#it'd be so much money to get to NYC though

[brokethedrawer]

Tears for Fears is playing at Madison Square Garden for the first time tonight -- literally about 4 hours from now. I feel weirdly like a proud parent or something -- a little voice in my brain keeps yelling "yay, our little guys are going to play at The Garden!!!"

I have a handful of online friends who are seeing them tonight -- on the random, slim chance that any of those friends are reading this, I know you are going to have an incredible time <3.

[crushedsweets]

I know you spoke about how things would "end" for Toby and Nat if O/S ever came together again, but what about Nina and Kate? I figure things would be hard for Kate seeing as she's been there for like a decade.🤔 maybe they will move to NYC idk

did you reference nyc cuz u remembered that one ask... if yes that made me smile. also u guys asking for these sort of 'good' endings remind me of Laundry & Taxes so u guys should go read it..

anyway, it is probably the hardest for kate. she has an 8th grade education, only shreds of humanity, blood on her hands, and no clue where her family is. she can't remember a single address or phone number.

just maybe, and this is difficult for me to imagine, nina could convince her to call a police department. she's been a missing person, not a wanted criminal - her family and friends all assumed she was kidnapped and killed long ago. so maybe she could go in, tell the police her name, have them search a database or two, figure SOMETHING out. go back to her dad. . .make up some story, claim amnesia of the last decade. use this a chance to get her GED and a job. but that's such an unlikely path for kate, i rlly struggle to imagine it...

so, like toby, she'd probably stick around that farm. work with toby.

i could see her asking BEN for one last bit of help, see if he could somehow go through whatever database that could get her SSN and whatnot, so she could get a job on her own . . without having to go home. maybe i should have BEN just create/steal one for Toby... regardless, she'd try to get some sort of stable footing. i could only see her working pretty physical jobs, not customer service or anything like that. maybe a job at a morgue... graveyard shifts and the sort... fitting for her.

in this circumstance, kate would try to stay with toby as long as he'd let her. but if he's with clocky, things would be pretty cramped, and get tense. so maybe she'd go live with jack for a long while... quiet, peaceful, familiar.

if nina and kate were together(or getting there), then i think . .

nina would beg kate to move in with her, stay full time at the apartment. it'd be hard at first, only to get even more difficult. they'd start arguing, kate would leave for days. not because she's angry with nina, but she's scared that if kate cant keep her emotions in check, the O/S syndrome will set right back in and make kate a danger.

but then she'd come back in the middle of the night, climbing into bed with an exhausted nina, pretending nothing bad happened. and then nina would wake up and she'd have to ask why kate left and kate would be like ? isnt it obvious. we were arguing. and ninas like BUT THATS NOT THE POINT and they'd get overwhelmed and have to deal with it again. cuz ninas not letting kate go. and kate doesn't wanna go.

once kate starts getting paychecks, she's terrible at saving. immediately blows it on nina, as thanks for all nina's done. buying her dresses, jewelry, ordering meals, skincare, spending hours going thru the magazines nina has around. nina would ask her to save a bit more, and she would listen, and then realize it's probably more helpful to buy things like groceries, pay bills, etc. but money doesn't hold much meaning to her, she never attributed her terrible life to a lack of money, so she's still quick to throw it away to make nina happy . . but nina would start sitting her down and being like STOP WASTING UR MONEY!!!! . oddly enough kate finds comfort in being told what to do. feels like guidance, in a way? especially because she KNOWS nina does it with love. not so kate does what she wants

and eventually, they'd be able to save to move. regrettably, not to NYC, because that's too expensive for either of them. but somewhere nice... a quiet neighborhood, preferably only a 20-ish minute drive from any fun attraction nina wants to visit. i could see them agreeing on somewhere near a beach(though that'd be far in the future cuz expensive..). the forest was so suffocating to kate, so the openness of the ocean would be a good change of pace

i think kate just wants to lay on a bed with blankets fresh out the dryer.

[fakeosirian]

post-school school/career headcanons (non-exhaustive, will make a part two eventually), for your consideration:

nina goes to undergrad for literature with a concentration in creative writing. hasn't picked a medium yet, and regardless it's not like making it in screenwriting is that much easier than traditional publishing, so she writes by night and is an office temp by day (she is aware of the irony of being the "permanent new girl" as a job description. it was funny the first time someone pointed it out. the first time.)

