo stated matter-of-factly, surprise curiously absent from his stoic tone. Zsasz remained undeterred by the objective nature of the statement, only continuing with his tale.

“I took in this deformed sow,” Zsasz began once more. “I was patient and I waited and cared for this pig the best a man can do when constantly restrained by cuffs.” A chuckle left his lips. “And this Pyg, in return, gifts me with many little piggies as deformed and faceless as he is, but in an oh so different fashion; all living their lives unaware that they serve a purpose higher than simply living in the monotony that is the zombie infested world we live in today. He let the world see just what little zombies they were raising; that is a man who only deserves my respect, I truly believe, especially when he allows me to drive that icepick in myself.” He smiled gently, as if recalling a fond memory.  

“What is your point, Viktor?” Strange demanded, receiving one of those mad grins he had seen countless times before. “My point, doctor,” Zsasz hummed, “is that when a man is desperate and starved they may have no choice but to kill off that sow when the poor Pyg has eaten up his convenience.” A grin split his face. “As much as I enjoy my time with the Pyggy, I’m afraid that if you involve him in this little… misunderstanding, he may not exactly be well enough to see you. And although it aches at my dying heart, sometimes you simply need to know when to put an animal down.”

Strange had been threatened many times before then; Joker enjoyed his threats of violence whilst Nygma was always keen on suggesting action for slights against his intellect. Rarely, however, had the threat been made of a person other than himself. This rather grandiose brand of criminality usually brought about conceited and more direct threats. Zsasz, curiously, always was a bit more practical. All he ever really needed was something sharp to get he job done; wasting words had no true purpose to him.

Strange considered the man for a moment, turning his attention away when the door to the room was opened. “Is he ready for Solitary, Professor?” an officer asked, two more flanking for what would certainly be a difficult transport. Hugo’s gaze returned to Viktor’s, who seemed rather anticipative for what he was sure was to come. Instead, Strange shook his head and gestured them to leave. “Fortunately, no. It seems to have all been a misunderstanding.” He savored the subtle look of surprise on the man who always seemed to be so in control of his own madness. “However, I would like a few more minutes with my patient.”  

The guards merely looked at each other, before nodding and closing the door behind them. Zsasz had to bite his lip until it leaked blood to keep the grin off of his face. There were so many unspoken questions, and yet Viktor was content with not knowing the finer, more pointless details.  

“Does Lazlo mean so little to you?” Strange asked, noticing with subtle curiosity the fading ink of his pen. He had only just realized his notes filled the page with him inquiries of the possibilities. Despite this, silence needed to be filled. “You seem just as happy to keep him around as you are to do away with him.”

Zsasz had been following the pen with his eyes mindlessly, only seeing pointless scribbles within the twists and turns of neat penmanship. “Pigs are as brilliant as they are for making good companions,” he noted, not caring for the implications of his words that would be enticing to any doctor within Arkham. Such a peek behind the curtains was such a rarity, after all.  

Zsasz finally found it appropriate to take his gaze off of the finally dead pen. “Oh, what can I say, Doctor?” The killer smiled softly, wild eyes lifting to meet scrupulous ones. “I like pork.”

[yourepower]

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[airconditionedcomputingnightmare]

File 1: The PC/XT

Where it all began, more or less

This is the IBM 5160 PC/XT, the 1983 follow-up on 1981's IBM 5150 PC. By itself the 5160 was largely an iterative advancement on the 5150 PC, most notably trading the earlier model's little-used cassette connector for three more ISA expansion slots totalling at eight versus the PC's five. The PC/XT's BIOS also had some enhancements meant to make hard disk I/O easier, but these were also integrated into later PC BIOS revisions. The minority of the changes the XT brought to the table are nonetheless significant; They mark the point where Intel's x86 (and later x86-64) architecture slowly started to become codified as a standard in computing. To this day, your average Intel or AMD CPU-based computer can run code meant for the PC 5150 and 5160 unaltered (with certain caveats such as needing a MS-DOS or FreeDOS boot floppy). Much like it's precursor, the PC/XT is powered by a 4.77MHz Intel 8088 CPU and can push up to 640 kilobytes of RAM (but in the early days, maxing it out would have been extremely unusual). I'd been obsessed with these systems for a fairly long time, considering the acquisition of one a milestone for my computer collection.