fabian gets a bachelor's in history and immediately goes to grad school for...library/information science. he has to spend a good bit explaining to people that yes, that's a real major, and no, "the books don't start reacting with each other -- a science is a system of ideas, not just when something blows up." he works as a TA and is torn between if he wants to stay in academia or find more "practical" work (this is where i mention this is background work for a story where he goes back to the school to teach <3)

amber might go to a post-secondary fashion school, but even if she does, she's absolutely going for the connections and dropping out the second she gets an industry job, most likely in nyc (which considering how well off she is...probably didn't take long). idk she's thriving (though if she's surrounded by work/kind of by herself socially i could see her getting to a breaking point and claiming she needs roommates to afford rent (lie) just so she can have people around lol)

patricia actually DOES become a guidance counselor. LOL. i can't resist this one -- more specifically, i could see her going to a liberal arts undergrad without a direction in mind but knowing she "needs to figure one out," taking a couple psychology classes, realizing She Cares, declaring a major in psych, and after discounting the clinical track (too close to med school) and the research track (too creepy), she ends up working on an MA in social work

alfie seems like a guy who would have his fingers in like 5 different pies at all times -- depending on who he's talking to/if he feels he needs to impress them, he says one of the following: "business partner" (jerome's business -- more on that later -- alfie's more of an ideas/production guy than a """business guy""" but you don't need to know that if he's telling you this), freelance film crew (prop master/art department), Professional Artist (has a studio where he makes the stuff he uses for his various pursuits), comic author (i feel like he has a weird janky webcomic he makes for himself. i can't explain it. he has a couple thousand readers), etc. he's always picking up a new thing and finding a way to use it until he gets bored and does something else. he just tells his dad "jerome and i are making A Profit" to keep him off his back

speaking of jerome: i've always been fond of the idea that he and his dad go into business together at some point, so it'd be some sort of thing they could do together that alfie's artistic skills would be of use for. despite the fact that jerome very much would like to bend some rules here and there, his dad is not keen on the idea of going back to prison so unfortunately, no white collar crimes for him. (for now.) they're doing well all things considered, but jerome refuses to get a job to fund the business ("what's the point in doing all this if i'm going to let someone else be my boss anyway"), so he's definitely having to find creative ways to squeeze more money out of the business to, y'know. Survive

i'm not 100% settled on this joy idea but communications/PR? definitely gets her start somewhere more corporate, but i could see her getting creeped out by stuff she'd have to spin/help cover for, so she switches to nonprofit (which is also depressing, arguably moreso sometimes, but it's a bit easier to stomach). isn't directly involved in jerome's business, but she does "consult" (not without something in return. preferably, y'know. Money. but sometimes she starts a casual conversation without realizing she should have written up a contract first, and that's the only way that jerome will actually pay you)

[suspicious-whumping-egg]

heyo i am a stats freak and got the "how is this index actually calculated?" kind of autism and noticed numbeo in your latest couple of posts so just a heads up - their data is crowd-sourced and largely not accurate! it's great at giving you a vague idea as to cost of living but it falls pretty flat in terms of more granular info like groceries and house prices. also the cost of living calculator doesn't take the purchasing power of an average salary into account, as far as i know it just compares it to new york. if you ever want to study the relationships between quality of life and geographical location (for research or, yknow, moving out lol) then numbeo does offer a qol index which gives you a way better idea of how "good" a place is to live in, and can be used as a proxy to better estimate the actual cost and quality of living there. but it's still kind of a mess. for example, their "safety" measurement is basically irrelevant, since it's based of an arbitrary test that people online can fill out (and yes, people have flooded the dataset with negative reviews of cities inflating their crime rates. sometimes for fun sometimes for some Very Racist Reasons). the metric for healthcare is based on a form people can fill out (again, 100% anonymously, 100% online, 100% with no verification) and it combines the scores to form a "healthcare rating" - what goes into that "healthcare rating" is very subjective and largely not something a patient could even know. "friendliness and courtesy of the staff"? this doesn't even vary from hospital to hospital, this shit varies from department to department. there is no fucking way a statement like "the medical staff in all of Turin, Italy is very unfriendly" has any merit. a score for "equipment for modern diagnosis and treatment"??? compared to what? does the average patient filling out some online survey know anything about state of the art medical equipment so that they can compare it to what they've been treated with????? (the answer is no). ok, sorry, i'm just rambling now, but damn this actually is just yelp for cities and not much else. in a brief flash of self-awareness, i've decided not to go into detail on that horrible image by geo.universe on instagram (the one where nearly all of europe is a green LOWER cost of living than the us). it'd be another unhinged rant about how they don't have a source and how you can't possibly average out a cost of living for the entire usa, where housing prices range all the way from "five bucks and a warm smile for seven acres of land in some rural state" to "$1mil and a kidney for an almost-human-sized cage in NYC". ANYWAY jesus christ what i wanted to get to is that if you're ever considering comparing "costs" (financial and otherwise) when moving out please refer to better indices (like EIU's where-to-be-born index or CIW though they have plenty of flaws too) and remember to always compare costs (this time just financial) of living against the MEDIAN net income!!! averages are almost meaningless because of weird ghouls who make billions of dollars and act as the number-inflating Spiders Georg of money. i'm so sorry if you read all of this. take it as psychological whump or something. it's been a long day and i had a bird fly directly into my window today and it woke me up after i tried to take a nap. i hope the bird is fine because i sur

Hey friend thanks for letting me know! I’ll check out the other metrics you mentioned (although I’m not exactly sure what CIW is? Is it Canadian index of well being or smth else?) and yeah I hope the bird is ok <333 also how do you best find like, the average cost of living/purchasing power of places? Is there a decent scale or metric or do you really just have to do a fuckton of research for everything? Cause I’m definitely willing to put in serious work and research once I have it narrowed down to a few places and once emigrating becomes a serious possible option but rn it’s just very off in the distance planning and I’m just trying to think about what would even be the best options to consider

[magicalslug]

Life update

...Because those are always fun.

In yet another thinly veiled attempt at writing something that's totally not a vent, you get to hear what I'm up to today.

I'm planning an itinerary for ~a trip to NYC~

(this stays between us bcus this is a V1SA requirement but i aint planning on THAT. I just need it to make any plane trip to canada cheaper instead of direct. bcus apparently your plane landing in usa for even a microsecond requires you to have a v1sa for that. SO fun)

Anyway. Of course it has to be believable. And idk maybe one day it'll be real bcus you know, I do want to watch a broadw ay play LIVE someday.

So I had to do a little research and watch some videos because i had no idea what to put down on it other than "watch musical at 7pm" on it.

And i watched some guys videos about "nyc tips! best places to go! best locations! dont do this here! dont miss this!" type of things.

And the more i watch the more.

Sad? I get?

Traveling abroad is so expensive. Traveling at all is a luxury.

I... I will never live the kind of life that lets me throw money into the fire like that. To travel all over. To enjoy that type of vacations.

Because (and this is the part where i wonder if this isn't just because my brain has been in a terrible state lately) traveling for vacations is kind of a waste right? We all think that? We're all disillusioned by prospect of being away from the worries of your daily life for 3-4 days and then coming back to your nightmare again to live it until the next time you can afford the Momentary escape? Yeah? We're all on the same page?

(What do you mean it's just me?)

It's just.

I've been so sad lately.

"ignoring your friends because it's all too much" type of sadness. "sleeping it off almost daily because it's all too much" type of sadness. "having The Thoughts again almost every day again" type of Sadness.

And it feels like nothing will ever make it better.

And i keep thinking that I know why. I know why i'm feeling like this. But it feels like deflecting the blame.

It feels like i'm lying.

But it must be because I'm back living in the place I wanted to escape from, that i got a momentary escape from it, and now that i'm back it feels like.

Like I was right.

That I will never be free.

And time is running out to escape from it.

And I'm losing anything that made me happy. That made it worth it.

I don't have my freedom. My peace of mind. My art! I can't do art anymore! The friends I had made are now too far away! And the friends I have here are so far away I can't even visit easily!

And I'm so fucking tired and angry and sad all the time!

And stuck living with someone that I hate. And that hates me back.

And guess what!!!! We ALL HAVE PROBLEMS!!!

YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE LIVING IN HELL!!! YOU COMFORTABLE LITTLE POSH THING!!!! WHY ARE YOU SUCH A SORRY LITTLE THING!!!! PATHETIC!!! MEDIOCRE!!!!! STOP FUCKING CRYING !!!!

i DON'T LIKE IT WHEN IM MEAN. BUT NOW IM MEAN ALL THE TIME.

I'm.

I undid so much work in just a few months.

I wanted to live. I really wanted to live. Did you know? I kept calling myself immortal. I kept saying it to friends. I kept going "oh duh, I will never die so jot that down" and i don't think anyone ever asked me why I kept insisting on it.

But it's because it was a comforting thought, a clutch to hold onto. I will never die, so it'd be pointless to be s uicidal. A grandiose claim to train my brain into not wanting to die anymore.

(And though it wasn't the only thing that helped-- It worked. It had worked.)

And reclaiming my life had felt so easy. When I wasn't stuck living with my abuser.

But now I'm back here again. And I hate my job that sucks the life out of me. And I hate where I live because it's just a constant loop of being dehumanized while trying to play nice with the hand that feeds and chokes at the same time. And i hate myself most of all for being so weak.

So weak for it all.

Living my life should be easy. Someone else would not crumble under things so easy to live through. Someone else would be able to defend themselves. SOMEONE ELSE WOULDN'T BE SO PATHETIC.

Because I was getting better. And I was happier. And it wasn't perfect. But I did think for a moment that I was going to make it.