In November of 2017, something caught my eye: A man downstate near Peoria selling a IBM PC/XT in pretty darn fine shape with one floppy drive and one hard drive, complete with a Amdek data display and a original IBM Personal Computer keyboard¹. All that kit, and the guy was at a fair price, to boot! I'd wanted one of these for more than a decade and I had a decent surplus of cash thanks to paid time off having paid out at work a few days earlier, so I'd be an absolute moron to not have jumped on it. The only catch? Pickup was local only, and I didn't have a car at the time. This would be an immediate and pressing issue, but it turned out the man came up to Chicagoland regularly and had business in my neck of the world anyways. At that point, I could have borrowed a ride for a short distance run to the meeting place he'd proposed, a furniture outlet two towns over, pretty easily. It was a date with destiny.

So it went. A few days later, I rolled up and parked at said shop. The machine's seller turned out to be an older fellow who greatly resembled Joseph Joestar (Pictured above) to a disturbing degree. The actual exchange went pretty smoothly. I went in the shop and ate some awful, awful (yet satiating) meatballs. The trip home was pretty uneventful. So far, so good...and I was fresh off the restoration of a IBM 5170 PC/AT I’d picked up at VCFMW, so at the time I figured this one wouldn't hold many surprises. Besides, the IBM PC was the standard most people imitated at the time if they went for MS-DOS. It'd have to be a breeze, wouldn't it? This theory wouldn't hold water, and soon I'd find myself surprised by the fact that it did, in fact, hold many surprises.

“Hey, wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?"

When I made it home, I slapped it on my workbench and popped it open for an initial inspection. The machine had obviously seen some upgrades over it's lifespan: The installation of an aftermarket power supply, a Hercules monochrome graphics card, a 3600RPM 30MB Seagate ST238 hard drive, a Tecmar Captain Real Time Clock/Serial/Parallel/Memory board, and a Scientific Solutions DADI/O card. The latter most card was the most curious in retrospect, since it hinted at the machine's background in ways pretty much nothing else could. I doubt I'll ever find out exactly what that background was since it didn't occur to me to ask the seller at the time, but the hint it represents is fascinating since that's not something you'd think you'd find in an old farmer type's WordStar 4 machine...which, by all means, this thing had otherwise appeared to be to this point.

It's worth mentioning here that the hard drive I'd previously alluded to was a model using the MFM interface, the late '70s - mid '80s precursor to the more modern IDE/PATA and the SATA interface seen in pretty much every modern computer. MFM drives are fickle but impressive beasts, with their controller hardware on a separate expansion card and little brains of their own. They're slow, they're loud, they're clunky and they're an awe to behold in spite of (or perhaps because of) all that. They have actual, honest to god stepper motors and mechanical brakes. When they work, they're impressive as hell but...they often don't. At least, I've found more dead ones than I've found live ones. Naturally, when I first turned the machine on as-is to kick off the smoke test process and assess precisely what I'd need to fix up, I heard said MFM hard disk warm up... followed by a shrill, piercing dragging noise that could only be the hard disk's read/write head burying itself in one of the hard disk's platters. That lack of smarts inherent to MFM hardware I'd alluded to had come back to haunt this system, since MFM drives typically don't know to automatically park the head somewhere catastrophe is less likely to strike unless the command is issued manually by the user. It pretty obviously wasn't parked before the machine was put into storage, so at some point in time the machine was jostled enough to put the head somewhere it'd thrash the drive as soon as it was given power again. In layman's terms, the thing was toast. Well, shit. I like to keep hardware period accurate where I can, but MFM drives are prone to wild price fluctuations and you often have to gamble on untested drives when buying used due to how difficult they can be to test. Thankfully, a relatively practical solution that cuts out some of the uncertainty exists and I'd had good luck with it on previous projects with dead drives: An IDE controller card loaded with the XT-IDE Universal BIOS. Usage of an IDE card would allow me to hook up something more readily available (Such as an old 80gb drive or even a CompactFlash memory card), and usage of the XT-IDE BIOS would make booting simpler since that would mean not having to gamble on the card's own BIOS (or lack thereof). The pair are a pretty common solution to this sort of boondoggle to the point that there are open-source card designs readily available for purchase from many sellers, including Glitchworks , whom I've relied on in the past quite a bit and from whom I wound up purchasing a Revision 4 XT-IDE card from for this project. I also snagged a nice 64mb Cisco cF card off ebay, which would pretty much have to be bootable since it was formerly boot media for some smart network switch or something that's outside the scope of this article.

Hey Mr. Postman, Man me a Post

Time passed, the U.S. Postal Service did its thing, and I planned and prototyped what the final IBM DOS install would look like using PCEm. I was initially targeting IBM PC-DOS 2.11 since that version of DOS is what the PC-XT shipped with, but decided 3.30 would be a better choice since it'd fit the machine's upgrade history and most MS-DOS software out there expects 3.0 at a minimum. DOS 3.0 through 3.30 were essentially to DOS what Windows XP would later be to Windows in terms of longevity.