"Where do you see yourself in 5 years"

Dead. Dead if i'm lucky.

I lost everything. Even now I feel how I'm losing myself.

What good am I for anymore. I failed at everything.

"You're never too old to start living life!"

Well that's the thing.

I am getting old.

Too old to keep dreaming of ever achieving anything important.

Anything good.

Anything worthwhile in this world.

So why even wait for more time to pass.

Why not cut our loses.

And leave the world while a few people still care about me.

I want to jump in front of the metro.

I want to jump so badly.

And it'd be so easy.

So easy.

It would welcome me with open arms.

Death would be asking what took me so long.

Why I made her wait.

Why I wasted my time.

Why I wasted everyone's time.

I miss my grandpa.

[hybridhadal]

ABOUT ME

Hey, how you doin’n, bitch? My name’s Hadal Ai Douglass, but you can just call me Hadal (or HD). 

I’m just your everyday twenty-something year old black and nerdy queer.  I'm 5'6" with brown eyes and black locs. I love gaming, travelling, martial arts, anime, music, cussing (so be warned), and getting into trouble with friends. I know this reads like some corny Tinder profile but bare with me. I'm actually a pretty interesting guy once you get to know me…

I come from the Murx (which is short for Murkstone, VA) and my pronouns are ‘he/him’ as well as ‘they/them’. I resonate more with the ladder though.  Coming from the Murx though, people tend to pretty much call you whatever the fuck they want.  While not as popular as NYC or as hood as Detroit, the people here are characters nonetheless. It can get pretty busy and even crowded on certain occasions too.  It has this sort of Gothic and old time aesthetic which attracts tourists for sure.  But it also still keeps the allure of a regular modern city with the tall buildings, the traffic, burger joints on every corner, and neighborhoods you probably wouldn't want to get caught in at night.

Speaking of which, the nightlife is pretty cool here too.  There’s lots to do. We got clubs, we got bars, we got strip joints, and other stuff. But after you've done it all, it can get a little repetitive. I’ve also lived here since I was a kid.  So, perhaps I’m not the best person to talk to about it.  One of the best things about the city though is that we also have these yearly music festivals that a bunch of outsiders attend.  It’s called the "Deep Flow Festival" and it can get pretty big.  I typically DJ at these events and the like.  So, I’m a little known in the community here. Still, one of my bigger goals in life is to see the world.

One of my biggest dreams is to become a big presence in the music industry; to work with bigger names and make crazy loot.  I know, it's a little cliché but I'm a creative at heart. I already make and sell my beats to some of the rappers and singers in my area (and a little beyond). On top of DJing at some of the spots around here, it pays the bills. It's also better than working some 9 - 5 that drains my life. So, although what I'm doing is barely getting me by, I'm not complaining. But again, I want to be bigger. I wanna be heard around the world. I wanna make big money, and ultimately move out of my little kitchen pantry of a pad. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful for the place that I have. But it'd be cool if I could live in better place or maybe even in my own house. In today's economy though, you probably have to be making 1% money to buy and keep a house (especially the kind that I want). But I also want to get into other avenues too. Well, either that or find a sugar daddy to take care of me. I mean, shit, it is what it is.

I’ve been told I can be a bit boy-crazy at times though. On of the reasons I'm really into martial arts is that I love a man who can throw some hands.  But if you're reading this and you're anything like my folks, you'd probably think that I still have a lot of life lessons to learn in that area (and you'd probably be right).  I wouldn't call myself a spring chicken though. I can be a bit paranoid when it comes to men but not in the way you might think.  Like I’m not afraid to get out and get to know people.  That’s pretty much my job to a degree.  I just know some of these men out here can be crazy as all hell sometimes.  So, I do what I can when I can to keep any contingency that I can. 

Growing up, my step-dad pretty much forced me to partake in survival school as well as self-defense training.  He’s one of those Pan-African Hotep types on top of being an ex-marine.  So, he made sure to raise me to be as militant and as hard ass as he could. I'd even go so far as to say that I picked up a few of his qualities (both good and bad). I mean, I never really met my real father or anything like that. So, I normally refer to him as just my dad despite not really getting along with him like that to this day. But, yeah, survival school taught me a lot though.  I kinda had a rough time adjusting to it but I did eventually.  Shit, I even made friends.  Some of which even came up with me from middle school all the way to high school.  

Before all that though, it was just my mom and me.  She and I were practically inseparable.  Then, she got her dream macho man and became the mayor.  Pretty much everything changed after that.  It all became about keeping an image, which pretty much meant keeping any sort of affiliations between her and I secret. I'm not exactly the most exemplary child (or so she constantly leads me to believe).  It also meant spending significantly less time with the person who I at one point spent all my time with.  I can’t blame her though.  My biological father skipped town on us before I could really form any decent memories of him.  So, for a small portion of my formative years, it was just the two of us.  Once my step dad stepped into the picture, I pretty much became that little block of wood that he whittled into a shank.  I don’t know... 

But enough about my mom and dad.  This next fact about me might seem like a bit of a stretch. But the craziest part of my life by far is the fact that I’m actually a practitioner of cosmic sorcery.  Now, I know you’re probably thinking…

“What in the fuck is cosmic sorcery?”

Well, it’s pretty hard to sum up in just a few words but I will do my best.  Cosmic sorcery is the study and manifestation of the universe's darkest secrets.  Think of all that lies in the spaces between universes being summoned to our plane of existence; like being able to call on beings from the heavens and beyond to grant you whatever you desire. Cosmic sorcery can grant its user knowledge, physical enhancement, or sometimes even the complete annihilation of something.  But also, it is an overall teaching of this universe's many elements.  With enough knowledge, I could probably terraform (or flat out destroy) whole cities if not the whole planet. Now, mind you, I'm not on some OP anime character type shit but I know a lot. But yeah, there’s a LOT you can do with cosmic sorcery. 

Ultimately cosmic sorcery preaches the oneness of the individual self and the universe.  It is as powerful as one who practices it puts into it is. That and its incredibly ancient and mysterious. So, you can expect a lot of shit to go unexplained by me. I may practice the bitch but I'm no historian. The way I try to think of it is that it’s basically mankind's biggest kept secret (sorta, I guess).  I mean, of course I’m not the only one that knows it.  That’s also not the only form of sorcery out there.  But it’s the one my grandfather blessed me with before he passed.  I strive to know more and more but there isn’t much on it.  I have to consult beings from beyond time and my own reality for guidance, and that's a whole box of chocolates in itself. A lot of the time, it feels like I'm just winging it.  

But that's about it when it comes to me… 

I feel like I've experienced quite a bit of life while not really experiencing life outside my own little bubble. But I mean, shit, I'm still young. Anything can change at any time. In fact, my dad says that's the only constant. I'm just a simple guy with big dreams and a lot on the mind. The following entries are pretty much a look into all of my highs, lows, and everything in between.  Every dream that I’ve dreamt, every hard time I’ve overcome (or am still overcoming), every boy I’ve ever had a thing with / for, every embarrassing moment I’ve endured, and every triumph I’ve earned will all be here for the world to see.  I hope you find it all as interesting as I do because believe me. It's some crazy shit.

Enjoy

HD  

[chris-sales-belly-ring]

Glad that Matt did well and I hope he finds a team, but I feel like going back to NY would just be bad for him. Fans are already being negative and I don't think he'd get treated fairly. He deserves to make it to 10 years though. I hope you're feeling better btw

I hope that a team at least signs him to a Minor League deal. It's a really low risk, potentially high reward option. You really don't lose out on much money or anything with those kinds of deals.

I think the main thing about him coming back to the Mets is that it's a completely different team now. The players are different (Nimmo's the only one on the roster from when Matt was last there and they barely knew each other) and the coaching staff/front office are different.

I don't actually see the coaching staff and front office being different as a negative though. I'd imagine a guy like Matt would benefit a ton being around a manager like Buck. It's just that in general, there's really no familiarity within the Mets anymore.

I just don't necessarily think that the Mets are a better fit than any other team at this point. Although the NYC media had been better to him over the years, I still 100% don't trust them or the fans. I don't think the environment of a team that's in "win now" mode is exactly what he needs at this point in his career either.

But yes, it'd be nice for him to get another chance with some team. I wouldn't be sad if it was with the Mets just for nostalgia's sake. I just hope he lands somewhere that will be a healthy environment for him.

And thanks! I still can't see my neurologist about my migraines for another week and my migraines have come and gone. The one I had on Friday went away pretty quickly and I haven't had another one this weekend so I'm hopeful that trend continues!

[unorthodoxsavvy]

Whumptober Day 18: Let's Break The Ice

It was a bitterly cold morning in the city. The snow made muffled crunches underneath Malcolm's feet as he crossed the grassy area in front of his building towards the sidewalk. The wind whipped through his jacket, chilling him to the bone, but he hardly noticed. He enjoyed these walks alone to the precinct, strangers passing him by, each with their own lives. Occasionally Malcolm would even lightly profile the people he passed. Not today though. Today he just wanted his thoughts to himself, as horrible as they could be at times.

Malcolm pulled the doors of the police station open when he arrived and walked in. Gil, Dani, and JT were already waiting for him in the lobby.

"Ice fisher found a lot bigger of a catch than he was looking for up north. Body's frozen, so no need to take Edrissa with us this time. Ready to go, kid?"