I also attempted to remove some of the light rust from atop the case using the tried-and-true method of vinegar and tinfoil. I succeeded at getting rid of a fair bit of the corrosion, but also took some of the paint with it; that paint used on the IBM PC line's chassis is a textured, unusual spatter coat job that's both a pain and expensive to reproduce to the point that it's just not worth it to spray paint. Typically people just accept the blemishes or find a replacement case altogether. This exact thing had happened with my PC/AT previously, so I don't really know what I was expecting to happen. Thankfully, the monitor mostly obscures the blemishes.

I also wound up attempting to service the 5 1/4" floppy drive at this time, which was in dire need of some care and plagued by mechanical issues. The read and write head wouldn't work reliably for anything and the movement of said head was almost comically stiff. Getting things cleaned up was superficially simple enough; most of the time all that's needed is cotton swabs and some isopropyl. Clean the read/write head, take off the old, gunky, dusty grease on the drive rails, and you're solid. Regreasing the rails so that the head could move freely also went simply enough, merely needing some white lithium grease on the previously cleaned rails. Using my testing boot media I got the system booted into DOS using a floppy after the cleaning; While 360kb of space wasn't nearly enough this wasn't meant to be the final setup. Cramped, sure, but it sufficed for testing. By all means, the drive seemed to be working fine now since it superficially read and wrote fine while also formatting without errors...and if anything was wrong, it sure wasn't obvious to me or the system itself. Eventually the XT-IDE card made it in. I slotted it in, hooked up my cF-IDE adapter, and set up DOS onto the drive. When I tried to boot off the hard disk the first time, though, I was greeted by a screen full of garbage and rancorous beeping from the system's speaker. Something was wrong, and I had no idea what since typically the setup process for XT-IDE cards is pretty braindead once it's assembled properly and in the system. Repeated attempts at re-installation of both the card and the operating systems yielded no changes, and even taking the XT-IDE card and cF card out altogether for a transplant install in my PC/AT (my "known good" testing system) lead to nothing but more garbage on what is otherwise a computer willing to take whatever absurdity I throw at it with grace and gusto. Trying different floppy disk install media and different DOS versions did nothing to fix the corruption issues the thing was having, and it didn't like different cF cards either. What was happening? On pointers from Glitch himself and some other friends on a chain of IRC channels I hung around, I ran diagnostics of various types, including pulling all the installed expansion cards one-by-one and testing to rule out conflicts. There were none, and by all means pretty much every part of the system but the card checked out fine.

It turned out my card had a 573 latch go bad due to an issue with a bad shipment of ICs from a part supplier on Glitchworks' end, so with help from Glitch, the namesake and head honcho of the company, that all was simple enough to sort out; the board had the bad IC swapped out in no time at all. Once that all was in order, I found myself facing mounting frustration as the system still didn't want to boot off the cF card (but just hanging on boot with no errors or anything at all instead of spewing garbage all over the screen now), but I noticed it sometimes - yet inconsistently - did like mechanical hard disks and more robust IDE DOMs. Programs also experienced random corruption issues, too. I wasn't in the clear quite yet; I had a weak step in the install process to find which was corrupting DOS installs left and right.

My only clue? Transplanting the card to the PC/AT and installing DOS from there worked perfectly fine, even after moving the card back to the PC/XT. The PC/AT's boot card also worked just fine in the XT. That suggested that whatever the issue was, it was isolated to the PC/XT's input/output facilities specifically. The XT-IDE card itself actually was perfectly fine now and the similar symptoms to that of the bad latch were mere red herrings. It took me a while (and some shouting at from friends) to make the connection, but eventually I came to the conclusion that I should give the floppy drive a one-over using CheckIt, a personal go-to software suite for diagnostics on DOS systems. Lo and behold the floppy drive was generating absurd amounts of read errors, and at that point they could only be caused by capacitor issues (which would be fairly serviceable to fix but not immediately worth doing) or alignment issues (in which case the drive might as well be scrap²). It was easier just to not use the 360k drive. With the knowledge that the floppy drive was not to be trusted at all under my belt as well as the knowledge that any operating system installation should be done from the PC/AT, I proceeded to take another crack at things. I wound up with the PC/XT's Cisco CompactFlash card booting fine in the PC/AT but not the PC/XT, and the PC/AT's Compactflash card (a cheaper SanDisk card) booting fine in both. I figured I'd try swapping the cards out in full and this resulted in both machines working perfectly, as the PC/AT was more than happy with the theoretically nicer Cisco card. CompactFlash media can be fickle like that, but considering the SanDisk card is a significantly cheaper card meant for cameras yet proved more to the PC/XT's taste than a card expressly meant to be used as boot media is just bizarre; However at that point I couldn't be bothered to question things further since they well and truly worked from then on out. That wrapped up the last of the technical hurdles, and I was free to work on the machine at the software end of things.