Malcolm nodded and did an about-face, following the other three out the door. He was at least hoping for some warm coffee, even if it was cheap police coffee, but Gil seemed to be in a hurry. Malcolm didn't really understand why. It'd be a while before they could do anything with the body other than move it.

The ride up north was quiet. Malcolm and Dani sat in the back seat while JT and Gil rode up front in Gil's beloved classic car. The case was out of their jurisdiction, but they'd been called on scene to provide a profile to help the locals try and narrow down a likely suspect once the body was thawed out back in NYC and then sent back up north for further tests.

To Malcolm, it didn't sound much like a serial killer. Most serial killers were more careful about hiding their bodies than dumping them in a lake, otherwise they were displayed out for the world (and for Malcolm) to see. Malcolm figured it was a one-off, someone owing someone money, a lover's quarrel, etc. Something amature.

The ride was a little under two hours long. Malcolm spent the drive with a podcast playing in his ears. Malcolm knew a few true crime podcasts had already covered his father- and therefore him- in depth. A part of him wanted to listen to them and see how much they got wrong. A part of him didn't want to make his nightmares any worse than they already were. Besides, no one but him knew the full story- or rather, no one but him believed the whole story. Podcasts were missing a huge piece of the puzzle and they didn't even know it. Little did Malcolm know he was missing large pieces of the puzzle himself.

When they arrived Malcolm and Dani disembarked from the back seat and followed JT and Gil towards the lake's edge.

They all paused for a moment, staring down at the ice's edge.

"People have been walking on this all day with no reports of any cracks or thin areas. We'll be fine."

Malcolm knew realistically the chances of any of them falling through were slim, but it was still a mind-bend to wrap his head around walking out over a lake. It was just one of those things, he figured, you couldn't think too hard about. Just shut off the higher-functioning part of your brain that couldn't wrap itself around the idea you were literally walking on water and at any moment that water would break and you were screwed. So Malcolm did just that: he refused to let his mind focus on the fact there was water underneath him and just treated the journey as walking on any other slippery surface.

The ice fisherman was still out on scene. There was no way to put up any crime scene tape. Instead he was just moved off to the side giving his statement to a few of the local cops.

Gil directed Dani and Malcolm towards where they were pulling up the body while he and JT went over to question the witness themselves.

"What a catch, huh?" said one of the cops, doing his best to get the body up while preserving as much evidence as he could.

"Yeah," Malcolm agreed, pulling the camera up from where it dangled around his neck and started snapping photos. He didn't find much humor in the joke, but there was no point in making enemies with the local cops over such a trivial remark.

"What're you thinking?" asked a sheriff who was surveying his grunts as they tried their best to pull the body up. "Somebody owing somebody money? Jilted lover?"

"Something like that," Malcolm replied from behind his camera.

One of the lackey cops dropped a rope he was using to try and hoist the body up with.

"Boss, I think we're gonna need to break the ice more."

The sheriff sighed and leaned over the hole to take a look.

"Yeah, alright, let's do it," he agreed reluctantly.

"What have you got so far?" Dani asked as the two cops trying to hoist up the body handed the ropes to her and the sheriff while they went to go grab more equipment.

"Male. Mid thirties to early forties. Over 200 pounds. Real big dude."

Malcolm leaned over and took a glance into the hole they'd already expanded himself.

"Any identifying markers?"

"Not just yet. Hafeta wait til the body's out, and then probably wait some more for it ta thaw."

Dani nodded. Malcolm decided to head over to see what Gil and JT had picked up from the fisher who discovered the body. As he walked he could hear the ice shifting and cracking under his feet. Malcolm froze as his stomach dropped, but the ice held steady. He shook his head and tried to calm his nerves and continued walking towards the group.

Gil turned towards Malcolm as JT continued to question the witness.

"Story adds up," Gil said. "I doubt this man's a suspect. He's been giving us some useful information about the body, actually, giving us estimates of how long he thinks the body was in the water and how long it's been frozen. I won't bother passing the information along to Edrissa, we'll let her come to her own conclusion. But he's been helpful."

Malcolm nodded. They had almost a two hour car ride to go over everything on the way back anyway. He slowly scuttled back towards the body as the two cops widened the hole with their tools as carefully as they could.

The chill out on the ice seemed to increase as time went by. It was a s if any reserve heat Malcolm's body had was being carried away by the winds with the little bit of snow that covered the ice and dances whenever the winds shifted direction. Malcolm folded into himself as best as he could but he still really wished he had that coffee. Not that he wanted to take his hands out of his jacket to hold it. It was bad enough having to hold the camera. Malcolm was worried his stiff fingers would have trouble pushing the capture button soon enough.

After what felt like forever with Malcolm taking pictures more to pass the time than to capture any real evidence the two cops with the help of their sheriff were able to drag the body out from under the ice and out on top of the lake.

The five of them leaned over the body.

Malcolm had them all back up so he could use the sunlight to take pictures from different angles. If the lake was good for one thing, it was providing adequate lighting for his photos.

When he was done they started to pack the body up into a body bag to be dragged back to the lake's edge.

Malcolm followed behind as they dragged the body bag by a rope up by the head across the ice like a child dragged their sled behind them. Malcolm watched the clouds of his breath against the black background of the body bag.

A coroner's van was waiting for them at the shore while the local cops loaded the body into the back. After they shut the doors, one of the cops patted the back like he was saying farewell to a good friend.

Malcolm watched as the coroner's van pulled away, heading back to the precinct, where they would meet it.

"Ready to go, kid?" Gil asked again.

Malcolm nodded. He'd had enough of the cold and the frozen lake.

[goldenn-moments]

as a tap dancer, i'm SO here for this

it can be so theraputic, especially if you know how to improv. and steve, who's always moving, i'm sure tapped under his desk, repeating steps that got stuck in his head (yes this happens to me a lot. yes i got in trouble bc of it in school). i bet when he's getting back into it, it'd just be him, the old room where he used to practice in his house (with a nice wood floor bc he's rich and i'm v jealous), a jazz record and his shoes, and he'd just - improv. let it flow. find the pocket and start swinging with it, bc steve definitely knows how to swing. yeah, he probably started in broadway style tap, but i think as he got older he would've done more stuff to jazz, and that'd transition him into the more swing style (is this kinda what happened to me except i went more hoofer first? mayhaps)

and once he gets more comfortable in his shoes again, he'd start simple - the shim sham, a classic, everyone knows it, at the end of nearly every tap show there's bound to be an ensemble performance of it. and then maybe he'd move onto the bs chorus, or the copacetics, or 53, or any kinda standard that he might've been taught. and from there, the world's his oyster.

now he's tapping everywhere - around his house, at family video, when he's waiting for the kids, in a diner, etc. i think el and will would be interested in it and he'd eventually try to teach all the kids some basics of it, just for funsies (i definitely think that el and will would take a liking to it though. they'd have jam sessions, and steve would teach them how to improv, and it would be so theraputic for them. it'd be a way for el to let out all her energy and feelings in a way that doesn't involve her words or powers, and for will to be able to shut off his brain and just move)

steve def has some therapy jam sessions of his own, where he turns on some random record with a good rhythm and just improvs to it, letting his body do all the thinking instead of his mind. sometimes billy and/or robin will sit and watch, just a silent support, there for steve when he comes out of the haze and the funk. (i've done this - dragged out my tap board and danced when i needed to shut my brain off. it works surprisingly well).

and idk how conventions worked back then, but ik now there are a shit ton of tap conventions that you can go to, depending on the time of the year. so i imagine that steve would go to those, use his parents money to drive/fly out to one of the cities and go to a workshop or a festival with some of the masters (like with miss dianne walker or aunt di as some tap dancers call her, or with jimmy slyde, one of the greats like them). and he'd take some of the others, esp if it was a fun city like boston or indy or nyc, and then they'd spend a few days in the city too, having a blast (and sometimes there's a showcase at the end of a festival, so whoever came would be able to see steve in that too)

anyways i love you for putting tap dancer!steve in my head bc i literally love this dance form so much and i also love steve harrington, and to talk about them together - amazing. you can probably tell that this is gonna stay in my brain for a while

Steve saw singin’ in the rain when he was six and BEGGED his parents for tap lessons because of Gene Kelly and Debby Reynolds and Donald O’Connor and he did it up until his junior year of high school.

He gets back into it after everything settles back down again bc it’s a great way to keep active and it makes him so happy and Billy and Robin have been encouraging him for months.

He’s not as rusty as he thought he’d be and when he finally hits the entire Moses Supposes dance it’s the best day of his life

[buttercup-blue]

I'm absolutely in love with how open you are about your experiences! Sorry if this is weird in anyway, but did you meet the Boston SD on SA or do you freestyle? He sounds amazing and it'd be great to know there's some good ones in the city cause I sure am only seeing scammers 😂 thanks!