AND REVERSI!

File transfer would be downright trivial with the cF card as my fixed disk, being just a matter of pulling the card from it's slot in the rear of the system and shuttling it over to my desktop in order to add programs or files. That wouldn't be a luxury I'd have with the DOM, in which case I'd have to deal with comparatively slow exchanges using FASTLYNX. I decided to stick to IBM DOS 3.30 with XTREE 2.0, a typical DOS shell and one that might have realistically ben in use in the machine's heyday. I also got Windows 1.01 installed, but without a mouse it's somewhat awkward to use. I can get a mean game of Reversi, Windows 1.01 through 2.11's built in game, going though.

Since that last bit of struggle with storage, everything has been essentially silk smooth. It was a months-long ride of trial and error, but in the end I finally got the working PC/XT I'd been wanting for years. Brutalist and built like a tank yet oddly attractive in that '80s way, the machine is an absolute blast to both use and behold. I can easily see it remaining the keystone of my collection for some time to come. There's still some stuff i'd like to sort out and some experiments I'd like to carry out (especially in regards to that Hercules graphics card I mentioned, which is worth a write-up in it's own right), but for now I can rest easy knowing that I've managed to get it back in shape in spite of what felt like three months of non-stop obstacles.

1: The IBM PC 5150 and PC/XT 5160 keyboard microcontroller used a much different protocol for input and output on a hardware and software level than the one in the later IBM 5170 PC/AT and onward would use. This means that if you scalp a PC or PC/XT-friendly keyboard (or any other legacy system's keyboard, on that thought) for the neato mechanical switches you're going to have an extremely difficult time finding a replacement. Don't do that; Consider a more modern mechanical keyboard instead. They're cheaper, just as good, and you don't potentially irreversibly gore a computer that way.

2: Alignment issues are dependent on blind luck or stupidly expensive and rare specialty equipment to fix. Even then, you still need a bit of blind luck.

[setkey-studies-blog]

When looking for a laptop for school

So recently I had done laptop research with my grandpa and finally chose mine. Though when having to look through hundreds of different models and looking at reviews, and specs; it can become tiring and cause a major headache. So in this post, I will be going over what you should look for in a laptop for high school or college. 

Size

Size is one of the biggest things that you are going to be looking for when trying to look for a laptop. You want it small enough that you can carry it around with you, and then also big enough that you can see your screen and have multiple windows scattered across your display for papers, and the occasional Hulu or Netflix watching when writing posts. The average sizes that student seems to look into are 13′ and 15.6′ laptops. With 13′ you will see that they are lighter, though, for those you like a bigger screen, the 15.6′ is what they would get. My laptop is a 15.6′ inch laptop for I like the bigger display as a digital media/animation student. And even when I start taking business classes I will still like the bigger screen for my word documents while also having pictures of my laptop pulled up. 

Weight

As a student, you will most likely have to be carrying your laptop when you go to school, the library, or that nice downtown cafe. Because of this, you will want a laptop that is light enough that you can carry without it becoming too heavy. My laptop is a 4.4-pound laptop and is a little on the heavy side, though the max I would recommend for carrying weight is 5 pounds max, for then it can start to put a strain on your back, especially if you are also going to be carrying textbooks and notebooks with you to your classes. A good backpack is also good to have to help and relieve some of the weight off of your back as well. 

RAM

One thing that you will not think about it is the RAM in a laptop, and it depends on what you are going to be doing. As a basic student who will only be looking for word documents, web browsing, and streaming, a 6 GB RAM are most likely all that you are going to need. For some video editing, photo editing, or using programs like Adobe; look into an 8 GB of RAM. A lot of people will say that 8 GB of RAM right now is the lowest that you are going to need. If you are an animation student and are going to need to render some basic projects, then you will want to look into 16 GB. this is also what you will need if you want to go gaming. Though if you need a laptop like this, look into a gaming laptop instead of just a normal one. For gaming, there is the new G series for gaming, though they are a bit on the pricer side of the spectrum. 