Not weird at all! Yeah, I met him from SA in October of 2015. I started an account without really knowing what I was getting myself into, I was kind of at the end of my rope in life at the time. He was one of the first guys who messaged me on the site. We chatted for a day and then he asked me to get a quick drink before he flew back to Boston for the month.I didn't have time to go home after work to get cute, so I specifically remember sitting with my car parked in a neighborhood adding mascara on top of mascara and convincing myself I wasn't crazy. We met at a low key bar/pub. I sat down at the bar and braced myself for whatever was going to happen. He tapped me on the shoulder and took a seat next to me. I can have a full out conversation with a brick wall so I knew it couldn't be too bad. But he turned out to be really cute and nice. We had quite a candid conversation, he asked me about the site and I naively told him he's one of the first I talked to. He told me some nutso stories about the girls he's met which put me at ease because he had a sense of right and wrong and how these things work. We had two beers then he asked if I wanted to go on a walk. He said he had to fly out that night but he'd be back in a few weeks. He would let me know what day he'd be available and said he'd like to have an arrangement with me. In my head I had no fucking idea what that meant, but okay. We circled back around to my car, he pulled me in and I gave him a nice long kiss. He pushed $300 into my hand and closed the car door for me. After that he'd come to town about once a month and each time he'd just leave money in an envelope (like way more than I could ever imagine at the time) and I wouldn't look at it until I left. We'd usually have a drink at the bar, go upstairs, have sex, talk for about 30 minutes then he'd want to go back to his work so it was super low maintenance. I will say he's the first man to ever pop one of my toes in his mouth though 😂 After he made the full transition to Boston, he'd fly me up about once a month and put me up at the W for the weekend. He'd usually come by once, twice max. One time we actually had a threesome with another SB which was pretty cool in my opinion.We never made the express decision to part ways but we both got really busy and kind of lost interest in the idea. He told me he slowed down on the sugar front because his business is taking off (like massively) when we just chatted. Again, he was funny, smart and handsome. So why be on the site? He told me he just really loves young girls (like early twenties, nothing teen) because he worked his ass off so much in college he never had time to pursue the hot girls. At 39 and with a reputation to protect, he didn't want to be seen courting a 21 year old. So sugaring was excellent for him to keep things under wraps. He also has more money than he fucking knows what to do with so if that's his one vice so be it. He was a pretty simple man otherwise, he wore jeans and sweaters most times we met.Sorry for the rambling reply but I clearly love story telling. Long story short, it doesn't matter if you live in bumfuck Kansas or if you live in Boston. Finding a good SD is like playing Russian Roulette. It takes a lot of intuition and pure luck. I was just lucky he was my first and he showed me the way before I ended up with someone who would take advantage of my naivety. All of my SDs I have met off of SA, but that doesn't mean I haven't dealt with my fair share of douchebags. I think one of my strengths as a SB is that I am very easygoing and naturally pretty (i.e. No surgery, not heavily made up). That's why my SRs mimic real relationships because I come off as a real, sweet girl. I think that's why I generally receive a medium range for allowance/PPM. There's all kinds of SRs. There are girls who look like absolute dreams but come with the territory of being super high maintenance that not every SD wants to deal with. But they also pay out way higher, so there's no one way to approach sugaring. I would just play to whatever your strength is and hopefully POTs take notice of that special characteristic. I can see where the new crop of SBs find freestyling most effective. SA used to be a lot more serious, it wasn't so muddled. Maybe when I move to NYC I'll consider freestyling, but for now I've been fortunate enough to find really great guys. They're out there, try not to get discouraged xx

[heartstringsrplay-blog]

I know you aren't opening till friday, but are there any requests yet? I'm thinking of making a 30-32 yo female character and still haven't decided a plot for her, so it'd be great if i could also help sb out in the process :)

yes! i’m actually looking for a couple of people, female, in that age range. i’ll put the plot here and then you can contact me if you’re interested! my plot is loosely based off of dirty dancing (emphasize loosely). so basically what i’m looking for is two females 30-32 for my  31 year old ryan guzman. my ryan is a latin dancer, he’s a regular at a latin night club in nyc and pretty much everyone knows him. him and his dance partner, who is female1 have been dancing together for longer than they can remember. they have a lot of chemistry on the dance floor, but that’s all it’s been. he looks out for her like a brother but they are just friends. that’s when you enter female2. she’s never been to the latin club, because it’s not in the best side of town and she’s rich and usually hangs out at finer clubs. the reason she stumbled in is up to you, probably was with a group of friends, car broke down, whatever works and she’s obviously drawn to him. she thinks hes with female1 however, because there’s just so much chemistry and so she doesn’t really talk to him. she starts frequenting the club extremely often, hoping to catch his eye. he has seen her there but he’s always so caught up in the dancing he never really gets a chance to speak to her. she gets involved with their crew though, making friends with one of his buddies, so she stays after because he invites her to hang out after the club closes. all she has known her entire life is rich, fancy lifestyles, money, success etc., but for some reason she’s incredibly intrigued and fascinated by them all. i haven’t worked all of the details on how they met yet but if you’re interested, my discord is cinnamonroll#7298