Another thing to look for in RAM is if you think that you will need to expand it. My RAM is expandable if I replace my 8 GB RAM with a 16 GB RAM. Though I have this for it I wanted to expand later when I go back into animation after my business degree with my laptop. If you are just going to want your laptop for word processing then 8 GB will be just fine for you.

Memory

When I look into laptops for college students, I see a lot of them being hybrids. Hybrids are good, as it puts your most used documents into you SSD part of your drive and then the HHD part for just storing files. Though there is a thing my dad learned the hard way with HHD. HHD drives have moving parts to run the laptop, and when these moving parts are moved around when they are on, even if in your lap at the library or carrying it from our desk to the kitchen and making sure it is steady; there is still a chance that you can mess with the disk and destroy your laptop. Do not be afraid if you do have a hybrid or HHD! For it has become better in the past few years. Though if you travel a lot, these types of laptops will not be the best for you. Instead, try to go for at least a 256 SSD, so this way you can use the laptop while it is in your lap and so on, or be able to quickly put your laptop into sleep mode and carry it to your next class. 

Display

With displays, try looking for at least an Intel i5 processor, this is so that you will have a crisp screen for when you do word documents, or binge-watching Friends for the third time in a row. 

Keyboard

This is really important, you are going to be doing a lot of typing, so when you read reviews or go to a store to look at a laptop, go ahead and play with the keyboard some. You are going to be doing a lot of typing for essays, either for your English class or to argue why a certain ship is the best on Tumblr. So always see if there is anything that can make your keyboard uncomfortable for long use. 

BLACKLIGHT KEYBOARD ALWAYS LOOK TO SEE IF YOU HAVE THIS

You will be staying up late, from studying for your next test, finishing your final essay that is due in an hour, or just a binge-watch. If you find one where the light is on all the time it is good, though if you are able to turn it off, even better for it will help you with battery life.

Battery life

You are going to be at school all day, from lectures, to study days, or being in the library. There will be days that you will forget your charger at home, try to have a laptop that will give you at least a four-hour charge to get you through your classes or a few hour study session in the library. 

Price

When you want all of this stuff together, you will be coming in the 700 - 800 dollar zone, though this laptop will get you through college and beyond as long as you take care of it. Though when looking around, go to different stores and websites to see if you can find your laptop for sale. Mine is usually 1000 dollars, though with a sale I got $170 off and so after taxes, I paid about $888. This seems crazy, though I have a laptop with a graphics card on as well as an i7 8th gen processor, 15.6′ screen, backlight lights, touchscreen, 2 in 1. And an aluminum chassis (the way that it is built) 

You will just want to look for the laptop that you will believe can get you through a day of school, though have these thoughts in consideration when looking for a laptop that you are going to be using for the next four years or more of schooling. 

To protect your laptop

So after a lot of research to find the perfect laptop, you will need to find a way to protect it. The best way to do this is a laptop case. This can be a cheaper $20 dolalr foam sleeve that you can put it in, a well-padded sleeve in your laptop bag, or go crazy and get a hard case that can hit $60 depending on what you are looking for. Also if you are looking for a touchscreen laptop, go out and also get a screen protector, especially if you are going to get a stylus pen to go with it. This will help to decrease the chance of you getting scratches on your screen from your nails to the pen tip going a bit too hard. Also, it just adds an extra layer of protection onto your laptop screen. 

If you are going to a major university, you can look into getting an anti-theft laptop bag or at least make sure that you can get a small lock to help lock up the pocket where the laptop it. The bag that I ordered on Amazon was $35 and has a separate pocket just for your laptop that I also got a small lock so that I can lock it up when in the library, the lunchroom, or at night to make sure my siblings do not get into it. 

A mouse is a good thing to have for long hours of use. Yes, you can use the trackpad, though it can get annoying after a while when you playing twister to do basic task. I just went out and bought a wireless mouse for Logitech. They have a wide variety of mouses, along with a recent silent addition that does not make too much of a clicking noise when in use. I went and got a mouse with a cool design on of the looks. The mouse for regular price is $20, though I was able to get it on sale for $15. 

Thank you for reading this post, and I hope for students that are looking into a new laptop for the next school year, this will help you out some to make sure that you do not get days of a headache trying to figure out what you want in a laptop. If anyone wants to comment on what they have and their specs in the comments to help others that would be amazing. 

I have the Lenovo Flex 5, 15.6′, 8GB of RAM, with an Intel i7 core processor, a Nvidia GeForce graphics card, and 256 SSD. My laptop was found at Office Depot and right now is on sale for after-tax $888 dollars and some change.